Mist hung over Cloudmarket City like breath over a sleeping immortal.
The dawn bell hadn't yet sounded, yet life stirred between the narrow slabs of stone and jade—slow, dreamy, unhurried.
The city was ancient beyond counting. Even the dust on its eaves remembered distant golden ages when the Dao still moved like music through Heaven's veins.
For most who lived here, eternity had long since turned dull.
But for one small boy crouched beneath a leaning spirit‑tree at the edge of Beggar's End, every morning still felt new.
Dave lifted his face to the gray‑silver sky.
The mist caught on his lashes, cooling his cheeks. From where he sat, he could see the tiers of the city rising toward brightness: the outer ring with its crooked huts; the middle ring of polished streets and hovering incense lanterns; far above, the inner sanctum where towers of crystal jade glowed with immortal formation light.
He knew the pattern by heart; he swept these stones every day.
In his bowl sat a handful of Spirit Beans—dull blue ovals that pulsed faintly against his fingers.
He chewed one and waited for the illusion of warmth to reach his stomach.
Spirit Beans didn't spoil, didn't nourish; they filled the air more than the body, a taste of qi thin as mist.
He remembered how his mother used to roast them over dreamfire so they'd at least smell like food.
A soft wind passed.
Old Qiu, the gourd drinker, stirred beside a moss‑covered statue. "Morning again already?" he croaked, rubbing the cloud‑film from his eyes. "Heaven's watch runs too quickly."
Dave smiled faintly. "How can morning come too quickly if time never ends?"
Old Qiu wheezed a laugh. "Because, little philosopher, eternity drinks itself into confusion. One day, all moments taste the same. You'll see."
"Maybe."
Dave swallowed another bean. He didn't argue; sages said arguing drained luck, and beggars had little to spare.
He swept the courtyard until light seeped from the mist—a light that never truly came from any sun. Instead, the city itself glowed with repressed immortality. Every tile absorbed a fraction of Heaven's breath; every puddle reflected stars from forgotten universes.
To outsiders it was beautiful.
To the beggar‑immortals, it was simply Tuesday.
They called Dave a strange child.
He worked diligently, spoke politely, smiled rarely.
He listened when others whined about the value of karmic coins or the latest Dao‑preaching in the inner districts. Yet he asked nothing for himself.
Sometimes, when the chores ended, he sat by the city wall watching ants glow faintly under the mist, their tiny bodies thrumming with a qi no one cared to notice.
"Every creature has its own Dao," he murmured once.
Old Qiu overheard and grunted. "Dao of eating crumbs, perhaps."
But Dave kept watching. The ants worked soundlessly, their trails crossing cracks like constellations.
Even here, life moved forward.
He was twelve—an age that, among immortals, equaled an instant after birth. To peers he was still "womb‑fresh." Yet within that young flesh rested memories of another lifetime: vending‑machine coffee, car horns, half‑read web novels glowing on a cracked phone screen.
When he'd died on Earth, struck by light instead of enlightenment, he'd wished only for a story worth remembering.
What he got was eternity.
His parents here had been gentle immortals of the outermost ring. Poor, but peaceful. They never sought karmic gain, never ventured beyond the markets.
They died quietly when he was eleven, fading together like twin sparks into the air.
He had watched without tears, because immortals didn't bleed; they dispersed—one last shimmer, one last breath of fragrance—and were gone.
He still remembered how their hands felt, lighter than smoke.
That memory was the first real weight he carried.
The morning after their passing, while feverish from grief, his vision had split open.
Within his chest burned a small sun, and from that brightness he glimpsed another world: oceans as vast as three planets combined, mountains breathing fog, forests untouched by qi.
It felt warm, fragile, quiet.
Later, when he learned about miniature worlds—those pocket realms the mighty created after countless tribulations—he realized the thing sleeping inside him was the same…and not the same.
No immortal should have one at his level.
No world should exist without spirit.
He told no one.
Even a beggar would sell their conscience for such a secret.
So he lived as though ordinary, sweeping and eating Spirit Beans, studying weeds. Secretly, he peeked inward when the city quieted: his private Earth, where sunlight actually burned golden, where wind smelled like salt and soil instead of reincarnated incense.
Within that internal realm, humans crawled out of caves.
They still feared the dark.
Sometimes, when loneliness pressed too deeply, Dave sent a whisper through the stillness—just a thought that drifted like dream breeze—and fires flickered to life across that primitive land.
The karmic mist that rose from it felt like cotton candy between his fingers, faint and warm, before dissolving back into spirit.
The Mistake and the LessonAt first he had only watched.
But watching soon turned to restless compassion.
One night, when the mortals below shivered through cold rain, Dave remembered a lesson from a Dao‑preacher in Cloudmarket: "To give warmth is itself a form of enlightenment."
He mistook it for permission.
With a single thought, he let one seed fall—
a seed he had shaped minutes earlier from a trace of Spirit‑grass outside his hut.
It was a mere whim, a child's experiment.
He placed it near a mortal's firepit, whispering, "Grow with kindness."
The sprout appeared instantly, green with immortal hue.
Its fragrance lifted the tribe into laughter and song.
Days later they began eating its leaves.
For three nights nothing happened.
On the fourth, the sky of that world cracked with silence.
Bodies glowed from inside—first joyfully, then painfully.
He watched as light scoured them from being: one man, one woman, then the others who had shared the herb.
Five sparks went out in the same heartbeat, leaving only a ring of ash that gleamed like fallen stars.
Dave screamed without sound.
The world trembled; ocean tides rose.
He nearly lost control of the entire realm before wrenching his will away.
When he came to, sweat chilled his immortal skin.
He looked down at his hand—it still smelled faintly of herbs and smoke.
The karmic mist that rose from the act was twisted gray, dissolving before he could touch it.
He had learned, at twelve, what even the oldest immortals sometimes forgot:
power cannot feed the unready.
After that he formed an oath—no more gifts they could not bear.
If he must teach, he would start as nature starts: fire, shelter, song.
From then on, when he descended, he wore an avatar no brighter than mortal flesh.
He dug ditches, taught them to catch rain.
He watched children laugh without fear of thunder and thought, this is cultivation—
not gold cores or heaven flames, but making night a little smaller.
He named none of them disciples; they named him "the Quiet One."
Then centuries later, when he returned after a long absence, he found wooden idols shaped in his likeness set near rivers.
At the base of each stood five stones with charred centers — the places where his mistake had burned the first dreamers.
Villagers touched those stones and prayed for gentler skies.
He wept quietly, but no tears fell— immortals had none left to spend.
Only karmic breath drifted from him, faint cotton clouds rising and fading into nothing.
He never told even Old Qiu.
Cloudmarket City awoke slowly.
Merchants of longevity fruit opened stalls.
Beggars stretched everlasting limbs.
Some immortals rose into the sky chanting, their voices leaving trails of silk in the air.
A woman sold verses near the corner—clear bottles each containing a poem condensed in smoke. Reading one instantly replayed a memory of enlightenment; she charged a single crystal karmic coin. Business was poor.
"Orphan Dave," she called. "You listen to my poems more than anyone, yet you never buy. Where's your conscience?"
"Traded it for another day's rent," Dave said lightly. His manner made even humor sound gentle.
She shook her head, smiling. "If you keep joking like that, Heaven will think you serious and grant you poverty forever."
"Heaven already did."
The poet laughed. "Spoken like a real immortal."
He bowed politely and moved on.
By mid‑morning, the Outer Market hummed with eternal monotony.
Dealers traded karmic coins shimmering like spun sugar.
Formations glowed lazily above stalls; arrays flickered every few breaths to ward off mischievous beasts that sometimes drifted in from the wilds.
Above, a skywhale—an actual living creature as large as a hill—floated through mist trails chasing clouds of spirit pollen.
No one looked up. They'd seen it every day since before memory.
Dave paused to watch anyway.
Its slow wings stirred the clouds into ripples that caught rainbow auras.
He thought of his inner world's oceans, of winds that smelled of rain instead of incense.
He wondered if the tiny mortals inside could ever imagine a skywhale. Probably not; not yet.
At noon, light changed tone—deeper, thicker, colored with gold from the city's grand defensive formations syncing their rhythm with the Heavenly Dao. It was lunchtime.
Dave joined a group near the shade of a cracked pillar. They sat in silence, sharing a pot of immortal stew—liquefied essence that tasted faintly of nothing.
A veteran beggar asked, "Boy Dave, still wasting time on grass and ants?"
"They're patient company," Dave replied.
"They'll outlive you too." Laughter rippled, mild but not cruel. They all knew immortality didn't promise safety.
Dave smiled thinly.
"Maybe patience is their Dao," he murmured, half‑to‑himself.
The others ignored him, returning to talk of karmic prices, of recent beast raids, of Dao‑preaching by Inner‑Ring lords.
When conversation drifted into complaints about stagnant cultivation, Dave excused himself and wandered toward the ruins near the city wall.
There, wild qi formed pools among ruinflowers—bluish petals that never wilted.
He knelt to examine one. The petals emitted hues shifting in rhythm with his breathing.
He had a notebook of spirit paper bought with two crystal coins—a luxury for a beggar. He sketched the flower awkwardly, labeling: color variance linked to breath speed.
It looked childish, but observation was his meditation.
A breeze carried faint buzzing.
He looked closer and saw an ant—larger than mortal fingers, its body glassy black, its mandibles faintly glowing with qi. A Golden Core Ant, rare even in outer districts.
It dragged a ruined petal twice its size back to an unseen nest.
Dave crouched and traced its trail until he found a crack where hundreds swarmed, each shimmering at different cultivation levels: some radiant as Nascent Soul fireflies.
He watched them rearrange soil into tunnels shaped like spirals—a natural formation that recycled ambient energy.
Their efficiency humbled him.
"So that's how you live forever," he whispered. "You just…keep building."
A karmic mist the size of breath rose above his palm—approval from Heaven for the honesty of wonder. It looked soft as cotton, vanished when he smiled.
As afternoon deepened, the city pulsed with light music—chimes made from condensed qi crystal sounding whenever karmic transactions occurred.
Immortals measured wealth not by gold but by brightness; the richer the district, the louder the chime.
The outer ring was nearly silent.
Dave preferred it.
He returned to his small hut built of spirit clay—barely larger than his mortal apartment once had been. Inside, a floor mat, a worn brush, and a gourd lamp that fed on leftover glow rather than oil.
He lay down, listening to the murmurs of the world inside him.
Storms rolled through its oceans tonight.
Rain hammered primitive villages where fire still felt like magic.
He saw their dreams—shadows of gods whispering from beyond the clouds.
He let them dream. He didn't need to rule; a gardener doesn't apologize for rain.
He dozed, half‑inside two worlds.
Evening settled.
Lanterns ignited themselves along market lanes.
Beggars recited half‑remembered sutras to coax karmic drift, hoping a stray virtuous deed would condense into tradeable fluff before morning.
Children played chasing bubbles of qi.
Old Qiu called from his perch, "Boy Dave! You sit there like a rock. Come waste eternity with me."
Dave joined him, watching fog ripple against streetlight halos.
Qiu took a long sip from an empty gourd out of habit. "When you're my age, boy—you'll see the point of boredom."
"I already see it," Dave said softly. "It's wide as the world."
The old‑man laughed. "A poet — too bad poetry pays no karmic tax."
They sat in companionable silence.
The night smelled heavy with spirit dew; droplets glowed faint blue on the cobblestones.
Nearby, a vendor sold roasted moon‑beans; each spark crackling carried a faint note of melody.
"Why stay here, boy?" Qiu asked eventually. "Even a Lowest Immortal could venture, hunt beasts, trade herbs. Out there's danger—and reward."
Dave thought of his inner world, where fires burned because of him, where five people once tried to taste cultivation and died smiling. "Maybe the reward is here," he said.
The old man squinted. "Strangest thing about you, Dave: you talk like someone remembering instead of living. You got secrets?"
"Only the kind everyone forgets."
Qiu laughed until tears of qi shimmered on his beard. "You'll be a philosopher yet. Careful, philosophers starve first."
That night, when Cloudmarket slept under soft aurora, Dave crossed his legs on the mat and breathed.
He sank inward until stars fell away and the sea opened—his sea.
He descended as an unseen wind across his miniature world, careful not to let his full will burn it.
Villages dotted the coast now: smoke curling upward, crude songs echoing against mountains.
He saw shrines where mortals knelt before hollow idols carved to resemble suns.
They didn't know they prayed to him.
He walked unseen through one settlement.
A child laughed by the fire; the sound melted loneliness he hadn't known still lingered.
He thought of teaching them more—how to weave baskets, how to plant.
Then he remembered the five who had died striving for heaven.
He let the idea fade.
Their world would grow by its rhythm.
He left a trace of warmth in the child's hand—tiny karmic dust, reward for innocent joy—and withdrew.
When he reopened his eyes, dawn had already touched Cloudmarket with silver.
Night inside had been centuries.
He stepped outside to sweep the courtyard again. The same mist filled his lungs, gentle and cool.
Ants scurried.
Flowers whispered.
Eternity resumed its patient breath.
"Good morning," he said to the silent world.
Maybe it heard, maybe not.
Either way, the Dao continued.