The next day, long before the first hint of dawn touched the horizon, the landscape beneath the waterfall had undergone a drastic transformation.
Several thick wooden stakes had been driven deep into the riverbed, their tops poking out from the churning foam. They were of varying heights and staggered at chaotic, irregular intervals. There was no symmetry to their placement; they were deliberately "disordered," designed to be a nightmare for anyone attempting to maintain their balance. To a casual observer, it looked like a mess, but to a cultivator, it was a gauntlet of death.
Qianye stood on the mossy bank, his gaze as cold and focused as a hawk's. He knew all too well that the flashy techniques taught in the polished halls of the Azure Cloud Sect were often useless in a real struggle.
"In a real fight, what truly kills you isn't the complexity of your opponent's moves," he mused silently, his voice barely audible over the roar of the falls. "It's losing your footing. If your foundation is unstable, you are already a corpse waiting to happen."
He understood this reality better than anyone. Power was useless if you were off-balance; a single slip on a wet stone could turn a genius into a tragedy.
In the next heartbeat, he moved.
He stepped onto the first wooden stake. His toes barely touched the slick surface before he exerted force, using the momentum to spring toward the second. His body leaned forward, his center of gravity shifting with microscopic precision. Every landing was controlled, suppressed, and calculated.
The stakes were treacherous. Drenched by the constant spray of the waterfall, they were coated in a layer of moisture that made them glow with a deadly, oily sheen. A single lapse in concentration—a single millimeter of error—and he would be swept into the jagged rocks below.
Qianye did not chase speed. He chased stability.
One step. Another.
With every footfall, he felt the feedback traveling from the soles of his feet to his mind—sensing whether the grip was firm, whether the wood was slick, or whether his weight was skewed. This wasn't a test of his eyes; it was a tempering of his primal instincts and his reaction time.
Midday arrived. The sun was at its zenith, but the mountain air remained biting.
Suddenly, a sharp crack echoed from high above the cliff, cutting through the thunderous roar of the falls. This wasn't a natural accident—this was a "trap" Qianye had meticulously rigged at the upper reaches of the river.
A massive, waterlogged log, heavy as lead, had been released by the current. It plummeted downward, accelerated by the crushing weight of the waterfall, whistling through the air like a descending siege engine. It was aimed directly at the center of the stakes.
Qianye did not look up. He didn't need to.
The moment the sound reached his ears, his body was already in motion. He executed a sudden lateral shift, his feet blurring across the wet stakes.
BOOM! The log smashed into the water exactly where he had been standing a split second before, erupting in a massive fountain of foam and splinters.
But that was only the beginning.
A second log followed. Then a third. Some fell straight down like spears; others tumbled end-over-end, their trajectories warped by the violent spray. The area beneath the waterfall had instantly transformed into a death zone of falling timber.
Qianye dodged and weaved through the stakes. His footwork underwent a frantic, beautiful evolution—advancing, retreating, sidestepping, and executing sudden, jarring halts. Every movement was performed at the absolute limit of human reaction.
One mistake. A rolling log grazed his shoulder.
Thud!
A blinding explosion of pain erupted in his nerves.
Qianye let out a muffled groan, but he didn't falter. He used the very impact of the blow to spin his body, landing on a nearby stake without losing his rhythm. He couldn't stop. If he stopped, the next log would crush him into the riverbed.
A second log nearly took off his head. He arched his back violently, his spine almost parallel to the water's surface as the massive timber roared past, inches from his face. It was a dance on the edge of a blade.
The third day passed. Then the fourth. Then the fifth.
His body became a map of dark bruises and shallow cuts, but the hesitation in his heart was gone. His movements grew sharper, cleaner, and more decisive. His footsteps became as stable as if he were walking on solid ground, despite the chaotic torrent.
By the dawn of the seventh day, a profound change had occurred.
Qianye stood upon the central stake. The waterfall thundered against his shoulders, and logs began to tumble from above, but he did something unthinkable.
He closed his eyes.
He no longer relied on sight. Vision was too slow; it could be fooled by shadows, mist, and the distortion of the spray. Instead, he relied on the sound of the wind, the frequency of the crashing water, and the vibrations traveling through the wood.
His body began to react before his consciousness could even process the threat.
A log fell—he stepped aside instinctively. Another swept across his path—he ducked low, his back nearly touching the spray. A third smashed toward his projected landing spot—he had already transitioned to a different stake.
His movements were no longer a series of steps; they were a flow, as natural as the water itself.
In that moment of perfect synchronization, the energy within his body suddenly shuddered.
The internal Qi that had been circulating steadily suddenly tore through its shackles. It surged with the roar of a tidal wave, racing through his meridians with a heat that made his blood boil.
His bones let out a low, crystalline hum. His muscles tightened into cords of refined steel. A new, vast reservoir of power erupted from the depths of his Dantian.
Qianye's eyes snapped open, glowing with an intense, cold light.
"Breakthrough."
Stage Seven of Body Tempering: The Iron Marrow Stage.
He stood beneath the crushing weight of the waterfall, letting the torrent slam into him, yet he remained as immovable as the mountain itself.
In this moment, he understood it with absolute clarity— He had walked a path that was entirely different from the Sect, different from the "geniuses," and different from the so-called "Heavenly Spirit Roots."
He wasn't a powerhouse chosen by fate or pampered by destiny.
He was a powerhouse forced into existence by the world's cruelty and his own unyielding will.