The first light of dawn bled across the sky over Ember Village, staining the clouds the color of bruised fruit. Lin Feng, sixteen years old with bones that felt twice their weight, sat cross-legged on the cold, packed earth of the village's lone training ground. His eyes were closed, but behind his lids, he was not seeing darkness. He was chasing ghosts.
Breathe in. Draw the Qi from the world.
The morning air, crisp with the scent of distant pine and the ever-present tang of volcanic soil, filled his lungs. He willed his body to do what every child in the Nine Realms was taught: to feel the ambient energy, the Qi, and draw it in through his skin, his breath, the very pores of his being. He focused on the warmth of the rising sun, imagining it as a tendril of Fire Qi, coaxing it toward his core.
For a moment, a flicker. A phantom warmth in his lower abdomen, like the memory of a campfire. Then, nothing. Or worse than nothing—a familiar, hollow sensation of leakage.
Breathe out. Guide it to the channels.
The phantom warmth dissipated, slipping through invisible cracks in his internal pathways like water through shattered pottery. His "Broken Channels." The polite term the village elder had used. The children had harsher ones: "Qi Sieve," "The Hollow Boy," "Lin the Leaky."
A bead of cold sweat traced a path down his spine, born not of effort, but of a frustration so deep it had become a part of him. It was the thousandth time. The ten-thousandth. Each morning for three years, since his awakening ceremony had ended in silent pity, he had come to this patch of earth. Each morning, he failed.
He opened his eyes. The world was painfully sharp in the dawn light. The training ground was a simple circle of hard earth, bordered by wooden posts scarred from generations of practice strikes. Beyond it, Ember Village slept, a clutch of sturdy stone-and-timber houses with roofs of dark slate, clinging to the foothills of the Smoldering Peaks. Smoke began to curl from chimneys, carrying the smell of baking hearth-bread. It was a simple, honest place. A place where strength—real, tangible strength of arm and will—was valued. Qi cultivation was a distant dream for most, a path for the gifted or the noble. For Lin Feng, it was a taunting mirage.
"Still at it, lad?" a gruff voice called.
Lin's uncle, Borin, leaned against the doorframe of their forge, his massive arms crossed over a leather apron stained with soot and old sweat. He was a mountain of a man, with a beard like tangled iron wire and eyes that held the steady glow of well-banked coals. There was no pity in his gaze, only a weathered patience that had seen its share of broken things.
"One more try, Uncle," Lin said, his voice quieter than he intended.
Borin grunted, a sound that could mean anything. "The world needs strong arms as much as it needs strong Qi. The fire in the forge doesn't care about your channels. It only cares about the heat you give it and the metal you shape."
It was his constant refrain. A life of honest labor awaited Lin. The heat of the forge, the weight of the hammer, the satisfaction of a well-made hinge or a sharp plowshare. It was a good life. A worthy life. But when Lin slept, he didn't dream of glowing metal. He dreamed of flowing—of energy moving through him like a second bloodstream, of light gathering at his fingertips, of being more than just a boy with empty veins.
He stood up, brushing the dirt from his simple hemp trousers. As he did, his hand went to the leather cord around his neck, fingering the object that hung there: his father's amulet.
It was an unassuming thing. A disc of smoky, grey-black stone, cool to the touch, about the size of a large coin. It was smooth except for a single, intricate carving on one side—a circle, but a circle fractured by a jagged line, as if it had been cracked and imperfectly mended. No metal, no gem, no obvious power. His uncle said his father had valued it, had called it his "lodestone." Lin remembered little of his parents, lost to a border skirmish when he was five. The amulet and a faded memory of a gentle smile were all he had.
Suddenly, a tremor ran through the ground. A deep, subsonic rumble that vibrated up through the soles of Lin's feet. The chickens in a nearby coop set up a frantic clucking. Borin straightened, his eyes narrowing and scanning the horizon toward the wild lands beyond the village palisade.
"Earthquake?" Lin asked, his heart skipping.
"Not deep enough," Borin muttered, his hand instinctively reaching for the heavy hammer leaning by the door. "That felt like... footsteps."
The village alarm horn, a hollowed-out tusk of a Stone-Tusker, sounded from the watchtower—one long, mournful blast that shattered the morning calm. Perimeter breach.
Chaosis erupted. Doors slammed open. Men grabbed tools, hunting spears, the few proper swords the village owned. Women hurried children inside, bolting shutters.
"Lin! To the forge! Now!" Borin barked, his voice leaving no room for argument. He tossed Lin a short, heavy forge-hammer. It felt alien and clumsy in Lin's hand.
But Lin was frozen, staring past the palisade gate. Emerging from the treeline of the Ashwood Forest were shapes—hulking, low-slung forms moving with a terrifying, ground-eating lope. Their hides were the mottled grey and brown of the forest floor, but rippled with unnatural, angry red veins that pulsed with a sickly light. Ember-Hide Wolves. Ordinary wolves were dangerous enough, but these were corrupted. Touched by unstable Fire Qi from the volatile lands, they were larger, faster, and burned with a mindless, destructive rage.
"By the Nine..." Borin breathed. There were at least a dozen.
The wooden gate shuddered as the lead wolf, the size of a pony, slammed into it. Splinters flew. The village hunters, led by the elder, met the first beast that scrambled over with spears and desperate courage. The air filled with snarls, shouts, and the sharp, metallic scent of fear.
Lin saw Kael, the blacksmith's son, a boy who had always been able to form a faint glow of Fire Qi around his fists, drive a spear into a wolf's shoulder. The wolf howled, not in pain, but in fury, and the red veins on its hide flashed. The spear shaft charred and snapped. Kael stumbled back, his face alight with terror.
This was no drill. This was death.
"Stay behind me!" Borin roared, planting himself between Lin and the fray, his great hammer held high.
But Lin's eyes weren't on his uncle, or on the wolves. They were fixed on a smaller shape, a blur of motion and terrified squeals. Little Lira, the miller's four-year-old daughter, had bolted from her hiding spot and was stumbling, wide-eyed, right into the path of a wolf that had broken through the main line.
Time didn't slow. It fractured.
Lin's body moved before his mind could command it. He dropped the heavy hammer—it was useless, he was too far, too slow. All he had was the empty space inside him and the cold stone against his chest.
As he ran, a scream ripping from his throat that was more raw will than sound, he did the only thing he knew. He tried to draw Qi. Not the gentle, patient morning practice, but a desperate, screaming pull from everything around him—from the fear in the air, from the volcanic earth, from the heat of the attacking beasts, from the very panic in his own heart.
And something answered.
It was not a single stream of energy, but a chaotic, screaming flood. He felt the prickling, aggressive heat of Fire Qi, the sluggish resistance of Earth, a shocking sliver of something cold and sharp—maybe the hint of Metal from the weapons around him. It all tore into him, not through refined channels, but as if his body were a shattered basin suddenly caught in a storm. Agony, white-hot and electric, lanced through every nerve. His broken channels weren't drawing Qi; they were gulping it, indiscriminately, violently.
The world dissolved into a kaleidoscope of pain and sensation. He could smell the wolf's burnt-fur stench as if it were inside his own skull, hear the frantic drumbeat of Lira's heart over the roar of battle, feel the tremors in the earth from every footfall.
The wolf lunged for Lira, jaws dripping with saliva that sizzled on the ground.
Lin, blind with pain and something else—a terrible, roaring fullness—threw himself between them. He had no technique, no skill. He simply shoved his hands out, a wordless denial.
And the chaos within him surged.
It didn't flow out in a controlled beam or a shaped force. It erupted. A discordant blast of raw, unfiltered energy shot from his palms—a jagged mix of colors, a scream of force that wasn't fire or earth or metal, but a painful, blinding amalgamation of all of them.
It hit the Ember-Hide Wolf not with clean power, but with a concussive, disintegrating shockwave. The beast was lifted off its feet and flung backwards as if struck by a giant's fist. The angry red veins on its hide flared once, brightly, and then went dark. It crumpled to the ground, unmoving, its fur smoking with three different kinds of energy—scorched, petrified in patches, and cut as if by unseen blades.
Silence. For one heartbeat, the immediate area around Lin fell silent. The other wolves hesitated, their bestial senses confused by the unnatural, discordant energy.
Lin swayed on his feet. The world swam. The agonizing flood of Qi ceased as abruptly as it had begun, leaving behind a void more profound than any he had ever known, and a body that felt scraped raw from the inside out. He tasted blood and ozone. His hands, still outstretched, were blistered and shaking.
Little Lira stared up at him, her tears forgotten, her small face a mask of awe.
Borin reached him first, his own face a complex tapestry of shock, concern, and something akin to fear. "Lin... what did you...?"
But Lin didn't hear him. A new heat was blooming against his chest, different from the chaotic energy. It was a deep, focused warmth. He looked down.
The grey-black amulet was no longer cool. It glowed with a soft, internal light, and the carved, fractured circle on its surface was pulsing gently, like a heartbeat made of stone. And in his mind, seared there by the surge of power, was a fleeting image: a network of golden lines, a magnificent, intricate map of energy pathways. Most were dark and dormant. A few glimmered faintly. And several, around his core, were visibly shattered, like frozen lightning frozen mid-crack.
Then, the image vanished. The amulet's glow faded, though it remained warmer than the morning air.
The horn blew again, recalling the defenders. The remaining wolves, unnerved, were retreating back into the forest, leaving their fallen and the scent of strange power behind.
Lin Feng collapsed to his knees, gasping. The villagers gathered around, their eyes wide, whispers already starting. "He saved Lira..." "What was that light?" "I've never seen Qi like that..."
But Lin heard none of it. He clutched the warm amulet in his blistered hand, the phantom image of the golden pathways still imprinted behind his eyes.
For sixteen years, his Qi had done nothing but leak away, leaving him empty.
Today, for the first time, it had poured in. And for one, terrifying, exhilarating moment, he hadn't been broken.
He had been a storm.