Chapter 5 — Paths of Heat and Shadow
The deeper Hao Tian walked, the more the world around him seemed to change in ways that were difficult to put into words.
The cave behind him—the one with the hot spring, the Fire Lurker Lizard's corpse, and the strange, half-forgotten peace that followed that desperate battle—slowly faded into memory. In its place came a labyrinth of twisting stone corridors, uneven descending paths, and chambers carved not by human hands, but by the slow, violent breathing of the earth itself.
The air remained hot, but it was no longer the simple, oppressive furnace-heat of the fire-vein zone.
Here, the heat came in layers.
Sometimes it was dry and scorching, licking at his skin and stealing moisture from his breath. Sometimes it was thick and suffocating, heavy with mineral dust and faint sulfur. And sometimes—strangely—it would cool for a dozen steps or so, just long enough for him to notice, before turning warm again as if the mountain itself were playing some silent, cruel joke.
It felt… restless.
Not like a living creature, but like something that had never truly settled since the day it was born.
He moved slowly, his pickaxe still in hand, his steps cautious and measured.
The fight with the Fire Lurker Lizard had taken more out of him than he wanted to admit. Even after resting. Even after soaking in the hot spring. Even after forcing food down his throat and binding his wounds.
The Origin Reconstruction had rebuilt him, yes—but rebuilding was not the same as strengthening.
His muscles still felt unfamiliar, like new ropes that had not yet been pulled tight. His bones carried a subtle, lingering soreness, as if they were still adjusting to a structure they had never known before. His meridians, though no longer broken and clogged, still felt like freshly carved channels in brittle stone—usable, but far from stable.
If he pushed himself too hard, something would give.
He could not afford recklessness.
The tunnel sloped downward for a long time before finally splitting into three distinct paths.
Hao Tian stopped at the fork and studied them in silence.
The left path glowed faintly red. Not brightly, but enough that the stone itself seemed to be lit from within, as if thin fire veins ran just beneath the surface. Heat radiated from it in slow, heavy waves that he could feel even from several steps away.
The middle path was wider and darker. The light from scattered fire-veins barely reached into it, and the shadows within seemed thick and undisturbed. Too undisturbed.
The right path was narrow and jagged, its walls rough and uneven, and it carried a faint, damp chill that clashed strangely with the surrounding heat—as if some pocket of cold air had been trapped there and never quite escaped.
He stood there for a long moment, listening.
No sound came from any of them.
No dripping water. No shifting stone. No distant echo of beasts.
Just the low, almost imaginary hum of the mountain itself.
He exhaled slowly.
He did not have the luxury of perfect choices.
"…Middle," he decided quietly.
The left path felt like walking straight into the belly of a furnace. The right path felt unstable, like the kind of place where one bad step could send half a ceiling down on his head. The middle path was unknown—but at least it did not immediately threaten to cook or bury him.
He picked up a piece of broken stone and scratched a crude mark on the wall near the fork, then stepped into the darkness.
The light faded quickly.
He had to rely on the faint glow of scattered fire-veins in the rock and the memory of where he had just been. The cave here was higher, the ceiling lost in shadow, and the walls were smoother—as if this passage had once been carved by flowing magma and later cooled, polished by time and pressure rather than erosion.
His footsteps echoed softly.
As he walked, he began to notice something unsettling.
The ground was not empty.
Small bones lay scattered here and there.
Not human.
Mostly small beasts. Rodent-like creatures, some reptilian, some with shell fragments still clinging to their remains. Some skeletons were thin and delicate, others thick and heavy for their size.
All dead.
Most of them looked old.
But not all.
Hao Tian slowed and crouched near one of the fresher-looking piles.
The bones were dry, but not ancient. There were faint scorch marks on several pieces, and some had been cracked in ways that did not look natural.
"…Something hunts here," he murmured.
And whatever it was, it did not care much about size.
He straightened, his grip on the pickaxe tightening, and continued forward with every sense stretched.
The tunnel went on longer than he expected.
Then, gradually, it widened.
The ceiling rose. The walls pulled back.
And at last, it opened into a wide cavern.
This one was different from any he had seen so far.
There were no obvious fire veins here. The walls were dark—almost black—and seemed to absorb what little light there was rather than reflect it. The ceiling was high, and from it hung countless thin stone spines, like a forest of petrified fangs frozen in the act of falling.
The ground was uneven, covered in ash and fine gray dust that shifted softly under his boots.
And in the center of the cavern…
Was a cluster of strange plants.
They were short, no higher than his knee, with thick, dark stems and broad, heavy leaves. The leaves were not green, but a deep, muted crimson, like metal stained by old blood. From the center of each plant grew a single, stubby bud that glowed faintly orange, like a coal buried in ash.
Hao Tian's eyes narrowed.
He did not recognize them immediately.
He took out the Nine Yang Pill Refinement Manual and carefully flipped through the material index, holding it close to one of the glowing buds for light. It took time—he had to check several sections, compare shapes, leaf structures, growth patterns, and environmental notes.
Finally, he found a match.
"…Ash-Heart Buds."
Low-grade fire-aspected medicinal plants.
Not rare.
Not precious.
But useful—especially in stabilizing fire-based pill refinement and neutralizing certain types of internal heat toxins.
They usually grew in places where fire Qi and death Qi mixed and lingered.
His gaze drifted back to the scattered bones.
"…So that's why."
He did not rush to harvest them.
Instead, he slowly circled the cavern, checking the shadows, the ceiling, the cracks in the walls, even the ash-covered ground itself.
Nothing moved.
But the silence here felt heavy. Pressurized.
Like a held breath.
He picked up a small stone and tossed it toward the far side of the cavern.
It clattered across the ground, bounced, and came to rest near one of the darker corners.
Nothing happened.
He waited.
Still nothing.
Only then did he approach the plants.
He harvested them carefully, one by one, using a small shard of stone to loosen the soil and making sure not to damage the roots too badly. He did not know if he would ever come back here, but habits from years in the mines—never waste a good vein, never ruin what you might need again—still guided his hands.
He had just finished wrapping the last one when he felt it.
A vibration.
Very faint.
So faint that a normal person might have dismissed it as imagination.
But Hao Tian had spent years underground.
He froze.
The vibration came again.
From beneath his feet.
He slowly stepped back.
The ash-covered ground… shifted.
Then collapsed.
The floor gave way with a dull, heavy roar.
Hao Tian had only enough time to curse before he fell.
The world spun.
He hit the ground hard.
The impact knocked the breath out of his lungs and sent a sharp jolt of pain through his back and shoulders. Dust exploded into the air, and for a moment, he could see nothing at all.
He lay there, gasping, forcing air back into his burning chest.
"…Still alive," he muttered hoarsely.
Slowly, he pushed himself up.
He had fallen into a lower cavern. Not terribly deep—perhaps three or four meters—but the walls were steep, and the edges of the collapsed hole were loose and unstable. Climbing back up without tools would be difficult, and even with tools, risky.
He looked around.
This place was narrower and more enclosed. The air was hotter and thicker, heavy with mineral dust and the faint, acrid scent of sulfur. The walls were riddled with small holes, like the nest of some burrowing creature.
His stomach tightened.
And then he saw movement.
Something shifted inside one of the holes.
Then another.
Then several.
Hao Tian's heart sank.
"…Of course."
The first thing to crawl out was a Fire-Burrowing Mole.
About the size of a large dog, its body was thick and muscular, covered in coarse, dark fur with patches of hardened, scale-like skin along its back and head. Its claws were long, curved, and faintly red at the tips, as if they had been heated from within the stone.
Then another emerged.
Then another.
Three.
He exhaled slowly and forced his mind to calm.
Three body-refining level beasts.
Too many.
He did not panic.
He did not freeze.
He calculated.
Fighting all three at once would be suicide.
He tightened his grip on the pickaxe and took a step back, positioning himself near a narrower section of the cavern wall where their numbers would matter less.
The moles hissed—low, rumbling sounds that vibrated in their chests—and began to spread out.
They were not stupid.
One rushed him head-on.
Hao Tian dodged to the side and swung.
Clang!
The pickaxe struck its shoulder, but the hardened hide absorbed most of the impact. The beast screeched and snapped at him, forcing him to retreat again before it could clamp its jaws down on his leg.
The second came from the left.
He barely blocked it with the shaft of the pickaxe.
The impact sent a shock through his arms, and he felt his fingers go numb.
The third circled.
"…This is bad."
He could not let them surround him.
He backed toward the wall, forcing them to approach from a tighter angle.
The first lunged again.
He ducked, rolled, and brought the pickaxe up in a brutal upward swing.
Crack!
This time, he aimed for the jaw.
The impact knocked the beast's head to the side, and it stumbled, stunned.
Before he could follow up, the second slammed into him.
He was thrown against the wall.
Pain exploded in his shoulder.
He barely managed to keep hold of the pickaxe.
The third came in from the side, claws flashing.
He raised the tool just in time.
Clang!
The shaft cracked.
Not broken.
But damaged.
His heart sank.
He could not keep this up.
He needed to reduce their numbers.
Now.
He feinted toward the injured one.
It reacted, lunging in blind anger.
At the last moment, he sidestepped and drove the pickaxe straight down, putting all his weight behind it.
The iron head punched through a thinner patch of hide near the neck.
The beast convulsed and collapsed.
One down.
The other two hesitated.
Just for a moment.
That moment saved his life.
He grabbed a loose stone and hurled it at the left one's face.
It flinched.
He rushed the right one.
They collided.
He took a claw across the ribs.
Pain flared.
But he ignored it and drove the pickaxe into its eye.
The beast screamed and thrashed.
He was thrown back.
But it was already dying.
The last one looked at him.
Then at the corpses.
Then it turned.
And ran.
Hao Tian did not chase it.
He dropped to one knee, breathing hard, his vision swimming.
"…Two at once… is already pushing it."
He checked his wounds.
Scratches. Bruises. Nothing deep.
Still.
He knew how close that had been.
He harvested what little he could.
No true cores. Only crude pseudo-core remnants.
He continued onward.
Deeper.
Hotter.
And somewhere deep inside him, something faint and quiet stirred.
Not with words.
Not with thoughts.
But with direction.