Dawn broke with a dull, blood-red hue, piercing through the thick fog of the Black Mist Forest.
Yan Kesh remained seated in the same position, his breathing slowly returning to normal. The splitting headache from the night before had faded into a dull, constant throb behind his eyes—a persistent reminder that something foreign had taken root within his consciousness.
He shifted his gaze back to the black stone before him.
That stone was his only connection to this strange power. If he wanted to understand it further, he would have to decipher any other writings hidden on its surface.
Yan Kesh extended his hand, intending to touch the rough stone once more.
Before his fingertips could make contact, a gentle morning breeze passed through.
Fwooo.
The black stone collapsed.
There was no explosion. No blinding flash of light.
It simply fell apart, like a mound of dry sand losing its binding agent. In the blink of an eye, the solid object that once emanated an ancient aura became nothing more than a pile of fine gray dust on the ground.
Yan Kesh froze. His hand still hung suspended in the air.
He scooped up a handful of the dust. Cold. Ordinary. No different from common soil.
The inscriptions—the Law of Balance, the warnings, the initial guidance—had vanished without a trace.
"…Is that it?" he murmured. His voice was flat, yet laced with disbelief.
In the legends of cultivators, discovering an ancient inheritance usually meant the appearance of a guardian spirit, or at the very least, a technique manual left behind.
But this…
There was nothing.
The stone had merely served as a seal. Once the mark was imprinted upon Yan Kesh's soul, the seal destroyed itself—either to prevent anyone else from using it, or because its task had simply been completed.
Yan Kesh stood up and brushed the dust from his hands. He surveyed the silent area around him.
Slowly, the oppressive stillness began to fade.
The chirping of insects crept back in.
The distant howls of wolves grew bolder.
The black mist that had once been held at bay now began to seep inward, filling the void left behind by the stone's vanished aura.
This safe zone had collapsed.
"No teacher," Yan Kesh concluded coldly.
"No manual. No one to tell me its limits, its taboos, or how to advance this technique."
He was alone. Completely alone—with a ticking time bomb in his mind called The Audit.
For most people, this would have been a disaster. Possessing power without knowing how to control it was an invitation to suicide. One miscalculation in the accounting of "debt," and the world itself could forcibly claim his life.
Yet the corner of Yan Kesh's lips lifted slightly.
"Good," he whispered.
A teacher meant rules to obey.
A manual meant limits defined by someone else.
"If there is no guide," he said softly, "then I will write the rules myself. I will decide how far those limits can be bent before they break."
He closed his eyes briefly, sensing the presence of the invisible ledger within his mind. The massive book remained tightly shut—silent, waiting for the next transaction.
He did not know how to use this power to fight other humans.
He did not know whether it could let him fly or cleave mountains.
He knew only one fundamental principle:
Everything can be bought—so long as you are willing to bear the price.
Yan Kesh picked up his wooden staff from the ground. He turned his back on the pile of dust that was once the stone. He offered no bow, no thanks.
In business, once the goods are delivered and the payment agreed upon, sentimentality is unnecessary.
"Time to leave," he said to the thickening mist.
He had to get out of this forest. Not as a reborn genius cultivator—but as a merchant of death who had just opened his very first shop.
His footsteps were steady as he walked away from the only place that had ever given him hope, toward a wider world that was more than ready to devour him.
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