Chapter 1: The Caged Dragon of Linyuan
Linyuan City, Eastern Barren Lands, Qing Province - The Last Year of the Great Dao Decline Era
Rain fell upon Linyuan City like tears from a mournful sky, each droplet heavy with the weight of dying eras. In the sprawling Qin family compound, where vermilion pillars stood like silent sentinels and tiled roofs glistened darkly, a different kind of storm brewed in the humblest corner of the estate.
Seventeen-year-old Qin Feng shivered in the leaky woodshed that served as both his bedroom and prison. The cold seeped through cracks in the warped wooden walls, but the chill in his bones came from deeper places—from meridians that had been sealed shut since birth, from a dantian that refused to acknowledge the spiritual energy that flowed through the world like an invisible river everyone else could swim in.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
The dinner bell rang from the main hall, its bronze voice carrying through the rain. Rich aromas of braised spirit beast meat and spiritual herb soup wafted through the compound, but none of it was meant for the illegitimate son in the woodshed.
Qin Feng's stomach growled, but he ignored it. He was used to hunger, just as he was used to the scornful glances, the whispered insults, the deliberate "forgetting" that left him without meals more often than not.
"Young Master Feng?"
The voice was gentle, accompanied by a soft knock. Old servant Qin Fu stood outside, holding a worn oilcloth umbrella that did little to protect him from the diagonal rain.
"Come in, Uncle Fu." Qin Feng rose, his movements fluid despite his reputation as a cripple.
The old man entered, bringing with him the scent of wet earth and a covered bamboo basket. "I brought you some mantou and pickled vegetables from the kitchen. Cook Zhang turned a blind eye today."
"Thank you." Qin Feng accepted the food, his gratitude genuine. In the seventeen years since his mother had disappeared and his father had fallen into seclusion, Qin Fu was one of the few who showed him kindness.
"The Family Head has announced," Qin Fu said quietly, avoiding Qin Feng's eyes. "Tomorrow's ancestral sacrifice ceremony... you are not to attend."
The words hung in the damp air, heavier than the rain.
Qin Feng's hand tightened around the still-warm mantou. "Why?"
"The Madam says..." Qin Fu hesitated. "She says your presence would be an ill omen. With your blocked meridians, you cannot cultivate. To have such a... defective descendant at the ceremony would anger the ancestors."
Defective. The word echoed in the small space.
For seventeen years, Qin Feng had carried this label. Born with all meridians sealed—a condition so rare it was practically mythical—he was the shame of the Qin family, the proof of his father's youthful indiscretion with a woman of unknown origins. While his half-brothers and sisters cultivated, breaking through to Body Tempering levels with the family's resources, Qin Feng remained a mortal in a world of cultivators.
A caged dragon in a family of soaring eagles.
"I see." Qin Feng's voice was calm, but something stirred in his chest—a spark of defiance that had refused to be extinguished through years of humiliation. "And my father? Does he know?"
Qin Fu's expression became pained. "Third Master is still in secluded cultivation. He hasn't left his courtyard in three years."
Of course. Qin Feng's father, Qin Xiaoyun, the third son of the Qin patriarch, had retreated from the world after Qin Feng's mother vanished. Some said it was grief. Others whispered it was shame.
"Tomorrow," Qin Feng said, looking out at the rain through a crack in the wall, "the Qingyang Sect's outer sect deacon will be attending, correct?"
"Yes. Deacon Li Changfeng. Second Young Master Qin Yue has been preparing for months to impress him." Qin Fu lowered his voice further. "If Young Master Yue gains Deacon Li's favor, he might receive a recommendation to enter the Qingyang Sect as an outer disciple."
Qin Feng nodded slowly. The Qingyang Sect was one of the six great sects of Qing Province. Entry meant resources, techniques, and a path to immortality. For a border city family like the Qins, having a member enter a great sect was the ultimate honor.
And Qin Yue, his half-brother by the main wife, was the golden child—Body Tempering Level 7 at seventeen, with all twelve regular meridians opened. The perfect contrast to Qin Feng's brokenness.
"Uncle Fu," Qin Feng said after a moment, "do you ever wonder why my meridians are blocked?"
The old servant looked uncomfortable. "The physicians said it was a congenital defect. A curse from heaven."
"A curse," Qin Feng repeated softly. His hand went to his chest, where beneath his simple hemp robe hung a broken bronze token—the only thing his mother had left him. It was warm against his skin, as it always was, regardless of the weather.
Three nights ago, something had changed. A freak lightning storm had hit Linyuan City, and one bolt had struck dangerously close to the woodshed. In that moment of blinding light and deafening thunder, the token had grown searing hot against Qin Feng's chest. When the storm passed, he found the token's surface covered in intricate dragon patterns that hadn't been there before.
And in his mind, words had appeared—ancient, majestic words that spoke of dragons devouring heavens, of emperors ruling eras, of keys unlocking new dawns.
The Nine Dragons Devour the Heavens Art.
He hadn't dared to speak of it to anyone. Madness, perhaps. Or wishful thinking from a cripple desperate for meaning. But the words felt more real than anything in his seventeen years of existence.
"Tomorrow," Qin Feng said, his voice taking on a new quality, "I will attend the ceremony."
Qin Fu's eyes widened. "Young Master, you can't! The Madam has given orders! The guards will stop you!"
"Let them try." Qin Feng's gaze was distant, seeing not the rain-soaked courtyard but something far beyond. "The ancestors deserve to see all their descendants, don't they? Even the... defective ones."
---
Elsewhere in the Qin Compound
In a lavishly decorated chamber where sandalwood incense curled toward carved ceiling beams, two figures watched the rain through crystal-clear windows.
Qin Yue, seventeen and already bearing the arrogant bearing of one destined for greatness, sipped spirit tea from a jade cup. "The rain should clear by morning. Good. I want perfect conditions when Deacon Li arrives."
His sister, Qin Xue, sixteen with sharp features and sharper eyes, smirked. "Don't worry, Second Brother. With your talent, Deacon Li would be a fool not to recommend you. Especially compared to... certain others."
They both glanced in the direction of the woodshed, though it was invisible through walls and distance.
"That waste of space," Qin Yue said dismissively. "Father finally agreed to send him to the mines next month. Out of sight, out of mind."
"Should have been done years ago," Qin Xue sniffed. "A cripple bearing the Qin name is an insult to our ancestors. I still don't understand why Third Uncle ever brought that woman here."
Their mother, Madam Wang, entered the room. At forty, she maintained the beauty of her youth through expensive elixirs, but her eyes held a permanent coldness. "Do not speak of that woman. Her very memory is a stain."
"Mother," Qin Yue stood respectfully. "Is everything prepared for tomorrow?"
Madam Wang nodded. "The ancestral hall has been cleaned, the offerings prepared. I've arranged for Deacon Li to receive the spirit stones after the ceremony. And I've made certain... accommodations for your demonstration."
A smile touched Qin Yue's lips. "The Wind Blade technique?"
"Third level already mastered. At Body Tempering Level 7, it will be impressive enough." Madam Wang's eyes narrowed. "But remember, this is about more than just entering the Qingyang Sect. This is about establishing your position as the future of the Qin family. Your uncle, the Family Head, has no sons of his own. With your talent and a Qingyang Sect background..."
She didn't need to finish. Qin Yue understood. The family leadership could very well pass to him someday.
"Leave nothing to chance," Madam Wang said. "And that includes ensuring no... disruptions tomorrow."
Qin Xue smiled cruelly. "Don't worry, Mother. I've already spoken to the guards. If that cripple tries to leave his shed, they'll make him regret it."
"Good." Madam Wang turned back to the window. "This family has carried his shame long enough. After tomorrow, when you have the Qingyang Sect's backing, we can finally cleanse ourselves completely."
---
Back in the Woodshed
After Qin Fu left with worried glances, Qin Feng finished the simple meal and placed the empty basket by the door. The rain had softened to a drizzle, and moonlight began to filter through breaking clouds.
He sat cross-legged on the thin straw mattress, the bronze token in his hands. In the moonlight, the newly appeared dragon patterns seemed to writhe, coiling around each other in an eternal dance. Nine dragons, each distinct, each magnificent.
Closing his eyes, Qin Feng did what he had done every night since the lightning strike—he focused on the words in his mind.
"The body is a cage, but also a universe. Meridians are rivers, but dragons need no rivers to swim. They fly between stars, they breathe creation, they are the laws given form..."
For three nights, he had meditated on these words. For three nights, nothing had happened beyond a strange warmth in his chest.
But tonight felt different.
As moonlight touched the token, the dragons seemed to drink the silver light. One dragon—etched in starlight patterns, with scales that held entire constellations—began to glow.
A vibration started in the token, then traveled up Qin Feng's arms. Heat spread through his body, not the uncomfortable heat of fever, but the nurturing warmth of sunlight after winter.
"...First comes the Celestial Void Star Dragon, master of space and stars. Its domain is the void between worlds, its breath the stellar winds..."
The words in his mind grew louder, more insistent. Qin Feng's breathing slowed. His awareness turned inward, and for the first time in his life, he saw his own body not as a prison of sealed meridians, but as a landscape.
And in that landscape, something stirred.
Deep in his dantian, where there should have been only emptiness, a point of silver light appeared. It grew, spinning, pulling at something within Qin Feng—not spiritual energy from outside, but something intrinsic, something that had always been there, sleeping.
His blood.
The blood in his veins began to hum, to vibrate in resonance with the silver light. Where it passed through what should have been meridians, it didn't flow—it pulsed, as if pushing against walls that had stood for seventeen years.
Pain followed. Sharp, excruciating pain as something within him tore open. Not his physical meridians—those remained sealed as always—but something else. New pathways, glowing silver, etching themselves into his flesh, his bones, his very essence.
Dragon Veins.
The term came to him unbidden. These were not the twelve regular meridians or eight extraordinary vessels that normal cultivators used. These were something older, more primal. They didn't channel spiritual energy from the world; they generated power from within, from the essence of his own blood, refined and transformed.
One Dragon Vein opened, burning silver from his dantian to his heart.
Then another. And another.
With each new vein, the pain intensified, but so did a strange ecstasy—the feeling of chains breaking, of wings unfurling after a lifetime bound.
When the ninth Dragon Vein opened, completing a circuit that connected all his major organs in a pattern that mirrored the constellations on the token, everything changed.
BOOM.
A soundless explosion in his consciousness.
Qin Feng found himself floating in darkness, but it was a darkness alive with points of light—stars beyond counting. Before him, coiled in impossible dimensions, was a dragon.
Its scales were silver, but not the silver of metal—the silver of moonlight on still water, of starlight through mist. Each scale held a galaxy, and its eyes were supernovae, birth and death in endless cycle.
"MORTAL."
The voice was the universe speaking.
"YOU CARRY THE DRAGON-SEAL. YOU BEAR THE EMPEROR-DESTINY. YOU HOLD THE KEY TO DAWN."
Qin Feng tried to speak, but had no voice in this place.
"THE FIRST TEST BEGINS. COMPREHEND THE VOID-STEP, OR PERISH IN ETERNITY."
Space fractured around him. Suddenly, Qin Feng was falling through a kaleidoscope of broken realities, where up was down, left was right, and distance had no meaning. Shards of space, sharp as blades, flew around him.
Three days, the dragon's voice echoed. In three of your days, comprehend the first step through nothingness, or your soul will unravel here, lost between worlds.
Panic rose, but Qin Feng forced it down. He had lived seventeen years as a prisoner in his own body. He would not die a prisoner between worlds.
Focusing, he watched the shards. They moved not randomly, but in patterns—fractal, recursive patterns that spoke of deeper laws. Space wasn't empty; it was a fabric, and these shards were tears in that fabric.
But what mends fabric? he thought. Not more fabric, but the understanding that the tear and the whole are one.
Time lost meaning. He didn't know if hours or days passed. The space shards cut him, but the wounds didn't bleed—they leaked silver light, the same light as the dragon veins now glowing within him.
Then, a memory surfaced—not his own. A man in imperial robes, standing before nine kneeling dragons. The man raised his hand, and space bent to his will. "The void is not empty," the memory-voice said. "It is full of potential. To walk through it, you must not fight its nature, but become part of its possibility."
Qin Feng understood.
He stopped trying to dodge the shards. Instead, he reached out with his consciousness, feeling the space between spaces, the emptiness that wasn't empty. He saw not obstacles, but doorways. Not barriers, but paths.
He took a step.
Not with his body—he had no body here—but with his will. And where he willed himself to be, there he was.
The shards passed through him harmlessly. No, not through him—around him, as if he occupied a different layer of reality.
"VOID-STEP, FIRST REALM—SHRINKING EARTH TO INCH. COMPREHENDED."
The dragon's voice held what might have been approval.
"THE CELESTIAL VOID STAR DRAGON ACKNOWLEDGES YOU. RECEIVE THE FIRST INHERITANCE."
Knowledge flooded into him—not words, but essences:
· Void-Step (虚空步): The art of walking through space. First realm allowed shrinking distance, making a mile step feel like an inch.
· Star Pupil Art (星瞳术): Eyes that could see spiritual energy flows, penetrate illusions, and perceive the true nature of things.
· Spatial Sense (空间感知): An innate understanding of spatial relationships, distances, and dimensional folds.
The starry dragon opened its maw, and a stream of silver light shot into Qin Feng. He felt it merge with the nine Dragon Veins, solidifying them, making them permanent parts of his being.
Then, as suddenly as it began, it ended.
---
Qin Feng opened his eyes in the woodshed.
Dawn was breaking, painting the sky in hues of rose and gold. The rain had stopped, leaving the world washed clean.
He was different.
Looking at his hands, he saw not just flesh, but energy patterns. Activating the Star Pupil Art, his vision changed—he could see through the wooden walls of the shed, see the spiritual energy flowing through the Qin compound like multicolored rivers. Most concentrated around the main hall and the cultivation chambers. A thin trickle even reached the woodshed, but it slid off him like water off oiled cloth.
His meridians were still blocked. But now, thrumming alongside them, were nine glowing silver Dragon Veins, pulsing with power.
He stood, and his body responded with strength he'd never known. Testing it, he picked up the thick wooden stool he used as a table. With barely any effort, he lifted it one-handed. Before, it would have taken both hands and strain.
Body Tempering Level 1? No. Stronger. Perhaps Level 3?
But more than physical strength, he felt a connection—to space itself. The shed felt smaller, not because it had shrunk, but because he understood now that distance was malleable.
He took a step toward the door, and without meaning to, activated the Void-Step.
The world blurred. One moment he was by his mattress, the next he was at the door, three yards crossed in an instant.
A laugh escaped him, half-wonder, half-disbelief. After seventeen years of being less than everyone, of being broken, he had taken the first step on a path no one in Linyuan City could possibly comprehend.
Then his expression hardened.
Today was the ancestral sacrifice. Today, they would try to keep him away, to pretend he didn't exist.
Not anymore.
From under his mattress, he pulled out the only decent clothes he owned—a simple blue robe, worn but clean. As he changed, his fingers brushed the bronze token, now cool against his skin. The dragon patterns were faint again, but they were there. Real.
He looked at his reflection in a water basin. Same dark eyes, same sharp features inherited from his father. But there was something new in those eyes—a depth, a light that hadn't been there yesterday. The eyes of someone who had seen dragons in the void.
A knock came at the door, sharper than Qin Fu's.
"Qin Feng!" a gruff voice called. "Madam's orders! You're to stay in your shed today! No exceptions!"
The guard. Qin Xue had been true to her word.
Qin Feng took a deep breath, feeling the Dragon Veins hum in response. He walked to the door, not with the hesitant steps of a cripple, but with the steady gait of someone who had walked between stars.
He opened the door.
Two guards stood there, both at Body Tempering Level 4, wearing the Qin family insignia. Their expressions were a mix of contempt and boredom.
"Back inside," the larger one said, not even looking at him properly. "Don't make us—"
He didn't finish.
Qin Feng took a step. A Void-Step.
To the guards, it seemed like he vanished from the doorway and reappeared three yards past them, already walking toward the main hall.
They blinked, confused. Then the larger guard snarled. "Hey! Stop!"
He reached for Qin Feng's shoulder. His hand never connected.
Without turning, without even breaking stride, Qin Feng shifted slightly. The guard's momentum carried him forward, and he stumbled past, crashing into a rain barrel.
The second guard drew his sword. "You little—"
Qin Feng finally turned. His Star Pupil Art activated, and he saw the guard's spiritual energy flow—clumsy, inefficient. He saw the opening, the weakness in the stance.
He didn't need to fight. He simply took another step, and was five yards further away, the guard left grasping at empty air.
"Wha—how?" the guard stammered.
But Qin Feng was already gone, rounding a corner toward the main ancestral hall, where the sounds of preparation grew louder.
Behind him, the guards stared at each other, then at the woodshed door, then at the path Qin Feng had taken.
"Did he just...?"
"Impossible. He's a cripple."
"Then what
was that?"
They had no answer. But something had changed in Linyuan City. Something that began in a leaky woodshed and a boy with dragon-light in his veins.
The rain had stopped. The ceremony would begin soon.
And a dragon, long caged, was taking his first steps toward the sky.
---