The acrid stench of burned spirit wood and scorched stone greeted Wei Lun before he even opened the door to Cultivation Chamber Seventeen.
He stood in the dimly lit corridor of the Azure Peak Sect's outer disciple quarters, a worn bamboo broom in one hand and a wooden bucket in the other, staring at the wisps of black smoke curling from beneath the door frame. Five years as a servant had taught him to recognize the signs of a failed breakthrough, and this one had been spectacular.
"Of course it's Zhao Chen again," Wei Lun muttered, setting down his bucket. "Third time this month."
He was a lean young man of twenty-three, with callused hands and the kind of forgettable face that made him effectively invisible in a sect of two thousand disciples. His servant's robes, a plain gray that had faded to something closer to dusty brown, hung loose on his frame. Not from malnutrition—the sect fed its servants adequately enough—but from the kind of wiriness that came from years of manual labor.
Wei Lun pushed open the door, and immediately regretted it.
The cultivation chamber looked like a minor war had taken place inside. Scorch marks radiated from the center of the room in jagged patterns, as if lightning had struck repeatedly. The meditation cushion was nothing but ash. Three of the spirit lamps that provided ambient qi had shattered, their fragments scattered across the floor like fallen stars. Even worse, the walls themselves bore deep cracks, and the formation arrays carved into the stone flickered weakly, damaged beyond simple repair.
"Ancestors preserve me," Wei Lun breathed. This wasn't just cleaning. This was reconstruction work. This would take hours.
He set his bucket down just inside the doorway and surveyed the damage with a practiced eye. The cultivation chamber was a square room, about five meters to a side, built from Azure Peak Sect's signature blue-gray stone. Normally, formation arrays etched into the walls would draw in spiritual energy from the surrounding mountains, concentrating it for disciples during their meditation and breakthroughs. These chambers were the reason outer disciples tolerated the sect's harsh training regime—access to concentrated qi could mean the difference between advancing and stagnating.
Now, Chamber Seventeen looked like Zhao Chen had tried to punch his way to Foundation Establishment through sheer explosive force and failed miserably.
Wei Lun sighed and began the tedious process of sweeping up the debris. His broom whispered against stone as he worked, the familiar rhythm almost meditative. Sweep, collect, dump in the bucket. Sweep, collect, dump in the bucket. Over and over.
This was his life now. Had been for five years, ever since he turned eighteen and made his choice.
The memory rose unbidden, as it often did when he was alone with his thoughts.
Age ten. The testing pavilion. A hundred children lined up, each one hoping to hear the words that would change their fate: "You have potential."
Wei Lun had been so hopeful. He'd survived the demon beast attack that destroyed his village. He'd made the long journey to Azure Peak with the survivors. Surely the heavens wouldn't be so cruel as to save him only to cast him aside?
The testing elder, an ancient man whose white beard reached his waist, had placed a crystal orb in Wei Lun's small hands. "Channel your qi into the stone, boy. Let's see what you're made of.
Wei Lun had tried. Oh, how he'd tried. He'd squeezed his eyes shut and pushed with everything he had, willing the energy he'd felt sometimes in moments of fear or excitement to flow into the crystal.
Nothing.
The elder had frowned, taken the orb back, and examined it closely. Then his expression had shifted from confusion to something worse: pity.
"Shattered meridians," the elder had announced, loud enough for everyone to hear. "The boy's qi pathways are broken. Fragmented. He cannot cultivate."
The words had fallen like an executioner's blade.
In a world where cultivation meant everything—power, prestige, longevity, the ability to protect what you loved—Wei Lun had been born broken.
At eighteen, after eight years of living as a charity case in the sect's orphan quarters, he'd been given a choice: leave and make his way as a mortal in the outside world, or stay as a servant.
He'd stayed. Where else could an orphan with no skills, no family, and no cultivation go?
Wei Lun shook off the memory and continued sweeping. Dwelling on the past changed nothing. At least here he had food, shelter, and relative safety. The sect might treat its servants as barely human, but it didn't abandon them to starvation or bandits.
He worked his way toward the center of the room, where the damage was worst. The air here felt strange—thick and heavy, almost oppressive. His skin prickled, and the fine hairs on his arms stood on end.
Residual spiritual energy. When cultivators broke through or used powerful techniques, they rarely absorbed all the qi they channeled. The excess dissipated into the environment, usually within a few hours. In a chamber like this, after a violent failed breakthrough, that residual energy would be substantial.
Wei Lun had cleaned hundreds of cultivation chambers over the years. He'd felt this sensation countless times. But tonight, something was different.
The prickling sensation intensified as he swept through the epicenter of Zhao Chen's failure. The air seemed to shimmer, and Wei Lun could almost see the spiritual energy—tiny motes of blue-white light floating lazily through the ruined chamber like dust caught in sunbeams.
Except it was night, and there were no sunbeams.
Wei Lun paused, broom in hand, and stared. He'd never actually seen residual qi before. Felt it, yes. But seen it? Never.
One of the glowing motes drifted toward him, drawn by some imperceptible current. Without thinking, Wei Lun reached out.
The moment his fingertip touched the mote of light, pain exploded through his hand.
It felt like he'd grabbed a piece of molten metal. Wei Lun gasped and jerked back, but the mote of qi followed his finger, clinging to it like honey. More motes drifted closer, attracted by the first, and suddenly Wei Lun's entire hand was engulfed in pale blue light.
The pain intensified, racing up his arm like wildfire. Wei Lun dropped his broom and clutched his wrist, trying to shake off the energy, but it wouldn't release. His shattered meridians—pathways that shouldn't have been able to conduct spiritual energy at all—suddenly roared to life.
It felt like glass shards grinding through his veins.
Wei Lun fell to his knees, a strangled cry escaping his lips. The qi was pouring into him now, drawn through his skin and into those broken, useless channels that the testing elder had pitied so many years ago. But instead of flowing smoothly like it would in a normal cultivator, the energy caught and tore at the fragmented pathways, each pulse sending fresh waves of agony through his body.
His vision blurred. Sweat poured down his face. The glowing motes multiplied, swirling around him in a vortex of blue-white light, and Wei Lun realized with growing horror that he couldn't stop it. The residual qi in the chamber was being drawn to him like iron to a lodestone, feeding into his broken meridians whether he wanted it or not.
I'm going to die, he thought with strange clarity. I'm going to die in a ruined cultivation chamber, and they'll find my body in the morning and wonder what happened to the worthless janitor.
The pain reached a crescendo. Wei Lun's back arched, his muscles locking rigid. The world dissolved into white-hot agony.
And then, mercifully, everything went black.
And then, mercifully, everything went black
Wei Lun woke to cold stone against his cheek and the worst headache of his life.
For a long moment, he simply lay there, taking inventory. His body ached in places he didn't know could ache. His meridians—or what passed for meridians in his broken system—felt raw and inflamed, like he'd scraped them clean from the inside. Even breathing hurt.
But he was alive.
Slowly, carefully, Wei Lun pushed himself up to a sitting position. The cultivation chamber was dark now. The residual qi was gone, dissipated or… or absorbed. The glowing motes had vanished. Even the oppressive heaviness in the air had faded.
How long had he been unconscious? Minutes? Hours?
Wei Lun looked down at his hands, half-expecting to see burns or scars, but his skin was unmarked. Yet something felt fundamentally different. There was a warmth in his chest, a tiny ember of heat that pulsed in rhythm with his heartbeat. He pressed his palm against his sternum, feeling that strange internal warmth, and his eyes widened.
Spiritual energy. Inside his dantian. Impossibly, there was actual qi circulating through his shattered meridians, moving in fits and starts like water through a cracked vessel, but moving.
Wei Lun had lived twenty-three years unable to sense spiritual energy beyond the vaguest external impressions. Now he could feel it inside himself, however faintly. It was like being blind from birth and suddenly perceiving light for the first time—disorienting, overwhelming, and utterly miraculous.
He sat there in the darkness, trembling, as the implications crashed over him.
Whatever had just happened, it shouldn't have been possible. Shattered meridians couldn't be repaired. The testing elder had been absolutely certain. Dozens of physicians and healing specialists had confirmed it over the years. Wei Lun's cultivation future had been sealed at age ten.
Yet here he sat, with spiritual energy flowing through his body, however painfully.
A sound from the corridor made Wei Lun's head snap up. Footsteps. Someone was approaching.
Panic flooded through him. If anyone found him here, unconscious in a damaged chamber with spiritual energy in his dantian—they'd ask questions. Questions he couldn't answer. Questions that might make him valuable, or dangerous, or worth studying like a specimen.
Wei Lun had survived five years as a servant by being invisible, forgettable, beneath notice. He couldn't afford to be interesting.
Moving with frantic urgency despite his aching body, Wei Lun grabbed his broom and bucket and scrambled to his feet. The room spun sickeningly, but he forced himself to walk toward the door with something approximating normalcy.
He slipped out into the corridor just as a pair of outer disciples rounded the corner, laughing about something. They barely glanced at him—just another servant finishing his duties. Wei Lun ducked his head respectfully and hurried past, clutching his cleaning supplies like a lifeline.
He made it back to the servant quarters without incident, returned his broom and bucket to the supply room, and collapsed onto his sleeping mat in the small room he shared with three other servants. Fortunately, the others were still working. Wei Lun was alone.
He lay there in the darkness, hand pressed against his chest, feeling that impossible warmth pulse beneath his palm.
What had happened tonight? Why had the residual qi reacted to him? Why had his shattered meridians, broken and useless for thirteen years, suddenly started conducting spiritual energy?
Wei Lun had no answers. But as exhaustion finally pulled him toward sleep, one thought crystallized in his mind with perfect clarity:
Whatever this was, whatever strange phenomenon had occurred in Cultivation Chamber Seventeen, he couldn't let anyone know. Not yet. Maybe not ever.
In a place like Azure Peak Sect, where power determined everything and weakness was exploited without mercy, being different was dangerous.
Better to remain the invisible janitor. Better to keep sweeping floors and cleaning chambers and being beneath everyone's notice.
At least until he understood what he'd become.
Wei Lun's eyes drifted closed, and sleep claimed him. As he slipped into dreams, he didn't notice the faint blue glow that briefly emanated from his chest before fading into darkness.