Founder of the Ten Thousand Realms
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Chapter 2: The Trash Collectors
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The rain had stopped.
Shen Yi stood at the edge of Sunken Boat Ferry, the ancient book tucked safely inside his robe, the rusty iron sword strapped to his back. Before him, the river flowed as it had for millennia—indifferent to the fact that his entire world had just been turned upside down.
He waited.
For what, he didn't know. The old man—the Founder—hadn't given him any instructions. No directions, no timetable, no "meet me at this place." Just a book, a question, and an offer that had changed everything.
So he waited.
An hour passed. Two. The sun began to set, painting the river in shades of gold and crimson.
Just as Shen Yi began to wonder if he had imagined the entire encounter, the air before him rippled.
A door opened.
Not a physical door—there was no frame, no handle, no wood. Just a vertical crack in reality itself, edges glowing with soft golden light, revealing a path leading into... somewhere else.
From the other side, a voice floated out—calm, amused, impossibly ancient:
"Are you going to stand there all day, or are you coming in?"
Shen Yi took a deep breath.
Then he stepped through.
---
The world on the other side was nothing like he had imagined.
He had expected a celestial palace, perhaps—golden halls and jade pillars, immortal servants and floating islands. Instead, he found himself standing in a clearing in the middle of a forest. Ordinary trees surrounded him—oaks and pines, the kind he had seen a thousand times before. Ordinary grass carpeted the ground. Ordinary birds sang in the branches.
The only unusual thing was the mountain.
It rose in the distance, so tall that its peak disappeared into the clouds—and beyond the clouds, into something that looked suspiciously like stars. As if the mountain didn't stop at the sky but continued straight into space.
And on that mountain, halfway up, he could see buildings. Simple wooden buildings, the kind found in any mortal village. No golden halls. No jade pillars. Just... huts.
Shen Yi blinked.
"Disappointed?"
He turned.
The Founder stood behind him, no longer disguised as an old fisherman. He looked young now—perhaps thirty, with an ageless face and eyes that still held galaxies within them. He wore simple green robes, the same as before, and his hands were clasped loosely behind his back.
"I..." Shen Yi struggled for words. "I don't understand."
"What's there to understand?" The Founder gestured at the mountain. "This is the Dao Seeking Sect. Your new home. The buildings are up there—we're still under construction, so don't expect too much. The first batch of disciples arrived last week, and they've been working hard."
"First batch?" Shen Yi's confusion deepened. "How many disciples are there?"
"Let me check." The Founder closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them. "Three thousand, seven hundred forty-two. Plus you makes three thousand, seven hundred forty-three."
Shen Yi's jaw dropped.
Three thousand... disciples?!
"Most of them are like you," the Founder continued, beginning to walk toward the mountain. "Broken spiritual roots. Crippled cultivation. No talent. No hope. The ones the other sects threw away." He glanced back. "My specialty, you might say."
Shen Yi hurried to catch up. "But... why? Why collect—" He stopped himself.
"Trash?" The Founder smiled. "Go ahead, say it. Everyone else does."
Shen Yi was silent.
"I collect 'trash' because trash is the only thing worth collecting." The Founder's voice softened, just slightly. "Geniuses? They've had everything handed to them their whole lives. They don't know what it means to struggle. They don't know what it means to fail. They don't know what it means to keep going when everyone tells you to give up."
He stopped walking and turned to face Shen Yi fully.
"You knelt in the rain for three hours. You were insulted, humiliated, covered in mud—and you didn't beg, you didn't cry, you didn't give up. You just... endured."
His eyes seemed to see straight through Shen Yi.
"That quality is rarer than any spiritual root. Any special physique. Any saintly bloodline."
"Because spiritual roots can be mended. Physiques can be forged. Bloodlines can be inherited."
"But endurance? The ability to suffer and keep going? That can't be taught. You either have it, or you don't."
Shen Yi felt something tight loosen in his chest.
"And you think I have it?" he asked quietly.
The Founder smiled. "I know you do."
He turned and continued walking. "Now come. It's time to meet your fellow trash."
---
The Dao Seeking Sect, Shen Yi quickly learned, was less a sect and more of a... refugee camp.
The "buildings" the Founder had mentioned turned out to be a collection of hastily constructed wooden huts, some still missing roofs. The "disciples" were a motley assortment of humanity: men and women, young and old, some so weak they could barely walk, others with visible injuries that had never healed properly.
They were everywhere—chopping wood, carrying water, practicing basic stances, or simply sitting and staring at nothing with hollow eyes.
As Shen Yi walked through the settlement, he caught fragments of conversations:
"—my dantian was shattered in the sect competition. The elders said I'd never cultivate again, so they threw me out—"
"—born without any spiritual roots at all. My own parents abandoned me when I was five—"
"—cultivated for forty years and never broke through Qi Condensation. The sect said I was wasting resources—"
"—a demonic cultivator crippled my meridians. Now no sect will take me—"
Shen Yi looked at the Founder, who was walking calmly through the crowd as if he heard nothing unusual.
"All of them?" he asked. "All three thousand?"
"Every single one." The Founder nodded. "Abandoned. Rejected. Discarded. Told they were worthless." He glanced at Shen Yi. "Sound familiar?"
Before Shen Yi could answer, a commotion erupted ahead.
"—give it back! That's mine!"
A small crowd had gathered near one of the huts. Shen Yi pushed through and saw a scene that made his blood boil:
A boy of about fourteen, thin and dirty, was being held down by two larger youths while a third—clearly the leader, with the smug expression of a minor bully—dangled a small cloth bundle just out of reach.
"That's mine, you say?" The leader grinned. "Funny. I don't see your name on it."
"It has my mother's embroidery! Everyone knows it!"
"Everyone?" The leader looked around at the crowd. "Does anyone here know this is his?"
The crowd was silent. No one wanted to get involved.
The leader laughed and tossed the bundle to one of his lackeys. "Check what's inside. Maybe there's something worth stealing."
Shen Yi moved.
He didn't think. He didn't plan. He simply walked forward, grabbed the leader by the shoulder, and spun him around.
"Give it back," he said quietly.
The leader stared at him for a moment, then burst out laughing. "And who the hell are you? New trash, right? Let me guess—broken spiritual roots? Crippled meridians? You look like you couldn't fight your way out of a paper bag."
Shen Yi didn't blink. "Give it back."
The leader's smile faded. Something in Shen Yi's eyes made him uncomfortable—the same calm, steady gaze that had unsettled the deacon at the Spirit Sword Sect.
But bullies don't back down in front of crowds.
"Or what?" The leader sneered. "You'll fight me? I'm at Qi Condensation, fifth level. You're what—third? Maybe fourth? I could crush you with one—"
Shen Yi punched him in the face.
It wasn't a cultivation technique. It wasn't a martial art. It was just a punch—the kind any mortal could throw. But it landed square on the leader's nose, and blood sprayed.
The leader stumbled back, clutching his face, shock and rage warring in his expression. "You... you dare?! Do you know who my brother is?! He's at Qi Condensation, eighth level! He'll—"
"He'll what?" Shen Yi stepped forward, and despite his lower cultivation, despite his complete lack of any advantage, the leader stepped back. "He'll beat me up? He'll humiliate me? He'll call me trash?"
He reached down, picked up the cloth bundle from where the lackey had dropped it, and held it out to the thin boy, who was still on the ground staring up at him with wide eyes.
"Here. This is yours."
The boy took the bundle, clutching it to his chest. "Th-thank you..."
Shen Yi turned back to the leader, who was still bleeding from his nose. "You want revenge? Fine. Come find me. My name is Shen Yi. I'm at Qi Condensation, third level. My spiritual roots are broken. I'm probably the weakest person in this entire sect."
He met the leader's eyes.
"But I'll tell you one thing. I knelt in the rain for three hours today. I was insulted, humiliated, and called trash. And I'm still standing."
"So if you want to fight me, go ahead. But know this—I won't stop. I won't give up. I'll get back up every single time you knock me down. And eventually, I'll knock you down and you won't get back up."
The crowd was utterly silent.
The leader stared at him, nose bleeding, face pale. For a long moment, no one moved.
Then—
Clap.
Clap. Clap. Clap.
Everyone turned.
The Founder stood at the edge of the crowd, applauding slowly. His face held an expression of genuine delight—the first real emotion Shen Yi had seen on those ancient features.
"Beautiful," the Founder said. "Absolutely beautiful."
He walked forward, and the crowd parted before him like water before a ship. The leader and his lackeys shrank back, faces pale with terror—even they knew who the Founder was.
The Founder stopped before Shen Yi.
"You've been here less than an hour, and you've already started a fight, stood up to a bully, and made an enemy." His smile widened. "I couldn't be more proud."
Shen Yi blinked. "You're... not angry?"
"Angry? Why would I be angry?" The Founder looked around at the crowd, raising his voice so all could hear. "Let me tell you something, all of you. In this sect, there is exactly one rule."
He paused for effect.
"If someone bullies you, you don't come crying to me. You don't beg for help. You don't whine about fairness."
"You go back. You cultivate. You train. You get stronger."
"And then you find them, and you make them regret the day they were born."
The crowd stirred. Murmurs rippled through them.
The Founder continued: "This young man—Shen Yi—just demonstrated that rule perfectly. He's weaker. He's outnumbered. He has every reason to back down."
"But he didn't."
"And that," the Founder's voice softened, "is why he's going to go far."
He turned to Shen Yi. "You're my first official disciple. The one I found in the rain. The one who knelt for three hours and didn't give up."
He raised his hand and placed it on Shen Yi's shoulder.
"From this moment, you are the Senior Disciple of the Dao Seeking Sect. First among equals. The standard by which all others will be measured."
Shen Yi's eyes widened. "Senior Disciple? But I'm the weakest here!"
"No." The Founder shook his head. "You're the strongest here. Because strength isn't about cultivation level. It's not about spiritual roots or special physiques or fancy techniques."
He looked out at the crowd, his voice carrying to every ear.
"Strength is about getting up one more time than you fall down."
"And you, Shen Yi, have fallen more times than anyone here. And you're still standing."
He stepped back.
"Now. Who's hungry?"
From somewhere in the crowd, a tiny voice piped up:
"ME!"
---
Her name was Xiao Cai.
She was eleven years old, possibly twelve—she wasn't sure. She had been found three weeks ago by the Founder himself, scavenging for food in the ruins of a village that had been destroyed by demonic cultivators. Her parents were dead. Her home was gone. She had nothing except the clothes on her back and an emptiness in her stomach that never seemed to go away.
When the Founder had asked if she wanted to come with him, she had asked only one question:
"Do you have food?"
He had laughed—a genuine laugh, warm and kind—and said, "Endless amounts."
She had followed him without another word.
Now she sat at a long wooden table in the sect's dining hall—a large, open-air structure with a roof that didn't leak too much—staring at a bowl of rice and vegetables like it was the most precious thing in the universe.
"Eat slowly," Shen Yi said from across the table. "You'll make yourself sick."
Xiao Cai ignored him and shovelled another mouthful in.
Shen Yi watched her for a moment, then looked down at his own bowl. Simple food. Nothing like the spiritual meals the big sects served. But it was hot, and it was filling, and after a day of kneeling in the rain and punching bullies, it tasted better than anything he'd ever eaten.
"So," he said between bites, "how did you end up here?"
Xiao Cai paused, a piece of vegetable halfway to her mouth. Her eyes, bright and curious despite everything, studied him for a moment.
"Village got burned," she said simply. "Bad people came. Everyone died. I hid in a hole."
Shen Yi's chopsticks stopped.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly.
Xiao Cai shrugged—a gesture far too adult for someone her age. "Not your fault. Founder found me. Brought me here. Gives me food." She shoved the vegetable into her mouth. "Good enough."
Shen Yi looked at her—this tiny girl who had lost everything and somehow still found joy in a bowl of rice—and felt something shift inside him.
"I'll protect you," he said.
Xiao Cai looked up, surprised.
"From now on," he continued, "if anyone tries to hurt you, they'll have to go through me first."
She stared at him for a long moment. Then, slowly, a smile spread across her face—the first genuine smile Shen Yi had seen from her.
"You're weird," she said.
Shen Yi smiled back. "So I've been told."
---
After dinner, the Founder gathered all 3,743 disciples in the main clearing.
Night had fallen, but the mountain seemed to glow with its own soft light—another of its many mysteries. The disciples sat in rough circles on the grass, their faces illuminated by floating orbs of gentle golden flame that hovered overhead without any visible source.
Shen Yi sat in the front row, Xiao Cai tucked against his side. She had fallen asleep halfway through the Founder's announcement, her small head resting on his shoulder.
"Tonight," the Founder said, "I'm going to tell you what cultivation really means."
He stood before them, no platform, no throne—just a man in green robes with eyes that held galaxies. But even the simplest of his gestures commanded absolute attention.
"Most sects will tell you that cultivation is about absorbing spiritual energy. Refining your dantian. Strengthening your meridians. Advancing through the realms: Qi Condensation, Body Tempering, Soul Condensation, and so on, all the way to Immortal Emperor."
He paused.
"They're wrong."
Murmurs rippled through the crowd.
"Cultivation is not about realms. Realms are just labels—convenient markers that the strong invented to measure the weak. They mean nothing."
He raised his hand, and a tiny flame appeared in his palm—no larger than a candle's fire, flickering gently in the night air.
"This flame," he said, "contains less energy than a single spark from a Qi Condensation cultivator's technique. By any objective measure, it's worthless."
He closed his hand, and the flame vanished.
"But if I give this flame to a child freezing in the snow, it becomes priceless."
He looked out at the disciples.
"Cultivation is not about how much power you have. It's about what you do with it."
He began to walk among them, weaving through the seated crowd. His voice carried effortlessly to every ear.
"Some of you have broken spiritual roots. Some have crippled meridians. Some have no talent, no background, no hope."
He stopped beside an old man whose legs had been shattered decades ago, who sat in a crude wooden wheelchair.
"Do you know what I see when I look at you?"
The old man shook his head, eyes wet.
"I see people who have been told their entire lives that they're worthless. That they'll never amount to anything. That they should just give up and die."
His voice softened.
"And yet—here you are."
He moved on, passing through the crowd like a ghost.
"You walked here. Or crawled. Or were carried. However you arrived, you came. You didn't give up. You didn't die."
He stopped at the center of the clearing and turned to face them all.
"That," he said, "is cultivation."
Silence.
Then, from somewhere in the back, a voice called out:
"Founder! How do we get stronger?"
The Founder smiled.
"Ah. The practical question." He clasped his hands behind his back. "The answer is simple: you train. Every day. All day. You push your bodies beyond their limits, then push further. You practice techniques until your muscles remember them better than your mind. You fight each other, hurt each other, heal each other, and fight again."
He looked at them.
"There are no shortcuts here. No miracle pills. No secret techniques that will make you strong overnight. The only path to power is through suffering."
A young woman raised her hand. "Founder, I've suffered my whole life. It hasn't made me strong."
"Because you suffered alone," the Founder replied. "Suffering in isolation just breaks you. But suffering together?" He gestured at the crowd. "Suffering with three thousand others who understand exactly what you're going through? That forges bonds. That creates strength."
He raised his voice.
"Starting tomorrow, you will train. You will train until your muscles scream and your bones ache and you can't remember what it felt like not to hurt. You will train with each other, help each other, push each other."
"And one day—maybe soon, maybe not—you will look back at the people who called you trash, and you will laugh."
"Because you won't be trash anymore."
The clearing erupted.
Not in cheers—not yet. But in something else. A low rumble of emotion, of hope long buried finally breaking the surface. Some wept. Some laughed. Some simply sat in stunned silence, unable to process what they were hearing.
Shen Yi sat among them, Xiao Cai still sleeping on his shoulder, and felt something he hadn't felt in years.
Hope.
---
Later that night, long after the crowd had dispersed to their简陋 huts, Shen Yi sat alone on a rock overlooking the valley.
The ancient book—the one the Founder had given him—lay open in his lap. Its pages were yellowed with age, the characters sometimes shifting as he watched, as if the text itself was alive.
He had read the first chapter three times now, and still couldn't fully understand it.
It wasn't a technique manual. It wasn't a cultivation method. It was... something else. Something about the nature of cultivation itself, about paths not taken and possibilities unexplored.
A phrase kept repeating in its pages:
"The strongest chains are the ones we cannot see."
Shen Yi frowned, turning the words over in his mind.
"What does that mean?"
"Exactly what it says."
He turned. The Founder stood behind him, looking out at the valley with an expression of infinite patience.
"The chains we can see—broken spiritual roots, crippled meridians, low talent—those are easy to break. Just find the right method, work hard enough, and they shatter."
He sat down beside Shen Yi, a simple gesture that somehow felt momentous.
"It's the chains we can't see that trap us forever. The beliefs we absorbed as children. The limits we accepted without question. The voice in our heads that whispers, 'You can't.'"
He looked at Shen Yi.
"You've been told your whole life that broken spiritual roots mean you can't cultivate. You believed it. Everyone believed it. That belief became a chain."
Shen Yi stared at him. "But... it's true. Broken spiritual roots really do prevent cultivation. Everyone knows that."
"Everyone knows that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west too." The Founder smil