Following the Spirit Awakening ceremony, Lin Xuan spent the next three years solidifying his position as the undisputed miracle child of the Lin Clan.
While ordinary youths took until their mid-teens to map their basic meridian pathways, Lin Xuan approached cultivation like a system architect optimizing an engine. He treated the flow of ambient energy not as a mysterious art, but as fluid dynamics. Using his Fire-Water Dual Roots, he established a continuous thermodynamic cycle within his body—his Fire root providing intense kinetic drive while his Water root cooled the surrounding tissue to prevent structural friction.
The results were unprecedented in Stonebrook’s thousand-year history.
By age seven, he breached Level 1, Sub-Level 1 of Qi Gathering, surpassing older peers who had spent years struggling at the threshold. By age eight, he surged into Level 1, Sub-Level 2 of Qi Gathering, his muscle tissue hardening until he could punch through solid pine without a scratch.
And by his ninth birthday, Lin Xuan officially reached Level 1, Sub-Level 3 of Qi Gathering—crossing into the Beast Slayer Tier at an age when most children were barely allowed to handle real weapons.
His progress was a lightning storm within the clan. He had accomplished in three years what had taken his fourteen-year-old cousin Lin Yan nearly a decade.
At nine years old, Lin Xuan sat cross-legged atop a granite boulder in the inner garden, his small body radiating a visible, pressurized heat shimmer. A sudden, sharp breath burst from his lips as he thrust his fist forward.
BOOM!
A shockwave of compressed air blasted off his knuckles, shattering a five-inch-thick stone slab ten paces away. The force scattered falling cherry blossoms into micro-particles, leaving a scorch mark across the grass.
Lin Xuan lowered his arm, looking at his small, unblemished hand with cold, intoxicating satisfaction.
Level 1, Sub-Level 3 at nine years old, Lin Xuan calculated, his heart swelling with arrogant pride. My force output per unit of meridian volume is three hundred percent higher than Lin Yan’s when he was at this stage. The elders call it a miracle, but it's just basic logic. These people waste decades because their technique execution is primitive.
His rapid success completely warped his perception of reality. The initial fear he had felt as an infant—the terror of physical vulnerability—was now distant, forgotten history. In his mind, he was no longer just a reincarnated soul trying to survive. He was a natural god walking among backward villagers.
"Xuan'er! That was incredible!"
A cheerful voice broke his thoughts. Fourteen-year-old Lin Chen ran up the stone steps, carrying a tray with warm tea and spirit-herbs. Lin Chen was the daughter of the late Third Elder, raised under Second Elder Lin Shan's household after her father died in an iron mine collapse. Over the past three years, her Dual Wood-Water Spirit Root (boasting an impressive seventy-eight percent purity score) had also blossomed under Lin Xuan's guidance. Though she cultivated at a steady pace—reaching Level 1, Sub-Level 2 of Qi Gathering—Lin Xuan had restructured her breath cycles, making her healing and nurturing Qi exceptionally pure.
"You cracked the targeted granite without breaking your posture," Lin Chen said, setting the tray down with a bright, proud smile. "Patriarch Lin Feng was just talking to Uncle Shan in the main hall. He said that by the time you turn fifteen, you might reach the late sub-levels of Qi Gathering and challenge the entire province!"
Lin Xuan stood up, taking the cup of tea with a dismissive smirk.
"The province?" Lin Xuan scoffed softly, looking out over the tiled roofs of Stonebrook toward the jagged peaks of the Mist-Weaver Mountains. "Patriarch Lin Feng thinks in terms of small towns because his mind is limited by this valley. He spent two hundred years just to reach Level 2, Sub-Level 9 of Meridian Cleansing. I will pass his lifetime achievement before I turn twenty."
Lin Chen blinked, her gentle smile faltering slightly. "Xuan'er... Uncle Shan says pride before a breakthrough leads to heart-demons. We are powerful in Stonebrook, but the world outside is vast."
"The world outside operates on the same physical laws, Chen'er," Lin Xuan replied coldly, taking a slow sip of tea. "They just have larger reserves of crude fuel. Give me five more years to refine my dual-core circulation, and no cultivation manual in this region will stand against my calculations."
He looked down at his cousin, feeling a profound sense of protective superiority. She had top-tier support roots, and he was the genius who would optimize her future. In his eyes, the Lin Clan was his private sandbox, its elders were his primitive guardians, and he was the undisputed architect of fate.