The morning sun didn’t bring any heat to the yard, just a bright, glaring light that showed the blood on the gravel. I carried the dropped wooden clubs over to my woodpile, using my axe to split them into small, usable chunks for the clay stove.
Inside the shack, things had changed. The suffocating silence from yesterday was gone, replaced by the quiet, rhythmic squeak-squeak of Mo Ran practicing with her wooden wheels. She was moving around the small center stool, her brow furrowed in deep concentration, learning how to balance her weight.
Ye Xinyang sat on the edge of the mattress, watching me through the open door. Her hands were resting on her knees, no longer gripping weapon splinters.
"The outer elder for this sector is Elder Ironwood," Xinyang said, her voice clear and steady as I walked back inside to grab the empty porridge pot. "Zhou Kang is his sister’s grandson. He will not let this go, Lu Chen. By noon, he will be here with his personal guards."
" I don’t care ," I said, setting the pot down. "He has to walk up the mountain path just like everyone else. Before he gets here, I’m going into the deep forest behind the logging area."
Gu Qinghan, who was sitting near the cold hearth, tilted her blindfolded face toward me. "The deep forest? That area is restricted for low-level servants. There are Rank 1 and Rank 2 spirit beasts roaming the thickets. Why risk it?"
"We need meat," I replied bluntly, looking at Chu Ning’er, whose skin still had that faint, lingering touch of blue frost near her wrists. "And we need proper herbs. The white powder from this morning kept you warm, but your muscles are still thin. If I stay here waiting for an old man to yell at me, we all starve."
Mo Ran stopped her wheelchair, her fingers tightening on the wooden rims. She looked at me, her expression complicated—half stubborn pride, half genuine worry. "If you get eaten by a mountain bear, who is going to roll me back to the bed? Don’t die out there, low type servent."
"Keep practicing with your wheels," I told her, a small smirk touching the corner of my mouth. "If I’m not back by the time the elder arrives, lock the door from the inside."
The forest behind the Ashen Cloud Sect was dense, thick with old pines and wet, decaying needles that swallowed the sound of my boots. In my past life, I knew how to read terrain—I knew where water gathered, where slopes crumbled, and where animals found shelter from the wind.
With the Body-Tempering Marrows humming in my veins, I didn’t feel the usual exhaustion of climbing the steep, rocky ridges. My boots hit the slick mud with absolute stability.
I spent two hours tracking. Deep in a ravine, near a small stream that ran through the roots of an ancient banyan tree, I found what I was looking for. A Razor-Toothed Mountain Boar—a low-tier Rank 1 beast—was digging through the dirt for truffles. It was the size of a small bull, covered in thick, wire-like black bristles and sporting two curved, jagged tusks.
The beast caught my scent. It let out a deep, rumbling snort, its red eyes locking onto me before it charged, tearing up the mud and small bushes in its path.
I didn’t move until the tusks were three inches from my waist.
’Immortal Sovereign Phantom Step.’
My body simply ceased to exist in front of the boar. I reappeared instantly on its left flank, completely bypassing its blind spot. Before the beast could even register that its target had vanished, I brought my fist down—dense, heavy, and packed with the raw mass of my tempered bones—straight onto the back of its skull.
Thud.
The impact sounded like a heavy mallet hitting solid stone. The boar didn’t even squeak. Its legs gave out instantly, its massive body sliding through the mud before coming to a complete, dead stop.
[ding! investment asset acquired.]
[you have harvested: rank 1 razor-toothed boar carcass x1 & low-grade spirit-cleansing grass x3 stalks.
[note: you must give or use these resources to care for your high-potential targets to trigger the return multiplier.]
I didn’t waste time. I used my hand knife to bleed the carcass cleanly by the stream, sliced the best cuts of lean red meat, and wrapped them in large, damp leaves. Then, I dug up the three stalks of spirit grass, packing them into my robe pockets.
By the time I made it back down the mountain path to the shack, the sun was sitting directly overhead.
And just as Ye Xinyang had predicted, the yard wasn’t empty.
...
Three men in dark blue inner-disciple robes were standing around my woodpile. In front of them was an old man with a long, grey beard and a face that looked like it was carved out of sour wood. Elder Ironwood. He was holding a heavy wooden staff tipped with iron, his eyes staring at the bloodstains Zhou Kang had left behind this morning.
Zhou Kang was there too, his wrist wrapped in thick white bandages, pointing at the shack with his good hand. "That’s the place, Grandfather! The trash servant hid inside after he broke my bones! He must be using some kind of forbidden demonic tool!"
The shack door was closed tight, but I could see the narrow tip of Ye Xinyang’s window splinter peeking through a crack in the shutter. They were inside, waiting.
I walked out of the forest line, carrying the heavy bundle of wrapped boar meat over my shoulder.
"Are you looking for me?" I asked, my voice flat as I stepped into the yard.
Elder Ironwood turned around slowly, his cultivation aura—a heavy, suffocating pressure of a Rank 3 Qi Condensation master—suddenly expanding across the dirt yard. The grass beneath his boots flattened. To a normal outer servant, this pressure would make their knees buckle instantly.
But to me, it just felt like a stiff breeze. My clay-dense bones didn’t even twitch.
"Lu Chen," the old man rasped, his voice vibrating with anger. "You are a slave of the fields. You dare to strike a senior disciple? You dare to break the bones of my kin? Kneel down and hand over the artifact you used, or I will personally strip your meridians and throw your carcass to the mountain wolves."
"I don’t have an artifact," I said, walking past his guards and dropping the heavy bundle of meat onto the wooden stool near the clay stove. "Zhou Kang came to my home, threatened my wives, and tried to lay his hands on them. According to the sect rules, an outer disciple has the right to defend his family property from intruders."
"Family property?" Zhou Kang yelled, his face turning red. "Those four are broken garbage! The elders gave them to you as a joke, you trash!"
"Enough," Elder Ironwood cut him off, his eyes narrowing as he realized his cultivation pressure wasn’t having any effect on me. His hand tightened on his iron-tipped staff. "Sect rules do not apply to slaves who turn on their masters. Guards, break his arms and drag him to the discipline hall."
The two blue-robed inner disciples stepped forward, their hands glowing with a faint, sharp grey light—the Iron Claws technique of the outer hall. They moved fast, aiming straight for my shoulders.
They were fast, but to my eyes, they were moving through deep water.
Immortal Sovereign Phantom Step.
I took a single step sideways. To the guards, I simply faded like a smudge of ink. Their glowing hands slammed into empty air, their balance completely ruined by the sudden lack of resistance. Before they could turn around, I swept my leg out, my dense shin striking the back of their knees with the force of a falling log.
Crack. Crack.
Both guards collapsed into the dirt, clutching their legs and groaning in pain.Elder Ironwood’s face went from sour to completely pale. He raised his staff, a surge of true spiritual energy gathering at the iron tip, but before he could swing it, I was already standing an inch away from him. My hand was wrapped firmly around the throat of his staff, stopping the energy before it could even leave the wood.
"Elder," I said, my voice quiet, but so cold it made the old man’s beard twitch. "You are an elder of the Ashen Cloud Sect. If you fight a servant boy in the dirt and lose, the inner sect will laugh at you for the rest of your life. Take your grandson and leave. I have to cook lunch."
Ironwood stared into my eyes. He didn’t find the fear of a servant. He found a wall of pure, immovable stone. He knew that if he fought me right now, even if he won, his reputation would be utterly destroyed by the sheer speed I had just shown.
With a shaky, furious breath, the old man yanked his staff back out of my grip.
"We are leaving," Ironwood hissed, turning around and grabbing the trembling Zhou Kang by his collar. "Lu Chen... do not think this is over. The sect competition is in two weeks. If you cannot produce the required field harvest by then, not even the gods will save you from the discipline hall."
They scrambled down the mountain path, dragging the two groaning guards with them until the yard was completely quiet again.
After some time...
The shack door opened slowly. Ye Xinyang walked out first, her hands shaking as she looked at the deep grooves my boots had left in the dirt. Behind her, Mo Ran rolled her wheelchair over the threshold, her eyes wide with a strange, breathless awe. Chu Ning’er peeked out from behind her, while Gu Qinghan stood perfectly still, her blindfolded face turned toward the smell of the fresh boar meat on the stool.
"You... you just threatened an elder," Ye Xinyang whispered, her voice full of absolute disbelief. "And he actually ran away."
"He didn’t run away because he’s nice," I said, picking up the wrapped meat and walking inside the shack. "He ran away because he’s old and proud. Now, come inside. We have work to do."
I set the three stalks of spirit-cleansing grass on the stool.
"Xinyang," I said, pointing to the green herbs. "These are spirit-cleansing grasses from the deep ravine. They can’t heal your core completely, but if you chew on them while practicing your old breathing techniques, they will clean out the stagnant, dead energy inside your broken foundation. It will make your chest stop hurting when you move."
Ye Xinyang looked at the fresh green stalks, then up at my face. Her eyes were bright with a sudden, deep emotion. She didn’t say a word about traps or bad intentions this time. Her fingers reached out slowly, picking up the grass like it was the most precious treasure in the world.
"Thank you, Lu Chen," she whispered, her voice dropping all its defenses. "I... I will try."
[ding! investment verified.]
[you provided: rank 1 spirit-cleansing grass to a high-potential target (ye xinyang).]
[triggering 10,000x multiplier...]
[reward received: nine-transformations dragon-coiling technique immortal-grade cultivation manual x1!]
[note: this manual allows a user with a broken or destroyed core to completely bypass the traditional dantian path, using their physical bones and marrow to store spiritual energy instead!]
A massive stream of ancient text and glowing meridian pathways flooded my mind, settling deep into my consciousness. I looked at Ye Xinyang, who was already sitting cross-legged on the mattress, chewing the bitter herb with a look of quiet determination on her face.
I smiled softly, holding the legendary technique in my thoughts. Tomorrow, when her foundation was clean, I would give her this book. Step by step, we were going to turn this garbage shack into a place that the entire Ashen Cloud Sect would fear.