The stench of rotting straw and stagnant moisture in the corner of the abandoned barn was suffocating, yet Shen Tian had long since filed it away as background noise.
Two days had passed since he had subdued the terrified Zhao Ming in the shadows of Broken Dog Alley. During that time, Shen Tian had taken his sustenance from small sips of rainwater collected in a broken roof tile, keeping his legs crossed and his spine upright on a mat of frayed reeds.
Inside his chest, the battle unfolded against the narrow contours of his own anatomy.
The Mud Lotus Breathing Art continued to operate at full capacity. Conventional cultivation methods sought to flood the meridians with brute force; this technique deduced by the System acted as a precision engraving. The ambient Qi, dense and laden with the city’s impurities, entered through his nose, descended into his lungs, was rhythmically filtered, and transformed into a thread of grayish energy that scraped the walls of his second principal meridian.
Inhale. Filter. Push.
The pain was a stabbing constant. His Fourth-Grade Spiritual Root—a narrow, porous channel full of natural obstructions—slowed every advance to a crawl. In his past life, this same process would have demanded months of painful meditation and several low-level purifying pills to soften the dams of his flesh. Now, the mind of an old man who had traveled that path for more than a century guided every microcurrent of energy with mathematical coldness.
Shen Tian held the flow steady. When the pressure in his right arm threatened to tear the muscle tissue, he held his breath and allowed the Qi to vibrate at a microscopic frequency, wearing down the obstruction from the center.
Near the sixth hour of the second day, a dull crack echoed within his bone cavities.
The second meridian yielded to the pressure and opened abruptly.
The current of Qi crossed it in a continuous torrent, completing a new circulation route around his lower dantian. Immediately, a viscous, black, pestilent sweat emerged through the pores of his arms and torso, expelling the toxins accumulated over years of extreme malnutrition.
Shen Tian opened his eyes. A grayish flash crossed his pupils before dissipating.
He exhaled a long column of hot air that condensed in the gloom of the barn. The weakness in his limbs had disappeared, replaced by a compact density in his muscle fibers and a sharp mental clarity.
[Realm reached: Qi Condensation — Level 2.]
[Energy reserve capacity increased by 80%.]
[Level 1 Radar Mode range expanded to 150 meters.]
The crystalline blue panel flickered before his eyes before vanishing. Shen Tian stood up, making the joints of his shoulders creak with a dry snap. He wiped the toxic sweat from his skin using a dry cloth and analyzed his condition with a calculating grimace.
The power system in this world was simple in its basic structure, but ruthless in its execution. The Qi Condensation Realm consisted of nine levels, dedicated exclusively to cleansing the meridians and tempering mortal bones.
Above it lay the Foundation Establishment Realm, where gaseous energy condensed into liquid within the dantian, granting longevity and true mastery of immortal martial arts. Beyond that lay the legendary Golden Core Realm, a domain reserved for the patriarchs of the major sects.
With a Fourth-Grade Spiritual Root, the biological destiny of any common cultivator was to remain stagnant at the Ninth Level of Qi Condensation, the leap to Foundation Establishment a locked gate.
Nature was stingy with the mediocre. Taking three years to rise a single level was the standard for trash like him.
However, having reached Level 2 in barely two days came from optimizing breathing to one hundred percent and employing the knowledge of his past life, a triumph of accumulated experience.
Even so, the advantage was fragile.
Shen Tian contemplated his current balance in the system: 350 Suppression Points. Although the figure granted him room to maneuver, the alleys had given him everything they had to offer.
He had squeezed the city’s periphery dry. If he remained on the outskirts of Dust Border City, sooner or later the Zhao Family would discover the disappearance of the Bloody Heart Jade Fragment.
Fighting a local noble family with such scant reserves and a body barely beginning to strengthen was a death sentence.
He needed mid-grade purifying pills, a martial attack method, and, above all, official cover that would keep the local hunters at a distance.
"The Jinyun Sect," he murmured to himself, adjusting the rope belt around his ragged tunic.
Today was the day. He remembered it from his past life: the Jinyun recruitment in Dust Border City always fell on the same date.
Once every three years, the orthodox sects of the region sent representatives to the border cities to recruit new talents. In his past life, the Iron Cloud Sect held sole recruitment rights in this area. But that was decades later. Now, the Jinyun held a presence here.
More prestigious. More demanding. In his first life, being accepted was pure fantasy.
Entering the Jinyun Sect, even as a humble outer disciple, would grant him the legal framework and minimum resources to accelerate his cultivation while keeping his movements discreet.
Shen Tian left the barn and walked toward the urban center.
As he advanced, the contrast of Dust Border City became grotesque. He left behind the putrid mud, the open sewers, and the rotting wooden shacks of the slums to enter the cobblestone avenues of the central district. Here, pavilions of carved wood rose several stories high, decorated with red silk banners and paper lanterns.
Wealthy merchants dressed in fine linen tunics walked escorted by servants, while the aroma of roasted meat and refined wine replaced the smell of ash from the periphery.
The Great Central Plaza was packed with people. Hundreds of youths, accompanied by their families, crowded around an elevated white marble platform.
The sons of noble families wore ostentatious garments and displayed low-level protection amulets, while a handful of boys from the poor districts remained grouped at the edges, watching the scene with a mixture of envy and submission.
Suddenly, the murmur of the crowd died out.
A sharp whistle tore through the air above the plaza. The atmospheric pressure seemed to drop drastically when three trails of bluish light cut through the morning clouds, descending at a terrifying speed toward the platform.
They were cultivators on flying swords.
The weapons, made of a spiritual steel so polished that it reflected the sun’s rays like lightning, descended in a perfect spiral before leveling off three meters above the ground.
The three men atop them wore identical white and silver tunics, embroidered with the insignia of a cloud pierced by a lightning bolt: the seal of the Jinyun Sect.
Upon touching land, the swords detached from their feet with a metallic sound and slid on their own into the leather scabbards strapped to their backs.
A wave of compressed air expanded from the altar, forcing the mortals in the front rows to drop to their knees out of pure survival instinct. The aura of those cultivators was heavy, suffocating for the crowd of unpurified bodies.
Shen Tian held his position at the back of the crowd, leaning against a wooden column, and activated Level 1 Radar Mode.
His vision instantly tinted with cold tones. The system translated the energy of the three newcomers into floating labels: the two younger disciples, with haughty faces, were at Level 6 of the Qi Condensation Realm, with auras of a pale but steady blue. However, the elderly man leading them—a deacon with a dark blue tunic and a meticulously trimmed gray beard—emitted a dense golden light that made the margins of his interface flicker.
[Entity detected: Recruitment Deacon.]
[Cultivation Realm: Foundation Establishment — Initial Level.]
[Estimated risk in direct combat: Lethal.]
Shen Tian deactivated the function to save energy and kept his gaze lowered, adopting the posture of a frightened spectator while analyzing the blind spots of the platform.
The elderly deacon stepped forward. His voice, amplified by Qi, resonated in everyone’s ears like the strike of a bronze bell.
"The Jinyun Sect seeks quality above quantity," declared the elder, his gaze sweeping over the thousands of aspirants with faint disdain. "Passive talent carries little weight. The mind’s discipline to control energy matters far more. Today we will evaluate the Spiritual Root, and above all, the mastery of density."