The silence of his room evaporated beneath the sudden roar within his soul.
Sitting cross-legged upon his bed, Lucien kept his eyes firmly shut.
The single pinprick of light spun in the black depths of his lower abdomen, radiating an intoxicating, primeval warmth.
It was fragile, barely larger than a speck of dust, yet it exerted an impossible pull on his consciousness.
Lucien narrowed his focus, driving his intent deeper into the blazing imprint branded upon his soul: Primordial Genesis Art.
The golden characters flared.
They dissolved like liquid sunfire, washing through his mind in a cascade of deafening resonance.
It wasn’t a voice—it was a decree of existence itself, chanting directly into the bedrock of his consciousness:
“I am the primeval dawn, the silent dusk. I am the breath of the high heavens, the abyss beneath all hells. I am the vessel, I am the void, I am the living Cosmos. Before the world drew breath, I was The One.”
The chant echoed across his sea of consciousness, sending a chill racing through his spine.
As the final words settled, the golden light recombined, revealing a colossal ancient scroll made of pure cosmic intent.
A title etched in starlight unrolled before his inner vision:
Primordial Genesis Art — Volume One: Genesis Foundation (Stellar System).
The principles of the scripture began to unfurl, and Lucien’s breath caught in his throat.
In the Triad Kingdom, and indeed across the entire Eastern Continent, cultivation began by drawing external Qi from nature through one’s pores, guiding it into meridians, and storing it within the dantian like water filling an earthen jar.
Every manual in the David Clan’s ancestral library preached the same dogma: the dantian is a vessel, limited by mortal flesh.
This scripture ridiculed that entire concept.
“Turn the dantian into boundless void. Ignite a core star at its heart, and birth nine planetary orbits to circle its radiance. Let flesh become the cosmos, and let a solar system be born within mortal clay.”
Create a solar system… inside my dantian?
Lucien’s heart hammered against his ribs.
A star.
Nine orbiting worlds.
It was utter madness.
If he spoke these words aloud in the ancestral hall, the elders wouldn’t merely think he was crippled—they would assume the fever had shattered his mind.
Yet the scripture was not theoretical.
It laid out a complete, terrifyingly methodical path, revealing that each of the great martial realms possessed its own exclusive divine technique tailored to this cosmic architecture.
Right now, locked at the very starting line, the scripture opened its first gate:
Sub-Technique: Stellar Body Tempering.
Lucien absorbed the details, his mind trembling as the scope of the technique revealed itself.
Throughout the Eastern Continent, the first step of cultivation was the Body Tempering Realm.
Common practitioners tempered their skin, muscles, and flesh nine times across nine distinct levels.
Exceptional geniuses—like his mother, Leona David, in her prime—managed to break through the natural ceiling, achieving a legendary tenth level through a tenth tempering.
Ten temperings were considered the absolute limit of mortal flesh before advancing into the Bone Forging Realm.
The Stellar Body Tempering technique, however, tore down that limit entirely.
It required the cultivator to abandon ordinary earthly Qi and instead harness raw stellar energy.
Like the other geniuses of the world, it also possessed ten levels.
But within every single level, the practitioner had to temper their body nine separate times using celestial fire.
Ten levels.
Nine temperings per level.
Ninety temperings.
By the time he completed the Body Tempering Realm, his flesh would not simply be strong—it would be tempered ninety times over, forged to withstand the terrifying gravitational weight of an entire burning star inside his dantian.
Lucien slowly opened his eyes.
The room was bathed in the soft morning sun, serene and peaceful.
Yet beneath his ribs, his blood was singing.
For fifteen years, he had been an anomaly in Aurora City—a clan leader’s grandson who couldn’t gather a speck of Qi, an unspoken sorrow to his grandfather Lucas, his uncles, and his mother.
Now, he looked down at his pale, trembling palms.
He didn’t have defective meridians.
His mortal shell had simply been far too weak to ignite the cosmos waiting within him.
Taking a deep, resolute breath, Lucien straightened his spine and prepared to draw his first breath of celestial light.