The ancestral dining pavilion of the David Clan was illuminated by the soft, warm glow of luminous spirit stones embedded in the high timber rafters.
Once a week, without fail, the entire direct lineage gathered around a massive round table carved from fragrant sandalwood.
No matter how busy clan affairs were, Patriarch Lucas held this tradition sacred.
At the head of the table sat Lucas David, commanding and dignified, though his stern exterior had completely vanished in the warmth of his family.
To his right sat Lucien’s three uncles and their wives—Eldest Uncle John, Second Uncle Miller, and Third Uncle Kyle—alongside Lucien’s mother, Leona.
Her presence was quiet, radiant, and serene.
On the other side of the table sat the younger generation, chatting with lively energy.
Beside Lucien was Reiner, who was practically burying his face into a roasted boar thigh.
Next to him was Reiner’s sixteen-year-old sister, Isabella, who had already stepped into the seventh level of the Body Tempering Realm.
Further down sat Rovman, the seventeen-year-old only son of Second Uncle Miller, sitting tall with the proud aura of a peak ninth-level Body Tempering practitioner on the brink of breakthrough.
Beside him was sixteen-year-old Reaser, Third Uncle Kyle’s son, currently at the eighth level, playfully teasing his twelve-year-old little sister, Inoha.
Little Inoha, having begun her cultivation only two years ago, had already reached the second level and was happily gnawing on sweet spirit fruits..
The banquet was filled with laughter and the clinking of porcelain.
The clan’s mood was particularly buoyant tonight—news that Lucien was attempting to cultivate again had spread throughout the inner courts, bringing relief to everyone who cared for him.
Midway through the meal, Lucas placed his wine cup down, clearing his throat with a rumbling chuckle that quieted the table.
His dark, piercing eyes turned toward Lucien with affectionate curiosity.
“Lucien, my boy,” Lucas asked, stroking his neatly trimmed beard.
“Shopkeeper Vane sent word to the study earlier. He nearly lost his wits reporting that you emptied the pavilion’s vault of one hundred Body Tempering Pills. Mind telling your old grandfather what you plan to do with that mountain of medicine?”
The table instantly fell silent.
Uncle John lowered his chopsticks, and even little Inoha blinked her wide eyes in confusion.
One hundred pills was an astronomical amount for a mortal youth.
Lucien offered an easy, disarming smile.
He had anticipated this question hours ago.
“Grandfather, you know my meridians have been quiet for five years,” Lucien said smoothly, his voice devoid of deceit.
“Even if I attempt the foundation again, forcing pure medicinal power into my body could be disastrous. Along with consuming a controlled amount for tempering, I plan to dismantle and study the composition of the pills. I want to learn alchemy. If my martial path faces limits, understanding the sovereign art of pill-crafting will let me contribute to the family’s trade.”
Lucas’s eyes widened before lighting up with unbridled joy.
He slapped his thigh with a booming crack.
“An alchemist! Hahaha! Splendid!” Lucas beamed with genuine pride.
“An alchemist in the family holds higher status than ten martial fighters! Even if you only become an apprentice refiner, the David Clan will back you with every spirit herb in our treasury! Eat, eat! Fill your belly!”
Leona watched her son from across the table, her luminous blue eyes softening.
She didn’t press him, but the faint, knowing warmth in her gaze told Lucien she was simply glad to see purpose in his heart.
Midnight descended upon Aurora City.
A blanket of silence wrapped around the David Clan compound, broken only by the chirping of nocturnal insects and the rhythmic steps of the patrolling night guards.
Inside his quarters, Lucien stood motionless.
He wore dark, loose training robes, with the silk-lined wooden box holding ten porcelain bottles strapped tightly to his back.
He could not attempt this here.
The Primordial Genesis Art demanded the creation of an internal stellar core.
If the ignition is unstable, the resulting spiritual shockwave would shatter this entire pavilion to splinters and wake the entire estate.
Stepping out onto his balcony, Lucien slipped like a phantom through the shadows of the outer courtyard.
Taking advantage of the dense pine groves behind the estate, he vanished into the cool night air.
One mile east of the family grounds lay Mirror Lake, an isolated body of water fed by cold subterranean mountain springs.
Tall reeds and weeping willows flanked its shores, while the surrounding hills shielded the area from the city’s wandering scouts.
Lucien walked until the gravel turned damp beneath his boots.
The surface of the lake reflected the starry night sky like polished obsidian.
He sat down cross-legged on a flat, mossy boulder at the water’s edge.
The mountain wind whipped his white hair across his cheekbones as he took a deep, centering breath.
Unlatching the crate, he retrieved the first porcelain bottle.
He popped the wax seal, and a faint, herbal aroma drifted into the air.
He poured the first dark-crimson pill into his palm and swallowed it whole.
The medicinal essence dissolved on his tongue, a trickle of warm energy sliding down his throat.
Lucien immediately closed his eyes and began chanting the scripture embedded in his soul:
“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…”.
Nothing happened.
The warm wisp of medicinal Qi simply sank into the bottomless black abyss beneath his navel, swallowed up without leaving even a ripple.
Lucien didn’t hesitate.
He opened the next bottle, tipping ten pills into his hand and swallowing them in rapid succession.
The warmth turned into a burning current.
Yet, the moment the concentrated energy touched his dantian, the dark void devoured it instantly, vanishing like a drop of water splashed upon scorching desert sand.
Still nothing.
Twenty pills…
Thirty pills…
By the time he emptied the fifth bottle—fifty pills in total—a normal human body would have exploded from medicinal toxicity, blood vessels bursting through the skin.
But Lucien’s dantian remained a terrifying, insatiable maw of absolute nothingness.
Sixty…
Seventy…
Eighty…
Sweat began to bead on Lucien’s forehead.
The sheer density of medicine coursing through his throat began to make his mouth taste like bitter ash.
Eighty-five.
Eighty-seven.
Eighty-nine.
His hand reached for the final porcelain flask.
He pinched the ninetieth pill between his fingers, his blue eyes gleaming with cold determination under the starlight.
“Ignite,” he whispered, and swallowed the ninetieth pill.
BOOM!
A silent, cataclysmic explosion detonated within his lower abdomen..
The agony that followed was beyond anything mortal flesh was designed to endure.
It felt as though an invisible celestial hammer had slammed into his core, shattering the dark void into a swirling vortex.
The accumulated power of ninety Body Tempering Pills ignited all at once, superheating his blood into molten iron.
Lucien’s spine arched violently.
His veins bulged across his pale skin like glowing sapphire branches, and a guttural scream caught in his clenched teeth.
His vision blurred with searing white agony.
Every cell in his flesh, every fiber of his muscle was being torn apart and forcibly compressed by a terrifying gravitational pull originating from inside him.
Do not break!
Lucien roared mentally, biting his lip until iron-rich blood trickled down his chin.
Gritting his teeth through the blinding torture, he refused to lose consciousness.
He forced his mind to lock onto the cosmic scripture, his soul chanting like the chime of an ancient divine bell:
“I am the vessel! I am the void! I am the living Cosmos!”
The moment the chant resonated through the agony, an invisible vortex erupted around the lake.
Whoosh—!
The peaceful night air warped.
The ambient spiritual Qi floating over the mist-shrouded waters, thin though it was, began to swirl violently.
A spiraling storm of wind whipped across Mirror Lake, tearing reeds from the silt and generating massive ripples across the dark water.
The ambient energy of the surrounding mile didn’t gently flow into his pores—it was forcibly siphoned, violently dragged across the water’s surface and dragged straight into Lucien’s chest like water down an open drain.
For one excruciating hour, the storm raged.
The medicine was the fuel; the external Qi was the catalyst.
Within the pitch-black abyss of his dantian, the chaotic vortex was compressed smaller and smaller, crushed beneath an unfathomable, invisible gravity until it reached absolute critical density.
Then, the storm stopped.
The wind died.
The lake settled into glassy stillness.
Deep within the silent void beneath Lucien’s navel, where dead emptiness had reigned for fifteen years, a microscopic, incandescent spark ignited.
It was crimson—a speck of newborn stellar fire, burning steadily with the primal radiance of a primeval dawn.
Lucien slowly uncurled his trembling fingers, drawing a long, shuddering breath of night air.
The first spark of his personal cosmos had been born.