The Cloud-Mist Sect sat atop the Azure Pillars, five mountain peaks that pierced the heavens like the fingers of a jade giant. For most, it was a land of immortality, where elders rode cranes and disciples summoned lightning. For Wei Chen, it was a prison of stone and brooms.
At eighteen, Wei Chen was still a “First Level Mortal Foundation” practitioner—a polite way of saying he was a servant. His spirit root was a blackened, withered thing that leaked Qi as fast as he could gather it. The other disciples called him “The Ash-Bound,” a reminder that he was nothing more than the residue of a failed fire.
“Still sweeping, Wei Chen?” a mocking voice rang out.
Wei Chen didn’t look up. He knew the voice. Lu Feng, the son of the Outer Hall Elder, stood there in shimmering silk robes. Lu Feng was already at the seventh level of Qi Condensation.
“The stairs won’t clean themselves, Senior Brother,” Wei Chen said tonelessly.
Lu Feng kicked Wei Chen’s bucket, spilling the water across the freshly scrubbed stone. “A waste of effort. Just like your cultivation. Why do you stay? You’ll be dead of old age before you even form a Spiritual Sea.”
Wei Chen waited for them to leave, his knuckles white around the broom handle. He didn’t stay out of hope; he stayed because he had nowhere else to go. His village had been razed by demonic cultivators when he was a child. The sect was his only shelter, however cold it might be.
That evening, a sudden tremor shook the Azure Pillars. A streak of crimson light shot across the sky, crashing into the Forbidden Ravine—a place of lethal mists where no disciple was allowed. While the Elders flew toward the site on their swords, something tugged at Wei Chen’s chest. For the first time in his life, his withered spirit root throbbed.
Driven by an inexplicable compulsion, Wei Chen bypassed the guards by crawling through the narrow drainage tunnels. He descended into the ravine, the air growing thick with a heat that should have incinerated him. At the bottom of a fresh crater lay a small, jagged stone that glowed with the intensity of a dying star.
As Wei Chen reached out, the stone didn’t burn him. It hummed.
“Found… a vessel…” a voice echoed in his mind, ancient and burning.
The stone dissolved into liquid gold, surging into Wei Chen’s palm and racing up his arm. He screamed as his withered spirit root was not healed, but utterly consumed. In its place, a miniature sun ignited. The “Cinder Root” was gone; the Ember of the Primordial Sun had taken its place.