The biting wind of the high peaks was a constant companion to the disciples of the Iron Peak Sect, but for Jian Feng, it felt personal. Each gust seemed to mock him, a reminder of the heights from which he had fallen. Three years ago, his name was spoken with reverence. At fourteen, he had been the first in a century to reach the Foundation Establishment realm, the sect’s unparalleled genius. Now, at seventeen, he was the sect’s resident ghost, a cautionary tale whispered among the new disciples.
His days were a monotonous cycle of grueling, spiritless labor. Today’s task was sweeping the vast plaza of the Outer Court, a job reserved for the most talentless newcomers. The rhythmic scratch of his bamboo broom against the cold stone was the soundtrack to his disgrace. He kept his head down, his face hidden by a curtain of unkempt black hair, avoiding the pitying and scornful glances of other disciples as they walked past, their robes clean, their spiritual energy vibrant.
A group of them, led by a burly youth named Pang Wei, stopped near him. “Well, if it isn’t the great genius Jian Feng,” Pang Wei sneered, his voice dripping with contempt. “Still sweeping, I see. It’s the only thing your crippled body is good for now, isn’t it?”
Jian Feng’s hands tightened on the broom handle, but he didn’t look up. He didn’t have the energy to spare. Any spiritual energy he managed to absorb would leak from his shattered Dantian like water from a sieve. His spiritual core, the very foundation of a cultivator, was a ruin of fractured crystal within him.
The memory was as sharp as the day it happened. The annual sect tournament. The final match. Him versus Zhao Jin. They had been rivals since childhood, but Jian Feng had always been a step ahead. That day, however, Zhao Jin’s power had surged unexpectedly. During a critical exchange of blows, Zhao Jin had used a ferociously powerful technique, the ‘Crushing Mountain Fist,’ and aimed it not at his chest or shoulder, but directly at his lower abdomen, his Dantian. The elders had ruled it an accident, a blow that had gone astray in the heat of battle. But Jian Feng had seen the cold, triumphant glint in Zhao Jin’s eyes as his core shattered.
Zhao Jin had been reprimanded lightly, while Jian Feng’s world had ended. Zhao Jin had since risen to become the sect’s new prodigy, basking in the glory that should have been Jian Feng’s. And Jian Feng was left with this broom and the endless wind.
“Leave him be, Pang Wei,” another disciple said, though his tone was more weary than compassionate. “He’s just a remnant.”
A remnant. The word cut deeper than any insult. It was what he was—a leftover piece of a once-glorious whole.
Pang Wei spat on the ground near Jian Feng’s feet before walking away, laughing with his friends. Jian Feng waited until they were gone before he finally let out a slow, shaky breath. He leaned against his broom, a wave of dizziness washing over him. His body was weak, constantly drained by the broken core that could no longer anchor his life force. The sect’s physicians had declared him hopeless. There was no medicine, no technique that could repair a shattered spiritual core.
That evening, after finishing his chores and eating a meager meal, he was given one final task: clear out the old scrolls from the long-abandoned Northern Scripture Pavilion. The building was deemed unsafe, its arrays had failed long ago, and it was scheduled for demolition. It was a dusty, thankless job no one else wanted.
He entered the decrepit, multi-story pagoda with a single flickering lantern. The air was thick with the smell of decay and ancient paper. He worked in silence, bundling rotting bamboo scrolls and crumbling texts. It was a graveyard of forgotten knowledge. As he reached the lowest level, a section of the floor, weakened by rot, gave way beneath his foot. He cried out as he plunged into a hidden sub-basement, landing hard on a stone floor in a cloud of dust.
His lantern had been extinguished, leaving him in absolute darkness. Groaning, he fumbled around until his hand brushed against not stone, but a smooth, cold metallic object. It was a small, locked chest. Prying it open with a loose floorboard, he found a single, thin scroll made not of paper or bamboo, but of a strange, grey, metallic hide.
He managed to re-light his lantern. In the flickering light, he unrolled the scroll. The text was archaic, written in a spidery, almost insane script. The title sent a jolt through his very soul.
The Art of the Meridian Blade: A Heretic’s Path for the Coreless.
His hands trembled as he read. The author was an elder from centuries ago who had been cast out for his unorthodox theories. He posited that the Dantian was a vessel, but not the only one. For those whose vessel was broken, another path existed—a path of excruciating pain and immense risk. The technique did not store Qi. It forged it. It involved drawing in spiritual energy and, through a brutal process of compression and refinement, forging it into a solid, razor-sharp sliver of “Blade Qi” directly within the spiritual meridians themselves.
The scroll warned that the process felt like having molten steel poured into one’s veins. Ninety-nine out of a hundred would die from the agony or from their meridians rupturing. But for the one who succeeded, their own spiritual pathways would become a network of hidden blades. They would need no spiritual core because their very body would become a weapon.
For a normal cultivator, this was madness. Why endure such a process when one could safely cultivate with a Dantian? But for Jian Feng, who had nothing, this madness was a lifeline. It was a single ray of light in his endless darkness. He sat there, in the forgotten basement, the dust of ages settling around him, and a fire he thought long extinguished began to burn in his eyes. He had been a remnant. But even a remnant of steel could be reforged into a blade.