Chapter 3:
The First Test – Touch of Qi
The clouds parted like curtains being drawn aside.The flying sword broke through the gray-white ocean above and slid down toward the solid world below.
Wind, which had howled in Lin's ears just moments ago, began to thin and soften, its biting edge turning into a gentle mountain breeze.The blade slowed.
Its speed bled away gradually, like an arrow losing force after striking a shield. The landscape stopped being a smear of color and lines. Shapes separated
. Edges sharpened.Lin felt the change clearly.Earlier, the sky and earth had been nothing but flowing strokes; now the world seemed to pause and reveal itself one detail at a time.The first thing he saw was stone.
A vast platform of pale jade-like rock spread beneath them, its surface smooth and gleaming faintly, as if it had been polished for centuries by invisible hands.
Strange patterns were carved into it—lines and circles, complex and interlocking—just shallow enough to be decoration, yet precise enough to hint at function.Then his gaze rose.The gate appeared.
It did not simply stand—it loomed, a presence as much as an object.Two colossal doors, each as tall as a tower, rose from the stone platform, embedded into the mountain itself. At a distance, Lin had thought the gate large.
Up close, that judgment became laughable.
The sheer scale made him feel like a grain of sand before a cliff wall.Dragons and phoenixes coiled across the doors, their bodies carved with such exquisite detail that each scale looked like it had weight and warmth.
Their eyes, made of inlaid black jade, seemed to glimmer faintly, as if something behind the stone was watching.Between those carvings, lines and symbols that Lin did not understand flowed like rivers and streams.
They twisted, branched, recombined—a language written in qi patterns and ancient design.The mountain range behind the gate was no longer just a distant silhouette.
Peaks rose like silent guardians, their slopes cloaked in forests and mist. The closer he was, the more he felt… pressure.It wasn't visible, but it pressed lightly on his skin, as if the entire mountain .For a moment, Lin did nothing.
He merely stood on the flying sword as it hovered a short distance from the platform, and he stared.
His heart, which had pounded wildly in fear and excitement during the flight, quieted. Not because he was calm—but because the sight before him pushed everything else aside.This… is a sect.
Not a word whispered in merchant taverns.Not a description in battered, third-hand cultivation novels.
Not a vague image from his imagination.A reality.The sword descended one final time, touching down with a soft, almost inaudible sound.
Lin's feet met solid stone. His knees bent reflexively, absorbing the impact.The moment his soles pressed into that jade-like platform, a shiver ran through him.
The stone wasn't just stone.Something in it thrummed faintly, like a silent heartbeat.He looked down, puzzled.The carvings. The patterns.
He had seen the same sense of quiet intent on his father's face when the man examined a ledger that decided the fate of a caravan. Here, it was carved into the ground itself.He took a slow breath.
Cool air flowed into his lungs, filled with a subtle sweetness. The air of a place saturated with qi was different than the air of a dusty trading town.
"Young master."The Guide Uncle's voice came from his side, pulling Lin back from his thoughts.Lin turned.
The man's merchant robe fluttered gently in the breeze. The crescent emblem over his heart was steady, cool in its quietness.
"It's time for us to part," the Guide Uncle said.Lin felt something in his chest tighten."So soon?" he asked softly.He knew, of course, that this would happen. He had not expected the man to accompany him into the inner workings of the sect.
Even so, hearing the words made reality settle more firmly.From here on… I walk alone.The Guide Uncle nodded."I cannot accompany you further," he said. "The outer gate is a boundary between worlds.
Beyond it, the sect's rules are no longer suggestions.
They are iron."He paused, as if weighing his words."From the moment you step through that gate, your steps will be recorded by this sect—whether they are heavy or light, wise or foolish.
We Crescents can protect you outside, and we can support you in certain matters inside… but the path itself is yours.
"Lin lowered his eyes for a heartbeat, then raised them again."This is enough," he said.
"You have brought me here. The rest… I will take myself."The Guide Uncle looked at him for a long moment, his gaze deeper than before.
Then, unexpectedly, he smiled—not the polite, professional smile of a merchant, but something more genuine and weary."That cliff," he said quietly, "that you climbed in blood… it was not something most children could do.
"Lin blinked."You saw?" he asked.
"I was not the only one." The man's eyes flickered toward the high sky, as if acknowledging unseen watchers. "Remember that the sect sees more than you do. It forgets less than you hope.
"He straightened his robe."We will meet again," he said. "Whether as fellow Crescent… or as elder and disciple… or perhaps not at all. That depends on you."Lin opened his mouth—to thank him, to ask his name, to say something that would place this moment into memory properly.
The Guide Uncle's figure shimmered.Like ink thinning in water, his outlines blurred at the edges, then faded.
Lin watched, spine stiff, as the familiar presence dissolved into the wind.In a breath, there was nothing.No scent.No sound.No trace.
As if the man had never stood there at all.For a few seconds, Lin stood frozen.The emptiness left behind was sharp. But it was a clean sharpness, not the dull ache of loss.
More like the cut of a sword, drawing a clear line between "before" and "after."He looked back at the gate.The dragons and phoenixes did not move, but their carved gazes seemed to sink into him.He stepped forward
.One step.Two steps.Ten.He walked until he stood directly beneath those towering doors.
From this angle, he had to crane his neck just to see the upper carvings.He placed his hand on the stone
.It was cool and impossibly solid under his palm.He did not know if there was some protocol.
Kneel? Bow? Speak? He did what felt natural.He bowed.Then he walked through.There was no sound of grinding stone.
No visible opening. The gate did not swing aside.Instead, the space a few steps ahead of him rippled faintly, like the surface of a pond disturbed by a stone.
The carvings blurred and stretched. Colors warped.Lin stepped into that distortion without hesitation.For a heartbeat, his body felt… wrong.Not pain.
Not cold.Just a sensation of being in two places at once, then in no place at all.Then the world snapped back into focus.The first impression that hit him was noise.Voices. Footsteps. Distant shouts.
The clatter of wood against wood. The faint ringing of steel.The second impression was smell.Ink.
Herbs. Oiled wood. Cooked food.The third was sight.The inside of the Nine Jade Peak Sect was not a single, towering temple or a solemn, empty mountain.It was… alive.
He stood at the edge of a wide stone street that curved gently around the mountainside. Multi-story buildings lined both sides—some simple and square, others elegant with sweeping roofs and carved window frames.
Disciples in various robes walked by. Some carried bundles of bamboo scrolls. Some balanced trays of porcelain bottles.
Some had swords slung over their backs, hilts peeking over their shoulders like silent warnings.A group of inner disciples in blue-trimmed robes passed close, laughter subdued but present.
They did not spare more than a glance for Lin.To his left, a shop front displayed rows of glittering talismans behind a counter.
The air there shimmered faintly, as if something inside those pieces of paper and metal still breathed.
To his right, a stone path led upward, flanked by jade lanterns whose flames burned without smoke.Farther away, he caught a glimpse of a tall building whose door was half-open. Inside, shelves of scrolls and books climbed the walls.
The faint scent drifting out from that direction was the same scent that had lingered on old ledgers in the Crescent Traders' hall—multiplied a hundredfold and strengthened by age.Library.
The word formed in his mind, and a small excitement stirred in his chest.Above all, unseen but felt, qi breathed through this place.It flowed along the streets as if following invisible channels.
It pooled in courtyards. It seeped from certain buildings like light leaking from beneath a door.
The difference between the outside world and this place was like the difference between air and a storm.On a nearby wall, a wooden notice board hung, half-covered in posted announcements.Lin walked over.
The characters on the board were written neatly."Outer Sect Admission – Final Evaluation Ground: Cloud-Shear Plateau."An arrow scribed beneath the text pointed toward a path leading deeper into the mountain range.
The words were simple, but to Lin, they felt heavier than any ledger entry had ever looked.Final evaluation.
What stands between me and entering this world… is there.He did not linger.
His fingers touched the jade tablet hidden under his robe for reassurance, then left it alone. The token from the cliff climber at the hidden trial was there. The jade of the Crescents pressed cool against his skin.
These were his ties.He followed the arrows.The main road gradually narrowed.
Buildings grew sparser, replaced by stone steps that clung to the mountain. The murmur of voices faded, replaced by wind and the occasional distant cry of a bird.The higher he climbed, the clearer the air felt.
Not cleaner.Clearer.Less weighed down by the daily movements of hundreds of people, more saturated with something else—qi, drifting and moving in patterns he could not yet see.After some time, the stone steps ended.The path opened.
He emerged onto a flattened mountain top.It was like stepping into a meadow placed atop solid stone.
The ground had been leveled and smoothed, but no harsh flagstones marred it. Instead, a carpet of grass covered the entire plateau
.Soft green blades, thick and healthy, swayed in the wind. Under his feet, the ground felt springy, almost warm—as if a living blanket had been laid over the mountain."This is… nice," Lin found himself thinking, almost involuntarily.
There was a subtle warmth here that did not come only from the oon. The qi on this plateau did not press down heavily. Instead, it rose gently from the ground and drifted through the air like breath in and out.
He was not alone.Hundreds of youths stood across the plateau.Some wore rough, patched clothes. Some had neat outfits with subtle embroidery that spoke of minor wealth.
A few displayed the marks of small clans—a crest here, an emblem there.They gathered in loose lines, roughly converging toward the center.
Their expressions varied.Some stood stiff, eyes darting around, nervousness thinly veiled.Some stood relaxed, gaze distant, as if they had seen too many of such occasions.Some puffed out their chests, masking insecurity with noise.
Lin walked over to where one line formed and took his place
.A few heads turned.A boy with broad shoulders and a small scar on his cheek glanced him up and down, eyes lingering for a moment on his plain clothes and thin frame.Then he looked away.
Another youth, slightly older, gave Lin a once-over, lips curling faintly into an expression that hovered between disdain and amusement.Lin did not respond.He did not flare up; he did not flinch.
He simply shifted his stance until his footing felt stable, then relaxed his shoulders.The grass brushed his ankles.The wind tugged gently at his hair.Time stretched.Half an hour passed.Nothing happened.The plateau filled slowly, then began to thin. The chatter grew louder."Is this some kind of joke?""No elder has appeared. Did we come to the wrong place?""My clan elder said the Nine Jade Peak Sect was strict, not… rude.""They make us stand here like livestock.
If they think they can treat me like this, then—""Then what? You'll walk away? Hah.
"The irritation in the air thickened. Some youths, frowning deeply, began to drift away."We must have made a mistake," one said loudly.
"Let's go back and ask.""If they can't even keep their time, what sort of sect is this?" another muttered, already walking off.One left.Two left.Ten.It was small at first, then grew.
The first to go opened the path. Others, who had up until that moment been enduring silently, saw them and wavered.A few gritted their teeth and stayed.Most watched others leave, hesitated, then followed.
The mind that could endure discomfort for some abstract future was rarer than the mind that sought immediate relief from annoyance.
Lin stood where he was.His back did not ache. Standing still was far easier than walking for five days or clawing up a cliff face. If he could endure that, what was an hour of waiting?Yet the test was not in whether his legs would hold.It was in whether his mind would.
He watched silently as the line grew shorter, numbers thinning like fog under sunlight.After about an hour, only a few hundred remained.
The plateau, which had seemed crowded, now felt spacious.The ones who stayed did not all look calm. Some shifted from foot to foot, others clenched their fists, others simply stared ahead, jaw tight. But they stayed.
The wind changed.It was subtle.The whisper against his skin grew slightly colder, then warmer. A faint, almost imperceptible pressure brushed the top of his head.Lin lifted his eyes.
The sky above the plateau had remained clear this entire time—no clouds passing directly overhead, though they drifted around the surrounding peaks.
In that clear blue, something stirred.Sound came first."All the useless have left.
"The voice did not come from a throat.It came from the air.It carried no echo, yet it seemed to strike every ear directly.
The words were not loud, but they fell into the silence like stones dropped into a still lake.Conversations died instantly.
Lin felt the hair on the back of his neck rise
.A figure appeared in the sky.There was no flash, no explosion. He was simply there, where nothing had been a heartbeat earlier.An old man floated in the air, robes billowing gently, as if standing on an invisible platform high above them.His hair was white, but not sparse.
It flowed down his back, tied with a simple strip of cloth. His face bore the traces of age—notably at the corners of his eyes and mouth—but the bone structure beneath was sharp, not yet gentled by time.
He wore a silky white robe embroidered with a dragon that wound from his chest to his shoulder and down one arm.
The dragon's scales caught the light, giving the illusion of motion as the fabric shifted.His eyes were dark.Not cloudy, not rheumy.Clear. Quiet. Deep.He looked down at the plateau, and for a moment, Lin had the distinct impression that the man wasn't seeing bodies standing on grass
.He was seeing something else.Lines.Numbers.Possibilities.The man descended slowly, as if gravity were a suggestion he chose to obey.He touched down lightly, the grass beneath his feet bending just slightly and then straightening again.
No one spoke.The silence was almost thick enough to touch."I am Fang Zhaou," the old man said.
His tone was even, devoid of any attempt at gentleness. "I will be your judge for the entrance test."Fang Zhaou.The name struck Lin with unusual force.
His father's words surfaced again.In our world, a true name is only given to those who have achieved great merit, or reached above the Soul Harmony level.That meant something.This man was not a minor elder. He was not a clerk recording names at a registration desk. He was someone the sect considered worthy of being known by name.Lin's fingers curled slightly.
To stand before such a person—even as a speck in a crowd—was to stand closer to his goal than he had ever been.No one dared speak.Lin wanted to bow, to greet him, to show respect, but when he opened his mouth, no sound came.
His tongue felt… heavy, as if the air itself had grown thick inside his throat.His confusion lasted only a fraction of a second."That's better," Fang Zhaou said mildly, though his eyes were cold. "Be silent for a while."It wasn't a suggestion.It was a command carried by qi.The realization came belatedly.
It's not that I couldn't speak… It's that he didn't allow it.Power was not always screamed or thrown.
Sometimes it was as simple as deciding whether the people in front of you could move or make a sound."We will skip further introductions," Fang Zhaou continued. "You are not yet worthy of them."No one protested.No one dared to feel offended aloud."Now," he said, "we move directly to the test.
"He let his gaze travel over them slowly, unhurried, as if he had all the time in the world.
When his eyes brushed past Lin, the boy's skin tingled, as if a blade of cold wind had brushed over his face."Your test is simple, in words," Fang Zhaou said. "You will sense the qi around you… and draw the faintest trace into your body.
"He lifted a hand, fingers relaxed."Those who can complete this within one hour will receive a special reward. Five hours is your limit. At the end of those five, if you have not succeeded, you will leave."He dropped his hand."Begin.
"The pressure that had held their tongues eased.The plateau moved.Some participants sank into the grass almost instantly, cross-legged and stern-faced, as if they had rehearsed this posture countless times in private.
Some looked around, hesitated, then imitated them clumsily. Legs folded. Backs straightened or hunched.Lin sat down.His legs crossed one over the other in a position he had seen in his past life's novels and again in this world, when elders meditated or merchants prayed.The grass was soft beneath him.
The earth was firm under the grass.
The wind pressed against one side of his face, then shifted and touched the other.He closed his eyes.He thought of his father's voice."Talent can be excused. But understanding is absolute.
A dull blade can still cut if guided correctly. A sharp blade in ignorant hands breaks itself."Understanding.What was there to understand here?
Qi."What is qi?" he asked himself silently.Not in the way of someone reciting memorized lines, but as someone truly trying to answer.In all the stories he had read, in the half-worn books traded in shadowed corners of markets, qi was always… everything.The breath of heaven and earth.
The energy that supported existence.The invisible sea in which all living things floated.
Cultivators sensed it, then learned to absorb it, guide it, refine it, compress it, transform it. They turned something formless into strength, into light, into weight.If qi is everywhere, he thought, then it's not something that appears when I sit like this. It's already here. I'm the one who isn't seeing it
.He let his breathing slow.In.Out.In.Out.On the other side of the plateau, Fang Zhaou remained standing. His hands slipped behind his back again. His eyes narrowed slightly.
The pupils of his eyes changed.From the vantage point of any normal observer, there was no difference. They were just dark eyes, watching.But if one could see through qi, they would have noticed something:
The qi in the air above the plateau began to glow faintly in Fang Zhaou's vision.Threads. Wisps. Currents.
He had activated a technique—Qi Eyes.Through this technique, the chaotic, invisible sea of qi resolved into visible flow.
He saw how it drifted aimlessly, how it occasionally curled and twisted, how rarely, very rarely, it moved toward a particular participant, drawn by some subtle resonance
.He watched.His expression did not change.Inside, he was already judging.Most of them… nothing.
Their bodies are like stones in a river. The water flows past without touching.He had seen this scene many times over the decades.
Children who believed themselves destined for greatness, unable even to feel the first ripple.
A handful of those present had some faint effect.
The qi hesitated around them, as if noticing their attempts to reach. It swirled a little closer, then slid away again, like a curious fish that decided against biting.
Modified breathing techniques, Fang Zhaou thought, recognizing certain patterns in their movements. Crude, but better than nothing.His gaze moved briefly from cluster to cluster.And then paused.His attention settled on Lin.
At first, there was nothing special. A small boy, sitting cross-legged, clothes plain, posture decent. The qi around him did not flare.
It did not gather dramatically or rush toward him.He looks too calm for his age, Fang Zhaou noted. The kind of calm that's either false bravado… or something else.He did not focus solely on Lin. He watched all of them, but Lin remained in one corner of his perception.
On the ground, Lin pushed thoughts aside.He tried to "sense" qi.He imagined waves brushing against him.Nothing.He imagined light touching him.Nothing.He imagined currents circling his body.Nothing.
The more he tried, the more empty everything felt.His awareness was drawn constantly back to things he could feel—the faint discomfort in his back, the itch on his nose, the sound of someone shifting nearby, the murmur of breath, the faint whisper of cloth.
This isn't working.His breathing grew shallow.He forced it back into rhythm.He repeated the thought: Qi is everywhere. Qi is everywhere. Qi is every—A breeze passed over the plateau.It wasn't particularly strong, but it was clear.It brushed against his face, lifted strands of his hair, slipped under his collar.
It carried the scent of the grass, the faint coldness of high altitude, a hint of distant water.Lin's eyes opened.He did not see qi.
He saw the same plateau, the same youths, the same old man.But that breeze…He could not see it, yet he had felt it distinctly.He frowned slightly.Is qi like that?Invisible… yet undeniable?If my eyes and ears keep dragging my attention outward, he thought,
how will I ever sense something as subtle as qi?Decisions, once made, came to him quickly.
He bent down, fingers brushing through the grass until they closed around two small stones.He lifted them.Then, without hesitation, he pressed them into his ears.The world's sounds dulled.The faint shuffle of grass, the small coughs, the shifting of clothes—all muted.He closed his eyes again.No sight.
No clear sound.Only touch.From a distance, a few participants noticed his movements and exchanged brief, puzzled glances.On the edge of the plateau, Fang Zhaou's gaze sharpened.Oh?He watched the boy press stones into his ears and seal away sound, then close his eyes—shutting sight. Only one sense remained open in full: touch.Blocking your other senses, leaving only feeling, hm?
The corners of Fang Zhaou's mouth moved slightly. That alone will not open qi to you. But at least one among you thought of quieting the noise first.Noise.Sight, sound, smell—all were noise when one tried to sense something as faint as qi for the first time.
On the plateau, in his small cocoon of dull sound and thick darkness, Lin breathed.In.Out.The warmth of the oon above kissed the skin of his face.The coolness of the breeze brushed over his arms.
The soft, tiny tickle of grass stroked his bare ankles.He kept his body still, letting his awareness stretch outward, not forced, not yanked.He did not "reach" for qi, not like grabbing at the air.He simply waited.Time trickled.
His mind wanted to wander. It wanted to replay memories of the road, of his father's stern face, his mother's tears.He let them pass, then let them go.Gradually, his breathing synced with something larger.Wind came.Wind left.Somewhere in between, something else brushed against him.
It was extremely faint.If the breeze was a slap of cool air, this was a ghost of warmth.
Like a thin, warm thread, no thicker than a hair, brushing against the surface of his skin near his forearm. Not hot enough to burn. Not steady enough to hold. Just a momentary touch.His heart lurched
.He did not move.He kept his eyes shut. He kept his muscles relaxed. Only his consciousness shifted.Gently, very gently, he focused on that sensation without gripping it too tightly.The warmth floated, about to drift away.He reached with his mind, as if extending empty hands under dripping water
.Let it in.He did not imagine grabbing. He imagined opening.The warmth hesitated.Then, as if a door had quietly opened, it slipped through his skin.A prickling sensation crawled under the surface, not entirely comfortable but not painful. It moved slowly, like a tiny ember being pushed along by a weak wind.It reached his chest.His heart beat, sending small shocks through it.
It went lower.Settling somewhere around his lower abdomen before dissipating completely.The sensation vanished.Lin sat.The plateau's breeze still brushed his face. The oon still shone above.His body felt the same.But something inside him had been… touched.That was…Qi.
The realization came not as a revelation, but as a quiet, solid certainty.He had felt it.He had let a trace of it enter him.He did not know whether this amount could do anything. It was likely too small to change anything physically.
But it wasn't about quantity.It was about possibility.On the plateau's edge, Fang Zhaou watched the qi flows with his Qi Eyes.He saw it.Barely.A thin wisp of qi, which had been drifting lazily above the grass, altered course slightly. It brushed against a small figure sitting cross-legged, eyes shut, ears blocked.
For a moment, it seemed ready to continue drifting.Then something about the boy changed.His mind's statef had shifted from desperate grasping to quiet openness. Even without cultivated pathways, the body responded
.The wisp dipped.It passed through the boy's skin.Fang Zhaou's eyes narrowed a fraction.Found it.He watched the small thread slide along crude, unformed routes in the flesh, then sink uncertainly toward the lower abdomen and disperse.
A single trace was nothing.But first steps were always nothing, in a quantitative sense.He lifted his hand.The boy who still sat with stones in his ears vanished from the plateau.Space twisted.The grass under Lin's legs disappeared. The wind pattern changed. The warmth of the oon shifted direction.He opened his eyes instinctively.The first thing he saw was wood
.Polished wooden boards beneath his feet, darkened by age, the grain visible in smooth lines. He could feel them faintly even through his sandals.The second thing he saw was water.He stood in the center of a pavilion.
It was small—not tiny, but modest. Four pillars held up the curved roof, one at each corner.
There were no walls. The air flowed freely from all sides.Beyond those open sides, there was only water.Water in every direction.It spread out like a mirror laid beneath the sky, so flat that he could see the reflection of clouds drifting slowly above.
The color of the lake shifted with depth—from pale near the surface to darker tones where it faded into distance.Mist clung lightly to the surface in certain places, thin threads rising and falling as if breathing.Lin turned slowly.
There was no immediate shore.No line of trees.No rocky bank.Only water and, far away in some direction he couldn't properly measure, the vague silhouette of mountains blurred by distance and mist.The air here was different.It was thick.Not in a suffocating way, but in density.
Every breath he drew filled his lungs not just with air, but with something heavier.Qi.Unlike the plateau, where qi had drifted like faint mist, here it was like standing in a pool, the water lapping at his waist. He could not yet see it, but he could feel it pressing gently against his skin.
He drew in a breath.It felt like drinking something hot and smooth."A lake…" he whispered, almost involuntarily.
His voice sounded small and strangely clear amidst the vast quiet.His mind linked what he saw with what his father had once described—the words spoken in their courtyard under a common sky.
"There is a lake of qi as vast as our whole house, perhaps far greater. In the valley between the nine peaks, the Sect Leader herself lives there…"A lake between nine peaks.
The Nine Jade Peak Sect, described by people as "the nine peaks of knowledge and the lake of enlightenment."Understanding slotted into place like a key turning in a lock.Lin's thoughts froze.This…This can't be…He stood there, in the open pavilion at the center of the endless water, the dense qi around him almost humming.
His fingers curled slowly at his sides.His heart pounded once, twice, each beat loud in his ears.Because deep down, with the instinct of someone who had read too many stories and who had now walked among too many small miracles—He already knew what this place might be.He was standing in the center of the lake.
The lake of qi.The lake of enlightenment.The place where, according to rumor, the Sect Leader herself resided.And he had been brought here… after a mere entrance test