The mouth of the cave swallowed Lin without ceremony.Outside, sunlight lay on the mountain like warm silk. The lake reflected the sky.
The trees swayed gently, their leaves whispering a lazy peace. From a distance, this place looked like a paradise a poet would die for.Inside, it was something else.
The air was cool and clean, carrying the faint scent of wet stone and ancient roots. A thin stream ran through the cave's belly, murmuring over smooth pebbles as if reciting a scripture no one remembered.
Several holes in the ceiling allowed thin spears of light to pierce downward, turning floating dust into slow-moving stars.It was quiet.Not the quiet of comfort.The quiet of isolation.Lin stood still for a long time, letting the cave's atmosphere sink into him. He could feel the Qi here—dense, gentle, persistent.
It did not rush into him like fire, nor did it resist him like a wild beast. It simply existed, filling the space like an invisible tide.A perfect place to cultivate
.A perfect place to die, too, if someone decided to bury him quietly.Lin's lips curved into a faint, humorless smile."In a sect, even paradise has teeth."
He walked deeper until the stream widened slightly and formed a shallow pool beside a flat stone platform. The platform was smooth, as if it had been used for meditation for hundreds of years. Whether it truly had been, Lin didn't know.He only knew it would be his starting ground.
He placed the items he had received in order.Sect robes.
Rules manual.
Coins.
The cave-abode seal.
And the cultivation starter manual.
He stared at them, then looked at his reflection in the pool's trembling surface.Small body. Seven years old. Black hair still too soft, too light, not yet hardened by time. Yet the eyes staring back were not a child's eyes.
They were steady. Hungry. Unwilling to kneel.His final goal was simple.Immortality.
Not to become a hero.
Not to become a legend.
Not to save the world.He wanted to live.
He wanted to live long enough that the word "tomorrow" stopped sounding like a threat.
But a long life needed more than power.
It needed rules—rules that didn't bend when his heart shook.
Lin sat down and closed his eyes.He began thinking—not about techniques, not about realms, but about principles.
In his first life, weakness had been a cage. The world had pressed his face into the mud and taught him that kindness was something people used to manipulate the soft-hearted.He had died because he could not bear it anymore.
In this life, he refused to die like that again.He opened his eyes and spoke softly, as if engraving the words into the stone itself.
"I will not be a coward."He paused.
"I will not help others blindly… but if I choose to help, I will not retreat because of fear."His fingers tightened.
"If the opponent is stronger and someone's life is in my hands… then I will either save them… or die trying."
He exhaled slowly, then added in a colder tone:"Even if I die, I will not die like a coward dog."The cave did not answer.The stream kept flowing.But Lin felt his heart grow steadier, as if the vow formed a pillar within him.Only then did he stand, remove his outer clothes, and wash.
The mountain stream was cold enough to bite. He scrubbed away sweat, dust, and the faint tension clinging to his skin from the Peak Lord's hall. He washed his hair carefully, combed it with his fingers, dried it near a shaft of sunlight.
Then he wore the sect robe.The cloth was smooth and cool, flowing around his small frame like a shadow given form. On the chest was a dove emblem—simple, elegant, quiet.He looked down at it and thought:
So this is the path I chose.When he raised his head again, even his posture had changed. Neater. Straighter. Colder.A well-dressed child with eyes that didn't match his age.He gathered the remaining items and returned to the stone platform.
Now came the real beginning.He opened the cultivation starting manual.The pages were thin, but the script was sharp and precise.
The words carried a rhythm, like a method written by someone who wanted no misunderstanding, no excuses.Lin read slowly.A Diatan—a container.A vessel to store Qi within the body, like a hollow sphere formed from spiritual energy.
Without it, Qi was a stream that slipped away. With it, Qi became a lake that could deepen and expand.In traditional cultivation theory, the dantian was a "field of elixir," a place associated with storing and cultivating life-force energy—Qi.
Many systems described three main centers—lower, middle, and upper—often linked to the lower abdomen, chest, and head.
This world's cultivation method mirrored that idea, though its terminology and dangers were harsher.The manual continued:A human body could form up to three Diatan.The first was in the lower region—between the stomach and the navel area, the foundation vessel.
The second was in the chest region, closer to breath and circulation.
The third was near the head, the most delicate and dangerous.The manual warned: forming all three too early could cause "energy devastation"—Qi reversal, meridian collapse, or mental fracture.Lin's eyes narrowed."So greed kills," he thought. "Even in cultivation, the world punishes impatience."He turned the page.
Method of formation:Perceive Qi.
Gather it.
Compress it at the lower region.
Shape it into a stable sphere.Simple words.Impossible practice.Lin closed the manual and sat upright.He placed both hands on his knees, back straight, breathing slow. He let his mind sink downward, toward the place the manual described.
Then he searched for Qi.At first, there was nothing.Then—faintly—like the first hint of warmth on a winter morning, he felt it. Thin threads in the air. Subtle and slippery. Each time his attention moved too fast, the sensation scattered like frightened fish.Lin steadied himself."Slow," he told himself. "Don't chase.
Let it come."The threads drifted closer. They brushed his skin, seeped through pores, entered his breath. The moment Qi entered his body, it felt unfamiliar—cool and warm at once, like metal heated by sunlight.He guided it downward as the manual instructed.Toward the lower region.Toward the first vessel.
But the moment he tried to "gather" it, it scattered again. The Qi slid away from his control, slipping through meridians like water through cracks.Lin's brow tightened.He tried again.The Qi gathered for half a breath… then dispersed.Again.Again.Minutes turned into hours.
His body remained still, but his inner world was chaos—threads tangling, slipping, dissolving, refusing to obey. Every failure was silent humiliation.His jaw clenched."I can read it," he thought. "I can understand it. But my body… my Qi… doesn't care what I understand."The sun shifted outside.
The cave's light beams moved across the stone floor.Lin opened his eyes slowly.He had been cultivating since morning. His stomach was empty. His legs were numb. His mind was sharp but strained, like a blade bent too long.He looked toward the stream.Mud lay near the water's edge—dark, thick, almost like clay.
For a moment he stared at it without thinking, then walked over and crouched. He scooped some up. It was cold and sticky between his fingers.
He began to roll it absentmindedly, pressing, folding, shaping.A child playing with mud.A cultivator failing at a fundamental step.But as his fingers moved, his eyes sharpened.The clay did not resist being shaped.
It only resisted when he tried to force it too suddenly. When he pressed too hard in one direction, it broke apart. When he pressed too lightly, it remained formless.It required the correct balance.Pressure. Patience. Rotation. Stability.Lin froze.A realization struck him so cleanly it felt like lightning cutting through fog.
"Qi is like this," he thought.Not a rock.Not a sword.Not a beast.It was a substance that could be gathered, folded, molded—so long as the mind didn't panic and the will didn't lash like a whip.He looked down at the clay sphere forming in his palm.A simple shape.A container.A vessel.Lin's breath slowed.
He returned to the stone platform and sat again.This time, when he closed his eyes, his mind did not try to grab Qi.It invited it.
The threads appeared again, drifting closer, less frightened this time.He guided them downward.Gently.Layer by layer, like rolling clay into a tighter ball.The Qi began to accumulate.
It did not scatter as quickly.Lin rotated his focus—compressing, folding, compressing again—keeping the sensation steady, not letting it explode outward.A faint heat formed in his lower abdomen.
A small warmth.A seed.Hours passed.The warmth grew into a whirlpool. Qi gathered there, turning slowly, like water circling a drain—except the drain was not emptiness.It was formation.Lin's forehead glistened with sweat. His lips were pale from concentration.
His entire being narrowed into one point: the lower vessel.At times, the Qi tried to slip away. At times, the pressure inside him surged, threatening to burst into disorder.He remained cold.
He remembered his own words to the Peak Lord.Peace is when you are not commanded by others.So he refused to be commanded by impatience. Refused to be commanded by frustration.
Refused to be commanded by the fear of failure.He rolled the Qi tighter.Tighter.Tighter.Then—Something clicked.It wasn't a sound.It was a sensation.Like a lock opening inside his body.
The whirlpool stopped being a whirlpool. The chaotic flow stabilized into a smooth rotation around a single, condensed point.Lin felt it clearly.A tiny sphere.Floating within him.Not flesh. Not bone.A core of gathered energy.
A Diatan.His breath shuddered out, long and slow, as if he had been holding it for an entire day.The cave's Qi rushed inward more smoothly now, as if recognizing a home.Lin opened his eyes.
The shafts of sunlight had shifted again. Evening was approaching. He had been at it for almost a full day.He looked down at his hands.They were still small. Still childlike.But inside him, something had changed
.A vessel had been formed.A beginning had been carved.And with that beginning came a new truth:This world would no longer treat him as a mere child.
It would treat him as a cultivator.Lin exhaled softly, almost like a laugh."Diatan Formation," he whispered.He could feel the stage clearly—fresh, unstable, but real.
Diatan Formation — MIL (Early).
The first step was complete.And the path ahead—long enough to swallow lifetimes
finally had a foothold beneath his feet.
To be continued…