The sect provided food. Thin porridge. A strip of dried meat. A handful of rice. Enough to keep a mortal alive. Not enough to sustain a body that had been forged under ten years of endless repetition.
Kael ate silently. The taste was ash. The portion was insult. His stomach clenched, not from emptiness, but from refusal. His body remembered what it had been given before: marrow, dense cuts, bones boiled until they surrendered strength. The sect's offering was mosquito meat compared to the meals that had once kept him alive.
Hunger pressed inward. Not as absence. As demand.
He remembered the years under Old Master Ren. Ten years of axe swings, hammer strikes, endless repetition. Ten years of appetite that grew monstrous. Ten years where the 10th Senior Brother had ensured he ate according to that appetite. Chickens, goats, boars, beasts catalogued and scheduled. Every day, food arrived. Every day, hunger was answered.
And every day, the purse grew heavier.
Old Master Ren had given him knowledge of forging, blacksmithing, the craft of shaping metal under pressure. The apprentice fee had been returned, not as charity, but as investment. The 10th Senior Brother had added coins — bronze, iron, silver, gold — until the purse was no longer a pouch but a weight. Ten years of accumulation. Ten years of silent preparation.
Now, Kael opened the purse. Coins spilled across the floor. Bronze dulled. Iron heavy. Silver cold. Gold bright. Each coin was a memory of survival. Each coin was a promise of meals.
He needed them now.
The sect's food was insufficient. His appetite was a forge. His body demanded more. He would spend what had been saved. He would buy marrow, meat, bones, density. He would sustain himself.
But hunger was not only a problem of meals. Hunger was a problem of money.
Kael remembered Earth. He remembered kitchens, recipes, the science of food. He remembered how heat changed grain, how oil transformed meat, how salt preserved. He remembered culinary knowledge not as art, but as engineering. Food was fuel. Food was structure. Food was forging.
He cooked quietly in the hut. Rice boiled until starch thickened. Meat seared until fat surrendered. Bones cracked until marrow bled. The smell filled the hut, heavy, rich, real. Other disciples glanced over, eyes greedy, mouths watering. Kael ignored them. His appetite was not theirs. His hunger was not theirs. His survival was not theirs.
Coins diminished. Meals sustained. Hunger pressed inward again.
He thought of forging. He thought of weapons. He thought of blacksmiths. He thought of missions.
He could not cultivate Qi. He could not absorb energy. He could not advance through realms. But he could forge. He could shape metal. He could create tools. He could sell them. He could earn coins. He could sustain meals.
The sect offered missions. Patrols. Errands. Resource gathering. But Kael's path was different. His mission would be forging. His hunger demanded it. His purse demanded it. His survival demanded it.
Coins diminished. Meals sustained. Hunger pressed inward like a forge that refused to cool. The sect's rations were ash, his appetite a furnace, and the purse that had grown under ten years of silent preparation was now the only weapon he could wield. Survival was no longer about enduring blows or splitting logs — it was about feeding the body that demanded more than the sect would ever give. The path ahead was not cultivation. It was debt, iron, and hunger, and Kael knew he would have to hammer coin into sustenance or starve beneath the weight of his own body.