The morning sunlight filtered through the latticed windows of the servant quarters, casting thin lines of gold across Wei Lun's bruised face. He sat on the edge of the wooden bunk, rubbing the stiff muscles of his arms. The memories of last night—of punching stone until a cube dropped into his invisible inventory—still felt unreal.
He glanced around the small, cramped room. Fellow orphans stirred, stretching and murmuring complaints about aching backs and empty stomachs. Wei Lun kept his gaze low. He had learned early that drawing attention was dangerous; the higher-ranking disciples delighted in finding excuses to punish someone small, powerless, and visible.
Patience, he reminded himself. Quiet survival first.
He waited until the majority of the other servant boys had gone to their chores. Then, careful not to be seen, he slipped out of the quarters and headed toward the edge of the sect's training grounds. Behind the latrine house, where twisted, gnarled Spirit Oak trees grew, lay the perfect place for his first "real" harvest. No one came here. No one cared.
The tree before him was dead—its bark weathered, the branches bare—but to Wei Lun, it was more than wood. Each block of its trunk, each fragment of splintered branch, was an opportunity. He knelt, closed his eyes, and let the familiar block vision flicker across his perception.
One. Two… Three.
He punched carefully, counting each strike. A wooden plank floated into his mental inventory. Another. Another. A full stack. No one above ground would ever notice the slight irregularities he left behind, and even if they did, who would believe a servant disciple could be so precise?
Rule two, Wei Lun whispered under his breath, never leave a trace.
By the time he finished, sweat dripped down his brow, stinging his eyes. His back ached, his knuckles burned, but the mental satisfaction of seeing a complete stack of planks materialize in his inventory was worth it. This is mine. Everything else in this world—power, wealth, revenge—can wait. But this, this I control.
He paused to catch his breath, leaning against the dead tree. For the first time in his life—or at least in Wei Lun's body—he felt something like freedom. Not the freedom of a master disciple or a cultivator with powers beyond imagination, but the small, quiet freedom of a man who had learned how to make the world bend to him, one block at a time.
"Don't get cocky," he muttered, glancing over his shoulder. "The sect notices everything eventually."
His next move required a crafting table, but there was no way he could set one up in broad daylight. He would need a base. A place hidden from the sect and from prying eyes. Somewhere he could craft, experiment, and—when the time came—train safely.
The grove beyond the Spirit Oaks offered a perfect solution. A slight hill, thick with overgrowth, and a series of shallow caverns carved by rain and time. To anyone else, it was a dead-end; to Wei Lun, it was the foundation of his survival.
He began digging. At first, the soil resisted, clinging to roots and stones. But his hands were precise, guided by the same strange perception that had let him harvest wood and stone blocks last night. Dirt and cobblestone disappeared into the unseen inventory, leaving behind a smooth tunnel that smelled faintly of moss and earth.
By sunset, Wei Lun had cleared enough space for a hidden room, barely large enough for him to stand and place a small crafting table and furnace. He could almost hear Wei Lun—the original orphan—breathing behind him, whispering encouragement.
Good. You've finally found a place no one else can touch.
He placed the crafting table first. To the outside eye, it looked like a crude wooden box. To Wei Lun, it was the gateway to untold power. A 3x3 crafting grid, ready to combine the materials he had collected, ready to transform blocks into tools, tools into weapons, and weapons into survival.
He set up a furnace beside it, stacking some cobblestone and coal within. As he worked, the sky above darkened and the first stars of the evening appeared. The world of cultivation, with all its deadly politics, rival disciples, and monstrous beasts, seemed distant here.
For the first time, Wei Lun allowed himself a faint smile.
I have a start. A hidden place. My tools. My inventory. My rules.
He knew this was only the beginning. But for the first time since waking in a dead boy's body, Wei Lun felt the smallest flicker of hope.
The interesting ones are the first to die, he reminded himself.
I will not be interesting. Not yet.
And with that, he closed his eyes, opened the crafting grid in his mind, and began planning his first creation.