The moment he left the courtyard, Mu Xuan went nowhere else.
He pushed open the door to his room, stepped inside, and casually closed it behind him.
Click.
The sound of the wooden door shutting echoed softly through the quiet room.
Outside, night had fully descended over the Mu Clan. The wind brushed through rows of ancient trees, occasionally carrying the dry rustle of leaves rubbing against one another. Far away, faint traces of discussion about the daytime phenomenon still lingered, but after passing through the thick wooden door, all of it was reduced to a heavy silence.
Inside the room, only a single oil lamp was burning.
Its flame swayed faintly, casting Mu Xuan's shadow against the wall.
He stood where he was for a long moment before slowly walking to the edge of the bed and sitting down.
From the Name Inscription Ceremony until now, everything had happened too quickly.
The Heavenly Stele had trembled.
His name had not appeared.
Pressure had descended from the sky.
A cold gaze, as though it had come from beyond the world, had fallen upon him.
The void within his consciousness.
The ancient black sword.
The two words—Name's End.
In a single day, everything he had believed for sixteen years had been overturned.
Mu Xuan lowered his gaze to his right hand.
He slowly clenched his fingers.
Deep within his meridians, that thread of icy power was still moving in silence.
It was extremely thin.
Extremely slow.
And yet, incomparably real.
Mu Xuan took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
"I need to see exactly what you are."
His divine sense quickly sank inward.
The moment his awareness settled, his perception of the outside world immediately dimmed, replaced by an entirely different inner landscape.
He "saw" the meridians within his own body.
They were dim, dry, and barren—so barren that even Mu Xuan himself felt a trace of bitterness.
For others, meridians were the pathways through which name power flowed, the very foundation of cultivation.
For him, for the last sixteen years, they had been nothing more than dried riverbeds.
No water.
No movement.
No sign of the vitality that belonged to a cultivator.
But now, in one of the meridians running along his right arm, he saw it.
A threadlike wisp of energy.
Cold.
Still.
Its color was indistinct, like a line of dark smoke diluted in water—both present and absent at the same time.
It was slowly drifting through his meridian.
It did not shine.
It did not emit pressure.
It did not carry the sense of being "recognized by heaven and earth" that he had heard others describe.
If anything, it felt more like something forgotten by the world.
A current of cold power flowing silently in the dark.
Mu Xuan did not rush.
He patiently observed that thread of force.
At first, he assumed it was simply circulating on instinct, like the name power that had just awakened in those who had newly stepped into the Ming Name realm.
But very soon, he realized that something was wrong.
That thread of force was not moving along the introductory circulation path used by the Mu Clan.
Nor was it following any complete cycle that ordinary cultivators would open during their first attempt at guiding power into the body.
It was only drifting slowly, stopping and moving again, as though it were... listening.
Mu Xuan frowned slightly.
Listening?
A strange thought surfaced in his mind.
He immediately focused more intently, following the cold thread with his divine sense.
A moment later, his pupils contracted.
He had seen it.
What the thread of force was paying attention to was not his meridians.
It was the space around him.
Not the physical space inside the room.
But a subtler layer of perception—as though within heaven and earth, countless things had always been floating invisibly, things that the naked eye could not see and even ordinary spiritual perception could not detect.
They were tiny fragments of aura.
Thin as dust.
Scattered like syllables that had shattered apart.
Some appeared only to dissolve instantly.
Some drifted through the gap between his meridians and the surrounding world, like broken remnants of an intention that had been torn to pieces.
The cold force inside his body was not absorbing the name power of heaven and earth like an ordinary cultivator.
It was quietly sensing those invisible fragments.
And then—
Pulling them in.
Mu Xuan's heart trembled.
He "saw" a tiny fragment of aura, no larger than a speck of dust, drifting near his right arm. The cold thread gently brushed against it.
The instant contact was made, the fragment trembled.
Then, as though caught by an unseen pull, it was drawn away from where it had been floating and slowly merged into the cold thread.
There was no sound.
No violent fluctuation.
But in that single instant, the thread within his meridian seemed to grow slightly thicker—by an amount so small it was almost impossible to notice.
And yet Mu Xuan saw it clearly.
His expression changed.
"It isn't absorbing heaven and earth's name power..."
"...it's pulling in the shattered remnants of name-intent scattered throughout space?"
He had never heard of such a method of cultivation.
In the understanding of the Mu Clan—and in everything he had ever read from foundational manuals—the cultivation of the Dao of Names was a process of being recognized by heaven and earth, then absorbing name power from the world, condensing it, drawing it into the body, and gradually making one's own name more distinct within the order of existence.
At its core, it was a form of resonance.
Cultivators relied on the name power of heaven and earth to align themselves with the laws of the world.
But what existed within him did not do that.
It did not align.
It did not request.
It only silently searched for those scattered, broken, forgotten remnants within space... and pulled them into his body.
That did not feel like cultivation.
It felt like gathering the remains of something that had already died.
Mu Xuan was silent for a long time.
The chill deep in his heart grew heavier.
He remembered the old man's final words in the underground chamber.
It was not that heaven and earth refused to record it.
It was that heaven and earth... did not dare record it.
At the time, he had not truly understood.
But now, after seeing with his own eyes how the first current of power inside him moved, he had vaguely touched upon a corner of the truth.
If the name power of others was something allowed by heaven and earth to flow into their bodies...
Then perhaps the force within him was something that heaven and earth did not wish to touch.
That was why it could only gather the shattered remnants of name-intent—discarded fragments, forgotten pieces, broken splinters of law from the world itself.
A path like that...
Even the thought of it felt abnormal.
Mu Xuan did not let himself sink too deeply into speculation.
He quickly steadied his mind, then tried to direct the cold thread according to his will.
At first, it barely responded.
It continued moving at its own slow rhythm, as though some silent will sleeping within it had no interest in obeying his unskilled commands.
Mu Xuan did not become impatient.
He tried again.
Then a third time.
Finally, on the fifth attempt, the cold thread trembled faintly, as if it had at last acknowledged his existence, and reluctantly shifted its course by the slightest amount.
Only as much as a strand of hair.
But it was enough to shake Mu Xuan's spirit.
It could be controlled.
It was simply very difficult.
It was nothing like ordinary name power, which would normally obey its master's thoughts once drawn into the body and refined.
His current of power was colder, heavier, and older.
It felt less like he was controlling a part of himself...
And more like he was trying to persuade something ancient, silent, and stubborn to temporarily listen to him.
Mu Xuan opened his eyes.
The oil lamp in the room was still burning.
But a thin layer of sweat had already formed on his forehead.
He had only tried to guide that current a few times, yet the strain on his spirit was greater than an entire day of ordinary cultivation.
He sat quietly for a moment, then closed his eyes again.
This time, he did not immediately inspect his meridians.
His divine sense slowly drifted toward his consciousness sea.
The endless darkness appeared once more.
The ancient black sword still stood there, unmoving within the void.
Without needing to approach it, Mu Xuan already knew.
The cold current in his body was directly connected to it.
Or more precisely—
That current had been awakened by this sword.
He did not step closer.
He only stood at a distance and looked.
After a while, he slowly spoke, his voice so low it was almost nothing more than a thought:
"You were the one who pulled that force into me?"
The sword did not answer.
It simply stood in silence within the darkness.
Cracked.
Ancient.
Still, in the manner of something that had witnessed time itself decay without ever changing.
Mu Xuan had not truly expected a reply.
But just as he was about to withdraw his awareness from the consciousness sea, a faint vibration suddenly rang out.
Clang.
The sound was thin, like metal brushing against jade.
Extremely soft.
Yet the instant it appeared, the darkness around the sword seemed to tremble.
At the same time, within Mu Xuan's body, the cold thread of power abruptly quickened by a fraction.
It was no longer merely "listening" to the shattered fragments of name-intent in space.
It had begun pulling in another tiny fragment into itself.
The speed was still very slow.
But noticeably faster than before.
Mu Xuan suddenly understood.
The Name's End Sword was the source.
Or at the very least, it was the key that had opened this strange method of circulation.
Whenever the sword in his consciousness sea reacted, the current within his body grew slightly stronger.
Not by much.
But enough to be felt.
Mu Xuan opened his eyes again.
This time, his gaze was no longer merely grave.
A trace of cold clarity had appeared within it.
He had found the starting point.
Not the answer.
But the starting point.
For sixteen years, he had possessed no name power.
Now, he did.
But it was not the kind of name power recognized by heaven and earth.
If that was the case, then he could not cultivate as others did.
He would have to find his own path.
Mu Xuan raised his right hand and slowly opened his palm.
He focused his mind and attempted to guide the cold current toward his fingertip.
At first, it responded sluggishly.
But after several breaths, a faint strand of mist-dark aura finally gathered at the tip of his index finger.
It was only a tiny strand.
So small that, if one did not look carefully, it might be mistaken for nothing more than a trick of the lamp's flickering light.
Yet the moment it appeared, the temperature inside the room seemed to drop slightly.
Mu Xuan narrowed his eyes.
Slowly, he extended that finger and lightly touched the edge of the wooden table beside him.
Pfft.
There was no explosion.
No violent release of force.
Only a faint sound, like something sharp slicing through paper.
A thin cut, as fine as a strand of hair, silently appeared across the surface of the hard wooden table.
It was not deep.
Not large.
But it was incomparably clean.
Mu Xuan stared at that mark for a long time without speaking.
This was the first time in his life that he had used his own power to leave a tangible mark upon the world.
A tiny cut.
Small enough to be pitiful.
And yet it was enough to make his heartbeat gradually grow heavier.
Because he knew that this was not the beginning of an ordinary disciple.
It was the starting point of an entirely different path.
A path that even heaven and earth refused to acknowledge.
Mu Xuan withdrew his hand.
The faint dark aura at his fingertip quickly dissipated.
The current within his meridians weakened slightly as well, proving that in his present state, he could not sustain this power for long.
But he was not disappointed.
On the contrary, he became calmer.
He had seen it with his own eyes:
This current could be cultivated.
It could be guided.
It could become a real means of combat.
It simply required a method completely different from orthodox Name Dao.
Mu Xuan slowly stood up and walked to the window, pushing it open just a crack.
Night wind immediately flowed inside.
The sky outside was deep and dark, scattered with cold stars.
Mu Xuan lifted his head to look upward.
For a brief instant, he once again remembered that cold gaze from above, as though it had come from beyond the world.
But this time, he did not avoid it.
His gaze was calm—deeper than before.
"You have already seen me."
"In that case, sooner or later... I will have to look directly back at you."
He closed the window again, returned to the bedside, and sat down to continue regulating his breath.
That night, he did not sleep.
He needed to grow familiar with this first current of power.
He needed to memorize every movement of it.
He needed to learn how to listen for those shattered fragments of name-intent in space, just as the current itself had done.
Because he knew with absolute clarity that from the moment his name had failed to appear upon the Heavenly Stele, his life could never return to what it had been.
Outside, the Mu Clan still believed that the Eldest Young Master had been abandoned by heaven and earth.
No one knew that within this silent room, a current of power completely different from orthodox Name Dao had just begun to flow through his meridians for the very first time.
Thin.
Cold.
Alone.
Like a spring newly born beneath eternal ice.
And yet Mu Xuan could feel it.
Beneath that fragile exterior lay a terrifying essence—one that even heaven and earth seemed to dread.
And he—
He was the first person who would have to learn how to hold it.
The night deepened.
The lamplight flickered between brightness and shadow.
Inside the room, Mu Xuan remained seated without moving.
The cold thread within his body continued its slow circulation, as though listening to heaven and earth while searching for shattered fragments of name-intent forgotten in space.
Each time it drew in one tiny fragment, it thickened by an almost imperceptible amount.
Extremely slowly.
So slowly that it would have been impossible to notice without close observation.
But Mu Xuan was not impatient.
He had waited sixteen years.
Now, he knew even more clearly that he could not afford to rush.
Because this path had never belonged to ordinary rules.
One wrong step, and the consequence would not merely be failed cultivation.
It might be that the thing above truly fixed its gaze upon him.
The moment that thought appeared, the Name's End Sword within his consciousness sea trembled faintly.
Clang.
At the same instant, the cold thread within his meridians stirred again.
Mu Xuan opened his eyes.
His gaze darkened, but deep within it, there was now one thing more than before—
Resolve.
He knew.
This was only the beginning.
The first current of power had been born.
And next, he would have to learn how to make it truly his own.