"A mongrel like me? Was I really that wrong?"
Wu Zhu stared at the cracked ceiling above his bed, his mind a haze of confusion and bruised pride.
Ling Xue's words echoed again in his head—cold, sharp, and way too articulate for how little he thought he had done.
He hadn't even insulted her.
All he did was suggest that Zheng Xie might—might—be cultivating the Soul Path. Ok, he might have been a little more assertive.
Sure, there wasn't any tangible proof. And sure, he might've come off as a little erratic, maybe even unstable when he said it… but still.
He wasn't wrong.
That memory extraction pain he felt—that wasn't some dream or illusion. His soul had been touched, yanked, bruised.
'That has to mean something… right?'
He refused to believe it meant nothing. Zheng Xie had done something. Something wrong. Something underhanded.
And Ling Xue? She hadn't even paused to consider the possibility. She went straight to name-calling.
"Mongrel like me."
He scoffed under his breath.
'Cold beauty, my ass. You could refrigerate meat with your words alone.'
Still, even as bitterness stewed in his stomach, a lingering sense of unease settled over him. That reaction… it wasn't defensive. It was overkill. Too much emotion packed into too few words. He couldn't help but wonder—
Did he hit too close to the truth?
Was she protecting Zheng Xie out of loyalty—or fear?
He didn't know. And frankly, he didn't care anymore. Not tonight.
He was too exhausted for more scheming.
Once he had stumbled back to his own little cottage, the sight of an actual bed had melted whatever was left of his mental strength. He collapsed into it like a dying man into a coffin and didn't move.
No more plotting. No more paranoia.
Just sleep.
…
By the time he opened his eyes again, it was still dark.
He instinctively knew it was early—too early.
He blinked at the wall, blankly, until a sliver of pre-dawn light peeked through the window. It wasn't even sunrise yet, and he was awake.
'What the hell, body?! I didn't sign up for this!'
Back on Earth, someone could've thrown him in a pit of ice water and he still wouldn't have stirred before nine. He was practically a professional sleeper.
Yet now, his body had betrayed him.
Woke up like it had alarms wired into his blood.
'Why am I suddenly a morning cultivator? Who gave the permission? This is not what I meant when I said I wanted to change my life!'
He groaned and rolled on the bed like a dying worm, trying to reclaim sleep by sheer willpower.
It didn't work.
After several dramatic sighs and one near-attempt to punch the pillow, he dragged himself up.
…
The eastern ridge had a lake nestled in its basin—a quiet, mirror-like surface that caught the earliest hues of dawn.
Wu Zhu shuffled to it, stripped down, and waded in. The cold made him hiss, but it also woke him up.
The blood on his clothes had dried into stiff patches. Some of it wasn't even his. After bathing, he changed into a fresh robe—plain, clean, and blessedly dry.
His reflection on the lake's surface looked... surprisingly decent.
A bit pale, sure. Eyes a bit sunken.
But also... sharper.
Maybe it was the new core. Maybe it was the resurrection. Maybe it was the sleep.
But he didn't look as pathetic as the original Wu Zhu.
He didn't look like someone who would be ignored anymore.
…
The sun still hadn't risen when he left the lake.
The sect was quiet, save for the distant hum of spiritual beasts and the occasional owl-owl-spirit-thing making ominous noises.
He walked the empty paths, hands tucked into his sleeves, staring at the horizon where light was slowly bleeding into the sky.
No one was awake. Or at least, no one visible.
And somehow, that made the loneliness hit harder.
He wasn't a loner by choice.
The original Wu Zhu wasn't either.
He remembered it all—the smiles forced too wide, the jokes that fell flat, the way he clung to Ling Xue not out of love but desperation. She had been the only one who talked to him like he mattered.
Even if it was fake.
Even if it was calculated.
Everyone else? Avoided him like a plague.
Why?
'Because of Zheng Xie.'
He didn't have proof, but his gut screamed it.
'I feel like a dipshit pouring everything on him but that guy definitely poisoned the well. Probably spread rumors, called me a stalker, a lunatic, an idiot with delusions. Would explain the stares. The whispers.'
The worst part?
It worked.
The original Wu Zhu had shrunk into himself, accepted the role, played the fool.
But not anymore.
This version of Wu Zhu had crawled out of the grave. Literally. With a new core, new mind, and new resolve.
And if no one would protect him?
Then he'd make himself into someone worth fearing.
…
He made his way to the elite training grounds—an open area lined with weapon racks, cultivation dummies, and engraved platforms for sparring.
Most of the disciples were still asleep in their warm beds. Only a couple of the overachieving freaks aka elites were awake and meditating in the far corner.
He ignored them.
He stood at the center of the training field and took a breath.
Time to stop running.
Time to train.
He closed his eyes and reached inward, into his dantian.
Where once there were eight orbiting Qi beads, now there was just one.
One gleaming crystalline core. Pure. Dense. Pulsating with potential.
Foundation Establishment Realm.
He still couldn't believe it.
His rebirth had brought with it an unearned power boost, and he wasn't going to waste it.
'If no one else can be my shield, then I'll make myself a fucking fortress.'
He gathered his Qi. Let it course through his meridians. The flow was smoother now—cleaner, like water through polished stone. He didn't struggle as much to shape it, to guide it.
His hand glowed a faint blue.
Not wild or dramatic. But controlled.
Precise.
It was working.
It was starting.
'Zheng Xie might not be a cultivation prodigy, but he's still dangerous. I'll have to close that gap. I need techniques. I need weapons. I need plans.'
He paused.
Then grinned to himself.
'And maybe a few minor accidents in the future wouldn't hurt either. Just subtle ones. Like slipping down a cliff. Or spontaneous combustion.'
He laughed softly, alone in the dawnlight.
…
After meditating for what felt like hours, Wu Zhu finally stood.
Sweat clung to his back like a second skin, his inner robe completely drenched. But oddly enough, he didn't feel exhausted. His muscles didn't cry out. His limbs didn't feel like lead.
There was still energy thrumming in his veins.
'Might as well use this momentum…' he muttered inwardly.
He wasn't the kind of guy to waste time pretending to be a cultivation nerd. He'd been dropped into a world where power equaled survival.
He made his way to one of the battered stone dummies set into the outer perimeter of the elite training zone. It wasn't exactly secluded, but it was just enough out of the way that nobody would mock him openly if he failed like a clown.
From the original Wu Zhu's memories, he recalled a couple martial techniques—low-tier ones—but the key lay in their simplicity. And the one that came to mind now?
[Stone Palm].
It was as basic as it sounded. Funnel Qi to your knuckles, punch like hell, and break bones—yours or your opponent's, depending on execution.
'Simple technique, simple name. Can't mess this up… right?'
He flexed his hands a few times and took a deep breath. The instructions were crystal clear in his mind, branded into the bones of this body.
Draw Qi from the core. Channel it to the arm. Let it circulate down the forearm. Anchor it at the knuckles.
Then strike.
He took position. Eyes on the dummy. Qi flickering faintly across his skin like a thin mist of blue. His breathing slowed. His shoulders relaxed.
Then—
BAM!
His fist struck the stone with a sharp, meaty impact… and pain lanced up his arm immediately. His knuckles screamed. A shockwave rippled back through his shoulder, and worst of all—
The Qi didn't land properly.
It had scattered across his entire hand at the last second, dispersing like smoke before it could do anything remotely damaging. The stone dummy stood unfazed, unmoved, unbothered.
'Damn it.'
No visible damage. Just mild vibrations on the surface. It didn't even count as a dent.
And worse, it hurt.
He shook his hand and exhaled. "Okay… okay, maybe that was just a warm-up."
Despite the minor setback, he didn't stop. He repositioned, tried again.
Strike. Fail. Strike. Fail. Strike—minor improvement—still failed.
Time began slipping. His hands turned red, then bruised. But he didn't stop. His jaw clenched. His lips thinned into a line.
At one point, a small voice in the back of his head started whispering—
'Maybe I'm not talented. Maybe the original was just a self proclaimed genius. Maybe this is a waste of time.'
He clicked his tongue and sat cross-legged in frustration, slumping down against a wall like a kicked puppy trying to look dignified.
At least the meditation part was going somewhere. He could feel his Qi pool growing more fluid with every breath, his core rotating just a bit faster.
Still, what was the use of it all if he couldn't even land a proper punch?
As time passed, the training area began to fill up. The sun was slowly sinking into the horizon, casting an amber sheen over the tiled roofs and jade pavilions of the Seven Strike Martial Sect.
And that was when he noticed him.
One of the elite disciples had arrived.
A tall young man with wild, untamed hair the color of a forest fire. His amber eyes burned with intensity, and his physique looked carved out of raw iron. Robes half-open, bandages around his wrists. A battle junkie, no doubt.
He approached the row of stone dummies without a word, his steps lazy, shoulders relaxed like he was heading for a casual stroll.
Then—
BOOM!
With a single casual flick of his palm, the dummy shattered. Dust and shards went flying.
And then another.
And another.
Each strike more effortless than the last, as though the stone were made of clay in his hands. And he didn't even look winded.
Wu Zhu froze, his thoughts turning bitter in real time.
'I can't even dent the damn thing… and this guy's breaking them like he's swatting flies.'
He tried to rationalize it.
'He must be showing off… maybe trying to impress someone? There's no way he's really trying.'
But even that excuse fell flat when he realized the man wasn't even paying attention to anyone. He wasn't preening. He wasn't bragging. He was… bored.
'…Am I supposed to compete with people like that?'
He forced himself to look away. Bit down the jealousy brewing in his chest . Was he here to show off to him? He shook his head.
'I'm not going to delude myself into thinking this guy's here to one-up me or something. My brain is made of flesh, not bricks, and I'm not thirteen anymore. Not everything revolves around me.'
Still… the fire in his gut churned.
He got up again. His arm throbbed, but he ignored it.
He raised his fist one more time. Closed his eyes. Slowed his breath.
He recalled the scattered Qi. Traced its patterns. Found the leak points. The weak curves in his meridians.
He gathered the Qi again—tighter this time. Narrower. Focused.
Then—BAM!
It was minor. But this time, the dummy rattled. Not much. Barely anything.
But it moved.
And that was enough to make Wu Zhu smirk.
He didn't need to break the dummy today. Or tomorrow. He wasn't aiming to be the strongest yet.
But he would land a proper hit.
Eventually.
And when that day came—
He'd make sure Zheng Xie remembered it.
'Maybe my world revolves around that guy… Fuck!'
…
The next morning, Wu Zhu stuck to the same routine.
Wake up far too early for his liking, grumble internally about why the heavens hated him, freshen up at the eastern ridge lake, curse the freezing water, dry off under the morning sun, and finally make his way back to the elite disciples' training ground.
He wasn't brimming with joy, but his mood wasn't all that bad either. Actually, it was confusingly balanced.
Why?
Because last night, while replaying every failed strike in his mind like a masochist, he finally realized what the hell he'd been doing wrong.
It was stupid. So stupid it almost brought tears to his eyes.
The technique was called [Stone Palm].
Palm.
PALM.
And what had he been doing?
Punching.
Punching the dummy like it owed him money. Like he was auditioning to become the sect's most emotionally damaged boxer.
No wonder the Qi kept scattering. He was trying to force a palm-based technique through his damn knuckles.
"That mild bastard who named it meant it literally," Wu Zhu muttered under his breath. "He didn't mean Stone Fist, he meant Stone Palm... I've been using the wrong part of my damn hand!"
Now, with that dumb mistake corrected, he stood before the same dummy. His bruised hand trembled slightly, but there was a subtle sense of determination burning behind his eyes.
He closed his eyes. Inhaled deeply. Felt the Qi stir inside his dantian, like a sleeping beast twitching in its den.
Slowly, he guided it outward. Up through his chest, flowing into his shoulder, coursing down his arm like a controlled torrent, until it circled his palm—this time, the correct part of his hand.
At the last second before impact, he redirected it to his knuckles—this part was fine; the technique relied on delivery through the palm, but it needed weight at the point of contact.
Then he struck.
BAM!
The impact echoed like thunder on stone.
A deep, clean dent appeared in the center of the dummy.
Wu Zhu froze. Blinked. Looked at his hand.
Then back at the dummy.
Then back at his hand.
"…I'm a genius," he whispered.
A stupid, lucky, bruised, painfully average, underqualified genius.
A wide grin tugged at his lips and before he could stop himself, he let out a low, giddy laugh.
"Heh… hehahahaha! I'm a genius! HAHAHAHAHA!"
The nearby birds fled. A squirrel dropped its nut and ran for its life.
With this newfound high, he dove into practice with renewed passion. Again and again, he struck the dummy. The Qi circled and condensed more smoothly with each attempt. His accuracy improved. His force deepened.
By noon, his arms ached and his palms throbbed, but the grin never left his face.
After scarfing down a hot meal at the sect's so-called canteen—which was really just a row of open kitchens with disciples yelling about spicy broth and rice portions—Wu Zhu returned.
This time with a different goal.
"I've got fists. Now I need feet," he mumbled.
Movement techniques.
He couldn't just stand still like a moron waiting to be hit. If he was going to survive this dog-eat-dog sect and that smug soul-cultivating bastard Zheng Xie, he needed to learn how to move.
The technique of the hour? [Steady Step].
A mortal-grade movement technique. Nothing flashy. No vanishing in shadows or gliding across water. It was just what the name suggested: steady. Measured. Balanced.
But effective. Especially in unstable terrain.
Fortunately, the elite training grounds had floating stone debris set aside for movement training. Huge slabs of rock drifting in the air with no pattern or rhythm, bobbing up and down.
No one else was using them. Probably because it was the most anxiety-inducing method of training available to sane people.
"Perfect. This is why I don't have friends," Wu Zhu muttered, climbing onto the first slab.
The moment both feet touched the surface, the floating stone tilted, then soared upward like it had a personal vendetta against gravity.
Ten meters... fifteen... twenty...
By the time it stabilized, Wu Zhu was thirty meters in the air.
His stomach dropped. He looked down. His soul almost left his body.
"…What the FUCK?! Who calibrated this damn boulder?! Why are we in the stratosphere?!"
He felt sweat bead down his back again, this time not from exertion.
'Okay, okay… calm down. Don't scream. That'll only make you look stupid. And if you fall… try to make it look like you did it on purpose.'
There was no ladder. No platform. No magical air-cushioned path to get down.
Only one way out—forward.
He gulped.
[Steady Step] wasn't about speed. It wasn't about dashing like a madman. It was about awareness, balance, and calm transition. Like how a leaf falls from a tree.
A leaf doesn't panic. A leaf doesn't curse the wind. A leaf just drifts.
'Okay, I'll be the leaf… a flying leaf... that doesn't want to die.'
He tightened every muscle in his legs. Picked the next floating stone. And with gritted teeth, he leapt.
And then—
"FUCKING SHIT, WHY IS IT MOVING!?"
Midair, the debris drifted to the left.
Just enough to screw up his timing.
He missed it by a hair's breadth.
Gravity took over. Wu Zhu flailed like a puppet whose strings were cut.
"FUCK! SHIT! FOGSHIT! CUNT OF A HORSE DEMON!"
He crashed down, bounced once, then rolled across the hard ground like a discount ragdoll hurled down a hill.
When he finally stopped moving, he groaned, face in the dirt.
"…I hate this place," he mumbled.
Then slowly, painfully, he stood up.
Bruised? Yes.
Broken? Almost.
Defeated?
"…No. I'm going again."
Because if a leaf could fall from a tree and land gently, then so could Wu Zhu.
Eventually.
Probably.
Maybe.