The second day at the Imperial Court began long before the sun touched the spires.
Kai Jin had barely closed his eyes when the gong rang through the halls. Its note wasn't just sound—it was a pulse of Qi that rattled the ribs and woke every nerve. The disciples had been warned: the Imperial Court did not entertain lateness.
He dressed in silence, pulling on the charcoal-gray robes of the Shadow Wing. They were fitted, light, etched subtly with restraining glyphs—designed to test the wearer's natural flow of Qi. Every step, every breath, would be a burden unless one's internal circulation was perfect.
"They're not clothes," the older voice in his head whispered. "They're a leash. Let's see how tight it gets."
Kai smiled faintly. For once, the sarcasm comforted him.
In the central training grounds, hundreds of disciples had already gathered—outer sect, inner sect, visiting prodigies from far-off provinces. They stood in formation, grouped by division, beneath the watchful eyes of Imperial instructors.
One figure stepped forward—an old man with a hunch in his back, but eyes that glowed like coals.
"I am Instructor Yuren. You may call me Master or Sir. If you do not, you will bleed."
No one laughed.
"Today, we begin your second awakening. You have cultivated your bodies. Now, you will cultivate your intent."
The crowd stirred.
Intent was no minor milestone—it was the threshold that separated mortals from true cultivators.
"You will fight. You will break. You will grow. But only those with true resolve will survive."
Yuren clapped his hands.
A ring of flame exploded outward, forming twenty dueling platforms.
"Pair off."
Kai was matched against a tall boy from the Iron Sea Sect—known for their brutal underwater training and powerful strikes.
The match started fast. The boy moved like a spear—precise and relentless. Kai dodged narrowly, fists grazing his ribs and jaw, the robes already tightening against his blood flow.
The crowd roared as the Iron Sea disciple launched a water-forged blade.
Kai blocked with a forearm. Bone cracked.
Pain flared white.
"You're hesitating again."
"Shut up."
The Iron Sea disciple laughed. "You're fast but brittle."
Kai's blood surged. The glyphs on his robes flared as they tried to suppress the sudden Qi rush—but it wasn't Qi that surged. It was something older. Cruder. His blood vessels thrummed. His vision darkened.
He closed his eyes.
And let go.
His body exploded forward like a cannonball. The crowd barely saw it. One moment he was there, the next he was beneath the boy's guard.
A punch landed.
Not clean.
Not perfect.
But deep—into the stomach, into the diaphragm. The boy folded.
Another hit. A knee to the ribs. The sound was sickening.
Kai's vision blurred.
He hit again.
And again.
Until the boy stopped moving.
Until the robe grew cold and wet from blood that wasn't his.
"Instructor!" someone screamed.
But Kai couldn't stop.
His hands moved on their own.
"Enough!"
The voice wasn't real.
It wasn't the instructor.
It was him.
The older him.
Screaming into the void of his mind.
Kai froze, panting, vision shaking.
The crowd was silent.
That night, alone again, his broken hand wrapped in spiritual gauze, Kai sat before the meditation basin. The glyphs on his skin pulsed faintly.
He had broken through.
Not into Qi Condensation. Not yet.
But something in his soul had splintered.
A foundation laid in blood and restraint.
Elsewhere, in the high eaves of the court walls, elders gathered.
"That boy—Kai Jin," one said. "He doesn't channel Qi like the others."
"He doesn't," another agreed. "He swallows it."
A third, cloaked in imperial silk, chuckled.
"Let the Emperor see him. He's more than he appears."