A few hours later...
The cave was silent, except for the occasional crackling of small embers. Shuyan had woken by now, and after collecting dry twigs, he'd lit a faint fire—just enough to keep warm since night had already fallen. Not bright enough to attract beasts. The entrance was hidden behind a curtain of vines he had pulled together, dimming the fire's soft glow.
He sat cross-legged, back against the cool stone wall, with the leather pouch in his lap.
His body still ached from the fight with the panther. The bite marks and bruises hurt, but nothing was broken. Still, what bothered him more wasn't the pain—it was the strength he had felt. His body had moved faster, hit harder, reacted quicker. It was a positive change, sure—but the way he had gained it felt ominous. Like a curse.
He didn't know if he should be grateful or afraid.
He unfastened the pouch.
Inside were chunks of panther meat, a small bloodstained knife, several vials filled with thick red liquid, and ten tightly rolled scrolls.
He picked one at random and unrolled it slowly. His eyes scanned the characters, lips moving slightly as he read.
He could understand the words. His parents had taught him to read and write before they died. It wasn't something every child in the Wuyuang Kingdom learned—especially not in poor villages like Shifeng. But his parents always used to say knowledge was power, more lasting than strength or wealth.
And thankfully, in this world, almost everyone—outside the wild tribes—used the same tongue. A legacy of the old Empires, his father had once said. Even if the kingdoms had fractured long ago, the language had remained.
He smiled faintly at the memory, then blinked at the scroll again—and froze.
It was a martial technique.
"It really is a martial technique."
His voice cracked. The sound startled him—he hadn't spoken since leaving the facility… or rather, since entering it. But right now, his astonishment was too heavy to keep inside.
All that pain and suffering. The betrayal, the cage, the torment. All because he had dared to chase after martial power… and now, techniques lay in his lap like some twisted mockery of fate.
His eyes watered, but he shoved the feeling down. He reached for another scroll—another martial art. Then another. And another.
Seven out of the ten scrolls were techniques. Sword styles, palm strikes, movement arts. These weren't training drills for farm boys. These were real techniques—powerful and dangerous.
His fingers trembled as he touched the one with the words Frostwind Sword etched on the cover. It was in better condition than the others—clean, firm, and sealed with a thin ribbon. It gave off a faint chill just holding it.
He longed to open it.
But now wasn't the time.
He placed it gently beside the fire and picked up one of the remaining scrolls.
This one had no title. Just fine ink strokes on yellowing parchment.
As he read, the confusion on his face deepened.
It wasn't a martial technique. It was… knowledge.
Cultivation knowledge. A concept foreign to him.
Shuyan leaned forward, breath caught in his throat. The scroll spoke of Ether—an invisible force that flowed through the heavens and earth. It passed through the body's meridians, circulating like rivers within, and gathered in a place near the navel called the dantian.
"Ether?" he muttered aloud.
He reread the paragraph again, slower this time.
"All living things possess Ether. But only cultivators who open their meridians and refine their dantian can consciously manipulate it. Ether strengthens the body, empowers techniques, and allows one to alter the world around them."
Shuyan's eyes widened.
Alter the world?
He stared into the fire, trying to imagine what that meant. Could someone really use Ether to walk on water? Leap over mountains? Call fire from the sky?
It sounded like legend. Like something out of a bedtime tale.
And yet, the scroll spoke of it plainly—like a farmer explaining how to till soil.
His mind reeled from the influx of foreign concepts. He had heard of martial artists who could shatter boulders or kill a boar with a single punch. But altering the world itself—that was something else entirely.
He pushed aside the astonishment and continued reading—but then, he froze again.
Blood Baptism.
The term burned into his brain.
The next section described a brutal ritual. The blood of wild beasts—and even humans—would be mixed with Ether and injected directly into a subject's body. This forcibly corrupted the meridians and twisted the dantian. The result?
A body no longer dependent on natural Ether from the environment. Instead, the subject could absorb raw, fresh blood—especially heart blood—as fuel.
He felt his stomach twist. The hunger. The craving. The power that surged when he struck the panther. It all made sense now.
He clutched his chest, breathing hard.
The ritual had worked.
He had been turned into something… else. Something bloodthirsty.
"What did I do to deserve this?" he choked, the grievance too much for his young mind.
He couldn't make sense of it. The torture, the pain, the transformation—all because someone wanted to see if a person could become a living experiment. It felt like the heavens were unfair. Unfair to him.
He had done nothing wrong, yet he had been thrust into a nightmare.
He had killed the perpetrator, which gave him some satisfaction—but that didn't make the suffering any easier to accept.
Shuyan heaved a heavy sigh, his eyes watering. But again, he pushed it aside. There was no one he could complain to. No one to hear his story.
So, he swallowed the emotion and kept reading.
He opened the second non-combat scroll. This one was messier—symbols, diagrams, mixtures.
Alchemy.
He flipped through quickly. Instructions on gathering herbs, refining pills, neutralizing toxins. But all of it assumed the reader had resources: cauldrons, spirit stones—all foreign concepts to Shuyan.
"Not for me. Not yet."
Still, he held onto it. Who knew what he might need later?
Finally, he picked up the last scroll. It was old—stained, frayed, nearly falling apart.
A diary.
The first line was short but sharp:
"My name is Yan Fu. This is my last record, in case I do not survive."
Shuyan didn't blink for a long time as he read the story that followed.
Yan Fu had once been like him—a poor village boy. He'd watched his parents die at the hands of a cultivator. So, he joined the Bloodborne Sect to gain power. To take revenge.
But the man he wanted to kill was already an inner disciple of the same sect—a Qi Condensation cultivator, far beyond Yan's reach. Still, Yan held on to hope, waiting for the right opportunity.
When he finally tried to ambush the man, his revenge failed. His cultivation was destroyed. He fled—wounded, humiliated—across Ancientweed Forest until he reached this place: a land abandoned by the Bloodborne Sect, drained of Ether after the Great Sect War.
There, he began his twisted work: the Blood Baptism. Hoping to forge a new path with pain and blood.
The final line made Shuyan's skin crawl:
"The latest subject is responding well. Signs of mutation stable. If this works… I will become strong enough to return."
Shuyan set the scroll down.
He didn't speak. He just stared at his hands—steady, stronger than they used to be, but unfamiliar.
Wrong.
The man he had killed wasn't just a torturer. He had once been a boy with a purpose.
But that didn't excuse him.
Not the rituals. Not the blood. Not the pain and anguish he had inflicted.
Still, the diary answered many of Shuyan's questions. Why he had been subjected to such torture. Why he had gotten stronger. Why the man had been so weak despite possessing such strange methods. Some answers, at least, had finally surfaced.
But something else stuck with him—something even more unsettling than the blood.
The diary spoke of a world Shuyan didn't recognize.
Xuheng.
"Our world isn't called Xuheng…" he whispered.
Actually, he didn't even know what his world was called. He only knew of Shifeng, Linquing, and Wuyuang. That was the extent of his geography.
Was Xuheng a world of cultivators? It seemed so. Yan Fu talked of cultivation sects and Qi Condensation—terms that belonged to the realm of legends.
And as far as Shuyan knew, the Wuyuang Kingdom had no cultivators.
So… there was a wider world out there.
A world of real cultivators.
And the land he had lived in all his life? It was just a forgotten corner. An abandoned place. A wasteland.
The Qinling Forest... it wasn't just wilderness. It was a border. A divide between the remnants of Wuyuang and the real world—Xuheng.
Shuyan sat silently, letting the knowledge settle into him.
His mind reeled for the umpteenth time that day.
He was shocked.
And yet, the shock wasn't over.