The embers had faded to ash. The cave was dark again, save for the soft glow of dawn beginning to stretch its dim light through the cracks in the vines at the entrance. Shuyan sat still, the cold seeping into his skin, but he didn't shiver. His thoughts were too loud for that. His mind was still slowly digesting the facts that he had just learned.
In his lap was the final scroll.
It wasn't like the others.
He unrolled it slowly ready for any other surprises that it might bring.
The ink was faint. At the top, written with careful, almost reverent strokes, were five words:
Crimson Scripture: Path of Ascent — Blood, Soul, and Laws
It didn't begin like the others. There were no flowery words or personal notes. This was different. This was knowledge—pure, unfiltered, and absolute.
"Cultivation is the path to immortality. A road paved in pain, clarity, and endless hunger. To walk it, one must first conquer their body."
Shuyan's breath caught as he read. He didn't know what cultivation was, not really. Even having seen Yan's note didn't qualify for him to talk about cultivation as something he knew.
He read on,
The scroll explained the journey of cultivation. It started with the body. Before Ether could be drawn in, the vessel had to be tempered. Every inch of flesh had to be reforged, reshaped, and reforged again.
Skin Refinement came first. It wasn't just about hardening against cuts or bruises. It meant soaking the body in stress until the nerves became sharper, until pain dulled and sensation became a tool, not a weakness. Skin refined under friction, exposure, poison, and pressure.
Then Muscle Refinement—ripping apart and rebuilding the fibers, increasing density, strength, control. Martial training mimicked this in some way, but it lacked the foundation of Ether. Without it, muscle reached a mortal ceiling. With Ether, that limit shattered.
Bone Refinement followed. This was the most dangerous. The scroll warned of immense pain—bones becoming denser, marrow strengthening, the very structure of one's frame changing.
After that came Organ Refinement—the heart, lungs, liver, and more. Each organ had to withstand the internal surge of Ether. A single mistake could mean death from within.
And finally, Brain Refinement, the last and most delicate. Ether sensitivity. Spiritual clarity. The ability to perceive Ether flows and eventually manipulate them. The writer boldly wrote—"Here, the body ends and the soul begins."
Shuyan leaned back slowly, exhaling.
His world had been small. Soil, sweat, firewood, and fists. But this... this was something else. It was a path he had never imagined, a ladder stretching into the heavens. And he was standing at the very bottom.
He flipped the scroll to its back, where more text waited.
There were more stages—distant, unreachable. Once the body had been refined, the cultivator could begin drawing in Ether. This was called Qi Condensation, the process of pulling Ether from the world into one's body and storing it within a space in the lower abdomen called the dantian. It formed a pool of inner energy—Qi—that could be used to amplify one's strength, speed, or even bend the elements with the right training.
Then came Core Formation, where the Qi was compressed and crystallized into a core, like a burning star inside the body. Cultivators who reached this stage could unleash power with a flick of their wrist, according to the scroll. They became forces of nature.
The next stages were barely explained. Nascent Soul, where a cultivator turned their core into a soul, gaining spiritual projection—immortality in spirit. Soul Transformation, where they became avatars of universal Laws. Void Refinement, where the world within became a mirror of the world without. And finally, Mahayana—beings who no longer lived by rules, but rewrote them.
Shuyan stared at the ink, trying to imagine it all.
He couldn't.
To him, Ether wasn't real. Not yet. He couldn't feel it.
"This world is bigger than I ever imagined," he muttered.
But there were no masters, no guides. No books in libraries. No cities of learning. The Wuyuang Kingdom had forgotten this path. The world he knew was just a broken piece of something ancient, abandoned and forgotten.
He didn't know what had caused his world to be like this, bare of ether. Yan Fu's notes talked about a Great Sect War which had happened a long time before but it didn't go in detail. So, Shuyan knew that the Great Sect War was the cause for his land being abandoned but why? That was a question that Shuyan didn't know the answer of. He put aside the messy thoughts and stood up from the cold stone floor, his mind still jumbled by the knowledge he had just gained.
As he thought deeper, this was an opportunity, an opportunity for him to grasp something that no one had ever before.
"Maybe I can become a cultivator." Shuyan thought. This world didn't have ether but what if it was recovering and there were some places with ether. Then wouldn't that mean he had the chance to become a cultivator, a being superior than a Martial Artsist.
His mind kept entertaining the thought as he roasted the meat of the panther over the fire. He was getting hungry.