They had beaten him.
Blackened his body, bloodied his scalp.
Even the sect dogs walked with more dignity than him.
But Li Qiong had long vanished from the courtyard.
He now lived in the wild.
Deep in the shadowed forest beneath the northeast cliffs, where spirit beasts roamed and no disciple dared linger, he made his home.
Not in huts. Not in caves.
He dwelled among roots and rain, hidden beneath old trees, his body smeared with ash and mud to mask his scent—and his presence.
In this forgotten place, Li Qiong began to forge his path.
He gathered wild herbs by hand: bitterroots, soul-thistles, marrowvine. Not the prized spiritual plants, but the weeds that sect instructors ignored—those that only grew in untamed soil, full of poisonous vigor.
Night by night, he refined their essence over a crude flame, creating thick medicinal sludge in wide, broken cauldrons of stone. He soaked in the mixture until his skin cracked, his blood boiled, and his mind trembled.
His bones were fragile, his muscles wasted, and his organs starved from years of neglect and malnourishment.
But he was patient.
To reach cultivation, one required vigor—essence drawn not only from qi but also from the flesh.
So he hunted. Rabbits. Boars. Even spirit-warped deer. Every beast he brought down, he drained its essence using primitive alchemy, boiling meat and bones into crude vitality pills. He devoured the pills with grit teeth, swallowing the wild life-force that clawed at his insides like fire.
Each night, he practiced alone—stretching, contorting, pushing limbs into impossible forms. Not just to build muscle, but to reshape his skeleton: expanding the rib cage, anchoring the spine, widening his shoulders, and firming the joints.
He broke down the shape he was born with—
—and forged one suitable for cultivation.
His body was no longer a boy's.
Years passed.
No one noticed.
Not even his brothers.
Now, when he walked, trees creaked beside him.
His spine straightened. His frame was broad as a mountain gate.
His once sunken skin gleamed faintly like pale jade.
His hair fell like ink, matted with earth and leaves.
And his eyes?
They were oceans—still, endless, and unfathomable.
He was tall. Towering.
A silhouette mistaken for a wandering spirit of the forest.
But he remained hidden—dirtying himself with mud, draping animal skins over his body, hunched and quiet when anyone passed near. He never returned to the sect's public eye.
They thought he had disappeared.
They thought he'd given up.
But far from them, he had awakened the Primeval Sea.
The so-called "crude aperture" had accepted him in silence.
And within that endless, inner ocean... something stirred.
Li Qiong sat cross-legged amidst the storm. His breathing shallow, controlled.
He could feel it now.
A pulse.
A rhythm.
A tide A wave crashing his dantain
"Before Dao became law, and before qi was tamed by technique, the first cultivators rose from the Sea.
Their essence was not drawn—it erupted.
Their foundations weren't granted—they were earned.
This was the Origin Path.
The Primeval Sea bears no favor, for it was Preservance."
It came from within—not his heart, but something deeper within mind.
He focused.
And then it opened.
He watched as Li Hongye and Li Wuji were praised, paraded across the sect, revered as twin prodigies destined for legend.
And he smiled.
Unlike the radiant Dao Body that had blossomed within his two brothers—Li Wuji and Li Hongye—his aperture was rough, unrefined, crude like the first breath of creation.
While the sect whispered of the Purple Prefecture, the Dao Sea, or even the famed Lotus Heart Caverns found in noble scions, none ever praised the Primeval Sea.
They said it was primitive.
Obsolete.
A path buried by time.
Once, in a life before this one, this moment had shattered him.
He had slipped crossing the river, fallen face-first into the cold. No one had helped him.
He remembered that humiliation. That despair. That silence after laughter faded.
But they were wrong.
Li Qiong first felt its potential during the raid on the Holy Sky Lotus Sect.
He'd infiltrated a crumbling vault beneath the temple roots
The so-called Holy Sect had stored many ancient texts there, forgotten by even their elders. And among them... one scroll spoke of something lost
Li Qiong had taken it. Studied it. Bled over it.
And now...
Now, as the bruises on his skin faded into silence, he felt the sea inside stir.
The surface was calm, like glass. But below... tides moved. Swirls of potential, unseen by others, formed patterns not dictated by manuals or masters.
a viscous tide swirled, black as pitch, heavy as sludge.
It was not essence yet.
Not liquid.
And to turn this primordial tar into flowing qi,
there were no shortcuts.
there were no nourishing pills.
Here, only pain, time, and sheer will shaped progress.
It was slower.
Harder.
Lonelier.
Not a path gifted by pedigree.
Not a technique granted by benevolence.
But a path walked with effort and time alone.
Within... his dantain a still, mirror-like sea, swirled in black hues, thick as a sludge.
the only way to cultivate is to refine it until the sludge turns into the liquid
In certainty.
Here, no legacy paved the path.
No master handed down the way.
This was a road walked barefoot, through thorns and nails.
And so he refined it—night after night.
day after day.
Until his lungs burned.
Until his bones shook.
Until his body screamed in agony began to unravel.
He coughed.
Once, Twice, Thrice...
Then again.
Thick, clotted black blood spilled from his lips, splattering across moss and stone.
He gasped—
—but the air felt like fire.
His chest tightened,
his ribs screamed,
his stomach ached as if something stirred writhed within.
Again, he coughed—
and this time it came like a flood.
Dark sludge erupted from his mouth, thick with rot and age.
His body convulsed.
His muscles seized.
His throat tore as he vomited filth he didn't know he carried.
Sweat poured down his skin like rain.
His fingers clawed at the dirt.
His eyes blurred, tears mixing with the blood.
His vision flickered.
The trees bent.
The world spun.
And then—
Silence.
He collapsed.
Shaking. Hollow. Breath shallow.
Tears slipped from the corners of his eyes—silent, unbidden.
Not from pain.
But from the simple exhaustion of it all.
The kind that eats into bone.
The kind that no rest cures.
The kind that makes a body into something else.
His vision dimmed, colors fading into shadow.
And just before the darkness took him, he felt it—
—a shift.
From within the Primeval Sea,
beneath the glassy surface,
the first ripple formed.
A single wave.
A heartbeat in the depths.
It was the beginning.