Intent

One moonless night, he tested darker waters. He summoned the rage of survival—the clawing needs to protect what's yours. Feeling of suffocation and anguish. Memories surged: bloodied battlefields, the guttural cries of foes he'd cut down. The air around him thickened, sour with the resentment of a hundred thousand ghosts. It pressed down like a stormcloud, so palpable even a seasoned warrior would've bolted. Han Chen swallowed it back, but his eyes stayed with a dead look.

Next, he chased sharpness. Not blades, but the idea of cutting—the purity of a split second before a clean strike.

Sword intent, he knew, was a realm of its own, with stages that mirrored regular cultivation: sword control, sword heart, sword will, sword intent prototype, sword intent, sword domain, sword integration, and beyond—transcending space, causality, effect, time, and even the chains of reality itself. These realms were independent of Qi cultivation, meaning a practitioner could advance far in sword intent without matching progress in Qi. But there was a catch: overexertion could crumble the spirit, leaving the cultivator broken.

Han Chen, armed with nothing more than a kitchen knife, began his practice. He extended his Qi to the blade, using his intent to guide its movements. At first, it was clumsy, but soon he achieved precision, eliminating hesitation and attaining mental clarity. His mind became one with the blade, and he stepped into the realm of sword heart.

Minutes later, his will exerted a tangible force, enveloping the knife and dramatically increasing its cutting power. The essence of this force then flowed back, wrapping around his aura as he achieved sword intent. Letting go of the knife, he sat cross-legged, combining his telekinetic perception with the law of severance. He took half a step into sword domain, though without full spiritual consciousness, true mastery remained just out of reach.

Still, the progress was undeniable. Han Chen's spirit will was growing stronger, his control sharper. Practice continued, days later,

Han Chen exhaled slowly, the weight of mental fatigue pressing against his temples like a dull ache. Releasing the sword intent felt like lowering a blade he'd clenched for hours—his muscles unwound, but his eyes retained a glint, sharp enough to slice through fog. He slumped against a nearby tree, rubbing his palms over his face until the world softened at the edges. 

After an hour of quiet breathing—inhaling the damp earth scent of the forest, exhaling tension—he shifted focus. He remembered countless hours he spent learning and enlightening. The scholar's intent came easier, like slipping into a well-worn coat. His posture straightened, fingers ghosting the air as if turning pages of invisible texts. A calm, bookish aura settled around him, the kind that made sparrows pause mid-chirp, as though the very trees leaned in to listen. When he let it fade, fragments of clarity lingered, sharpening his thoughts like ink on parchment.

Then, almost playfully, he let his mind wander further. What if I hadn't fallen? Memories of his past life as an immortal emperor surged—less a daydream and more a tidal wave. For a heartbeat, his spine steeled, shoulders rolling back as if bearing the weight of galaxies. The air thickened with an unspoken command, the kind that once made star systems bow. A stray squirrel froze, twitching nervously before darting away. Han Chen smirked, reining it in. The majesty dimmed, but not the confidence it left behind—a quiet ember in his chest.

Later, catching his reflection in a rain puddle, he nearly laughed. To most, he'd seem ordinary—a young man with windswept hair and calloused hands. But his eyes betrayed him. One glance, and you'd glimpse the edge of a blade you will bleed, the depth of forgotten knowledge - your mind will be blank, the gravity of a throne room - you will feel insignificant. It wasn't arrogance. It was the residue of thousands of mortal lifetimes, seeping through the cracks of his carefully crafted disguise.

He stood, brushing dirt from his pants. The forest hummed its usual chorus, but the birdsong now felt like a salute. Extraordinaire, cloaked in the mundane—a paradox even he couldn't fully hide. 

...

The next morning, Han Chen shuffled into the kitchen, still rubbing sleep from his eyes. At the dinner table, when he was still thinking about the accumulated sleep debts, his father, Han Zhong, nearly spat out his tea mid-sip sensing some majesty uncharacteristic to his son. "Are you… really my son?" he blurted, squinting like he'd seen a ghost.

Han Chen's mother swatted her husband's arm with a dishcloth. "What nonsense are you spouting at breakfast?"

"Come here," his father insisted, beckoning him closer. Han Chen obliged, bracing as he felt the faint prickle of his father's Qi probing him—a clumsy attempt to gauge his cultivation. But Han Chen's realm was a locked vault, revealing nothing.

"Our son is exceptional," his mother chimed in, tilting her head. "But now that you mention it… he does seem brighter today. More… confident." Her eyes lit up. "Oh! You've finally started dating, haven't you? Is it that Xu Qing girl? I always said you two were—"

"Mom," Han Chen groaned. "I'm not dating anyone."

She waved him off, grinning. "Fine, keep your secrets. But mark my words, when you bring her home, I'll—"

Han Chen hurried away before she could finish. 

At school, the shift was subtler but undeniable. The class monitor—a girl who'd never spared him a second glance—stumbled mid-sentence when he passed, her words dissolving into a flustered murmur as she stared into his eyes. His teachers stiffened when he handed in assignments, replying with clipped formality, as though addressing a superior rather than a student.

Even Xu Qing looking at him absent minded for many a while. By lunch, Han Chen had enough. He slipped into the men's restroom, locked himself in a stall, and let out a long, shaky breath. Time to fix this.

Closing his eyes, he dredged up memories he'd rather forget: the helplessness of his past life, the compromises, the times he'd bowed his head to survive. He thought of tyrants who'd erased entire bloodlines over slights, people being farmed for blood essence, those pawns discarded without a thought. Of lifetimes spent folding himself into smaller, quieter versions to avoid notice.

A heavy aura seeped from him—submissive, weary, ordinary. The kind that made people glance away, their chests tightening with unwarranted gloom. A boy washing his hands at the sink suddenly gripped the counter, head bowed as if crushed by invisible weights. Another hurried out, muttering about "bad vibes."

When Han Chen stepped out, his presence had dulled to something unremarkable yet layered—like a sword sheathed in frayed cloth. No more playing emperor, he told himself. Survival means choosing when to shine and when to fade. There are more ways for me to die now than to being alive.

Back in class, the shift was instant. Friends relaxed around him again, though their laughter held a puzzled edge. The class monitor still glanced his way, but now it was curiosity, not awe.

Han Chen smirked inwardly. Balance, he was learning, wasn't about hiding power—it was about wielding it in the shadows, one quiet ripple at a time.

...

The opportunity didn't come easy, both for his breakthrough and slipping off his premises. Han Chen waited days. When his parents finally had an urgent need to visit a distant place for business, It came naturally. Biding his time until the sun dipped low enough to bleed the sky amber and indigo, he slipped out like shadow.

He wandered for an hour, sticking to backstreets and different bus routes to reach the place. He knows how advanced the surveillance systems in this decade is. He doesn't want anyone to backtrace to his relatives if he had to commit some wrongs and live under the suspicion of irrelevant people, even if he was disguised. 

His senses sharpened to every rustle of dry leaves underfoot. His old cultivation site—a tucked-away clearing near the mountain's base—was his first stop. But as he neared it, his senses quickened. Fresh footprints dented the mud, too large to belong to any animal. Faint Qi traces lingered in the air, sour and metallic, like rusted nails. Someone's been here. He didn't linger anymore.

Probably the members from Tang family carried out some studies after instructions from the old man. He may have found some clues.

His feet carried him westward, guided by a half-remembered view from a past hike. The abandoned villa loomed ahead, its once-white walls now grayed by mildew and neglect. Weeds clawed through cracked windows, and the skeletal remains of a garden gate hung crookedly on one hinge. A memory stabbed at him: headlines from ten years in the future, security footage leaked online showing this very villa drenched in blood, its basement a labyrinth of horrors.

He circled the perimeter, slow and deliberate. The hidden cameras were already here, he knew—tiny lenses tucked into ivy-choked eaves, behind crumbling gargoyles. Activating his Heavenly Spirit Eye technique, the world washed into monochrome, except for faint red pulses where surveillance devices hummed showing energy fluctuations.

His gaze snagged on a camera nestled in a dead birch tree, another disguised as a garden stone. He mapped their blind spots like constellations.

Scaling the villa's side, his fingers found grooves in the weathered brick. The second-floor balcony creaked under his weight, its rusted railing trembling as he vaulted onto the roof. Up here, the decay felt distant. Sunlight pooled in the cracked tiles, and the wind carried the mineral tang of Yi Lake below. Perfect. DNA traces—skin cells, stray hairs, fingerprints —would bake away under the UV rays, scatter on the breeze. No evidence, no trail.

He settled cross-legged, the lake's surface rippling like quicksilver in the fading light. For an hour, he meditated, syncing his breath to the rhythm of the waves. When his Qi stirred, it came as a prickle beneath his sternum, then a slow burn coiling up his spine. The breakthrough hovered like static in the air—a pressure in his temples, a hum in his molars.

He didn't rush. Let the energy gather, thick as honey. Let the world narrow to the pulse in his veins. Above, the first stars blinked awake. Han Chen exhaled, and the night itself seemed to lean closer, holding its breath.