From Ashes, a Second Path

Before Xiao Ning could comprhand what's happening, the void around him shifted.

Images began to form—scenes begin to appeal in his mind– memories.

The images that surged into Xiao Ning's mind were not his own, and yet they felt oddly familiar—woven into the fabric of his soul, as if they were buried echoes of a path he had once walked.

He was only seven.

A scrawny, barefoot orphan with dirt-streaked cheeks and eyes dulled by hunger. For two years, he had survived on scraps, dodging beatings, stealing just enough to avoid starving.

Then one day—perhaps by fate, perhaps by cruel coincidence—he stole from the wrong person.

It had been a simple plan. A dried meat bun tucked under the sleeve of a withered old man seated by the roadside, blindfolded, unmoving, like all the beggars that haunted the slums.

But the moment his fingers brushed the cloth of the old man's sleeve, time seemed to halt.

His wrist was caught.

Not tightly, not violently—just… stopped. As if the world itself had frozen around that single motion.

The old man turned his head slightly, empty sockets wrapped in a black silk band.

"You dare steal from me, child?" The voice was raspy, barely a whisper, but the pressure behind it was like a mountain pressing against the boy's spine.

The boy froze. Terror rooted him in place. He couldn't even breathe.

Then came a moment of silence, during which the air grew still and the wind stopped blowing through the alleyway.

"Hmm..." the old man murmured.

He released the child's wrist.

Then, to the boy's shock, he tossed him the bun.

"You're lucky," the old man said. "You were born with something rare."

The child blinked, unable to process what was happening.

"Tell me, boy," the old man continued, "have you ever heard of cultivators?"

The child had.

To the poor and destitute of this small city, cultivators were myths—beings of legend, called Immortals by mortals, wielders of heavenly power. They could fly through the skies, tear apart mountains, and live for centuries.

The boy nodded slowly, uncertain.

"What you call Immortals are merely low-level cultivators. But among them, there are realms... realms far beyond what your kind can imagine."

The old man smiled faintly.

"I am one such cultivator. A Nascent Soul cultivator."

The child didn't understand. The words meant nothing.

But the weight of them did.

Nascent Soul cultivators, in the world of mortals, were gods. Monsters. Legends. Some sects had never even seen one. And this blind, beggar-like old man wasn't just any Nascent Soul expert—

He was Death Eye Daoist.

A name whispered with dread throughout the cultivation world.

A thousand-year-old terror whose path was stained in blood. An expert whose mere presence had once brought sects to ruin.

And yet… he didn't kill the boy.

He took him in.

He brought him back to his sect. There, he fed him, clothed him, and gave him a new name.

Why?

Because the boy possessed something mortals would kill for—a spirit root.

Spirit roots were the fundamental divide between mortals and cultivators. Without one, no matter how much effort a person put forth, they would remain mortal, bound by aging and death.

But with a spirit root... the path of cultivation could begin.

Yet even that wasn't the full reason.

Spirit roots came in five grades: Yellow, Human, Earth, Heaven, and Divine.

The boy?

He had a Heaven-grade spirit root.

Even more astonishing—it was perfectly attuned to Death Eye Daoist's cultivation technique, a Dark and Earth-based method that very few could practice without self-destruction.

The odds were infinitesimal.

But fate, as always, played its tricks.

A blind old monster had sat still long enough for destiny to deliver to him the perfect successor.

And so began the boy's path—not as a beggar, but as a cultivator.

A disciple of one of the most feared Nascent Soul experts in the world.

The scenes rippled—like water disturbed by wind—and time surged forward.

Moments blurred. Years passed in a breath.

The scrawny orphan faded. In his place rose a young man clad in dark robes, his gaze cold and sharp, with a presence that made rivers still and beasts kneel. Mountains burned in his wake. Cultivators trembled at his name.

He had become a Nascent Soul cultivator.

His path had not been paved with mercy. It was forged in cruelty, war, betrayal. His master taught him that sentiment was weakness, and kindness a chain. And so, he severed such things. He slaughtered enemies, crushed rivals, even burned down sects that dared challenge his rise.

He had long surpassed the boy who once knew hunger and fear.

And yet—

The scene shifted again.

Now he stood in a ruined valley, bathed in the cold hues of twilight. Craters and blood marred the earth. The corpses of cultivators—Core Formation, even Nascent Soul—lay around him.

And at the center of it all… was him.

A blade pierced through his chest. Its hilt trembled from the force of its strike, buried deep in his heart.

Blood poured down his robes. His soul had suffered a terrifying impact. The power that once shook sects was fading from him, bleeding into the void.

Behind him, she knelt, gasping, her robes torn and face pale with injuries. Her delicate hands trembled as they reached toward him, but he gently raised a hand to stop her.

He was a figure whose story mirrored Xiao Ning's own: another villain, felled not in open battle but brought down by ambush—yet spared complete destruction.

Unlike Xiao Ning, Li Feng's body had not been utterly destroyed. Only his soul that was shattered, or rather it was it was his consciousness.

He was the perfect vessel.

"This body belonged to Li Feng," the jade book explained calmly. "A Nascent Soul cultivator. He perished during a raid by the Azure Dragon Sect—ambushed and mortally wounded before he could even unleash his full strength. Though his physical body remains intact, his mind is broken beyond repair. You may inhabit it. Restore functionality. Retain your identity."

Before Xiao Ning could respond, the jade book acted.

A ripple of power surged outward. Soul force churned like a tidal wave, enveloping him in light. His awareness tore loose, flung toward the soul that once housed Li Feng's will.

Then came the pain.

His consciousness scraped against the splinters of Li Feng's shattered consciousness—memories like shards of broken glass. Each one lanced through him as both identities collided.

Li Feng's past flooded through again, In more details this time.

Born as a mortal he rose from obscurity through cruelty and cunning. Eventually, he seized control of the Shadowclaw Sect, carving a name feared even among other Nascent Soul cultivators. His methods were merciless—ambushes, poison, blood oaths, the silent knife in the dark.

And yet—

It had not saved him.

Xiao Ning saw it clearly in a flash of memory: the final ambush. Azure Dragon Sect cultivators descending in waves, the mountain pass already sealed. Traps sprung. Sword-light streaking through the sky like comets.

Amidst the chaos, she was there.

A woman, robes torn, bloodied, kneeling in shock.

And then—a sword.

Not aimed at him. Aimed but at the woman, strangely Li Feng stepped in the way and the blade pierced clean through his chest.

A Nascent Soul cultivator, slain like a mortal.

Xiao Ning watched the scene through Li Feng's fading vision. And he sneered inwardly.

Pathetic. Even legends fall to foolishness when blinded by sentiment.

The merging ended.

Xiao Ning opened his eyes—not to the endless void, but to the earthy dark of a stone chamber carved into a mountainside.

A dull ache pulsed through the new vessel—fractured bones, torn ligaments, ruptured meridians. The body was a wreck.

But it lived.

And that was enough.

Xiao Ning slowly sat up, each motion deliberate. The joints groaned in protest, and a cold sweat clung to the skin, but he ignored it. Compared to the pain of soul transfer, this was nothing.

This body… was now his.

He had only just calmed his breath when a voice came from behind—soft, trembling, yet edged with barely contained dread.

"Y-You… who are you? What have you done to Li Feng?"