The Aftermath of the Ruins

The silence stretched long after the Wraith Formation shattered. Dust settled like a veil over the ruined temple, the ghostly echoes of the trapped souls finally fading. Zhao Feng stood still, his breath measured, his fingers slightly curled as he felt the faint tremors within his body. Something was different.

It wasn't just exhaustion—it was change.

The feeling was subtle, yet undeniable. His skin tingled with an awareness that hadn't been there before. The air felt sharper, the world around him slightly clearer. When he focused, he could almost sense the lingering traces of Qi flowing through his limbs. It wasn't much, but for someone who had yet to formally cultivate in this new body, it was unnatural.

His pulse remained steady, but within, his thoughts churned.

"The Wraith Formation… did it leave something behind?"

---

Raik's voice cut through his thoughts. "Zhao."

The man had stepped closer, his sharp gaze assessing him like a predator watching wounded prey. The rest of the group was still catching their breath, but Raik—he had already recovered.

"You don't seem… shaken." His words were careful, but the intent behind them was clear.

Zhao Feng met his gaze calmly. "I was lucky."

Raik narrowed his eyes slightly. He didn't say more, but Zhao Feng could tell—Raik knew luck had nothing to do with it.

Further back, the rest of the mercenaries exchanged uneasy glances. Some muttered among themselves, their eyes flickering toward Zhao Feng. They had seen him touch the altar. They had seen him break the formation. And while they didn't understand exactly what had happened, they knew it wasn't normal.

One of the younger mercenaries, a wiry man named Lian, spat on the ground and shook his head. "Whatever that thing was, it should've killed us. You don't just walk away from something like that."

Another, a woman with a scar along her jaw, folded her arms. "And yet he did."

There was no accusation in her tone—just observation. But that was almost worse. Suspicion wasn't shouted. It was whispered. And whispers spread.

Zhao Feng said nothing. He simply turned toward the ruins, pretending to inspect the broken remains of the altar while his mind worked through the implications. He had already drawn too much attention. This body was still weak, still untrained. If he became a target before he could defend himself properly…

His fingers brushed against something solid beneath the dust.

He frowned and knelt, sweeping away the dirt and debris. Beneath it, half-buried in the cracked stone, lay an old jade slip. Its surface was chipped, the inscriptions nearly worn away, but as his fingers closed around it, a strange pulse ran through him.

It wasn't Qi.

It was something older.

Something watching.

Zhao Feng's grip tightened slightly. He knew better than to react outwardly, but deep inside, a seed of anticipation took root. The ruins were more than just a forgotten battlefield of the past. They were a graveyard of something older, something that had left remnants behind. And now, a piece of it was in his hands.

He tucked the jade slip into his sleeve and rose.

"We should move," Raik said, glancing at the walls of the ruins. Cracks were beginning to spread, the foundations weakening now that the formation had collapsed. "I don't trust this place to stay standing much longer."

The others didn't need to be told twice. They gathered what little they could salvage and made their way back toward the trees, leaving the ancient ruins behind. But as Zhao Feng stepped beyond the threshold, he felt it again—that watching presence.

Not hostile.

Not welcoming.

Just… observing.

And then it was gone.

Zhao Feng sat cross-legged beneath the dying light of dusk, the distant peaks swallowing the sun in a jagged embrace. The air carried the crisp chill of nightfall, mingling with the faint, lingering scent of blood and decay from the earlier battle. Around him, the mercenaries had settled into their own tasks—cleaning weapons, tending wounds, or merely watching the fire flicker in silence. But Zhao Feng was elsewhere.

The jade slip lay in his palm, its surface cool against his skin, smooth yet oddly weighty. Something about it unsettled him. It wasn't just an ancient relic; it was aware—or at least, it had been touched by something that was. When he first picked it up in the ruins, he felt nothing but the slight tingle of old Qi traces. Now, as he steadied his breathing, drawing in the scattered essence of the world, the slip pulsed faintly.

Then it spoke.

Not in words. Not in voices.

It was a whisper against the very edges of his consciousness, like the ghost of a thought he had never formed.

The sensation made his Qi waver for a fraction of a second before he forcefully steadied it. He was not some novice startled by a mere artifact. And yet… there was a weight to that whisper, a depth of knowledge so vast it felt like standing at the edge of an abyss, peering into something far greater than himself.

His instincts told him to discard it.

But Zhao Feng had never been one to back away from the unknown.

He let his Qi flow into the jade slip.

At first, there was nothing. Then—like ink bleeding into water—the slip's energy seeped into him, threading through his meridians, showing him something that should not exist in this era.

The concept was painfully simple yet impossibly profound. Cultivators had been doing it wrong.

Qi was not merely something external to be absorbed and refined into one's core. It was more than just a resource to be shaped and controlled. The jade slip whispered of a path lost to time, a method that required something far more personal.

Zhao Feng hesitated.

What it suggested went against everything modern cultivators understood.

Most trained by drawing in Qi from their surroundings, tempering it, and forcing it into their dantian. The stronger the Qi, the better the results. The more abundant the external resources, the faster one's progress.

But this…

This was different.

It spoke of Qi rooted in the self—not the world, not the heavens, but one's own will, one's own existence. It demanded cultivation through lifeblood and intent, forging Qi internally, not just passively absorbing it from the outside. It was not a technique—it was a principle, a shift in understanding so deep it felt like staring into an entirely new reality.

And it was agonizing.

The moment he tried to implement it, his Qi resisted.

Pain flared through his body, a cold, scraping ache from the inside out. His meridians trembled under the strain, his dantian pulsed violently, and for a moment, he thought he had made a mistake.

Then, something clicked.

His Qi condensed, becoming heavier, denser—not in size, but in substance.

His meridians stretched—not tearing, but subtly expanding, reinforcing themselves against the newfound weight.

His breathing slowed, his heartbeat steadied, and in that moment, he felt it—a connection, not just to the Qi around him, but to something deeper.

His body did not explode with newfound power. He did not ascend to new heights in an instant. But something fundamental changed.

His foundation had begun to shift.

Minutes passed. Then an hour.

Zhao Feng's eyes finally opened, gleaming with a sharp clarity that hadn't been there before. He exhaled slowly, his breath visible in the cold night air, his muscles aching with the unfamiliar exertion of the new method.

It would take time to refine this path. To master it.

But it was his.

The crackle of the fire drew his attention back to reality. Across from him, Raik was watching. He hadn't moved, but his sharp, hunter's gaze had never left Zhao Feng's form.

"You changed," Raik said finally, voice low. Not a question. A fact.

Zhao Feng met his gaze evenly. "Not much."

Raik huffed. "That's the problem. Something happened in those ruins, and now you're… different." He studied him for a long moment before shaking his head. "I won't ask. Not yet. But don't think I haven't noticed."

Zhao Feng didn't reply. There was nothing to say.

But even as Raik leaned back, seemingly letting the matter drop, Zhao Feng felt it.

A pulse.

Faint. Distant.

Yet unmistakable.

His breath stilled.

This was not the jade slip.

Somewhere deep in the mountains, something resonated with his Qi.

Something old.

Something waiting.

Zhao Feng closed his eyes, listening to the silent call.

He would find it.