Ash-Blood

The flame did not stir.

Lin Xuan sat motionless on the cold stone floor of the outer disciple training hall, knees aching, back straight despite the weight in his chest. Around him, dozens of cultivators exhaled softly, their bodies shrouded in the faint shimmer of spiritual light. Flames — visible, dancing, alive — flickered over their skin or hovered in miniature suns above their dantians.

Red, gold, blue-white. Fire of every hue.

Except him.

Nothing flickered in Lin Xuan's veins. Not even warmth.

He breathed in slowly, guiding the qi as he had done thousands of times before. He felt it gather around him, drawn by instinct, by repetition — and then felt it slip through him like water through cracked stone.

A cough from the row ahead. A soft, deliberate scoff from behind.

"Still no flame?""At this point, even the ashes should've caught fire.""He's been here six years, hasn't he?"

Lin Xuan opened his eyes.

Gray light filtered through the high, latticed windows, reflecting off the polished obsidian tiles. The inner flames of the other disciples still flickered, even as they rose to their feet and gathered their things.

His legs were stiff. Cold.

Lin Xuan pressed his hands to the ground and stood slowly. A dull ache pulsed behind his eyes. Not pain — not really. Just disappointment. Familiar. Old.

"Oi."

The voice cracked through the air like a log in fire.

Lin Xuan turned just as Zhao Kuan strode toward him, flame-orange eyes gleaming beneath a mop of shaggy red hair. He wore his outer disciple robes with the top half tied at his waist, exposing lean muscle and a faint flame crest glowing on his chest — a mark of ancestral divine fire.

"Ash-Blood," Zhao Kuan called, loud enough to quiet half the hall. "Come on. Not even a spark?"

Lin Xuan said nothing.

Zhao Kuan circled him slowly, smirking. "You'd think after six years, someone would have mercy. Maybe throw you a tinderbox. Or a corpse-flame."

"He's not even cold. He's just... damp.""What's the point of staying in a fire sect if you don't have fire?"

The laughter spread, low and sharp like the hiss of wet wood.

Lin Xuan clenched his jaw. But he didn't react. He never did.

It only made them try harder.

Zhao Kuan leaned in, his breath hot with spiritual qi. "You know what the elders call you? 'Ash-Blood.'"

Lin Xuan met his gaze. Calm. Hollow.

"That's funny," Lin Xuan said. "I've never heard them say your name at all."

There was a moment's pause — just enough for silence to ripple.

Zhao Kuan's smile twitched.

Then, he barked a laugh and slapped Lin Xuan's shoulder hard enough to shift him a step. "Spunky today, eh? Maybe I'll light a fire under you myself."

He turned and walked away. The whispers resumed in his wake.

Lin Xuan exhaled. Not in relief. Not in victory.

Just release.

Outside the training hall, the Cloudspire Sect loomed high and vast across the cliffside ranges. Towers of flame-veined stone jutted upward like spears. Lava channels ran through carved canals, warming courtyards and powering spiritual forges. Every breath of air was rich with qi and heat — the mark of a sect built atop a slumbering divine flame vein.

Thousands of disciples lived here. Trained here. Fought, failed, and ascended here.

And Lin Xuan, for all his efforts, remained at the very bottom.

The Ember Ignition Realm had nine stages. Most outer disciples reached the third within their first year. Some made it to the sixth before moving on to the inner sect.

Lin Xuan had reached the first stage. Barely.

No inherited flame. No fire-aligned constitution. No powerful clan backing him.

He had black hair. Black eyes. Mortal bones.

In a sect where flame was everything, Lin Xuan was smoke.

The bell rang once, deep and resonant, vibrating through the stone under his feet. All around the courtyard, disciples turned to listen. The sound echoed again — a second time.

From the distant southern peak, a voice rang out, amplified by spiritual force:

"All outer disciples are to report to the Lower Ember Plaza. The Fallen Star Domain shall open in three days. Name draws begin now."

A ripple passed through the crowd. Excitement. Apprehension. Disbelief.

"Already?""Didn't they delay it last cycle?""I heard there's a divine flame fragment in the domain this time."

Lin Xuan stood still as the tide of disciples began to move.

The Fallen Star Domain. A cratered ruin soaked in spiritual qi. A trial ground for outer disciples, and occasionally a grave. Only those with enough flame mastery to survive the environment were expected to benefit.

Lin Xuan was not one of them.

He walked anyway.

The path to the Lower Ember Plaza curved around the inner furnace gardens, lined with scarlet-leafed trees that never burned. Lin Xuan kept his head low as he walked, avoiding eye contact, avoiding the whispers.

"He won't be chosen.""Waste of space.""You'd think someone would just burn him out."

He walked through them like ash through smoke.

When he reached the plaza, the crowd had gathered already. Nearly three hundred outer disciples stood in disciplined rows. Elders in gold-trimmed robes floated above them on crimson spirit clouds.

One by one, names were called.

Lin Xuan stood at the very edge, arms folded, back straight.

He didn't expect to hear his name.

He had no right to.

He just wanted to be close enough to see what the strong looked like. What they felt like. To remember it. To burn it into his mind, if not his body.

"Lin Xuan."

The elder's voice echoed over the plaza.

There was a pause. Then a wave of murmurs.

"Who?""Seriously?""Ash-Blood? They picked Ash-Blood?"

Zhao Kuan turned, a grin blooming like wildfire.

Lin Xuan stepped forward. Calm. Still.

Even as a faint heat began to flicker behind his eyes.

Even as something in his chest — something hollow — breathed.