The First Page

The candle on Lin Xuan's desk flickered low, casting trembling shadows across the wooden walls of his dormitory cell. The flame had been lit before sunset. Now, hours later, it was burning itself out — long and slow, as if it, too, were waiting for something.

He sat on the edge of his bed, hands resting in his lap. The scroll lay open before him, its surface dry, flaking slightly at the corners. The ink was faint — not from age, but by design. It looked as if the characters had been drawn with ash and breath instead of brush and blood.

It didn't glow. It didn't pulse. It didn't hum with hidden power.

There was no array seal guarding it. No aura of ancient righteousness or demonic corruption.

It just sat there.

To have no fire is not failure.To burn what you have is enough.But be warned.The candle does not last.

Lin Xuan traced the characters slowly, eyes narrowing.

It wasn't written in standard spiritual notation. It didn't reference meridian paths, qi vortex flows, or dantian refinement cycles. Instead, it spoke of flicker rhythm, breath intervals, and something called the Inner Wick.

It read more like poetry than scripture.

But as he followed the lines with his eyes, he felt something shift inside his chest. A soft tightening. A strange heat — not qi, but presence.

His fingers trembled.

The next passage read:

Begin with breath. Three in, three held, three out.Focus not on the flame, but the shadow it casts within your marrow.There you will find your wick. Feed it not with power, but with time.

Lin Xuan's heart skipped.

Time?

He read the line again.

Not qi. Not spirit. Not blood essence.

Time.

The candle beside him guttered. It had nearly burned through the last ring of wax, and its base sizzled against the plate.

Without thinking, he moved his hand toward the scroll again. As his fingertips brushed the parchment, he exhaled — slow, steady, just as the technique described.

Three in.

Three held.

Three out.

Then once more.

The scroll pulsed.

Faint. Almost imperceptible. But it wasn't imagined.

For a heartbeat, the characters on the page glowed orange, like fading embers. Then the glow sank into the parchment and vanished.

He blinked.

Nothing changed.

He waited.

Stillness.

And then — pain.

It wasn't sharp. It wasn't sudden.

The pain crept through his body like oil seeping into dry cloth — slow, deep, and hungry.

Lin Xuan's breath caught. His chest tightened, not from injury, but from a weight that hadn't been there before. A heavy, cloying pressure pressed in from the inside out.

He reached toward his core, attempting to circulate his qi.

It moved. Not well. But enough.

Still, something was missing. Or rather, something else had stirred.

His heartbeat was steady. But wrong.

Too slow.

He pressed two fingers to his wrist.

Counted.

One beat. Then a pause that stretched too long.

Another.

His pulse hadn't weakened.

It had stretched.

The seconds between were longer. As if something had taken the time between heartbeats and made it heavier.

Lin Xuan stood abruptly, knocking over the chair. His vision swam. The candle flame flared briefly in reaction to his sudden movement — then died.

Darkness flooded the room.

He staggered back, breath shallow, mind racing.

The scroll still lay open on the bed, utterly still, utterly ordinary.

He didn't know what had just happened. No, not entirely. But he understood one thing:

That technique — that scripture — had done something to him.

He fumbled for his emergency spirit pearl, clutching it until its pale glow lit the room.

Sweat glistened along his brow.

He dropped to a seated position and forced his breathing steady.

His mind spun with possibility.

Had he damaged his meridians? Ingested something cursed? Had he activated a trap?

But… there was no backlash. No qi deviation. Just that… sensation. The slowing. The sense that something internal had been shifted.

He hadn't burned qi.

He hadn't lost spiritual energy.

And yet, something was gone.

He closed his eyes.

The scripture had called it the Inner Wick. And it had said to burn time.

He didn't fully believe it, not yet.

But part of him… felt thinner.

He wiped his brow and looked again at the scroll. The characters had returned to their normal faded state. Nothing glowed. Nothing moved.

It sat, waiting.

Burn what you have.The candle does not last.

Lin Xuan stared.

No one in the sect would call this a proper cultivation method.

It didn't align with flame theory. It didn't mention elemental harmonization. It didn't even require a spiritual root.

But something had awakened. Something real.

He'd felt it.

He wasn't stronger yet. No meridian opened. No flames flared.

But he had seen it.

Just for a moment.

A flicker.

A spark.

And that was more than he'd ever had before.

Lin Xuan did not sleep that night.

He sat with the scroll long after its words dimmed, long after the last warmth in the room faded, until dawn painted pale fire across the high windows of the dormitory wing.

The spirit pearl at his side flickered low. Its light was nearly spent. But he didn't need it now.

The sun was rising.

He stood, bones stiff, breath slow.

His head ached faintly — not from lack of rest, but from the sense that something old had begun turning behind his eyes. Like a wheel long frozen, now slowly grinding forward.

He rolled the scroll shut and bound it in fresh cloth. The script didn't glow. It made no demands. But he felt its weight differently now. Not physically — spiritually.

The scroll didn't grant power.

It made promises.

And every promise came with a cost.

He tucked it beneath his inner robe and stepped outside.

The sect grounds were already alive. Disciples crossed bridges above the lava channels, their voices sharp and fast. Bells rang from the alchemy tower. An elder's voice boomed through the eastern courtyard as a group of inner disciples began a flame harmonization drill.

Lin Xuan moved quietly through the noise. No one looked at him.

Good.

He preferred it that way.

In the distance, he spotted Meng Fei, crouched beside a fire basin, muttering to himself while coaxing heat into a small pile of paper talismans.

Meng Fei looked up, startled.

"Oh. You're… alive?"

Lin Xuan blinked. "Was there doubt?"

"Not doubt, just…" Meng Fei looked him over. "You look taller."

"I'm not."

"Are you sure?"

Lin Xuan walked past him.

Meng Fei scrambled up. "Wait, wait—don't ignore me. Everyone's talking about you again. You know that, right?"

"They were already talking."

"Well now they think you're either cursed, bribed someone, or… I don't know. One guy said the casting flame went crazy and picked you because it wanted a break from real cultivators."

"Maybe it did."

Meng Fei stared. "That's not comforting."

Lin Xuan stopped.

"Do you think," he said slowly, "a flame can want something?"

"Huh?"

"Can a fire… choose?"

Meng Fei scratched his head. "You're starting to sound like the weird scripture guys."

Lin Xuan said nothing.

The wind passed over them, warm with morning heat.

He turned back toward the southern ridge, where the trial gate to the Fallen Star Domain would open in two days.

The scroll beneath his robe was still and silent.

But the flame inside him — faint, flickering — was not.

It had started burning.