Stones That Do Not Stir

After handing in the herbs and collecting his reward, Chen Yu didn't linger in the mission hall. With the four spirit stones tucked safely in his sleeve, he returned straight to his room.

The door creaked shut behind him.

Silence.

He sat cross-legged on the wooden floor, the faint scent of dried herbs still clinging to his clothes. He untied the cloth bundle and placed the four low-grade spirit stones before him.

They were dull-gray, no bigger than a knucklebone, with a faint inner glow—like smothered embers trapped under layers of dust. The currency of cultivators. The lifeblood of sect life.

And now he had some.

> "Let's see what you're really worth."

He picked one up and pressed it between his palms, trying to sense the energy flow. As instructed in the outer disciple manual, he circulated a simple breathing rhythm and tried to absorb the spirit qi within.

A faint warmth trickled out from the stone—but when it reached his body, it met resistance.

The moment it brushed against his flesh, it fizzled.

He frowned.

Again, he tried.

The spirit energy surged weakly, but the True Martial Body cultivation method didn't accept it. His skin, already tempered to the second stage—Flesh Fortification—remained unmoved. The power simply… didn't register.

> It's like pouring river water into a stone.

Frustrated, he tossed the stone aside and opened the scroll he'd been given when he first entered the sect—the Stone Body Scripture. It was basic. Crude. But it at least reacted to the spirit stone's energy.

As he breathed slowly, following the script's rhythm, his skin tingled. Qi flowed from the stone and settled into his limbs. Weak, unfocused—but it worked.

> "So this is why the others follow these techniques."

Stone Body Scripture ate up the spirit qi eagerly. Like a beast at a meal. But what it gave back… was pitiful.

Chen Yu stood and struck the wooden post in his room.

Thud.

The power behind it was soft. Blunt. The kind of strength you'd expect from a beginner with no foundation.

He sat down again, eyes falling back to the discarded True Martial Body scroll—the one that wasn't truly a scroll at all, but etched into his soul when he inherited that ancient legacy.

> "You don't want this spirit stone qi, do you?"

He could almost feel it answering.

The True Martial Body only resonated with pure qi—the untamed kind drifting freely in heaven and earth. The kind that couldn't be bought or stored in little gray rocks.

This technique... it rejected shortcuts.

It demanded discipline, strain, and time.

He let out a breath.

"So be it."

He scooped up the spirit stones and stashed them in a small pouch.

> "I'll save you—for pills or martial arts."

But for the True Martial Body, he would stick to what had worked since the beginning:

Hammering his bones against stone.

Soaking his limbs in mountain cold.

Pushing through fatigue until his muscles screamed.

No shortcuts.