Li Yuan shut the door behind him and slid the latch into place.

  Only then did his legs finally weaken.

  He leaned his forehead against the rough wooden panel, breathing slowly, listening to his pulse hammering in his ears. The room was small and bare, but familiar in the way any place became after living there long enough.

  Safe.

  For now.

  He straightened and sat on the edge of the bed, staring at his hands. They were steady. No shaking. No nausea. No delayed wave of guilt crashing down on him for what he had just done.

  Five people.

  He had lured five people into a trap and killed them.

  The thought still felt unreal, yet it was as certain as the sun rising in the east and setting in the west.

  He searched himself for regret and found none.

  That made sense. In that moment, it had been them or him—and he had chosen himself. That was all there was to it.

  Li Yuan reached into his spatial ring and began pulling out the spoils, laying them across the table with methodical care. Storage pouches. Two low-grade spatial rings. One of them belonged to Shu Wen—heavier than the others, both in weight and in meaning.

  He didn't know much about the disciples in the sect, but he had heard that Shu Wen came from a powerful, prestigious family. That was part of the reason he had been able to bully other outer disciples without facing consequences.

  If the rumours were true—and they likely were—then Li Yuan would need to be far more careful in the coming days.

  For now though, he began opening the rings one by one.

  Talismans came first. Mostly low-grade offensive and defensive ones, some already partially used. A few were sect-issued, while others bore private marks, likely purchased from shops in the city.

  Weapons came next. Low-grade artefacts, none of them infused with qi. A chipped saber, a spear with a cracked inscription, a throwing dagger, and a sturdy sword. They were sharp and strong enough to cut steel—but that meant very little in the cultivation world.

  Then came the pills.

  Healing pills. Qi-nourishing pills. And a few that smelled… wrong. That was the only way he could describe them. He wouldn't touch those unless desperate.

  There were also spirit herbs useful for cultivation. He set them aside to use later. Low-grade spirit herbs weren't as effective as pills, but they had one advantage—they left no impurities behind in the body that could harm your cultivation path in the future.

  The rest was miscellaneous junk. Broken jade slips. A fragment of a formation disk. Personal effects—letters, hair cords, a child's wooden charm someone hadn't bothered to throw away.

  He decided to burn all of it later.

  Just in case.

  Last came the spirit stones.

  They clinked softly as they spilled onto the table, piling up faster than he expected.

  By the time he finished counting, his expression had gone cold.

  Over two thousand spirit stones.

  Most of them had come from Shu Wen's spatial ring.

  Li Yuan stared at the pile for a long moment.

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  MC looks a bit old in this image. Ignore that. He's only 14 years old right now.

  'How many people did you bleed dry to get this wealth?' he wondered. 'How many juniors have paid for this?'

  The answer didn't matter. Shu Wen was dead, and the stones were now his. Thinking any further wouldn't bring anyone back.

  He swept the stones aside and leaned back, exhaling slowly.

  The net gain didn't quite cover what he had spent. The formation alone had cost over three thousand spirit stones. Even after the loot, he had technically lost money.

  But he didn't mind.

  The formation plate rested quietly in his spatial ring, ready to be used again if he ever faced a similar danger. It was protection he was glad to have.

  That alone was worth the cost.

  Li Yuan reached into the ring again and took out a dozen spirit stones, arranging them in a loose circle on the floor. Then he withdrew the thousand-year ginseng.

  At a glance, it still looked ordinary—shrunken, pale, unimpressive. But he knew appearances were deceiving in this case.

  This was a spirit herb that contained a thousand years of accumulated essence.

  He swallowed.

  Before this, cultivation had been a slow, grinding process. Aside from the merit points he worked hard to earn, he received only ten spirit stones a month from the sect. Even with careful rationing, it had never been enough, let alone after other senior disciples started to extort him.

  At that pace, it might have taken him half a year, or even longer, to break through to the fourth stage of Qi Condensation.

  His progress had never been limited by talent, but by a lack of resources.

  That bottleneck was now gone.

  Li Yuan sat cross-legged, resting the ginseng across his knees. He closed his eyes and began circulating his qi, drawing energy from the spirit stones one by one.

  Qi flowed from the stones into his body—slow at first, then faster as time passed.

  The familiar pressure built within his meridians, thickening, compressing, pushing against invisible limits.

  Then he cut off a small piece of the ginseng and swallowed it. The fragment melted on his tongue, turning into pure energy that flooded his entire body.

  His lips curved faintly.

  By the next morning, he had consumed over half of the thousand-year ginseng along with a dozen spirit stones—and broken through to the fourth stage of Qi Condensation.

  —————

  The next morning, Li Yuan moved through the sect with seemingly no clear purpose or direction.

  First, he strolled into the Merit Hall, its wide stone steps crowded with outer disciples arguing over task rewards and complaining about stingy allocations.

  Then he went to the training grounds, where countless disciples honed their bodies and practiced qi techniques.

  After that, he passed the Treasure Exchange Hall, the Formation Hall, and the public meditation platforms carved into the cliffside.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

  He drifted through every part of the sect that drew large numbers of disciples.

  From the outside, he looked like just another outer disciple killing time. Inside, his focus was razor sharp as his gaze swept over the heads of every disciple he passed.

  Halos were everywhere.

  White halos dominated the crowd. It denoted lives that would unfold exactly as expected, without any major fortune or misfortune in the near future. He ignored them almost instinctively now.

  What he watched for were colours—or darkness. After white, yellow was the most common, signalling minor fortunes.

  One faint yellow halo showed a vision of a disciple arguing with a steward over a task in a spirit garden. That dispute would lead him storming out of the spirit garden and to a cliff where he would discover a rare herb, one that would shorten the time needed to reach the next minor stage of Qi Condensation by several months.

  After yellow came green.

  A soft green halo hovered above a girl quietly copying manuals. By chance, she would later find an old cultivation manual in the Scripture Pavilion that was far better suited to her than her current one. It would triple her cultivation speed and mark her as a minor genius within the sect.

  Purple appeared less often, but when it did, it promised substantial gains. Like the Ancient Spirit Ring that he currently wore as a pendant beneath his Outer Robes dress.

  He came across black halos from time to time and tried to help those disciples. Sometimes they listened, and the halo above their heads turned white as they escaped their fate. Other times, they gave him strange looks and ignored him, their halos unchanged.

  After nearly getting into a fight with a disciple who refused to believe that the girl he liked was plotting his downfall, he made a rule for himself—he would only try to help someone with a black halo once.

  He didn't mind helping others, but he wasn't about to risk his own life doing it.

  He paused at the edge of the crowd and focused.

  A vision bloomed—then faded.

  He dismissed it. The opportunity required talent in formation breaking to exploit.

  Useless to him for now.

  Another halo. Another vision.

  This one involved beast taming. It required both a beast-taming talent and a beast contract technique—neither of which he possessed.

  Dismissed.

  Another halo showed an inheritance hidden in a ruin three prefectures away.

  Too far and too dangerous. Not worth the risk or the time.

  He let the opportunity slip past without regret.

  Not every fortune was his to claim. Some demanded skills he didn't possess. Others required backing, timing, or luck that even his cheat couldn't force. And a few others he could take but would then paint target on his back.

  He ignored all those opportunities.

  But others…

  Others he could take advantage of.

  A disciple would find a rare herb on the outer edge of the Forbidden Forest.

  A group task would uncover a hidden spirit spring.

  Li Yuan silently cataloged each opportunity in his mind, his expression perfectly blank as he did so, and then then moved on.

  By the time the sun climbed higher in the sky, he was finished.

  He turned back toward the Merit Hall.

  Inside, it was crowded as usual. Disciples lined up in long queues, while others clustered around the task boards, fingers tracing reward columns and danger ratings.

  Li Yuan scanned the listings once.

  Then reached up and pulled down a jade slip.

  Herb Gathering Task — Edge of the Forbidden Forest.

  Low difficulty, modest reward, and a slight risk of death or dismemberment in case you ran into a Spirit beast.

  To him, it was just an excuse to go to the edge of the Forbidden Forest where many of the opportunities lay waiting for him.

  He tucked the slip into his sleeve and stepped away from the board.

  'Time to get to work,' he thought calmly.

  —————

  Shu Dong emerged from seclusion with a faint, satisfied smile.

  The cave chamber behind him still hummed with residual qi, its formations fading now that their purpose was fulfilled.

  He had lived up to his elders' expectations, breaking through to the peak of Qi Condensation at the young age of seventeen.

  It had taken longer than he would have liked. He had aimed to reach this stage even earlier, but consolidating cultivation always demanded patience. He would rather build a stable foundation than chase reckless speed.

  Still, the result was undeniable.

  Another step closer to his goal of reaching Foundation Establishment, after which he would strive for Golden Core—and perhaps, just perhaps, break through to Nascent Soul within his lifetime.

  With time, he would polish his foundation, smooth the turbulence within his qi, and then… advance to Foundation Establishment.

  The thought sent a quiet thrill through him. His family had already prepared everything. The Foundation Breaking Pill rested safely in his spatial ring.

  For most, such a pill was nothing more than a dream.

  Rogue cultivators fought and died in droves just to obtain a single defective Foundation Breaking Pill. Even cultivators from lower-grade families often found themselves stuck at the peak of Qi Condensation, forced to spend their entire lives there because their families couldn't afford one.

  But for the seventh-grade Shu family?

  At worst, it was a minor inconvenience.

  Shu Dong adjusted his robes and stepped fully out of the cave.

  The servant girl waiting outside flinched the moment she saw him.

  That alone wiped the smile from his face.

  She stood rigid, head bowed, hands clenched so tightly her knuckles had turned white. Her body trembled like a rabbit under a hawk's gaze.

  Shu Dong's eyes narrowed.

  "What is it?" he asked, his voice calm.

  The girl trembled harder.

  "M–Master Shu…" she stammered, still not daring to look up.

  He disliked this already—whatever this was.

  "Speak."

  "S-something has happened… in the Outer Sect."

  His gaze sharpened. "Is this about Shu Wen?"

  The girl swallowed.

  Shu Dong sighed softly, irritation flickering across his face. "What did that idiot do this time?" he asked coolly. "Did he finally offend someone with an actual background?"

  The girl shook her head. "No. It's… it's worse than that."

  Silence stretched.

  Shu Dong felt it then—a faint, unwelcome tightening in his chest.

  "Well?" he prompted.

  "…Young Master Shu Wen has been missing for a week," she said, the words tumbling out. "His residence is empty. No one has seen him. The Outer Sect elders haven't made any announcement, but… but the rumors say—"

  She hesitated.

  "Say it."

  "They say he's likely dead."

  For a moment, Shu Dong didn't understand the words.

  Dead.

  His mind failed to register those words properly as the world fell silent behind him.

  Dead?

  Shu Wen?

  That useless, arrogant, irritating younger brother—dead?

  Impossible.

  Shu Dong took a step forward without realizing it. "That's not funny," he said, his voice low.

  The servant girl dropped to her knees at once, her forehead slamming into the stone.

  "I would never joke about such a thing, Master Shu! I swear—"

  The world snapped back into place.

  Then rage followed.

  It surged up from his dantian, qi spilling outward in a crushing wave that cracked stone and sent the girl skidding backward across the ground. The formations around the cave shuddered as Shu Dong's aura flared out of control.

  "WHO!" His roar echoed across the mountainside, scattering birds from the trees. "WHO DARED!"

  His fists clenched as killing intent flooded the air. Shu Wen had been an embarrassment—but he had been his embarrassment. His little brother. A scion of the Shu clan.

  And no one touched Shu clan blood without paying for it.

  "Find out everything," he said, his voice thick with rage. "Everyone he met. Every task he took. Every cultivator he had a grievance with."

  The servant girl scrambled to her feet, nodding frantically.

  "And," Shu Dong added, eyes burning, "if you find a name—" He turned toward the mountain, gaze fixed on the distant Outer Sect. "I don't care how insignificant it is. Bring it to me."

  Someone in the Nine Peak Sect had just signed their death warrant.

  —————

  The water pressed in from all sides as Li Yuan moved slowly through the submerged passage, swimming carefully through the dark underwater cave. The Waterbreathing Talisman clung to his chest, its faint blue characters pulsing softly as it converted the surrounding water around his mouth and nose into a thin, breathable layer of air.

  He raised the spirit lamp in his left hand. Its pale flame cast a weak halo of light that slid across jagged rock walls and clusters of pale cave moss.

  The cave sloped downward at an angle just steep enough to be uncomfortable, the current tugging at him in slow, insistent pulls.

  This was the place.

  He hadn't found it by chance, of course.

  In a few days, an outer sect disciple would be chased by a Horned Boar near the edge of the Forbidden Forest. Panicked, wounded, and thinking only of survival, the man would leap into the river and let the current carry him. By sheer luck, it would drag him into this very cave.

  And here—clinging to stone no one would ever think to search—waited a Mist Dew Vine.

  That disciple would harvest the spirit plant and later use it to aid his breakthrough into the late stage of the Qi Condensation realm.

  Li Yuan followed the curve of the cave until the tunnel widened into a low chamber. The water here was unnaturally still, clear enough for him to see the stone floor below. His lamp's light swept across the walls—

  —and caught on a faint, silvery sheen.

  There.

  Mist Dew Vine.

  It grew from a narrow crack in the stone, its translucent leaves drifting gently in the water like strips of moonlight. Droplets clung to its surface despite the plant being submerged underwater, each one refracting the lamp's glow into tiny rainbows.

  Li Yuan's breathing slowed.

  He'd found it.

  He drifted closer and examined it with care. The vine was in as perfect a condition as a spirit herb could be.

  "Good," he murmured, his voice muffled by the water.

  He drew a small spirit knife and began harvesting with deliberate precision. First the stem, cut cleanly to avoid damaging the core. Then the surrounding stone, chipped away just enough to free the root intact.

  He worked slowly and patiently, resisting the urge to rush.

  When the vine finally came free, he secured it in a jade container and allowed himself a small breath of satisfaction.

  He didn't store the root with it.

  Instead, he placed it carefully into his Ancient spatial ring, guiding it toward the spirit lake at its center. The moment it touched the qi-rich soil, the root twitched faintly, already beginning to adapt.

  Given time, it would grow another vine again. Then another, every few years. Having access to a herb like this would benefit his clan quite a bit.

  As he turned back toward the tunnel entrance, a stray thought crossed his mind.

  'Should I feel bad about stealing another disciple's opportunity?'

  In his previous life, stealing from another man would have filled him with guilt and fear of being caught. Here, in this dog-eat-dog world where the strong did as they pleased, the guilt barely registered.

  There was little point in feeling remorse for someone who would kill him without hesitation and take the herb for himself if given the chance.

  Maybe he was generalising, but from what he'd seen in his memories, most cultivators in this sect were like that. Opportunistic and ruthless. Perhaps that was simply what they needed to become to survive here. So it wasn't something he could truly blame them for.

  As they say. When in Rome, do as the romans do.

  Li Yuan kicked off the cave floor and followed the tunnel upward, emerging from the water several minutes later beneath an overhanging rock shelf.

  He dispelled the Waterbreathing Talisman, coughing once as natural air filled his lungs again, then wrung the water from his sleeves.

  As the faint reflection in the water caught his eye, he froze.

  Above his head—

  The halo had darkened once again to Pitch black.

  Li Yuan straightened slowly, eyes narrowing as his heartbeat quickened.

  "…Again?" he muttered.

  To his surprise, the darkness in his halo didn't last.

  Moments after he noticed it, the pitch-black ring wavered and begin to lose its darkness. Subtle at first, then faster with each passing second, like ink diluted in clear water, it began to lighten.

  From Pitch black to charcoal. Then Charcoal to ash. Ash to pale grey.

  Then, as if whatever danger had weighed on it lost interest, the halo faded back to white.

  Li Yuan blinked. Once. Twice.

  "That's… new," he murmured.

  It was the first time he had seen his own fate change without his direct intervention.

  He didn't relax though. Instead, he focused on the halo. And a vision unfolded in his mind.

  ——

  Shu Dong stood at the mouth of his cultivation chamber, qi still humming unevenly around his body.

  A servant knelt before him, head bowed low, delivering the news. Shu Wen. Missing. Likely dead.

  Rage tore through him.

  Shu Dong returned to seclusion, intending to calm his turbulent qi and quickly consolidate his gains so he could hunt down his brother's killer. He tried to suppress the fury, to force his qi back into obedience, to finish stabilising the breakthrough he had worked months for.

  Instead, his haste became his undoing.

  His circulation faltered. Unstable qi slipped from his control and surged where it shouldn't. Pain lanced through his meridians as the accumulated essence rebelled, spiralling out of his control.

  The situation went from bad, to worse, to catastrophic as Shu Dong suffered what all cultivators feared.

  Qi Deviation.

  Shu Dong screamed.

  The backlash from his Qi Deviation was brutal.

  By the time it ended, his cultivation had plummeted from the peak of Qi Condensation to the seventh stage in a single, humiliating fall. Blood stained the stone beneath him. His meridians were torn and scarred, his foundation cracked beyond repair.

  Months would pass before he could cultivate again. And by then, it wouldn't matter.

  Reaching Foundation Establishment was no longer possible for him.

  His path to cultivation—to immortality—was severed before it could truly begin.

  Shu Dong would still ordered investigation for his brother's death. But it would be a half-hearted attempt at best as he scanned the unimaginably long list of suspects with hollow eyes.

  Li Yuan's name appeared once.

  Then disappeared as Shu Dong went straight past it.

  After all, during the time of Shu Wen's death, Li Yuan's cultivation was still at 3rd stage of Qi Condensation while She Wen had been at 6th stage, and his three lackeys at 5th stage.

  There's no way he could've possibly killed even one of them, let alone all four.

  And so, Shu Dong would never find the killer of his brother.

  ——

  The vision dissolved.

  Li Yuan exhaled, his shoulders loosening as the last of the tension drained from his body.

  "So… that's how it is," he muttered.

  Shu Dong hadn't been stopped by him. He had been destroyed by his own rag, by bad timing, and... by bad fortune.

  Li Yuan looked up at the softly glowing white halo above his head, suspicion stirring.

  'Did I steal enough fortunes that it made a naturally fortunate person?' He wondered.

  He wasn't sure if there was any merit to this line of thought, but the idea lingered in his mind.

  Maybe he was overthinking it. But if it was true, then his power was far more useful than he had first believed.

  A slow, careful smile touched his lips.

  "I can definitely use this," he said softly, then turned and walked away.