The disturbance reached him as a hairline fracture in destiny.

  So small that most would have missed it. So subtle that even Heaven tried to smooth it over.

  But he noticed.

  The being seated on throne placed atop the jade dais opened his eyes.

  They were not eyes meant for a lower realm to behold—within them swirled layered heavens, collapsing stars, entire cycles of birth and annihilation repeating endlessly.

  A being at the Divine Sovereign Realm had transcended to heights that would be unimaginable even to other cultivators in the Upper Realm. It was a realm where fate itself could be read, bent and rewritten for one's benefit.

  Yet just now, something had slipped from his grasp.

  His fingers stilled on the armrest.

  A thread he had been weaving for seventeen thousand years… had snapped.

  That alone was enough to warrant attention.

  He extended his divine sense.

  His perception unfurled like an infinite tide, washing through layered Upper Realms, past sealed heavens and ancient battlefields frozen in time, descending—descending—until the pressure of reality loosened.

  Lower Realms.

  Hundreds of thousands of planets drifted in that void, each wrapped in its own crude laws, its own fragile destiny web. He ignored almost all of them.

  He knew where to look.

  There.

  His gaze settled on a single, unremarkable world.

  "…Oh."

  Recognition flickered across his expression.

  That planet.

  A backwater even among Lower Realms. Exceptionally thin in Spirit energy. Its only value lay in its exceptions it birthed—the rare anomalies that slipped past the usual constraints of Heaven's Will.

  And now, one such anomaly had just vanished.

  The Divine Sovereign frowned.

  His chosen Son of Heaven was gone.

  Not injured, or sealed, or suppressed or delayed in any manner. A son of heaven goes through all these tribulations in his lifetime, and overcomes them all with his own efforts and perseverance. Coming out stronger on the other end.

  No. This one was…

  Dead.

  The fate thread that should have stretched cleanly into the Upper Realm—into ascension, into marriage with his own daughter, into bloodline integration with his family, and finally, into absolute loyalty to him... It had ended abruptly in darkness, cut so cleanly that even he wouldn't have noticed had he not been paying attention.

  Impossible.

  His divinations had never been wrong on this scale. The boy was supposed to rise. Supposed to struggle, to suffer, to sharpen himself against calamity. Supposed to reach the Upper Realm within a thousand years and then swear loyalty to him.

  The boy would've served as a great pawn for his future plans. Destroying enemies that even he found himself helpless against.

  And yet—

  The Divine Sovereign's gaze shifted.

  The Primordial Assimilation Stele.

  The artefact he had retrieved from the Primordial Void after making great sacrifices. The Stele he had sent to the Heaven's chosen to act as a seed for his future growth, never expecting it to fail in its purpose, now stood bound to someone else.

  Not the boy it was meant for.

  "…Interesting."

  He traced the moment of divergence backward.

  Saw the cavern. The river. The fall.

  And then—

  A blade.

  The Divine Sovereign's brows lifted slightly.

  He turned his attention to the killer.

  A fourteen-year-old boy. Lower Realm. Qi Condensation. Unremarkable physique. Unremarkable origins.

  And yet—

  The moment he focused, his pupils contracted.

  Fortune.

  An overwhelming amount of it.

  No—not quite.

  "This is not a Son of Heaven…" He deduced.

  True Sons of Heaven burned steadily, their destiny blazing like an unquenchable sun. This boy was different. His fortune surged and ebbed violently, spiking to impossible heights before plunging just as sharply.

  Threads appeared around him—then vanished.

  Even the Divine Sovereign could not see all of them.

  That… explained it.

  That was why the boy had never appeared in any of his divinations. Why even now, parts of his fate slipped like sand between his fingers.

  A variable. No… there was more to it.

  "…A thief of destiny," he murmured softly.

  The Divine Sovereign leaned back, lips curving faintly—not in anger, but in amusement.

  For a Son of Heaven to die early was rare.

  For him to die meaninglessly was almost unheard of.

  For his inheritance to pass into the hands of something like this—

  That was new.

  Very new.

  He considered intervening.

  A single thought could erase the boy. Collapse his soul. Rewrite the Stele's bond. Restore the original course of events as if nothing had happened.

  To a Divine Sovereign Realm cultivator, reversing cause and causation was as easy as flipping one's palm.

  The heavens would not even protest.

  Instead, he paused.

  Then, slowly, he smiled.

  "No," he decided. "Let him keep it."

  If this boy truly could steal fate, then the Stele would accelerate his rise far faster than any Son of Heaven he might've chosen. What should have taken a thousand years might take a hundred.

  And despite his unimaginably long lifespan…

  He found himself just a little impatient. To see where this would lead.

  The Divine Sovereign closed his eyes once more, but this time, a sliver of his attention remained behind—anchored to a single, insignificant Lower Realm cultivator.

  "Grow well," he murmured, voice echoing faintly through unseen heavens. "I look forward to meeting you."

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Somewhere far below, on a forgotten planet, a fourteen-year-old boy stood before a black-grey stele and smiled—utterly unaware that a being that could only be described as a god to those lower realm cultivators… had just decided to watch him.

  —————

  He fed the last corpse within the dark cavern to the Stele and stepped back as it got slurped into the stony surface until nothing was left.

  Only then did he realise his shoulders were shaking. Not out of exhaustion but disgust.

  Li Yuan exhaled slowly, hands braced on his knees, and exhaled.

  Thank gods it was finally over.

  He dragged his feet over to the river and knelt, plunging his hands into the freezing water. Blood washed away in cloud of red. But bits of grime clung stubbornly beneath his nails. He scrubbed harder, teeth clenched, until his fingers went numb.

  It didn't help his state of mind much.

  The smell lingered. And he knew that the memory was going to hunt him for a good long while.

  Every time he closed his eyes, he saw it again—the way waterlogged skin slid loose from muscle when he pulled too hard, the soft give of bodies that had been dead and submerged into water for too long.

  His shuddered in disgust and his stomach twisted violently once again. He leaned over the riverbank and retched and vomited.

  When it passed, he stayed there, breathing shallowly.

  'Still… at least it's done.'

  He forced himself upright and turned back to the Stele.

  The black-grey slab stood silently, its surface smooth once more, as if it had never devoured anything at all. Li Yuan summoned his Status panel again, eyes scanning it carefully.

  His Status Panel was nothing like Xu Chen's which had listed dozens upon dozens of different Cultivation related techniques.

  Instead, his own Status panel only showed two:

  Nine Peak Breathing Art – 23 / 50 (Minor Accomplishment)

  Seven Step Sword Form – 4 / 35 (Minor Accomplishment)

  That was it.

  Li Yuan snorted quietly.

  The Nine Peak Breathing Art was as basic as cultivation methods came—issued to every Outer Sect disciple the moment they were inducted into the Sect.

  It was a safe and stable technique that could be taught to the masses. But it was also slow. Designed to keep idiots from crippling themselves more than to make anyone strong.

  If an outer sect disciple somehow managed to enter the Inner Sect, then he or she could be given a better cultivation technique. But till then, they'll just have to make do with it.

  The Seven Step Sword Form wasn't much better. A simple technique his clan had given him before sending him to the sect. It had only Seven basic movements, with Qi channeled through different sets of meridians with each movement.

  It was not a great sword art. Made worse by the fact that he had so very little time to practice it once he arrived in the sect.

  He compared it to what he had seen in Xu Chen's panel. Almost all his techniques required one hundred points for Minor Accomplishment at the very least.

  Compared to that, his own techniques were severely lacking.

  Li Yuan softly clicked his tongue.

  'Quality really does matter.'

  The Stele wasn't lying. These techniques were shallow. Easy to grasp. Easy to complete—and just as easy to outgrow. Pouring points into them now would be like reinforcing a shack instead of building a new house with sturdier foundation.

  No. It just won't do.

  His gaze dropped to the bottom of the panel.

  CURRENT POINTS: 883

  That number seemed large, but knew how quickly he could use them up. And he knew how hard it'll be to earn new points. After all, it's not like he'll just stumble upon another batch of Spirit beast corpses out of nowhere.

  Still, that many points were enough to push both techniques straight to Major Accomplishment. Even take his Sword technique to the realm of Perfection.

  Except, as he'd just said, these techniques were only low-level techniques, and he wasn't sure if they were worth the investment.

  No. Spending points on trash-tier techniques would definitely be a mistake. And if Xu Chen's memories were anything to go by, better techniques could be obtained through sect merit.

  So in the end, that's what he decided. He'll return to the sect and buy better techniques before Investing the points in them.

  Satisfied with the decision, he turned his attention to a more immediate problem. To the Stele.

  '…How am I supposed to carry you?'

  The Stele answered before he could even finish the thought.

  It dissolved into motes of pale light, and surged toward him. Li Yuan stiffened as it slammed into his forehead—but the impact never came. Instead, it entered his forehead and settled quietly at the back of his mind.

  He could feel it there. Waiting for him to summon it back out anytime he wanted to use it again. Or feed it corpses for more points.

  He tested the sensation experimentally—and the Stele flickered into existence a step away.

  Li Yuan let out a short breath of surprise.

  'Well. That's convenient.'

  He dismissed it again, feeling it retreat into his consciousness without resistance, and rubbed his forehead once before turning back to the river.

  He slapped another Waterbreathing Talisman onto his chest, activating it with his Qi, and let the familiar cool sensation wrap around his body once again.

  Time to leave this cavern, and return to the sect.

  —————

  "Nine Begonia Flower!!!" The disciple's shout echoed through the entire Merit Hall.

  Li Yuan's eye twitched. "Yes," he said flatly, already irritated. "Now keep it down, will you?"

  The outer disciple behind the counter flushed and bowed her head quickly. "S-sorry, Junior brother."

  Too late.

  Heads had already turned. Conversations died mid-sentence as dozens of gazes locked onto the jade box in Li Yuan's hand. Then slowly, and greedily, those gazes slid onto his face.

  He placed the box on the counter and opened it just enough for inspection. Pale pink petals layered atop one another like silk, spirit qi leaking out of the box in a faint, fragrant mist.

  A mid-grade spirit herb.

  In an Outer Sect Merit Hall.

  The female disciple swallowed. "H-how did you come by something like this?"

  Li Yuan didn't miss the way the woman's fingers twitched toward the sect token at her waist, or how her breathing quickened.

  "Herb-gathering task in the outer edge of the Forbidden Forest," Li Yuan said without hesitation. "I found it there by chance."

  It was a lie. Not about where he found it. But that he found it by chance.

  In truth, as should be obvious, he had stolen someone else's fortune—intercepting an opportunity that should have belonged to a nameless disciple. But there was no reason to explain that to anyone. Especially not to the idiot who'd just rung the dinner bell on him for everyone else in the merit hall.

  The female disciple stared at him for a long second, then laughed weakly. "That's… incredible luck."

  'You have no idea.'

  The female disciple then lowered her voice. "The Alchemy Hall has been asking for these. They're offering nine hundred merit points per stalk. Do you want to exchange it?"

  'What's the point of lowering your voice now?' He thought with some annoyance but kept his expression blank.

  Instead, he simply nodded. "Yes."

  He had no true use for the herb, so exchanging it for merit points was the correct decision in his mind. Though he would've preferred to do so without everyone else in the merit hall learning about it.

  The female disciple moved fast after that, afraid someone else might interfere. The sect token glowed briefly in Li Yuan's hand.

  +900 Merit Points.

  The number settled. And at the same time, Li Yuan felt it. His halo changed colour and immediately went from white to grey.

  He glanced up at it and saw visions of various Outer Sect disciples intersecting him across various places in the sect in order to force him to use his merit points to buy something for them.

  One group of outer sect disciples planned to ambush him as soon as he left the Merit Hall. Another group knew where he lived and planned to wait there for his return. While a sole disciple planned to stalk him out of the Merit Hall and ambush him in an appropriate place.

  'So that's how it is.' He thought as he exhaled in annoyance. 'To have a treasure you can't protect is truly a sin.'

  And then, his halo changed, going from Grey to White the very next instant.

  The first group rounded a corner and slammed straight into the second. Unfortunately for them, those two groups had prior relations and hated each other to the bone.

  Words escalated into shoving. Shoving into drawn weapons. By the time Li Yuan reached the steps outside the hall, the sounds of shouting and metal rang behind him.

  Later, he would hear the result. Almost all of them were bedridden for the next few months.

  The disciple that planned to stalk him stepped on a Crimson Fire Ant's Nest, and got bitten so badly that they had to amputate his leg off in order to save his life.

  Other disciples who planned on ambushing him met similar fates. Twisted ankles, sudden summons from elders, a patrol appearing at the wrong moment.

  By the end, none of them even managed to reach him.

  And in turn, the bright glow of his Halo dimmed quite significantly.

  Li Yuan's jaw tightened in annoyance. He really disliked for his halo to grow dim like this, even if he understood its necessity.

  Still, the fortune he wasted on these canon fodders could've been used to protect him against real enemies.

  'If only I had been strong, I wouldn't need to waste my fortune like this.' He thought grimly. 'I need to grow strong. And quickly at that.'

  Regardless, he offered a silent thanks to his power. Without it, he would be in quite a heap of trouble back there.

  If he had been forced to deal with even half those ambushes himself, he would have been injured at best. Dead at worst. For now, his good fortune had covered for his mistakes.

  Li Yuan left the Merit Hall quickly, taking a winding route through the sect—switching paths, cutting through training grounds, doubling back once just to be sure. Only when he was certain he wasn't being followed did he change direction and headed uphill.

  The Scripture Pavilion rose ahead of him, its stone steps worn smooth by generations of disciples. He stopped at the base of the stairs and looked up.

  'Time to grow stronger.' He thought, and then he stepped toward the building.

  The gate of the Scripture Pavilion gate was already occupied by a guard.

  An old man sat cross-legged, back straight despite his age, an Inner Disciple robe draped loosely over a frame. His hair was white from old age, tied simply behind his head.

  One of his eye was closed cold thanks to a sword wound that left a deep gash over it, the other zoned in on him the moment Li Yuan stepped within ten paces of the gate.

  Li Yuan felt a pressure fall upon him as soon as the Inner Disciple gazed at him.

  It was not killing intent. Simply the quiet, suffocating weight of someone whose power vastly outclassed his own. Of someone who could kill him with a simple flick of his hands.

  'This Inner Sect disciple is likely at Foundation Establishment. Or maybe... even beyond that.' He thought with some trepidation.

  The pressure was gone the very next moment and the old man closed his eyes, as if no longer holding any interest in him.

  Li Yuan stopped in front of the old man and clasped his hands in respect. "Senior."

  "Why are you here?" the old man asked, his eyes closed as if he couldn't even be bothered to gaze at him. Despite that, he knew that the old man could 'see' him more clearly than he could see the old man in front of h

  "I wish to purchase techniques," Li Yuan replied evenly. "A sword technique. A Movement technique. As well as a Stealth and Tracking Technique."

  The old man remained silent for a moment, then he nodded.

  "Sword techniques can be found at the north wing. Movement arts are placed on the east shelves, third row. Stealth and concealment are at rear alcoves on the West. Tracking techniques are near the beast manuals on the South." Then, suddenly, some of the pressure returned. "Outer Sect sections only. Don't even think about going up to the second floor. Or stealing anything. Is that clear?"

  "Of course senior." Li Yuan nodded.

  The old man snorted softly, as if he'd heard that exact line a thousand times before, then the presence receded and he Li Yuan let out a sigh of relief.

  Li Yuan then stepped inside the building.

  The world stretched.

  What should have been a modest stone building unfolded into a vast interior, shelves rising like city walls and corridors extending far beyond what the exterior of the building should have allowed.

  Rows upon rows of jade slips, bamboo scrolls, and bound manuals filled the shelves, arranged with meticulous order.

  He slowed despite his budding excitement.

  'Space-expanding formation,' he realised, having seen something similar in an auction house down in the Nine Peak city.

  He pushed the thought aside a moment later. This wasn't the place or time to get distracted.

  He gaze fell upon the shelves right in front of him him and he blinked. They were filled with hundreds, if not thousands of different cultivation techniques. And a part of him urged him to take them.

  After all, Common sense said to upgrade cultivation first.

  But he knew that changing his cultivation technique was an incredibly dangerous task. If he picked up a wrong one, one that was unsuited to him, or incomplete, or required him to follow certain steps he didn't know about, or simply made and placed here by a malicious person, then he'd get crippled before he knew it.

  Without guidance, choosing the wrong cultivation method could shatter meridians, poison qi circulation, or lock future growth permanently.

  Plus, he was already cultivated far faster than most Outer Sect disciples. So there was no urgency there.

  He ignored the Cultivation techniques and headed for the sword section.

  Thousands of Sword techniques greeted him.

  Simple slashes. Complex forms. Manuals that promised explosive power and others that emphasised counterattacks, or endurance to outlast his opponent.

  The prices themselves ranged wildly—from a handful of merit points to hundreds, and in rare cases, even thousands of merit points.

  He began reading through the description of those techniques.

  One of the first sword techniques he picked up required an Ice Spirit Root. The second one demanded a Fire-aspected sword forged from volcanic metal.

  Several others were incomplete—missing final movements, broken insights, or entire sections labelled lost to time.

  Others demanded physiques he didn't have or cultivation realm he hadn't yet reached.

  He discarded them one by one and moved on.

  It's not as if all the cultivation techniques were unusable by him. But there were more of such techniques than there weren't.

  Minutes stretched into hours. And he continued looking. Until finally—

  He found one sword technique that suited him.

  Mountain-Splitting Stillness Sword

  250 Merit Points

  The description was concise.

  A heavy sword technique with only a few movements that placed heavy emphasis on timing, body alignment, and decisive strikes. Designed for hunting large, resilient targets—creatures that would not fall to fancy tricks or shallow wounds.

  Meaning: Spirit beasts.

  Li Yuan imagined himself facing a large Spirit beast head-on, and putting it down with a single arc of his blade.

  He took the technique from the shelf.

  Next came movement techniques.

  He rejected anything that focused on long-distance travel—that was not the focus here. He needed something that worked in close quarters, that let him reposition around a large target swiftly.

  After searching for another hour, he found one that suited his needs.

  Shadow-Cloud Steps.

  A movement technique that focused on short bursts of movements. Sudden shifts in position that made pinning him down very difficult, and manoeuvring around an opponent incredibly easy.

  It was perfect for what he needed. Which was to hunt Spirit beasts, though he had no doubt that once mastered, this technique would be equally devastating against human opponents.

  Finding a good Stealth technique proved to be much harder.

  Most concealment techniques were either fragile illusions or shallow qi suppression methods that failed the moment one encountered someone stronger. He went past them without giving them a second look.

  That was why he almost missed it.

  Tucked away in a shadowed alcove, written in plain script was the technique that finally caught his interest.

  Veil of Borrowed Heaven.

  It was a technique that masked presence, sound, scent—and even qi flow—by blending the user into ambient fluctuations. Not absolute, but terrifyingly effective against anyone within one major realm.

  The only downgrade was that the technique was incredibly difficult to learn. In fact, of the dozens of disciples that tried to learn this technique before him, not a single one managed to complete even the Minor Accomplishment realm.

  Basically, the technique required incredibly high level of comprehension to learn.

  That might be a problem for others, but for him who planned to learn those techniques with the help of the Stele, it was not an issue.

  So, Li Yuan took it without hesitation.

  Finally, a tracking technique.

  He skimmed past beast-hunter manuals and scent-based methods of tracking until he found what he wanted.

  Spirit Residue Following Technique.

  This technique track targets through lingering qi imprints. Footprints were optional and distance was irrelevant. As long as qi residue existed, it could traced.

  A hunter's tool… or an assassin's, depending on the situation he's faced with.

  Written below the Description was a disclaimer that the Technique required high Qi Sensing abilities to perform adequately.

  He did not have high Qi Sensing. But once again, he was confident that the Stele would provide, so he picked it up with confidence.

  He then moved toward the Counter, feeling a slight bit of pain at the loss of 820 merit points.

  But then he saw something out of the corner of his eyes and paused. He hesitated. Then turned back.

  Minutes later, he returned with a thin, unassuming volume.

  Introduction to Gu: Identification, Nurturing, and Activation.

  5 merit points.

  Cheap but very necessary.

  The petrified Lifespan Gu still sat heavy in his storage ring. And he still had no idea how to awaken it from its petrification, or how to use it afterward.

  In the end, Li Yuan paid a total of 825 merit points at the counter and stepped back out into the sunlight with a genuine smile.

  He wasn't strong yet. But now—

  Now he had the tools to become dangerous.

  Incredibly dangerous.