Bi Kan, having recovered a fraction of his strength, joined the gargantuan effort.

  He planted his feet, his newly tempered muscles bunching as he threw his entire weight into pulling the thick, coarse rope. His contribution was immediately noticeable, the immense inertia of the boar groaning as it shifted an extra, crucial inch.

  "H-Hey, that young hero is really strong!" one of the villagers grunted, his own face red with exertion.

  His friend, straining beside him, bonked him gently on the head. "Idiot, obviously! He helped take this damned boar down! Of course he's strong!"

  Not to be outdone, Ying Xia found her place on the rope next to Bi Kan, her own muscles flexing as she pulled with a ferocious grunt.

  "N-Not bad," a man mumbled, his eyes widening in grudging respect. "Even old Ying's granddaughter is pulling her own weight…"

  The slow, grinding journey back to the village began. As they fell into a rhythmic, synchronized pull, the shared labor created a space for quiet conversation.

  "So, this Qi thing," Ying Xia began, her voice a little breathless from the strain.

  "It’s… really hard to focus. The glimmering lights are everywhere, everything is glowing and shimmering… it’s beautiful, but it makes my head swim."

  Bi Kan shook his head, a knowing smile touching his lips.

  "Don't worry, that's because you've just begun. Think of it like this: Qi is the world's lifeblood, its very breath. Right now, your spirit has just opened its eyes for the first time. You’re seeing every single mote of dust in a sunbeam, every ripple in a pond. It's overwhelming."

  He gave a sharp tug on the rope, his explanation punctuated by the effort.

  "But as you grow, your mind learns to filter it. The small, insignificant lights will fade into the background. You won't stop seeing them, but you’ll stop noticing them. Instead of being a spectator, your spirit will learn to breathe, to subconsciously absorb the ambient Qi around you, making it a part of you without even thinking. That’s when the real cultivation begins."

  Ying Xia nodded, the concept clicking into place with a profound clarity.

  A wide, brilliant smile formed on her face, a beacon of hope in the twilight. "I can finally become strong like you," she whispered, the words a promise to herself.

  Bi Kan grinned, an idea taking root in his mind. "Yep," he confirmed, his voice filled with a new resolve.

  "Once I’m done with my mission here, I'll definitely bring you back to the sect where I belong." After she eagerly agreed, her eyes sparkling with excitement, she asked what kind of mission could have possibly brought a sect disciple to such a remote place.

  Bi Kan explained it all, the sect’s desire to build its reputation, the hunt for the scattered bandit clans, and his own specific objective.

  "I-I see," she said, her expression turning serious as she processed the danger he was still in.

  "Do you mind explaining what you meant by realms? You mentioned them earlier…"

  Bi Kan nodded, the role of teacher feeling surprisingly natural.

  "Think of it like building a pagoda," he began, choosing his words carefully.

  "Each realm is a new floor, with entirely different rules and a stronger foundation. The Qi Sensing Realm is the ground floor, where we learn to see the spiritual bricks. The Body Tempering Realm is when we start using those bricks to fortify our own bodies, making them tougher than steel."

  He explained the five great realms known to the sect, and how each was divided into stages.

  "The first nine stages are about accumulation. You're laying more bricks, making your floor wider and stronger. But Stage 9 isn't the end. When you push beyond it, you reach the Peak Stage. That's when you've laid all the bricks you can. You're standing at the edge, preparing to build the staircase to the next level, the breakthrough."

  She nodded throughout the whole explanation, her eyes wide with wonder. "So, there are ten stages for each realm, Stage 1 to 9 and then the Peak… and then you break through to another realm?"

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  Bi Kan smiled. "Exactly."

  She grinned, a new, more ambitious question already forming on her lips. "What's beyond the Golden Core Realm?"

  Bi Kan’s eyes widened slightly. He had mentioned it as a distant rumor, the supposed apex of power. "I don't know," he admitted honestly.

  "No one in the sect truly does. But," he added, his gaze turning distant, "we'll know once we explore beyond our own world."

  Ying Xia’s grin widened even further. "There's something even more beyond? Haha! Are we actually just a small speck of dust compared to these higher realms I dream of?"

  Bi Kan nodded slowly, his thoughts turning inward to the vast, silent ocean of his Soul Sea, where a celestial wolf spirit slumbered.

  He’s right, he thought, the wolf's ancient, dismissive silence a far more profound answer than any words could be.

  This spirit inside me is from something so grand, the matters of our world are hardly worth mentioning to it. Maybe… we're not even known from above. That's how insignificant we are.

  "Maybe," he said aloud, the single word hanging in the air, a quiet acknowledgment of the vast, terrifying, and exhilarating mountain they had only just begun to climb.

  Back in the village, the air, once thick with the metallic tang of blood and the sour scent of fear, was now filled with the fragrant promise of a legendary feast.

  The initial, chaotic joy had settled into a focused, communal effort, a ritual to honor the dead and celebrate the living.

  "This should be enough herbs!" a young man declared triumphantly, holding up a pouch brimming with fragrant leaves and roots he had gathered from the forest's edge.

  A grizzled, one-eyed man who had appointed himself the head chef smacked him lightly on the back of the head. "No, no! We definitely need more!"

  He gestured to the three massive bags already overflowing with spices at his feet.

  "Are you stupid? That thing's huge! We must gather sufficient spices! When it comes to a beast of that magnitude, it's never too much!"

  The younger man just shook his head, a sheepish grin on his face, before dutifully heading back into the woods.

  Miles away, under the cold, indifferent light of the moon, four shadowed figures trudged through the night, their movements heavy with exhaustion.

  They were sect disciples, their robes dark against the deeper shadows of the ancient trees. A faint rustle in the undergrowth behind them went unnoticed.

  A bandit, his face cloaked in grimy cloth, peered through a thicket of ferns, a predatory grin plastering on his face.

  "This must be the robes boss was talking about," he whispered to his companion, his eyes fixed on the disciples' slow, weary progress. He nodded sharply.

  "I'll tail them. Go alert the leader! Tell him we've found them. I can't tell how strong they are from this distance, but alert him…"

  The first bandit dropped into a low crouch, melting back into the shadows to follow his prey, his movements as silent as a hunting cat.

  The other nodded, disappearing back into the forest with a speed born of urgency. He was a messenger bearing a prize.

  A journey that needed to be met with haste, an opportunity they dared not waste, his footsteps plastering onto the soil ground, frantically leaping through every mound, until he finally saw the jagged, familiar outline of their wonderful base.

  The bandit fortress was a jagged scar carved into the heart of the wilderness. It was a sprawling camp built from splintered, dark wood, surrounded by a palisade of sharpened logs.

  Though not large by sect standards, it could easily house a small village. But this was no village. This was a place of hell for any who were not considered "brethren."

  Guards with dead, bored eyes stood watch on crude wooden posts, while scouts lurked like ghosts in the surrounding forest.

  The air within the walls was a foul miasma, a stench of unwashed bodies, stale ale, and the suffocating odor of fear.

  Men with cuffs shackling their wrists were forced into hard labor, their skeletal figures moving with the slow, shambling gait of the hopeless.

  In a muddy pen, a group of women were chained to a central post, the crack of a whip a sharp, ugly sound that punctuated their soft, hopeless weeping.

  A drunken bandit, his gut spilling over his belt, staggered towards them.

  "Hic! I need a woman! Who can satisfy me here?!" he slurred, his lecherous grin making the women huddle closer together, their tears falling freely.

  "Big Sister… I'm afraid," a girl no older than fifteen whispered, her small frame trembling violently. "When are we going to leave?"

  The older woman sighed, pulling her younger sibling into a tight embrace, her own eyes hollow with a despair she refused to let her sister see.

  "I-I don't know," she whispered back, her voice a fragile anchor in the storm. "But we must persevere. I'll endure anything, just to protect you."

  The messenger bandit paid the scene no mind. He hurried past the suffering, his focus entirely on the giant tent at the center of the camp.

  Two imposing figures guarded the entrance, their auras pulsing with the undeniable power of the Body Tempering Realm, their gazes as cold and hard as the steel of their axes.

  They eyed the visitor, recognized him, and nodded curtly, allowing him to pass into the presence of their esteemed boss.

  Slipping into the main tent, the bandit met the calm, yellow eyes of Hao Yu. The leader sat cross-legged on a pile of furs, scratching his gray-stubbled chin.

  "What?" he asked, his voice patient, holding no trace of the camp's chaotic brutality. "Is this something important I need to know?"

  "Y-Yes, Boss," the bandit stammered, his breath coming in ragged pants. "We've found them."

  Hao Yu's eyes widened fractionally. He rose to his feet in a single, fluid motion, clasping his hands behind his back. A gentle, almost pleasant smile touched his lips.

  "You mean…?"

  The bandit nodded eagerly. "Four of them, boss."

  "Very well." Hao Yu rubbed his hands together, the sound a soft, dry rustle. His smile remained, but the gentleness was gone, replaced by the cold satisfaction of a spider feeling the first tremor of its web.

  "Take me to them. It is time to avenge our brethren. They have killed far too many of us." He stepped out of the tent, his cloak whipping in the sudden gust of wind.

  "Let us go."