The next morning, Qiu woke up early.

  His father was already awake, sitting on the edge of the bed and testing his leg by bending it slowly, then straightening it, then bending it again. The golden pill had done its work.

  "Father, do not go to work today. You should rest for one more day."

  "Qiu, I have already missed too much time—"

  "I will do it. I will gather herbs and firewood, and you can go back tomorrow."

  His father looked at him for a long moment. Yan Qiu could see he wanted to argue, wanted to say that he was fine and did not need his son to work for him. He was not a man who liked sitting idle while others carried his weight.

  "One more day," his father said finally. "Just one."

  Yan Qiu nodded and sat down beside the bed. He had been thinking about the sect trials, about the sparring matches, about how badly he had lost.

  "Father, the other children at the trials, some of them were decent with a sword. They knew how to move and how to block. How did they learn that?"

  His father scratched his chin. "Their parents, probably. A lot of families in other villages have hunters or scavengers, so they would have taught their children a thing or two about handling weapons."

  "And you?"

  His father let out a short laugh, the kind that did not quite reach his eyes. "Your father only knows how to gather herbs and food and firewood." He rubbed the back of his neck and looked away. "I never learned to hunt. Never had the talent for it."

  There was something in his voice that made Yan Qiu's chest tighten. His father was embarrassed, ashamed that he could not teach his son the things other fathers taught their children.

  Before Yan Qiu could say anything, his mother came in from the other room.

  "Qiu, make sure to stop by the chief's house today and tell him your father will be back to work tomorrow."

  She was trying to break the awkward silence. He understood.

  "I will," he said, and picked up his gathering basket.

  The village was quiet in the early morning light, and Yan Qiu walked through the streets with his basket on his back. Some people nodded at him as he passed, others smiled, and a few looked away quickly.

  He had beaten Zhou Wei badly, and not everyone had forgotten. But he was still a child, and most of the villagers were forgiving since they had known him since he was born. One fight was not enough to change that.

  Yan Qiu was not completely at peace with it either. He still felt a knot in his stomach when he thought about Zhou Wei, about the way his fists had kept moving even when he wanted them to stop. He did not regret defending himself, but he regretted losing control.

  He reached the edge of the village and turned south, checking the position of the sun twice before entering the forest. He would not make the same mistake again.

  The southern forest was nothing like the Northern Wastes. The trees were shorter and spaced further apart, with sunlight coming through the canopy in patches and birds singing in the branches above. The undergrowth was thin enough to walk through easily.

  He gathered herbs near a small stream, including wild ginger, some mushrooms under an old oak, and a handful of berries. He collected firewood from fallen branches until his basket was full. By the time the sun was halfway down the sky, he was done and made his way back to the village as the afternoon light turned golden.

  The chief's house was the largest in Blackroot, and Yan Qiu knocked on the doorframe and waited. A moment later, Village Chief Wang appeared with his grey hair tied back and his face creased with age.

  "Oh, little Yan." The chief's expression softened. "Are you feeling better now? And your father, how is he recovering?"

  "I am well, and my father is much better. He received help from an elder and his leg has healed. He will return to work tomorrow."

  The chief's eyebrows rose. "An elder? Which elder?"

  Yan Qiu hesitated. He did not want to lie, and he also could not explain what had happened in the Northern Wastes since he did not even remember the old man's face.

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  "I cannot say much about it. I am sorry."

  The chief studied him for a moment, then waved his hand. "It is fine if you do not want to say. I am just glad your father is well." He paused. "But tell me, why are you working? Your father could have asked for leave or for help from the village. It was an emergency."

  "I want to help my parents, and I am saving coins to go to the Barched Wind Sect directly. It would be cheaper than waiting for them to come to the village again, even if the journey is longer and harder."

  The chief looked at him with something like surprise. "You still have not given up on that?"

  Yan Qiu met his eyes. "No."

  The chief was quiet for a long moment, then turned and walked into the house, gesturing for Yan Qiu to follow.

  They entered a small room lined with shelves, and the chief reached up to pull down something wrapped in cloth. He unwrapped it carefully and held it out.

  It was a book.

  The cover was faded and the edges were worn, with some of the pages looking like they had been torn and repaired. Yan Qiu looked at the title: "Cultivation in the Times of Strife."

  He had seen this book before, at the small bookstore on the edge of the village market, sitting on a wooden crate in the sun and rain. Back then he had only read the words on its cover, the ones about grit and going through it even at the cost of your life. He had not paid attention to the title.

  "Take it," the chief said.

  "I cannot accept this. It must have been costly, and I have no way to repay you."

  The chief made a dismissive sound. "Repay me? Boy, I am at the end of my lifespan and this book is no use to me anymore." He pressed it into Yan Qiu's hands. "My son and grandson have no interest in cultivation. Their spiritual roots are nothing special, and they are busy being merchants. This book would be more useful to you than gathering dust on my shelf."

  Yan Qiu held the book carefully. He wanted to refuse again, to say it was too much, and he also wanted it badly.

  "Besides, having another cultivator from Blackroot would be a pride to the village. The other children who passed the trials, their parents could teach them things. Your parents could not. This is the least I can do."

  Yan Qiu looked at the book, then at the chief. He knelt down and touched his forehead to the ground.

  "Thank you. I will not forget this."

  The chief helped him up with a rough hand. "Go on, then. Go home and study, and do not waste it."

  Yan Qiu ran home with the book clutched to his chest, and his parents looked up when he burst through the door. Their eyes went wide when they saw what he was carrying.

  "The chief gave it to me," he said, breathless. "A cultivation manual. He said I could have it."

  His mother covered her mouth with her hand, and his father stared at the book like it was made of gold.

  "Qiu, do you know how much something like that is worth?"

  "He said it was no use to him anymore, and that he wanted Blackroot to have another cultivator."

  His parents looked at each other, and Yan Qiu could see the hope in their eyes, the same hope that had been there when he first passed the spiritual root test.

  That night, Yan Qiu did not sleep.

  He sat in the corner of the hut with the book open in his lap, reading by the light of a small oil lamp. The first few pages described basic stances for building stamina and exercises for strengthening the body, then came sections on qi gathering and the Root Nourishing Pill, things he already knew from the sect trials.

  He turned the pages carefully.

  Around the middle of the book, he found information about spiritual roots. The three tiers were explained, along with some of the colors. Red roots enhanced strength and blue roots enhanced speed. The book only mentioned those two.

  Yan Qiu paused. He knew there were more colors. He knew about white roots, about purity and efficiency. He did not know how he knew, but the knowledge was just there, sitting in his mind like it had always been there.

  He kept reading.

  Near the end, the book discussed the stages of cultivation, the foundation stages that came before true cultivation began.

  Flesh Forging was first. The book described five stages within it: the first stage was strengthening the legs, the second was the arms, the third was the torso, the fourth was the head and neck, and the fifth stage was training the body as a whole, bringing everything together.

  Then came Breath Weaving, the stage where a cultivator could truly gather qi. The book called it the qi gathering stage.

  Yan Qiu stopped reading.

  He thought about the sect trials. Elder Shen had told them to gather qi, to draw the energy inward, and he had never mentioned Flesh Forging or said anything about strengthening the body first.

  The book continued. The second stage of Breath Weaving was about expressing qi in the upper and lower body, the third stage was about channeling it through the body in a line, the fourth stage was about strengthening those lines by adding qi masses at each joint, and the fifth stage was about feeling all of it together.

  Then the text cut off, with several pages missing, torn out or rotted away.

  The book picked up again near the end with a different section: "Once you feel the qi gathering in your body, try to grasp it like gathering a bucket of water from a well. Then try to make tiny holes in that bucket."

  The text cut off again, and the final page showed only a diagram of the correct meditation posture.

  Yan Qiu closed the book and sat in the darkness.

  There was a stage before qi gathering. Flesh Forging. Nobody had told him about it, not Elder Shen, not the old man in the Northern Wastes. The sect had given them pills and told them to gather qi, skipping the foundation entirely.

  Maybe the method had changed. The book was old and damaged, and cultivation techniques evolved over time. Maybe Flesh Forging was no longer necessary.

  He thought about ignoring it, about following the old man's advice and focusing only on qi gathering.

  Go with it.

  The thought came from somewhere deep inside him, and the heat in his chest stirred. It was the same heat that had been there since the spiritual test, the same one that woke him every morning with clenched fists and anger he did not understand. Whenever he thought about skipping Flesh Forging, the sensation grew stronger.

  He did not understand why or what the heat wanted from him.

  He opened the book again and turned to the section on Flesh Forging.

  He started from the beginning.