Morning in Yunhe Province came not with fanfare but with the modest rustling of bamboo leaves and the soft cawing of village crows. The air was damp, the roofs still clinging to the night's dew. Smoke from breakfast hearths coiled lazily upward, catching the early light like silver ribbons.
Inside a modest, creaking wooden house nestled at the village edge, a baby lay unmoving in his woven cradle. Tiny hands curled loosely at his side, his chest rising and falling with eerie steadiness. Not the irregular, shuddering breaths of a newborn. No, these were deliberate, measured.
Jin Wu-ren was cultivating.
He inhaled slowly, guiding the ambient qi through his infantile body, coaxing it down malformed meridians that twitched like unopened flower buds. His soul core—a fractured remnant of divinity from his past life—glimmered like a dying ember, flickering faintly within his dantian.
Another breath. Deeper. Guide the flow past the third gate. Anchor it near the heart meridian, just under the left lung. Let it rest. Let it resonate.
He did this each night and every dawn. Not out of habit, but necessity.
Because he was weak.
Unbearably, insultingly weak.
He had once stood atop the Celestial Plateau, the Immortal Tyrant whose very name cracked the silence of heavenly halls. He had shattered moons with a glance and commanded legions who bowed without question. But now?
He pissed himself.
Daily.
He shit himself.
And worst of all, he needed help doing both.
A month into this new life, the indignity no longer burned as sharply, but it left a slow, smoldering ember in his chest. He couldn't lift his own head for days after birth. The first time he cried—truly cried—was not from pain or hunger, but because his mother changed his soiled cloth while humming a lullaby.
It wasn't shame that broke him. It was the kindness. The warmth. The fragility.
He, who had stared down gods without flinching, was now dependent on a woman whose cultivation had degraded to nothing more than minor muscle-tempering.
He hated it.
And he needed it.
The qi in this rural village was thin—nearly barren compared to the spiritual veins that coursed through the Jade Sky Realms. Here, even the most sensitive cultivator would struggle to reach Foundation Establishment in a lifetime.
But that suited him.
Scarcity taught precision. Deprivation taught discipline.
And he had both in endless supply.
His parents never suspected a thing.
Jin Yao, his father, was a kind but weathered man—his spirit long dulled from his days as a Scarlet Blade Pavilion outer disciple. Now, he spent his time mending plows and bartering in local markets. His mother, Mu Qinglan, once a promising herbalist, now crushed spirit roots with a mortar and pestle, her dreams buried beneath chores and debt.
But both still had traces of their former selves.
Their eyes were too sharp.
Their instincts too keen.
So Jin Wu-ren had to mask everything.
And for that, he turned to a technique he had stolen in the most savage chapter of his former life.
Flashback: The Siege of Fourfold Night
The battlefield had been lit only by ghost-fire. Mist rolled like drowning hands across blood-soaked stone. The Shadow Lotus Sect had moved in silence—twelve thousand assassins, each blade dipped in soul-rotting poison.
And at their center was Shen Wuzi, master of veils, killer of saints.
Tian Yao had walked alone into their slaughter grounds. No armor. No banner. Only a flickering talisman gripped between two fingers and a quiet rage in his heart.
Shen Wuzi had emerged like mist wearing a mask.
They battled for three nights. No spectators. Only stars.
On the final night, Tian Yao severed the sky itself—his blade slicing a rift that revealed the moon in its raw celestial core. Shen Wuzi's mask cracked. And with his dying breath, he offered a curse and a legacy:
"Even in death… you will never see all my shadows."
But Tian Yao had already seen enough.
He tore the technique from the assassin's dying sea of consciousness, absorbing the essence of Silent Moon Cloak—a spiritual suppression art so delicate, it could erase presence even from celestial senses.
Now, reborn and swaddled in linen, Jin Wu-ren used that same technique in fragmented form. His soul could barely sustain its full complexity, but even a diluted version was enough to mask his nightly cultivation.
The Silent Moon Cloak dulled his qi presence, folding it inward like paper against fire. Each use strained his damaged core, causing micro-fissures of pain to lance behind his eyes. Sometimes he woke with blood crusted in his nostrils. Other times, his limbs wouldn't move for hours.
But no one noticed.
His parents called it a "quiet temperament." The midwife once joked, "That one's got the soul of a sage!"
He did. And it was broken.
What stunned him most, though, wasn't the pain or limitation.
It was the speed of his progress.
This body... it's absorbing ambient qi more greedily than it should. It shouldn't be possible—not without body refinement, not without guidance vessels. But every breath deepens the pool. Every breath… anchors me.
He studied his own flow nightly. The cracked soul core had become strangely symbiotic with the new vessel. Like a cracked seed placed in fresh soil.
Perhaps it was fate.
Or perhaps—he snarled internally—it was Heaven playing its hand again.
He still didn't know why he'd been reborn. He remembered dying in the middle of an immortal tribulation, betrayed by his most trusted general and his closest disciple. The storm had split the skies, and his divine spark had unraveled.
And then… blackness.
And now, life.
No explanation. No vision. No system whispering guidance. No deity unveiling some karmic redemption arc.
Just blood. Shit. And crying.
By the end of his second month, he completed the first layer of the Vein-Knitting Mantra, a breathing technique he forged during his exile in the Ashen Desolation.
He had created it out of necessity—when all he had left was breath and will. He used to joke that it was "a cultivation technique for cowards and corpses." But now, it was a lifeline.
He could feel his meridians slowly knitting together. Like broken threads mending. Like bones resetting. It wasn't perfect, but it was steady.
And every step made him more dangerous.
One night, as crickets sang through the silence, he remembered the Gates of Shattered Snow.
He had descended alone. Not as a hero, not as a warlord, but as a punishment. The Celestial Viceroy had ordered him to "cleanse the rebellion." What he found was worse: an entire realm enslaved by the Iceborne Sovereign.
There were children shackled in frost. Cities encased in glacial tombs. Hope sealed beneath eternal snow.
Tian Yao hadn't spared them.
He used the Tempest Pyre Form, a dual-affinity technique that wielded flame and wind in harmony. Fire for destruction. Wind for movement, flexibility, and reach.
He flew through enemy ranks like a wildfire dancing on a storm. His flames wrapped around air currents, threading through armor and inside mouths. Screams echoed in tandem with the roar of wind-fed infernos.
He didn't remember how many he killed. Only that by nightfall, there was no more snow.
Just ash.
Now, he could not even summon a spark.
But the memory of the technique lived in him. And every breath he took in this tiny, dark cradle was a step toward that storm once more.
He practiced the beginnings of Breath-Spiral Flow, the internal breath method that was the skeleton of Tempest Pyre Form. He couldn't yet control wind. But he could spin qi in micro-currents inside his lungs, conditioning them.
His baby body convulsed after each session.
Still, he smiled.
Inwardly, of course.
One morning, Mu Qinglan held him in her lap while reciting medicinal recipes aloud. Her fingers gently rubbed a balm along his spine, unaware of the deep qi currents roiling beneath his skin.
"You're a quiet one," she whispered. "Too quiet."
Jin Wu-ren looked at her and for the briefest moment felt something unbidden.
Guilt.
Because he knew, deep in the root of his cracked soul, that this warmth was temporary. That someday, if she lived long enough to see what he would become, she would no longer sing lullabies to him.
She would fear him.
And she would be right.
By his third month, he began manipulating qi outside his body—a mere thread, no more than a whisper. It danced on his fingertip one dawn, like steam rising from tea.
He nearly wept.
Step by step, he told himself. Storms begin with a breeze.
And this time, no heaven, no god, no scheming disciple would take it from him.
This time, he would build slowly.
He would rise without thunder.
He would become fate itself.
Chapter 2: Breaths of Power in the Cradle of Mortality — Part 2
The day after he spun his first visible thread of qi, Jin Wu-ren remained motionless in his crib, letting the energy dissipate into the fibers of the linen blanket wrapped around his body. He had overextended. A child's meridians were delicate things—like silk spun over candle flames. One wrong surge, one misstep, and the channels could rupture permanently. But this wasn't a risk he feared. He knew pain. Pain sharpened memory.
Besides, he had no intention of remaining weak. Not again.
He lay still, listening. Outside, he could hear the clatter of pots, his mother's voice humming something distant and wistful. Inside, the house creaked with every breeze that slid through cracked beams. His father was away for the day, bartering hides with a merchant caravan that passed by once every few weeks.
Perfect.
He summoned a second thread. Smaller than the last—barely there—but it coiled obediently beneath his palm like mist on a still lake. He directed it upward, toward a small reed mat hanging above his crib. It wobbled gently.
It was laughable.
Once, Tian Yao had commanded oceans to rise and crash upon cities with a sweep of his sleeve. He had caught divine arrows mid-air with two fingers, redirecting them to pierce the very gods who loosed them. And now?
I can barely nudge a reed mat, he thought with dry disdain.
But beneath the sarcasm, he felt a flicker of triumph. He was adapting faster than expected. Even with a broken soul core, his understanding of cultivation allowed him to make minute adjustments—altering breath timing, tightening energy spirals, sharpening intent vectors. These were refinements most mortals only discovered after decades. He had them etched into his bones.
Yet, he dared not push too fast. Cultivation, in its purest form, was patience given purpose.
He spent the next week in measured exertion. Each night, after his parents drifted into exhausted slumber, he cloaked his presence with the Silent Moon Cloak and cycled breath through the Vein-Knitting Mantra. His goal was simple: awaken the second channel loop beneath his sternum. Once activated, it would allow him to redirect ambient qi more efficiently, enhancing both recovery and retention.
It was grueling work. His body resisted him every step. Sweat often drenched the linen cloth swaddled around his limbs. Once, he nearly passed out and awoke with a fever that alarmed his mother so much she called the village apothecary.
The irony of a once-immortal requiring barley paste and boiled plum skin to survive illness wasn't lost on him.
Still, his efforts bore fruit.
By the end of that moon cycle, he had opened not one, but two minor meridian loops, placing him well beyond the average child's potential—even those blessed by spirit bloodlines. And he did it in secret. No talisman. No pill. No teacher. Just iron will and divine memory.
But progress came with danger.
One night, while he meditated silently, he felt eyes on him. Heavy. Piercing.
He stilled, slowing his inner flow. The qi thread retreated.
The door creaked.
Footsteps. Light. Hesitant.
His mother entered the room, candle in hand. Her face, gentle and tired, was partially masked by loose hair.
She peered into the crib. "Strange... I thought I heard you crying," she whispered.
Jin Wu-ren kept his expression neutral. Just a sleepy baby.
Mu Qinglan leaned down, brushing a finger along his cheek. Her touch was warm. She lingered longer than necessary.
"I wonder what you dream about," she murmured.
Then, slowly, she left.
He waited another hour before resuming.
The Silent Moon Cloak wasn't infallible. It had been perfected for celestial assassins, not infants. The strain of using it in such a weak vessel meant its effect sometimes slipped. Worse, the technique drew ambient qi into an inversion pocket around the user—this could, if prolonged, cause a visible flicker in the room's light. It hadn't happened yet… but it would.
I need a new method, he thought.
That night, he began reconfiguring the Silent Moon Cloak, substituting its outer-layer inversion with a grounding tether—an anchoring technique more commonly used by soul-crafters to bind runaway constructs. He'd once seen it used during the Battle of Hollow Spire, where an artificer used it to lock a broken star into orbit long enough for Tian Yao to absorb it.
He began reconstructing the technique from memory.
Word by word.
Stroke by stroke.
Glyph by glyph.
But glyphs required intention, not writing. And as a baby, his ability to project refined spiritual intent was like painting a landscape through a keyhole.
Still, he persisted.
---
Flashback: The Battle of Hollow Spire
It had begun with screams. Hollow Spire was a fortress carved into a floating column of obsidian, suspended above the death pits of the Chasm Below. The enemy had shattered the foundations, causing the spire to list and fall.
Inside, Tian Yao fought against the Wraith-Crowned Monarch—a being of shadow and void, wearing a skull-mask fused with nine tongues of flame. Each time Tian Yao struck it down, it reformed from the blood of those it killed.
He realized, then, that to destroy it, he had to sever its anchor to the broken star embedded at the spire's summit.
But the star was collapsing.
A young artificer—a mute girl with silver-threaded eyes—had used a grounding tether to delay the star's fall. She wept blood as her hands drew sigils in midair, burning her soul for time.
Tian Yao had watched. Then acted.
He took the girl's glyph sequence and etched it into the fabric of space itself using the Heavenburn Script, forging a prison around the star and cutting off the Wraith Monarch's power.
Afterward, he left the girl alive.
One of the few he spared.
---
Back in the cradle, Jin Wu-ren molded those memories into action. He began overlaying a simplified grounding tether into the Silent Moon Cloak, creating a hybrid technique that masked his presence without drawing external qi. It would reduce his cultivation speed… but vastly improve his stealth.
It took another week to stabilize. His body ached constantly. Sleep came in erratic waves. But by the end, he had created something new:
Silent Root Binding—a technique born of two lives, two tragedies, and the unwillingness to be noticed.
He tested it the next night.
His mother walked past his room twice.
Never paused.
Didn't look in.
It worked.
He smiled, faintly.
The path ahead was long.
But his feet were on it once more.
---
Days passed, and the nights grew colder.
Jin Wu-ren began to set his long-term strategy. He no longer measured progress by strength alone—strategy was the cultivation of fate itself. In his past life, he learned too late that power without foresight led only to ruin. This time, he'd plant his roots in a way no betrayal could shake.
First, he needed allies—but subtly. Trust was a dangerous currency. Instead of pledging loyalty, he would create dependency. It was safer to be needed than loved.
The Jin Clan was not large. Fewer than sixty members resided in their ancestral compound, hidden in a bend of the Mistroot Valley. Of these, only two or three were true cultivators, and none had advanced past the mid-Foundation realm. The rest were farmers, hunters, or leather-workers. He watched them from his crib in silence, studying habits, listening to their speech.
One man caught his attention early: Jin Hai, his uncle.
Hai was strong for a villager—calloused hands, thick shoulders, and the air of someone who had once chased more than rabbits. Jin Wu-ren sensed a flicker of dormant qi in him, coiled and stagnant. A wasted core, but salvageable.
He'd start there.
But influence required leverage. At present, he had none. A baby had no voice, no weight.
So he crafted a plan.
One morning, as Jin Hai lifted him in preparation for a village gathering, Jin Wu-ren loosened his swaddling just enough to expose a faint, swirling mark on his chest—the residual glow from his Silent Root Binding's energy cycle.
Jin Hai's eyes widened.
He leaned closer.
Then blinked and shook his head. "Must be the morning light," he muttered.
A seed planted.
He would let it grow. Bit by bit, he would reveal traces of talent, just enough to stir curiosity, not fear.
But not all watchers were allies.
From across the village's south wall, an old woman in gray robes watched him daily. Her name was Granny Mei, and the other villagers spoke of her as a healer. But Jin Wu-ren sensed more. Her qi was muted, coiled so deeply it barely stirred. But it was vast.
She knew how to hide it.
And she was watching him.
Another cultivator? he wondered. Or worse—a remnant of a forgotten order?
She never approached. Not directly. But she lingered nearby. Watering herbs. Feeding birds. Speaking to no one.
He marked her as a possible threat.
And threats, he knew, were often better co-opted than destroyed.
But not yet. Not until he could stand.
Not until he could wield flame again without coughing blood.
In the meantime, he trained. He refined his stealth. Strengthened his core. And whispered mantras from an age before gods into the air around him.
The path was long.
But he would rise again.
As emperor. As judge. As fire reborn from ash.
The cradle was his forge.
And fate... his blade.