The Cultivation Path – A Ladder of Heaven
To ascend in the world of Tianxuan was to challenge the heavens themselves.
Every cultivator walked the path of stages — but few reached beyond the first.
Body Refining – Temper the flesh. Strengthen the bones. Make the body a vessel worthy of qi.
Foundation Building – Construct an internal qi sea. Channel spiritual energy and form an immortal core.
Golden Core – Compress the foundation into a nucleus of power. A realm of glowing dantian and beginning divinity.
Nascent Soul – Birth the soul within the core. The step beyond mortality.
Soul Ascension – Break from the mortal coil. Interfere with fate, touch the divine.
Immortal Ascension – Myth. Legend. Only five in recorded history had ever reached it. One had destroyed the world
His name was Lu Xuan.
Morning – Trial Day
The Scarlet Moon Arena shimmered under the early light, the mist curling like silk around stone pillars etched with thousands of names — some honored, most forgotten.
Su Xue stood near the edge of the arena, still and radiant.
Her presence was like moonlight over still water — serene, beautiful, and distant. Her white and blue robes fluttered softly, trimmed with silver thread that caught the rising sun. Hair like spun frost fell to her waist, adorned only by a single ice-blue pin. Her skin was like snow untouched by wind. Her gaze? Cold. Knowing.
No one dared approach her.
No one ever did.
Lu Xuan Appears
He arrived silently.
Even bloodied from the trials before, he moved like a shadow unbothered by pain. His features were carved in harsh stillness: sharp cheekbones, a defined jaw dusted with bruises, and lips pressed into a permanent line of restrained fury.
But it was his eyes that caught attention — or would have, if anyone dared look into them.
One was deep, dark — unreadable as midnight stone. The other had a faint, unnatural gleam, almost silvered under the light. Eyes that had seen cruelty and never blinked. He was not handsome in the way noble sons were — no. He was beautiful in the way a blade was beautiful. Cold. Clean. Dangerous.
Even Su Xue — who had seen his future self as a god of death — paused.
"He already looks like a fallen star."
Elder Shi Qiran, watching from the high platform, murmured to himself. "The Devouring World fragment has settled into his marrow…"
The Match – Mei Ling
Mei Ling entered the ring first, all arrogance and polished steel.
Lu Xuan followed, wordless. The crowd muttered.
"Why is he still here? He should've collapsed yesterday."
Mei Ling smirked. "One push and you'll break."
But the moment the duel began, the air changed.
Mei Ling wasn't just a bully — she was the pride of the outer sect.
At only sixteen, she had already broken through to the peak of Body Refining, and was rumored to be half a step into Foundation Building — a monstrous feat for her age and background.
She was fast, confident, and lethal. Her cultivation was focused on speed and disruption, bolstered by dual wind-forged blades that could slice clean through spirit wood. Her movement technique, Whispering Gale Steps, allowed her to create afterimages with each stride — overwhelming slower opponents with a flurry of mirrored strikes.
She had already crippled two disciples in last season's trials — and had been groomed for early ascension to the Inner Court.
Lu Xuan – A Body with No Qi, Yet...
Lu Xuan stood opposite her — a figure with no recorded cultivation, no known master, no clan techniques, and no spiritual reserves.
To the elders and spectators, he was a failure. A body-refining drifter at best.
Yet even without qi, even without spiritual techniques — Lu Xuan had survived the Path of Flames, a trial that would have killed most in his condition.
That alone should have warned them.
But no one truly understood what he was.
Not yet.
The Fight Begins
Mei Ling blurred forward the instant the match started.
With a sharp flick of her blades, she conjured four afterimages, all slashing toward Lu Xuan's vitals from different angles — a move designed to disorient and overwhelm.
The crowd leaned in.
He won't even see it coming.
But Lu Xuan didn't flinch.
Something shifted around him.
A pressure — subtle, unnatural — rippled outward from his body. Like a vortex drawing breath before a storm.
His feet didn't move.
His eyes didn't blink.
Instead, his skin darkened slightly, his muscles coiling beneath the surface, and his bones resonated, as if something ancient had stirred inside them.
What no one saw — except Su Xue — was that Devouring the World had awakened inside him.
Even in fragmentary form, it enhanced his instincts, hardened his body, and did something no other technique could:
It devoured incoming force.
Each of Mei Ling's strikes — powered by wind and fury — slowed imperceptibly as they neared him. The kinetic force behind her attacks was being absorbed, redirected, nullified.
It devoured incoming force.
Each of Mei Ling's strikes — powered by wind and fury — slowed imperceptibly as they neared him. The kinetic force behind her attacks was being absorbed, redirected, nullified.
It wasn't a shield. It was consumption
Mei Ling's final image closed in — the real one — and Lu Xuan moved.
Just once.
One palm.
Straight to her chest.
But it wasn't ordinary.
His body had compressed every thread of Mei Ling's force into his own blow, recycling it through muscle, bone, and core like a spiritual echo chamber. It wasn't just his strength — it was hers, magnified.
The impact sent her flying backward, armor dented, ribs cracked. Her body hit the arena wall with a sickening crunch.
Silence.
The elders stared, stunned.
How did a non-cultivator just defeat someone on the verge of Foundation Building?
Elder Shi Qiran smiled knowingly.
"He didn't. The technique did. That fragment of Devouring the World… it's syncing with his body faster than expected."
He leaned forward.
"His body isn't just compatible. It's perfect."
Su Xue's expression remained calm — but inside, she was reeling.
"The Devouring World art is feeding on spiritual force. Mei Ling's attack gave it exactly what it needed."
"He's not using qi… he's using the world's."
And she knew now:
Even if Lu Xuan never cultivated a single technique again, if he kept feeding that power — he could still become unstoppable
In the hush of a shadowed grove, bamboo leaves stirred softly around them. Su Xue stood before him, expression unreadable.
"You didn't hesitate," she said.
"I never do," he replied.
He looked at her then — really looked — and a rare flicker of uncertainty crossed his face
You didn't hesitate," she said.
"I never do," he replied.
He looked at her then — really looked — and a rare flicker of uncertainty crossed his face.
Su Xue's beauty was not of this world. It was ethereal, severe. The kind of beauty that did not inspire desire — but distance. As if the heavens had made her perfect only so she could remain untouched.
"You're not like the others," Lu Xuan said quietly.
Su Xue tilted her head. "Neither are you."
He hesitated. Then: "Why are you helping me?"
She met his gaze — not with softness, but with certainty.
"Because I saw what you become. And I don't want to live in that world again."
Lu Xuan raised his sleeve.
A dark glyph pulsed faintly along his forearm — the brand of Devouring the World.
"I didn't summon it. It came to me. It felt… familiar."
"It's not a gift," she warned. "It's a curse."
"It's power."
They stared at each other — a cold boy with fire in his bones, and a frostborn girl carrying the weight of time.
Neither trusted the other.
But in that silence… something had shifted.
A fragile, flickering understanding.