Chapter 1: The Lizard and the Lightning
Bamboo leaves danced in the stormwind, their clattering louder than drums as dark clouds rolled across the heavens. Thunder cracked like splitting bones, sending a tremor through the quiet mountainside.
Misty Bamboo Village—tucked against the foot of the Azure Claw Ridge—had long been a forgotten corner of the world, a place where legends were spoken of in whispers and dreams were buried under the weight of poverty.
Inside a crooked shack that barely kept the rain out, a boy sat hunched over a splintered table, chewing on the last bit of a cold rice cake.
Li Wei, age fifteen, orphan of the village, often wondered if the heavens had made a mistake when assigning him a fate. His cultivation hadn't moved past the fourth level of Body Tempering despite years of effort. His peers had already begun forming Qi Cores. He couldn't even sense spiritual qi properly.
But tonight... tonight felt strange.
A crackling energy stirred in the air. A scent of burnt silver and blood tickled his nostrils.
And something moved in his sleeve.
"Ow!" he yelped, slapping at his arm.
From beneath his robes slithered a tiny lizard, no longer than a finger. Its scales shimmered like mist over moonlight, and its eyes burned like golden coals.
"You bit me again?"
The lizard spoke—not with a mouth, but directly into his mind.
"If you stopped stuffing your face with rotting grain, I wouldn't need to poison you to build resistance."
Li Wei sighed.
"Yu Long… You're supposed to be my guardian spirit. Not a serial biter."
"You're supposed to be a cultivator. Not a soggy mushroom."
It had appeared on his thirteenth birthday, summoned during a failed village rite. Most children bonded with beasts like wolves, falcons, or tigers—symbols of power, revered by sects.
Li Wei had received a talking lizard. A small one. Everyone laughed for a week.
They didn't know the truth: Yu Long was no ordinary spirit.
He was a sealed mythical beast, once feared by celestial clans and immortal sects. Now, he was cursed to follow Li Wei's bloodline until the boy unlocked the seals... or died trying.
Outside, thunder growled again. Rain pounded harder.
Li Wei felt it first in his spine. A chill, then heat. Something ancient stirred in his blood. He doubled over, eyes wide.
"It's happening again—!"
"You're resonating with Heaven Qi... This isn't natural. Not at your stage."
Suddenly, lightning struck the hut.
Not once. But seven times in a single breath.
The villagers screamed, pointing at the blazing roof—but no fire spread. Instead, the lightning twisted upward, forming a spinning column of light above Li Wei's home.
Inside, the boy convulsed. Golden lines spread across his skin like cracks in porcelain. His heart beat louder than drums.
"What is this?!"
"Heaven's Lightning Baptism… but no mortal below Nascent Soul has ever triggered it."
The air split with light. A sigil appeared in Li Wei's chest—an ancient glyph that pulsed with forbidden power. It was the mark of the Primordial Sky Vein, a bloodline so rare even the Immortal Courts had declared it extinct.
Li Wei screamed as the lightning plunged into him, not burning him, but reforging him.
When it was over, he collapsed in the rubble, the hut blown open, his body smoking slightly.
His bones felt heavier. His vision was sharper. And in his dantian, a spark of golden qi pulsed gently like a newborn star.
"I... I broke through?" he whispered.
"You didn't just break through. You skipped three levels in one night."
"You're at Qi Gathering Stage 3... from Body Tempering 4."
"That's impossible."
"Does that mean… I'm finally not useless?"
"No, fool. It means they will come for you."
"Who?"
"The sects. The hunters. The curse-bearers. The ones who remember the blood you carry."
Outside, the rain had stopped. The skies cleared unnaturally fast. The moon glowed as if watching.
Somewhere far away—in a palace carved from jade floating among clouds—an old man in golden robes opened his eyes.
"The seal has broken," he whispered.
A thousand miles below, in a ruined temple buried beneath a volcano, a chained dragon stirred.
In the depths of the Spirit Tomb Forest, a shadowed figure opened a scroll and saw Li Wei's face painted in fire.
Back in Misty Bamboo Village, Li Wei lay flat on his back, still smoking slightly.
"Well…" he said, smiling despite himself.
"That was dramatic."
"Get up, idiot. You've just become the most hunted boy in three realms."
Lightning still lingered in the air as dawn broke over Misty Bamboo Village.
Birds did not sing.
Trees, usually swaying with mountain wind, stood utterly still, as though the heavens themselves were holding their breath.
Inside the charred remains of his shack, Li Wei stirred. His bones ached like he'd been trampled by an ox demon, but his breathing was steady. Beneath his skin, golden qi pulsed with strange calm, spreading warmth across muscles and meridians.
He opened one eye.
"Still alive."
Yu Long, perched on a scorched beam nearby, rolled his golden eyes.
"Barely. Congratulations, worm. You've survived a Heaven-grade lightning baptism without disintegrating. That's… statistically impossible."
"I feel like I swallowed a thundercloud."
"That's because you did."
Li Wei sat up, glancing at the hut's blown-out walls.
Villagers had gathered outside, but none dared approach. Elder Yun stood closest, brows furrowed, staff gripped tight. His once-kind eyes were wary now, suspicious.
"Li Wei," the elder said slowly, "what... have you done?"
Li Wei opened his mouth to answer, but Yu Long jumped in with a mental warning:
"Say nothing of the bloodline or the baptism. Not here. Not now."
"I... don't know," Li Wei said, scratching his head. "I was meditating. Then lightning hit."
There were murmurs. Someone whispered "Demonic possession." Another said "Lightning beast." Superstition clung to these hills like mold to rice.
Yun finally nodded. "You must go. The sects will hear of this. Perhaps they can… guide you."
"The sects?" Li Wei blinked. "You mean… I can join one?"
--
Li Wei stood before the towering black gates of Ironheart Sect, the most dominant martial sect within a hundred leagues. Its disciples were known for their brutal training and near-fanatic loyalty to the martial path.
It has been three days since the lightning.
Behind him lay Misty Bamboo Village. Ahead, a thousand stone steps and a future carved in qi and combat.
"Yu Long," Li Wei muttered, "do you think I'll fit in?"
The lizard yawned.
"With your personality? Absolutely not. But maybe if you stop talking and start cultivating..."
---
Atop the stairs, two guards eyed him suspiciously.
"You're the one who triggered a Heaven Lightning?" one asked, a boy no older than seventeen but already in Core Formation.
Li Wei nodded nervously.
"Hmph," said the other. "Lightning or not, Ironheart doesn't bow to skyfire. You want in? Prove yourself."
They threw a long spear at his feet.
"Defeat a trainee in the arena. Then we'll talk."
The training yard was a cauldron of sweat, qi, and shouting. Dozens of young cultivators sparred in circles marked with chalk and blood.
Li Wei was pushed into the center. His opponent was a smug youth named Chen Mu, already at Qi Gathering level 8, with a snake spirit that hissed from his shoulders.
"You're the lightning brat?" Chen Mu sneered. "You look like a broken noodle."
Li Wei raised the spear, barely knowing how to hold it.
"Great," he muttered. "My first day, and I'm going to be turned into soup."
The fight began.
Chen Mu launched forward, spirit snake coiling toward Li Wei's throat.
Yu Long's voice cut in, sharp as a blade.
"Breathe. Center your dantian. Remember the golden veins. Channel it. Now."
Li Wei closed his eyes—and moved.
He didn't dodge. He glided.
His spear turned in a blur, parrying the strike before slicing upward, grazing Chen Mu's cheek.
The crowd gasped.
Chen Mu backed off, surprised—and furious.
"You'll regret that!"
He unleashed his spirit art: Serpent Mirage Strike—a technique said to mimic the seven-step death of a venomous snake.
Seven strikes. Seven shadows. Each more fatal than the last.
But Li Wei wasn't the same boy from the village anymore.
Lightning flared inside him. His spear hummed with energy. On the fifth strike, he stepped in—not back—and drove the weapon into the ground.
A pulse of golden qi exploded upward, throwing Chen Mu into the air.
Silence.
Then—
"Victory! Li Wei passes!"
The guards watched in stunned silence as Li Wei helped his enemy to his feet.
One of them whispered:
"That movement… that wasn't Ironheart style. That was... something else."
---
Later that evening, he was admitted as an outer disciple. His quarters were humble—bare stone, a mat, a basin—but to Li Wei, it felt like a palace.
Yu Long rested by the window.
"You've drawn too much attention," he muttered. "Too fast. This sect has spies. Not all of them human."
"What should I do?"
"Lay low. Train harder. And do not, under any circumstance, reveal your bloodline."
---
But secrets rot in silence.
That same night, in the upper halls of Ironheart, Sect Elder Ma Qian sat with a sealed jade scroll before him.
"Lightning baptism," he murmured. "Golden qi flow. That mark on his chest…"
He unrolled the scroll. Within, a painting of an ancient enemy. A boy with golden veins.
"He has returned," the elder whispered.
"We must contact the Inquisition."
---
Back in his cell, Li Wei dreamed.
He saw a vast field of stars.
A gate of bronze, floating in space.
And behind it—a massive reptilian eye, staring directly at him.
"Find me," a voice said. "Or be consumed."
He woke, heart racing.
Yu Long opened one eye lazily.
"You saw it, didn't you? The gate."
"What… was that?"
The lizard didn't answer. He simply slithered up and coiled around the boy's wrist.
"Sleep now. Trouble is coming. And you'll need all your strength."