The third day on Narau Island.
Li Yuan sat on a flat stone overlooking the temporary dwelling he was building. The waist-high wooden walls stood firm, and the stone foundation was perfectly arranged like a flawless puzzle. His hands were stained with clay, his fingertips scratched by wood—a sensation almost forgotten after thousands of years.
Body intelligence. The term had been circling in his mind since yesterday.
He raised his palm, studying the lines formed by the physical work. The muscles in his arm reacted differently than when he manipulated Dao energy. This was cruder. More real. More... human.
"Three days," he muttered to the morning breeze. "And I've already started to forget what it feels like to exist without a form."
His Ganjing sense flowed within a familiar radius—one meter, no more. Just enough to feel the vibration of the wood under his hands as he worked, the responsiveness of the clay to his touch, even the heartbeat of a small bird perched on a nearby branch.
Limited, yet intimate.
Li Yuan rose, rolling up the sleeves of his gray robe. Today he would finish the walls and begin work on the roof. A job that required precision—something he had only ever applied to cultivation.
He lifted the first log, feeling its weight. The wood came from a tree that had fallen naturally on the northern slope. Its fibers were strong, with no distracting cracks. Perfect for the roof frame.
As he placed the log in position, his left hand held it steady while his right picked up a wooden nail he had made himself yesterday. A simple movement, yet it required coordination he had almost forgotten.
Thump. The stone hammer hit the nail.
Thump. Thump.
A constant rhythm. Like a heartbeat. Like the waves crashing on the shore. Like the steady breath during meditation.
"All things have a rhythm," Li Yuan whispered to himself. "Even construction."
Li Yuan paused for a moment, listening to the sounds of the island around him. Birds sang without fear—they had not yet met a conscious predator. The wind rustled through the leaves with a different sound than the lapping of the sea. Insects buzzed in a complex but predictable pattern.
Life that followed instinct. Simple. Honest.
Unlike himself, who carried the burden of 15,000 years of understanding and the responsibility for five million souls stored in his Zhenjing's Sea of Souls.
Li Yuan looked at his hands—completely unharmed despite working with hard wood for hours. For a moment, he imagined what it would be like if this was all he knew—physical labor, natural cycles, the simple satisfaction of creating something with his hands.
No cultivation. No cosmic understanding. No spiritual burden.
Just a man building a house on a remote island.
But I'm not just a man, his mind reminded him. And I can never go back to being just that.
He picked up the next log.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
The second log was set. Then the third. The fourth.
The sun moved across the sky, shadows changing in length and direction. Li Yuan worked in an almost meditative silence, his consciousness focused on one simple task: building a roof.
Not thinking of the past. Not planning for the future. Just this moment. This hammer. This nail. This log.
The Water understanding in his Wenjing domain whispered softly—he could hear the moisture in the air, a sign that rain would come tomorrow afternoon. The roof had to be finished today.
With fingers harder than metal, Li Yuan began to shape the joints in the wood. No nails were needed—he created grooves and protrusions that interlocked with millimeter precision.
Every movement was calculated. Every pressure was measured perfectly. A body that had undergone cultivation for tens of thousands of years had a control that surpassed the ability of an ordinary human, yet remained within the limits of pure physical capability.
No resonance. No supernatural energy. Just strength, endurance, and precision that had been honed for millennia.
Li Yuan lifted the first log—a five-meter piece of wood weighing hundreds of kilograms—with one hand. He placed it in the exact position on top of the wall he had built yesterday.
Click. The wooden joints locked perfectly.
There was no sound of a hammer. Only the sound of wood meeting wood, creating a bond that would last for decades.
"A different rhythm," he murmured, feeling the satisfaction of a purely physical achievement. "But still a rhythm."
This is also cultivation, he realized as he installed the last log for the roof frame. Not cultivation of understanding or spiritual resonance. Cultivation of skill. Cultivation of patience. Cultivation of... humanity.
Afternoon was approaching when he began to arrange the lontar leaves for the roof. His fingers moved with dexterity, weaving the leaves in a pattern that would divert rain but still allow air circulation.
A skill he had learned centuries ago, when he was young and the world was still simple. When the cultivator was just himself, and Daojing did not yet have a name.
No tools. Only his hands, his eyes, and the memory of ancient, almost-forgotten techniques.
When he finished the last part of the roof, the sun had touched the horizon. His temporary dwelling was complete—simple, functional, and beautiful in its simplicity.
Li Yuan took a few steps back, evaluating the result of his work.
Thick wooden walls two meters high. A lontar roof sloping at the right angle. A wooden door with hinges he had made from flexible tree bark. A small window overlooking the spring and the forest in the distance.
"Home," he said aloud.
The word felt foreign on his tongue. How long had it been since he had a real home? Not a place of meditation or a temporary stop, but a home—a place to return to, a place to rest, a place to be himself without the burden of expectations or responsibility.
His Ganjing sense flowed out, feeling the structure of the building he had just created. The wood was still wet with sap, the clay was slowly drying and hardening, the rope ties were tight yet flexible.
Solid. Real. Permanent—at least for a while.
Li Yuan stepped inside his new home. A single room with a high ceiling, spacious enough for a simple bed, a small work table, and a cooking area. The afternoon light filtered in through the window, creating geometric patterns on the packed earth floor.
He sat cross-legged in the middle of the room, closing his eyes.
For the first time in thousands of years, he was truly still. Not meditating to achieve a deeper understanding. Not analyzing spiritual resonance. Not monitoring the condition of the millions of souls in his Zhenjing.
Just sitting in a house he had built with his own hands, listening to the sounds of the night beginning to rise from the forest.
Physical exhaustion seeped into his consciousness—a sensation almost forgotten. The tense muscles from a day's work, the aching hands from holding tools, the stiff back from bending and crawling.
Good pain. Meaningful pain.
Pain that reminded him that he could still feel the world through his body, not just through spiritual understanding.
Li Yuan opened his eyes and smiled—a small, almost invisible, but sincere smile.
"The first day of a new life," he murmured to the wooden walls surrounding him.
Outside, the first rain began to fall—light drops that tapped on the lontar roof with a sound like music. His understanding of Water whispered that this would be a gentle rain, not a storm. Just enough to replenish the springs, water the forest, and test the watertightness of his new roof.
Li Yuan lay on the hard dirt floor, looking up at the roof he had just finished. The sound of rain above his head created a soothing rhythm—a natural lullaby for his first night in a home he built himself.
"Three days," he whispered into the darkness. "And I've already started to remember what it feels like to be human."
Inside his Zhenjing, the Sea of Souls vibrated with a subtle resonance—not from his deepening understanding, but from the simple satisfaction that flowed from the physical achievement.
The five million souls felt the echo of that small pride, and for a moment, even in their spiritual sleep, they smiled too.
The rain fell harder, but the roof he had made held up perfectly.
Not a single drop seeped in.