A week passed in a blur.
Each morning, Gao Yang followed his senior brothers to attend the morning lessons, and each afternoon he returned to his quarters to study The Detailed Explanation of Foundation Building and practice his Daoist arts.
He already had a faint guess about who had given him the Blood and Qi Pill the last time.
That morning, when class ended, the Immortal Mistress said, "You may all go. Thirteen, stay."
Once the others had left, she walked ahead. "Follow me."
Gao Yang followed her to her residence, through the front hall and into the backyard, where a large bronze cauldron sat burning atop its furnace.
"Get in."
Gao Yang stared at the flames roaring beneath the cauldron, momentarily dazed.
The Immortal Mistress waved her sleeve impatiently.
Gao Yang felt his body twist against his will, and in the next instant, he was seated inside the cauldron.
Clang…
A pill dropped beside him. "Hold it in your mouth."
Gao Yang picked it up — the pill was pitch black, with a metallic sheen. He placed it in his mouth and bit down lightly, only for his teeth to ache painfully.
The Immortal Mistress seemed to know what he was doing. "I said to hold it, not bite. That's an Immortal Pill. You couldn't bite through it if you tried."
An Immortal Pill?
Gao Yang straightened his back. Was she really going to use an Immortal Pill to help him establish his Foundation?
Whoosh!
The flames rose higher, and the servants began adding more wood.
Gao Yang felt the temperature rising rapidly. Within moments, sweat poured down his body, dripping down to pool at the base of the cauldron, then bubbling and evaporating into steam.
It was unbearably hot, yet strangely not painful. The pill in his mouth was cool, spreading a soothing chill that countered the heat consuming him.
After nearly two hours, the scabs on Gao Yang's skin began to melt. The dark marks of the Seven Fiends tattoo started peeling away, and seven shadowy forms darted chaotically within the cauldron.
"Hmph."
The Immortal Mistress snorted softly. Instantly, the shadows froze — then burst apart with a muffled boom.
They splattered onto the cauldron's base, melting into pools of black liquid.
Her ethereal voice drifted through the heat. "Thirteen, the path of cultivation is the cultivation of the self. Never allow external forces to control you. Remember that."
Gao Yang only half understood. "I'll remember."
The flames surged higher. Even with the Immortal Pill cooling him, the heat became unbearable. His robes caught fire, his hair and body hair turning to ash.
Then the lid of the cauldron creaked open — and a massive red centipede, over a meter long, crawled in.
Gao Yang's blood ran cold. "Master!"
But the Immortal Mistress gave no response.
The centipede reared up, its twin pincers snapping, and lunged straight for him.
Gao Yang twisted away, but his skin had fused to the cauldron's base from the heat. As he moved, strips of flesh tore free with a sickening rip. The scent of burning meat filled the air.
The centipede, enraged by the heat, hissed furiously, releasing a foul, acrid odor. Gao Yang inhaled involuntarily — agony lanced through his lungs, as if they were set aflame.
Poison!
He held his breath, his mind racing. He pushed against the lid of the cauldron. It didn't budge.
"Master!"
Panic set in. He realized that no help was coming. Whatever the Immortal Mistress intended, success or failure — it was all on him.
His lungs screamed for air. He sucked in a sharp breath, then held it again, but the toxin seeped into his body. His vision blurred. His skull pounded. The centipede struck.
Gao Yang caught its head with both hands, trying to summon the power of the Seven Fiends — but remembered too late that the mark had been burned away. To summon it again, he would have to bleed and draw the sigil anew.
There was no time.
The centipede's strength was monstrous. Its armored body shredded the flesh of Gao Yang's hands. Blood slicked his fingers, yet he refused to let go.
He pressed the creature down, his back arching as he strained against the sealed lid. Still, it wouldn't move.
The centipede thrashed harder, its body a blur of chitin and heat. Despair crawled up Gao Yang's spine. Then — he remembered her words.
The path of cultivation is the cultivation of the self…
Was this what she meant? Had she shattered his Seven Fiends tattoo to force him to awaken his own strength?
His breath failed again. The poison coursed deeper. His sight dimmed; sound faded; his world went gray. He could no longer smell the smoke or the blood. Even pain became distant — a memory fading into static.
Then something moved beneath his skin.
Something alive.
He could feel it — writhing through his veins, coiling toward his head. It pressed behind his eyes, struggling to claw its way out.
He thought of the Immortal Mistress's strange flesh worm.
"No… No, I won't become that."
His teeth clenched, his jaw trembling with rage. With a guttural growl, Gao Yang seized the centipede's head and ripped its armored shell apart. White-hot agony ripped through his abdomen as his meridians spasmed — as though a thousand insects were chewing through him from within. A torrent of heat surged up through his body and converged behind his right eye.
Then, a voice echoed inside his mind.
I am you, and you are me. Accept me — and you will walk the path of immortality.
Through the haze of pain, Gao Yang snarled, "Bullshit!"
He thought of the well.
The endless dark. The faint light above.
He saw himself — a boy at the well, drawing water. The boy fell back, screaming, "A ghost—there's a ghost!"
The boy's body glowed faintly.
Gao Yang knew — if he reached that light, he would survive.
Even if he didn't know whether he was still himself, he wouldn't let a worm take his place.
With a guttural roar, Gao Yang thrust his fingers into his right eye socket.
He pulled.
A white, finger-long flesh worm tore free, wriggling and shrieking silently.
It tried to burrow back into his skull.
Gao Yang slammed his palm down, crushing it into paste.
Pain cleared his mind like ice water. He opened his remaining eye — and froze.
The centipede's head bore a human face.
His pupil constricted sharply.
He knew that face.
It was the face of the little Worm from the Azure Mountain Sect.
No… that couldn't be.
He steadied his mind, whispering to himself that it was illusion — it had to be.
But the vision refused to fade. Half its skull was sunken — the result of his own kick.
The centipede — the Worm — grinned, its face twisting grotesquely. It opened its maw, revealing twin black pincers dripping venom, and hissed with a sound that made Gao Yang's teeth ache.
At that moment, Gao Yang saw the truth of the world.
He felt Qi surge within his Dantian — powerful, unrestrained, rushing through his newly opened meridians and flooding into his limbs.
Strength returned to his hands.
Crack.
He slammed his palm down. The centipede's skull caved in with a wet crunch.
The creature writhed in agony, its grotesque face twisting between pain and release.
"Ki—ill… me…" it rasped between the hissing.
Gao Yang crushed its head completely.
For a fleeting instant, the Worm's face relaxed — a faint smile of peace flickered across it.
Its final words echoed in Gao Yang's ears: "Be…ware the Immortal Mistress… the worms…"