Kaelan closes his eyes, his spirit sinking into Chen Wei's body.
He senses every ripple of Qi, every pulse of blood energy, watching carefully as the two attempt to merge.
Inside, Chen Wei's fire Qi surges like a blazing tide, colliding violently with the blood energy that had transformed since he became Kaelan's dependant.
Sparks of power tear through his meridians, rending flesh and spirit alike.
Chen Wei grits his teeth, sweat soaking his back, yet he endures the agony without faltering.
The clash deepens.
Chen Wei's Qi, cultivated with a supreme technique, burns brighter and fiercer, while Kaelan's blood energy, though powerful in nature, lacks volume.
Each wave of fire Qi scorches it, devouring instead of fusing.
The two remain locked in rejection, neither yielding, neither blending.
Kaelan's brows knit as he observes.
If this continues, Chen Wei will fail again, unable to breach the Master Realm.
Worse, each failure gnaws at his spirit, eroding confidence and shaking the faith he places in himself.
He ponders in silence, sifting through countless possibilities, until at last a thought forms.
His eyes open, gleaming with resolve.
A way exists—a path through the deadlock, though it demands his direct intervention.
And for Chen Wei's future, Kaelan decides he will do it.
Kaelan places his hand on Chen Wei's head, his voice resonating directly within the young man's mind. *I am taking control of your body.*
Before Chen Wei can respond with a trembling *yes*, a vast, unfathomable force floods into him.
His limbs stiffen, his breath halts for a heartbeat, and slowly, terrifyingly, he loses control of his own flesh.
Yet his awareness remains intact—he feels every surge, every clash within, but his will no longer guides it.
Kaelan settles into the body like a sovereign assuming a throne.
The first thing he does is channel his own energy to brace Chen Wei's blood force, weaving his power around it like an armour, ensuring the raging fire Qi cannot burn it into nothingness.
Without this protection, Chen Wei's breakthrough would have already collapsed into failure.
Probing deeper, Kaelan senses the root of the problem.
Each time the fire Qi scorches the blood energy, faint tendrils of dark energy leak out, unseen by Chen Wei before.
Recognition strikes. His crow body—it bears an elemental affinity he had never once considered. Assuming it to be ordinary, he ignored it, yet now he discovers the truth: it carries a medium-ranked affinity, the darkness veined through the blood itself.
Turning back to Chen Wei's turbulent core, Kaelan acts swiftly. He draws a wisp of Chen Wei's blood energy and fire Qi into his own spirit, attempting to fuse them.
The first attempt ends in destruction, the second in collapse. Failure follows failure, but with each clash, his comprehension sharpens.
The fire, the darkness—opposed, yet not irreconcilable. Slowly, painfully, his grasp deepens, and at last, after untold attempts, the two strands thread together, balanced in fragile harmony.
Through their bond, Chen Wei senses the process—how the opposing forces bend, how they yield, how they merge. Understanding dawns like fire catching dry wood.
Satisfied, Kaelan withdraws his will, relinquishing control of Chen Wei's body.
Kaelan keeps his eyes closed, his spirit locked onto Chen Wei as the young man pushes toward the Master realm.
Inside Chen Wei, the fire Qi coils and the blood energy surges, no longer clashing but intertwining, each pulse drawing tighter.
The two streams spiral, compress, and fuse, birthing a new current within his dantian.
This current refines itself into a clear, radiant force—True Qi—its essence denser, sharper, and more alive than mere Qi or blood could ever be alone.
As the first strand of True Qi stabilises, it spreads like roots through Chen Wei's meridians, feeding strength into his body.
His bones vibrate faintly, the marrow toughening, the frame reinforcing.
Muscles contract and expand, threads tearing and knitting back stronger. His organs absorb the refined essence, their resilience soaring, his heartbeat deepening with newfound vigour.
The feedback loops again and again, every cycle of True Qi tempering flesh and spirit.
By the time the flood settles, Chen Wei's entire being thrums with the vitality of a Martial Artist Master, his body no longer the fragile vessel of before but a weapon forged anew.
After the breakthrough, Chen Wei drops to his knees, bowing low, his forehead nearly touching the stone as he gives thanks.
Kaelan accepts it with only a small nod, his gaze already shifting inward.
Helping Chen Wei break through was possible because he directly guided the process, but he knows he cannot sit by the side of every dependent and drag them across the threshold.
If the Chen family as a whole is to rise, they must have a way to walk this path themselves.
For the villagers, it is simpler.
Their Qi shares the same root technique, and what he did for Chen Wei can be reshaped into a method they can follow.
But not all his dependents come from Chen Village.
Already, the four bandits are under him, and there will be more in the future, each with different Qi, different techniques, different paths.
He cannot forge a separate method for each one.
"I need a single technique," Kaelan thinks, eyes narrowing, "something that allows them to control their blood, to sense the dark element hidden within it. Once they perceive it, they can use their own comprehension to merge it with their Qi."
Only then will every dependent, regardless of origin, have the chance to advance without him intervening.
Kaelan lowers his gaze to the cliff below, mind turning inward as he begins to weave together the fragments of comprehension he gained while guiding Chen Wei.
He recalls the way fire Qi seared blood into release, how the dark element surfaced, how careful control prevented collapse.
Piece by piece, he shapes a framework—breathing methods to stir the blood, visualisations to feel its hidden element, guidance to merge it with Qi without losing balance.
Slowly, a technique takes form, one that could serve as the foundation for all his dependents.
But before the final strand falls into place, his senses flare.
Two figures approach from the horizon, riding a giant eagle that beats the air with steady, thunderous wings. Their Qi signatures are sharp and dangerous.
Kaelan rises, slipping into his human form and burying his aura deep within.
His body lifts from the cliff, climbing the sky until he hovers in the path of the eagle, intercepting them before they near his perch.
On the eagle's broad back, Zhu Mingjin stands behind an elder, tension tightening his jaw. His eyes lock on Kaelan, and unease coils in his chest.
The last battle still lingers in his memory—he had fought with confidence then, believing himself near equal to a Core Formation elder because he once withstood such an opponent without defeat.
But facing this crow demon again, his certainty wavers. What will be the outcome of this negotiation? He cannot say.
The giant eagle slows mid-flight, its wings dragging against the wind as a figure bursts from a drifting cloud and halts before them.
Zhu Mingjin narrows his eyes, his frown deepening.
The man floats effortlessly in the air, short black hair ruffling in the breeze, features sharp and handsome—so much so that a sting of jealousy pricks Zhu Mingjin's pride.
More importantly, he is flying without the aid of a beast or artefact.
That means only one thing: Core Formation Qi Refiner.
But who is he? Zhu Mingjin racks his memory, his heart quickening.
Every Core Formation expert of the human race has their face known and circulated among the great sects.
Yet this man is a stranger.
His confusion snaps when the elder beside him suddenly calls out, voice heavy with recognition, "Crow Demon."
Zhu Mingjin's eyes widen, his mind struggling to reconcile the image.
He studies the man's every detail, searching for even a trace of the crow demon he had battled just a week before.
There is none. No feathers, no monstrous aura, no shadow of the beast he remembers.
Only the calm, human face of the stranger. He swallows his questions and holds his silence.
The elder, however, wastes no time. "Where is the sect's holy sword?" he demands.
The crow demon's expression remains composed, his tone casual, almost bored.
"I'll return it," he says, "but the price is ten thousand low-level spirit stones."
The words leave Zhu Mingjin stunned, but the elder quickly calculates.
The sword's worth is far beyond the sum named.
To recover the holy treasure at such a cost is no loss, but fortune.
Slowly, the elder inclines his head. "Agreed. But we need time."
The crow demon nods without protest, his presence steady, unhurried.
With the negotiation settled, the elder urges the eagle onward, steering it toward Qinghe City.
They will rest there briefly and then return to their sect to gather the spirit stones needed to reclaim their holy sword.
Zhu Mingjin casts one last, lingering look at the black-haired man hanging in the sky. His heart knots with unease.
Zhu Mingjin casts one last, lingering look at the black-haired man hanging in the sky. His heart knots with unease.
Kaelan watches the giant eagle shrink into the distance, its riders fading beyond the clouds.
He has no hesitation about the deal he struck. Returning the sword means little now—he has already wrung it dry of value, unraveling the three runes etched into its blade.
The golden sword may have been a fine aid in battle, but it was never his own power, only a foreign object that could dull his edge if he grew reliant on it.
Ten thousand spirit stones, though—those hold weight. With them, he can trade in the demon city for dark-element magic powers, sharpening the path his affinity has revealed.
That alone is worth far more than clutching onto another sect's holy treasure.
He descends, the wind curling around him as he lands upon the cliff's edge once more.
The world is quiet here, only the distant cries of crows circling the skies.
Settling cross-legged, he closes his eyes and returns to his work, weaving thought and spirit into form.
The technique must be completed—for his dependents, for their future, and for the foundation of what comes next.