Color bled into the horizon, ashen gray giving way to dull browns, then muted greens. The barren threshold behind Alpha dissolved like a forgotten dream, and the fragile sprout vanished with it. In its place rose a dirt road, uneven and scarred by countless footprints, stretching toward a cluster of low wooden buildings.
A village.
Alpha stood at its edge, his clothes already transformed by the will of the Cycle into coarse hemp robes. His body felt heavier now, bound more tightly by flesh and gravity. Mortal rules had asserted themselves.
Good. Mortality was predictable.
He walked forward without hesitation. The villagers paid him little mind, he was just another wanderer, thin and dusty, with eyes too calm for his age. Children ran past him, chasing a wooden wheel. An old man coughed by a well. The scent of cooked grain hung faintly in the air.
Life: fragile and brief.
Alpha's gaze swept across the village, not with nostalgia, but with calculation. In his many lives, he had been a prince, a slave, a beast, and even a god's discarded thought. Starting as a "nobody" in a nameless village was neither a blessing nor a curse.
It was flexible.
He stopped near the well and closed his eyes. Qi existed here, thin, sluggish, and barely circulating. This was a low-grade mortal land. In past lives, he would have left immediately, seeking sects, spirit veins, and shortcuts to power.
This time, he stayed. Creation required foundations.
A sudden, sharp pain bloomed in his chest.
Alpha staggered, pressing a hand against his sternum. The warmth in his soul flickered, and the crack tightened as if in warning. It was not an attack from Heaven—it was strain.
So, even awareness had a cost.
He exhaled slowly, letting his heartbeat settle. "I understand," he murmured inwardly. "I won't force you."
The pain faded. That was confirmation enough.
A woman's voice cut through his thoughts. "Hey! You there."
Alpha opened his eyes. A middle-aged woman stood a few steps away, arms crossed, suspicion plain on her face. "You planning to stare at our well all day?" she asked. "Or do you need work?"
Work. The word anchored him more firmly than any spiritual chain.
"I can work," Alpha replied. His voice was calm, steady, and unremarkable. Perfect.
The woman studied him, then jerked her head toward a nearby field. "We're short a pair of hands. If you're useless, you don't eat."
"I won't be useless."
She snorted. "We'll see."
The sun dipped lower as Alpha worked the fields.
The labor was simple—hauling water, pulling weeds, and reinforcing stone borders. His body protested at first; this vessel was weak and the muscles were untrained. Blisters formed quickly.
Alpha welcomed the pain.
Each movement was measured and deliberate. With every breath, he subtly guided the thinnest strands of Qi through his body—not to strengthen himself directly, but to observe.
Qi moved like water poured into a cracked cup: inefficient and wasteful. The cultivation methods of this world were built on extraction—taking from Heaven, refining it, and forcing the body to adapt. It was a system of constant strain.
Creation whispered at the edge of his awareness. Not instructions or techniques, but questions.
What if Qi did not need to be seized? What if the body was not a container—but a pattern?
A sharp ache flared again in his chest. Alpha immediately stopped the flow of Qi and bent to lift another bucket of water, breathing like an ordinary man.
Slowly.
At dusk, the villagers gathered for a simple meal. Alpha sat apart, chewing coarse bread and listening.
"…heard the Immortal Sect is recruiting again…" "…third son went last year, never came back…" "…they say the talented ones glow when tested…"
The Immortal Sect.
Alpha's eyes lowered, hiding a flicker of cold amusement. In countless lives, he had passed their tests, failed them, slaughtered them, ruled them, and burned their mountains to ash.
This time, they were not the destination. They were a resource.
That night, Alpha was given a corner of a shed to sleep in. He lay on the hard ground, staring at the dark rafters. The world felt… thinner. Not weaker, but taut, as though reality itself were watching him with quiet unease.
He placed a hand over his chest and turned inward.
The crack in his soul remained, faint but stable. The warmth pulsed gently in rhythm with his heart. Creation was not yet growing—but it was rooting.
Then, carefully and cautiously, Alpha did something he had never attempted before. He did not cultivate Qi.
He imagined.
Not fantasy, but structure. He envisioned his breath leaving his lungs and returning—not as air, but as a pattern. An endless loop, perfectly balanced. No accumulation. No loss.
The warmth stirred. A single thread formed.
It was not Qi. It was not Law. It was something in between.
Alpha's eyes widened slightly. Then, the pressure came.
An invisible weight crushed down on the shed, splintering a wooden beam with a sharp crack. Alpha immediately shattered the mental structure, and the thread dissolved before it could stabilize.
The pressure vanished as quickly as it had arrived. Silence returned.
Alpha lay still, heart pounding, then let out a slow breath. So, even thinking in the wrong direction could invite a correction from the world.
He smiled faintly in the darkness.
"Good," he whispered. "That means I'm close."
Outside, the village slept, unaware that in a broken shed, a man who had lived a hundred thousand lives had just taken the smallest step toward a path that Heaven could not name.
And far above, the Cycle tightened—uneasy, but not yet afraid.