Kael blinked. He hadn't heard Aris's whispered insult, but he didn't like the look in the younger boy's eyes. It wasn't the look of a frightened dog—it was the look of a scientist observing a specimen.
"What did you say, trash?!" Kael roared, lunging forward with a heavy, unrefined punch.
To the servants watching, Kael was fast. To Aris, who was using the Abyssal Eye to process reality at a higher frame rate, Kael was moving through molasses.
[Analysis: Telegraphed Strike.]
[Counter-Probability: 100%]
Aris didn't move much. He simply shifted his weight two inches to the left. Kael's fist whistled past his ear.
Aris stepped into Kael's personal space, his small frame disappearing under the bully's guard. He drove his palm—reinforced with a hidden spark of Abyssal Qi—directly into Kael's diaphragm.
THUD.
The air left Kael's lungs in a violent spray of saliva. The bully's eyes rolled back as his "Level 3" cultivation crumbled under a single, precision-engineered strike.
"Kael!" The two lackeys froze. They looked at their leader, who was now curled on the ground, gasping like a fish out of water.
"His center of gravity was too high," Aris muttered to himself, his mind already calculating the XP gain. "Pitiful."
The other two boys charged together. Aris didn't wait. He used the coal basket as a pivot, spinning his small body in a low sweep.
CRACK.
His Iron-Bone (Rank 2) shin slammed into their ankles. It felt like being hit by a metal pipe. Both boys went down, screaming.
[Quest Completed: First Blood]
[Rewards: 150 AP, Skill Book: Ghost-Step (Low Grade) – Claimed.]
[Bonus Reward: 3x Stale Meat Buns (Looted).]
Aris walked over to the shivering Kael and reached into the boy's pocket, pulling out a small pouch of copper coins.
"Aris... stop!" His mother, Elena, ran over, her face pale with terror. "If the guards see this... if the Matron hears..."
"They won't," Aris said, standing over the fallen bullies. He looked down at them with his Abyssal Eye, and for a split second, the boys saw a vision of a literal bottomless pit where his pupils should be. They were too terrified to even breathe.
"If you tell anyone," Aris whispered to Kael, "I won't just hit your stomach next time. I'll use my 'trash' blood to poison your meridians so you never cultivate again. Do you understand?"
Kael nodded frantically, tears streaming down his face.
Aris turned to his mother and handed her the meat buns. "Eat, Mother. We're moving up in the world."
The Depths Calling
That night, instead of sleeping in the drafty shack, Aris snuck back into the deepest, most dangerous part of the coal pits—the "Dead Zone" where the air was thin and the shadows felt heavy.
His Abyssal Eye was vibrating.
[Warning: High-Energy Signature Detected.]
[Status: Ancient / Dormant / Starving.]
Aris pushed aside a pile of rubble to reveal a narrow crevice. Inside sat a small, stone-like egg covered in glowing red cracks. But as he got closer, the cracks turned Violet, reacting to his presence.
[Rare Event: The Abyssal Nexus has detected a compatible Bond.]
[Entity: Void-Eater Hatchling (Rank: Unknown)]
The "egg" wasn't an egg. It was a beast that had been waiting for a master with the same "Abyssal" frequency as itself.
Aris reached out his hand. "You're hungry too, aren't you?"
[Would you like to spend 200 AP to initiate a 'Blood Contract'?]