I stood at the cragged lip of the cliff, the wind biting across my feathered shoulders. Cerulean feathers rustled gently over my arms, catching the high-altitude currents. My talon tipped hands flexed with new precision—ember coil's Tier four evolution, on its first step toward greater heights. Below, the continent stretched endlessly scarred, alive, and angry.
The Sun God Bloom's voice echoed in my memory: "The land remembers every wound… and it chooses its champions."
I knew I couldn't afford to rest long. Red Cap was escalating, and the Will of the Beast Vein Continent had chosen me to intervene. From my vantage, I mentally sketched three potential paths forward—each one pulsing with danger and opportunity. I weighed the potential paths then turned back to my cliff side alcove camp.
The wind howled gently across the high alcove, carrying flecks of silver mist as dusk crept into the mountainside. I sat in peace at my solitary camp nestled under a shallow stone outcrop, marked by totems and feathered sigils fluttering from echoes of battles past.
I seated myself by the fire cross legged style and withdrew rare treasure from the spirit bracelet—A spiral nectar melon. I was hungry and decided to indulge. Its skin pulsed with radiant blue green energy, the melons seeds were on the outside, black seeds that shimmered like trapped starlight.
My talon-hands relaxed as I slide them into the melon, quartering it into four pieces. The inside of the Melon glowed a neon blue with streaks of pink flesh. I picked up a quarter section and bit into it; the juices flooded my mouth with blueberry sweetness and a lunar essence after taste.
The energy surged through my spiritual pathways like a gentle ocean wave, and I could feel my chakra pathways consolidate. I felt a surging flush of lunar energy essence into my chakra expanding my inner pathways, increasing the overall animus expression values. My aura flared blue, Wind light danced with inner fire and lightening qi—before stabilizing.
I exhaled sharply.
"Still not enough," I muttered. I reached into my pocket dimension and drew out the newly evolved qi power meter, now the Omni-Unit Meter.
It had evolved into a stone slab-like device inscribed with ancient runes and calibrated to measure animus thread Count. I pressed my palm into the twin conduits and let my animus flow into it.
Above the stone slab glyph light pulsed into place.
Animus thread count: 248,765
Vital Organ Fortification:
Heart: ★★★★★☆☆☆☆☆
Lungs: ★★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆
Liver: ★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
Stomach: ★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
Spine: ★★★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
Beast Crystal Sync Rate: 91%
Lightning Essence Conductivity: 6.9
Spiritual Projection Range: ~3,000 miles Vorpal Path Unlocked.
Combat Reflex Multiplier: x3.8 base human form.
My heart had move up two stars in fortification from the verdant heart plum's I had been consuming. I finished the rest of the spiral nectar melon quarters I had cut, then withdrew an ember flare apple from my spirit bracelet. It's spicy scent greeting me upon exit, it's condensed solar energy hummed in my hand. I took a bite of the ember flare apple. The stored solar essence of it rolled into me, refined, more stable. My eyes turned toward the paths ahead.
Red-Cap would learn what it meant to face someone chosen by the Will of the Continent.
I sat in stillness. The world around me faded into wind and dusk—distant clouds parted slowly above the cliffs, and the last hints of solar flame touched the horizon in molten pinks and purples. But my eyes were closed, breath steady, pulse aligned with something deeper than time. I sat cross-legged by the fire, it crackled and popped.
My talon-fingers resting lightly on my knees, the air vibrating subtly around me as my animus coiled inward.
In the depths of my mindscape, I sank into the animus realm—that inner ether layer where reality blurred, and the soul of a cultivator revealed itself in pure color and force. Before my consciousness floated thousands of violet animus threads, alive and crackling. They weren't just filaments—they were ropes of spiritual fire, each tethered to my spirit, memory, beast bonds, and the raw essence of my destiny.
I exhaled slowly. My goal was not expansion tonight, but refinement. Tonight, I would attempt to strengthen my spiritual muscles. I would not gain more qi, instead I would tightly coil it into a higher spiritual expression.
I would begin weaving the first threads of vestigium qi!
I pressed my Intent deeper into my qi dantian, letting my inner spirit drift closer to the threads. They buzzed with sparks.
"Stability brings weight. Weight brings force. Force becomes dominion."
I began focusing my Intent and comprehension—pulling all of my cultivation knowledge, battle insight, elemental resonance, and beast bond experience into each thread. Like funneling fuel into a burning forge. One by one, the thinner strands of animus shuddered and thickened. Each time it happened, I could feel a sharp pull on my inner spirit, like muscle tearing and regrowing stronger. Pain sparked behind my temples, but I endured it. Dozens of strands thickened. Then hundreds.
My animus no longer danced in the wind.
It began to bend it.
Outside my body, faint purple lightning flickered around my skin. My talon hands curled slightly. My back arched. Sweat trickled down my neck, but I didn't break the trance.
In the animus realm, my ropes were now combining and reweaving themselves together, their density tripled. The vibrations became slower, deeper—each one sounding like a low drumbeat echoing through the void.
Then suddenly—silence. I opened my eyes. I was back in the surface world. My breath steamed in the evening air.
My spirit body felt heavier now…not with exhaustion, but with animus weight. Denser. Rooted. I looked down at my taloned hands, flexing them slowly.
The Thread Count remained Unchanged. But every single thread had become thicker, more potent, more unshakable.
I didn't need more right now. I needed quality over quantity. I had successfully consolidated my animus into the first ropes of vestigium qi! I stood, wind tugging at my feathered mantle. The night had come. My vestigium qi hummed through the stone beneath my feet.
A flicker of instinct hit me. My eyes narrowed. I reached into my pocket dimension bracelet, brushing past coiled rations, potion flasks, and sealed tomes—until my fingers curled around something cold, heavy, and pulsing.
𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘮. . . 𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘮. . . 𝘉𝘰𝘰𝘮. . .
I drew it out.
The Centipede Juggernaut crystal glowed with an eerie chromatic light, rippling between shades of deep emerald, black-gold, and translucent crimson. Its surface was marbled with runic scars, as if it had resisted countless violent deaths before it was harvested. "I stripped this from the centipede juggernaut beast after the ridge battle… just before I traveled to see the clan." I had pocketed it on instinct—drawn by its overwhelming aura but too overwhelmed by events to study it.
But now… with my animus refined into vestigium qi, and dual foundations polished, and my Vorpal Path honed. I could explore the idea of cultivating a third foundation.
I set it in my lap and explored the beast crystal orb with my spiritual senses. The rare core pulsed In the vestigium field, the core flared like a meteor heart, spinning slowly, releasing tendrils of intent and glyph light.
Beast Signature: Centipede Juggernaut
Classification: Ancient Variant – Apex Parasitic Lineage
Qi Type: Earth / Decay Hybrid with Dormant Berserker Drive
Foundation type: Defense/Support.
Corruption Risk: 12%
Foundational Compatibility…
Result: Possible to bond – would form triangular foundation
Warning: Absorption will permanently alter existing attack/speed type foundation. Risks include:
Conflict with existing cores.
Mutational backlash.
Evolutionary detour.
Enhanced Power Potential: High.
Internal strain threshold: Recommended animus thread count: 199,000 minimum
I let the ether fade and returned to my surface level senses. The rare core still pulsed in my palm, like a living garment waiting for permission to unfold.
I could feel its hunger—and its promise.
If I bonded with a third beast core, it would likely grant me a terrifying new branch of power, something neither ember coil nor storm raptor possessed. A third foundation in a triangular formation could give me an edge that even a sovereign-class cultivators would fear. But it would also brand me forever—as tri-forged beast cultivator—a rare and volatile path.
Most clans motto was after all "Two cores for strength. A third for madness." To carry a third core was considered taboo by many in the Beast Vein Continent.
As many who had tried it turned into mindless berserker beast. I stared at the glowing core. The ground beneath me crackled faintly, not from the mystical energies—but from the tension coiling in my bones. Could I resist this temptation?
"I've fought corrupted men with stolen cores. I've seen what forced power does. But I've never forced anything. I earned mine."
"This one? I'll bend it or break it. But if I bond it, it bends to me."
I closed his fingers slowly around the Rare Core. Its pulses thudded like a second heartbeat in his palm. I could hear it trying to speak— in beast-tongue, fragmentary instincts, old memories of the hunt. I exhaled through my nose and slid the core back into the pocket dimension bracelet.
"Not yet. Power's only worth it if I'm ready to carry it."
I rose, dust falling from my shoulders like shed feathers. My long stride took me past the dimming fire pit, past my bedroll of stitched beast hide, toward the wind-bitten cliffside. The cliff loomed above a sweeping sea of mist-drenched forest and broken ridgelines—sunlight bleeding into the clouds like golden veins. Wind tousled my hair, tugged at the blue-feathered mantle that had become part of him since the Sun God Bloom's gift.
I stood at the edge, looking out. Far in the distance, bolts of dark chi and flickers of unnatural flame marked the creeping advance of Red-Cap's corrupted forces.
But here, in this high place, above it all, my newly consolidated qi curled like thunderstorm coils inside me—dense, patient, alive.
My rire and lightening foundations burned with silent loyalty. And my martial path, whatever it was becoming, stretched toward war, legend, and sky.
I reached into my inner world again—not to draw power—but to listen. A slow ripple of understanding rose from the Beast Vein below. From the continent itself.
The land was stirring.
And so was I.
I cracked my neck once, rolled my shoulders, and let the wind whip around me.
"Soon. But not today."
Then, without a word, I leapt from the cliff's edge and glided through the air into the fading day.
My shadow stretched long in the amber light, sharpened by the storm I knew was coming.
Hours later I returned with my meal.
I crouched near the crackling campfire, feeding it dry shards of rootwood and resin-drenched pine.
Sparks leapt like lightning wisps, dancing up into the starlit air above the cliff alcove.
The firelight cast deep shadows along the jagged stone, and the wind howled low like some distant predator beneath the moon.
On a flat slab beside the flame, strips of seared drake meat sizzled, their edges blackened and sweet with wild herbs.
I tore off a chunk, steam hissing against the cool air, and bit down—chewing slowly, my eyes fixed on the horizon.
I didn't rush the meal.
Grounding the body mattered—especially before separating soul from skin.
Once finished, I wiped my fingers on a cloth, then sat cross-legged just beyond the firelight's reach.
"Time to move."
A breath. A pulse. My Animus stirred.
CRACKLE.SNAP.POP!
Purple threads erupted from my body like woven lightning ropes, then coalesced into my spirit man form—I stood, now glowing in purple vestigium flame.
My body slumped gently forward, safe beside the fire.
I rose without a sound. With a simple motion of intent, I launched into the sky, soaring fast and high through the clouds like a hunting falcon—cutting across valleys, ridgelines, and cursed groves at impossible speeds. Down below, the land grew darker.
And then—I saw it. Red-Cap's Forward War-Forge: An entire ridge had been hollowed into a grotesque factory of war: Bone-treaded beasts hauled carts of twisted cores and broken sigils. Corrupted smiths hammered on living metal, forging shell-blades and spike-launchers. Huge glyph-laced spires crackled with necrotic qi—feeding some deep bunker in the center of it all.
But one structure stood out—a tower stitched from beast sinew and obsidian, pulsing with unstable necro qi waves. That's the node. That's the anchor.
I hovered, my eyes narrowing. If we or I could take out this war forge tower, it would sever the necro qi relays powering this entire war-forge. I drifted backward, retreating into the sky before the corrupted sentries could detect my presence. My spirit man form twisted like vapor and shot back toward the cliff.
Moments later, my body jerked upright by the fire. My eyes snapped open—calm, alert, calculating.
"Found it. One tower, one weakness. If I can bring that down…"
"…then Red-Cap loses his next wave before it even starts."
I stood, tightening my cloak and brushing dirt from my knees.
The night was young and so was the hunt.