The caverns were not a place. They were a living, breathing creature made of shadows, damp rock, and pain. And every day, it swallowed them whole.
Lin Xiao awoke to the sound of dripping water and the low groan of the boy in the cell next to hers. The air was perpetually cold, carrying the scent of wet stone, unwashed bodies, and a faint, metallic tang she had come to recognize as old blood. Her cell was a hollowed-out niche in the cavern wall, barely large enough to lie down in, sealed with a rusted iron grate. A threadbare blanket, stiff with grime, was her only comfort. She clutched it around her shoulders, her left eye socket throbbing with a dull, familiar ache beneath the rough linen bandage the overseer's medic had slapped on after her first, brutal week.
The previous day's "lesson" echoed in her bones. Her cohort—twenty children, mostly boys aged ten to fourteen—had been forced to run endless laps around the largest cavern, the Chamber of Echoing Steps, while weighted vests dug into their collarbones. The floor was uneven, treacherous with loose shale. Two boys had fallen, their ankles twisting with sickening cracks. They were dragged away by silent guards and hadn't returned. Lin Xiao had kept her head down, her mother's face a burning ember in her mind, fueling each agonizing step.
A sharp clang of metal on stone echoed through the tunnels. "Up! Formation in the Central Cavern in five minutes! Laggards get the lash!" It was the guttural voice of Kragg, the scarred veteran overseer.
Lin Xiao moved swiftly, folding her blanket with a habit born of necessity. She splashed icy water from a small basin onto her face, avoiding the bandage. Her reflection in the still water was a ghost: a gaunt face with skin pale from years of living underground, dominated by one large, dark brown eye that held too much awareness for a child. The other side was a shrouded mystery, a well of constant, low-grade pain. Her black hair, once kept neat by her mother, was hacked short for practicality, falling in uneven strands around her face. At ten, she was small for her age, but her frame was growing wiry and tense, like a coiled spring.
She slipped out of her cell and joined the stream of shuffling trainees heading towards the Central Cavern. The tunnels were a maze of natural rock formations and crude excavations, lit by flickering torches that cast dancing, monstrous shadows. The walls wept moisture, and the constant drip-drip-drip was the heartbeat of the abyss.
The Central Cavern was vast, its ceiling lost in darkness. Dozens of other children were already there, standing in ragged lines. Lin Xiao found her place in the third row. She scanned the faces. Most were blank with exhaustion or hardened with a predatory gleam. She saw Nie Luo.
He stood two rows ahead and to the left. He was a year or two older than her, with a quiet, watchful presence. His hair was a dark, dusty brown, kept out of his eyes with a simple leather thong. His features were sharp but not harsh, and his eyes—a calm, greyish-green—were always observing, calculating. He wasn't big, but he moved with a deliberate economy that Lin Xiao had already noted. Yesterday, when a hulking boy named Gao had tried to steal her meager bread ration during the meal, it was Nie Luo who had "accidentally" bumped into Gao, causing him to drop it. He'd met Lin Xiao's gaze for a fraction of a second, then looked away. No words. A fragile thread of understanding.
And there was Gao himself. He stood at the front, a full head taller than anyone else in their cohort at fourteen. He was built like a young bull, with thick shoulders, a meaty neck, and a face that seemed permanently screwed into a scowl. His small, dark eyes held a mean intelligence, and they often lingered on Lin Xiao with open contempt. His hair was shorn close to his skull, and a fresh scar marred his cheekbone—a trophy, he boasted, from "culling" a rival in his old village. He was the embodiment of the cavern's brutal law: the strong prey on the weak.
"Silence, maggots!"
Kragg strode into the cavern, followed by their instructor for foundational arts, Disciple jiang. Kragg was a mountain of a man, his face a roadmap of old violence, with a nose that had been broken multiple times and a milky blind eye. He wore studded leather armor that creaked with every step.
Disciple jiang was different. He was a man in his late twenties, with the lean build of a martial artist. His features were severe but not cruel, and he wore the dark grey robes of the Midnight Blade Castle, marked with the castle's emblem of a crescent moon over a vertical sword. His hair was tied back in a tight topknot, and his eyes held a detached, professional focus. He was here to do a job: turn them into assets. Nothing more.
"Today," jiang's voice cut through the chill air, sharp and clear, "you will continue practicing the Azure Spark Strike. But before you mindlessly channel your Qi, you must understand the ladder you are attempting to climb. You are not farmers. You are aspirants of Murim. so you kids need to Know your place."
He paced before them, his hands clasped behind his back. "All martial power in our world stems from the cultivation of Qi—the vital energy that flows through heaven, earth, and living beings. To harness it is to step onto the path. The first true step is awakening your core."
He pointed a finger at a scrawny boy in the front. "You. All of you, right now, are Mortal Frames. Unawakened. Your Qi is dormant, wild, useless. The Azure Spark Strike you are learning is not just a parlor trick. It is the basic primer, the spark meant to ignite your core. Succeed, and you become an Awakened Disciple."
He let the term hang in the air. "An Awakened Disciple has taken the first, crucial step. Your core is active. You can sense Qi, draw it in, channel it for basic enhancements: stronger strikes, faster movement, the ability to project energy as you do with the Spark. Most of the guards you see here," he gestured vaguely at Kragg's men, "are at this level. It is the foundation."
His gaze swept over them, assessing. "Beyond that lies the realm of true experts. The Path Master. One who has not only awakened their core but has chosen and begun to master a specific martial path—be it swordsmanship, palm arts, elemental affinity. Their Qi is refined, their techniques potent. I," he said without a hint of boastfulness, "am a mid-level Path Master of the Midnight Blade Castle."
Lin Xiao listened, rapt. This was the first clear explanation she'd heard. Her father's sons, Yan Kang and Yan Jun, were probably being groomed to become Path Masters. The thought was a bitter pill.
"And above the Path Masters?" jiang continued, a faint note of reverence entering his voice. "The Living Legends. Beings whose power shapes sect fortunes. They have fully realized their Path, creating their own advanced techniques. They can command the elements, move faster than sight, and their auras can crush the weak. The lord of your castle, Yan Mo, is said to be at the peak of this stage, nearing the next."
He paused, letting the awe sink in. "The next… are the supreme heights. The Half-Deity or Demon stage. And beyond them, the pinnacles we call Celestial Ascendants and Abyssal Supremes. Beings of myth and terror, whose battles can change landscapes. You are less than ants to them. Remember that. Your ambition should be to become a useful tool for your castle, perhaps a Path Master one day. Anything else is delusion."
Lin Xiao's sighs. Delusion. The word echoed in her mind . She thought of her father's and of the Azure Spark Strik . Was that a path to being more than a tool?
"Now," jiang clapped his hands, shattering the mood. "Your levels. As I said, you are all Mortal Frames. Unawakened. A few of you," his eyes flicked to Gao, then surprisingly, to Lin Xiao, "show a stronger innate connection. You produce a spark more consistently. But it is still just a spark. Do not let it inflate your ego. Here, we break egos."
He gestured to the training area—a section of the cavern floor marked with worn circles. "Pair up. Practice the stances and the breathing. Channel your Qi to your palm. Produce the spark. That is all."
As they shuffled into pairs, Gao immediately swaggered over to Lin Xiao. "Looks like I'm with the famous girl everyone is talking about," he sneered, his breath smelling of stale gruel. "Let's see if your a genius or just an ordinary girl?."
Lin Xiao said nothing, falling into the basic horse stance. She focused on her breathing, trying to ignore the looming presence across from her. She could feel the faint, warm pool of energy in her lower dantian—her core, still dormant but stirring. She guided a thread of it up her meridian, towards her right palm, as Heng had taught.
A flicker. A tiny, unstable spark of pale blue light danced on her fingertip for a second before winking out.
Gao snorted. "Pathetic." He concentrated, his face turning red with effort. A larger, hotter spark, more orange than blue, flared in his palm and held for three seconds before sputtering. He grinned, a vicious, triumphant thing. "See? That's power. it seems You're just a ordinary girl playing with fire."
The insult washed over her. She was used to being 'less than' from her father. But here, it was different. Here, 'less than' meant dead. She tried again, pouring more focus, more of that strange, intuitive feeling she had into the motion. This time, the spark was smaller but a purer, steadier blue. It lasted four seconds.
Before Gao could mock her again, a quiet voice spoke from beside them. "Your spark is hotter, Gao, but it's wild. It wastes Qi. Hers is controlled. In a real fight, control outlasts brute force."
It was Nie Luo. He stood nearby, having finished his own practice with his partner. His tone was matter-of-fact, not challenging.
Gao's face darkened. "Who asked you, bookworm? You want a lesson in 'brute force' too?"
"Enough!" Disciple jiang's voice cracked like a whip. He had been observing. He looked at Gao's fading orange spark, then at the last vestige of blue on Lin Xiao's finger. His eyes held a flicker of that same wary attention from the first day. "The boy is correct, in principle. Control is the foundation. But heat is damage. You," he pointed at Lin Xiao, "strive for stability. You," he pointed at Gao, "learn to channel your aggression without waste. Now, back to work. Fifty repetitions each. Then, conditioning."
The rest of the day was a descent into pure physical torment. After the Qi training, Kragg took over. They were driven through obstacle courses of jagged rock, forced to hold painful stances under a freezing waterfall that cascaded down one cavern wall, and made to spar with wooden dagons under the watchful eyes of guards who would strike them for "insufficient spirit."
During a brief, precious water break, Lin Xiao found herself next to Nie Luo at a dripping stalactite. They cupped their hands to catch the cold, clear water.
"Thank you," she whispered, not looking at him.
"I didn't do it for you," he said softly, his eyes scanning the cavern. "Gao is a liability. He draws negative attention to the whole cohort. Keeping him off-balance is strategic."
Lin Xiao glanced at him. He was telling the truth, but not the whole truth. "Still. Thank you."
He gave a barely perceptible nod. "Your control is better. You feel the Qi, don't you? Not just force it."
She hesitated. "It's like… a faint stream. I just try not to disrupt it."
"That's the way," he said. "Most of them try to grab it like a club. It's more like a needle." He paused. "Be careful of Gao. He sees your talent as a threat. And he hates threats."
Before she could reply, Kragg's roar summoned them for the final torture: carrying heavy sacks of gravel up a steep, slippery incline. As Lin Xiao struggled under the weight, her muscles screaming, her mind clung to two things: the image of her mother's face, and the steady, cool blue of a perfectly controlled spark.
She would learn control. She would master the needle. And she would survive.
Because in the forge of the abyss, the alternative was to be broken and discarded, another piece of worthless whetstone. And Lin Xiao, refused to break.