The town of Kurogane Vale never spoke Kaida's name out loud.
They didn't have to.
It lingered in the way doors closed a second too quickly.
In the way mothers pulled their children closer when she passed.
In the way men who once fought beside her father now avoided her shadow.
Kaida Kurogane walked the eastern road before sunrise, when the fog still clung to the tiled rooftops and the sky hadn't decided what color it wanted to be.
She preferred it that way.
Fewer eyes.
Her boots pressed softly against damp earth. Controlled. Even. Intentional.
Every step had purpose.
Her father had taught her that.
"If you don't know why you're moving, you're already losing."
She adjusted the cloth wrapping around her hands as she reached the edge of town, a neglected courtyard behind an abandoned smithy. The forge had long since gone cold, but its stone foundation remained solid.
Stable footing.
Good walls.
Defined shadow lines.
Kaida stepped into stance.
Left foot forward.
Right foot angled.
Breathing shallow.
The air stilled around her.
She moved.
Not with flashy bursts of spiritual light like the Vale's young cultivators trained to display, no glowing sigils, no gathering aura.
Just motion.
Her shoulder dipped as if slipping beneath an invisible blade. Her palm snapped forward stopping an inch from the forge wall. She rotated her wrist and followed with a short elbow strike, twisting through her hips. The movement flowed into a knee thrust, then a downward hammerfist that split the air with a dull crack.
Every strike ended precisely where it needed to.
Not wide.
Not wasted.
Her shadow moved with her.
Not perfectly.
But close.
She paused.
There, a flicker.
The outline lagged half a heartbeat behind her final motion.
Kaida exhaled slowly.
Again.
She repeated the sequence, slower this time. When her palm stopped midair, her shadow's hand trembled then aligned.
Good.
A faint crunch of gravel interrupted her rhythm.
"You're at it again?"
The voice was bored. Slightly mocking.
Kaida didn't turn.
"I train here every morning."
"And every morning, it looks like you're fighting ghosts."
Now she turned.
Taro, a local cultivator apprentice from the Vale's small branch hall, leaned against the courtyard arch. He wore the standard grey-blue uniform of the Vale's affiliated sect crisp, clean, unearned.
A thin spiritual aura clung to him. Foundation Stage. Early.
He was sixteen.
Like her.
He smirked. "Still doing those… whatever-you-call-it moves?"
"Martial forms," she replied evenly.
"Martial forms don't work anymore." He tapped his chest. A faint shimmer pulsed outward. "This does."
Kaida said nothing.
Taro pushed off the arch and stepped into the courtyard.
"You know the entrance exams are in three weeks, right? The outer sect selection."
"I know."
"You're not even registered."
"I won't be."
He blinked. "So what are you doing all this for?"
She resumed her stance.
"To win."
He laughed.
"Win what? You don't cultivate properly. You don't attend lessons. Your father was stripped of rank. You're not even allowed near the main training hall."
There it was.
The real reason.
Her father.
Branded a heretic before his death.
Accused of researching forbidden combat methods that defied divine cultivation structure.
The town never forgave the stain.
Kaida stepped forward.
Taro stiffened instinctively.
She stopped three paces away.
"Then spar me," she said.
He hesitated then scoffed.
"You'll get hurt."
"Then don't hold back."
A few early market-goers had begun drifting near the courtyard entrance.
Whispers.
"That's Kurogane's girl."
"She's challenging a cultivator?"
"She doesn't know her place."
Taro rolled his shoulders. Spiritual energy flickered along his forearms.
"Fine. Don't cry when this ends quickly."
He moved first.
A straight-line rush too eager.
Kaida stepped inside his reach.
Not back.
Inside.
His fist flared with spiritual reinforcement.
She didn't block it.
She shifted.
Her left foot slid diagonally, redirecting his centerline. His punch grazed her shoulder instead of striking clean. In that same breath, her right palm snapped into his ribcage not hard, but precisely between reinforced meridian channels.
Taro grunted.
He spun, throwing a backfist wrapped in energy.
Kaida ducked under it, pivoting on her heel. Her elbow drove upward stopping just short of his jaw.
He reacted faster this time.
A burst of energy exploded outward, forcing her back three steps.
Dust lifted.
Now he was serious.
"See?" he said, breathing heavier than he wanted to show. "You can't match spiritual force."
Kaida flexed her fingers.
Her shoulder throbbed where his first punch had grazed.
She could feel the difference in raw output.
But raw output wasn't everything.
He charged again but this time, he adjusted.
Smarter angle.
Good.
She let him commit.
At the last moment, she stepped not away, but across.
Her forearm intercepted his elbow joint mid-extension. Not blocking trapping. Her hip rotated sharply, and she drove her shoulder into his sternum.
The impact knocked the air from him.
Before he could recover, her foot hooked behind his ankle.
She twisted.
Taro hit the ground hard.
The courtyard went silent.
Kaida stepped back immediately instead of pressing the advantage.
Taro stared up at her, stunned.
She hadn't used spiritual energy.
Not once.
His aura flickered uncertainly.
A low murmur spread among the onlookers.
"She didn't glow…"
"She didn't use qi…"
Taro's pride ignited faster than his technique.
He surged up, channeling more energy than before. Too much.
His aura flared violently.
Kaida saw it instantly.
Overextension.
He lunged.
She pivoted but this time, she didn't counter immediately.
She slipped behind him, fingers brushing the back of his arm tracing the flow of energy through muscle and meridian.
There.
A gap.
She struck.
Two knuckles.
Just beneath the shoulder blade.
Not hard.
Precise.
Taro's energy collapsed mid-circulation.
His aura sputtered out.
He dropped to one knee, gasping.
Kaida stepped away.
"You rely on force," she said quietly. "You leave openings."
His face burned red from humiliation more than pain.
The whispers shifted tone.
Not admiration.
Not yet.
But something uncertain.
The town elder's voice cut through the tension.
"That technique."
An older man stood at the courtyard entrance, robes dark, expression colder.
"That is the same deviant style your father practiced."
Kaida held her gaze.
"It wins."
The elder's eyes hardened.
"Not in this town."
The message was clear.
Win or not, she did not belong.
The crowd dispersed quickly after that.
Taro avoided her eyes as he stood.
Kaida turned away first.
She retrieved her cloth wraps from the ground and began retying them, hands steady.
Her shadow stretched long across the courtyard stones.
For a moment
Just a moment
It didn't move the same way she did.
She froze.
The forge wall behind her seemed darker than before.
Colder.
A faint pressure pressed against her senses like distant thunder beneath the earth.
Then it vanished.
Kaida flexed her fingers.
Not fear.
Recognition.
Something had responded.
Not to cultivation.
To her.
Behind her, the elder whispered to another townsman:
"Send word to the Veil Sect."
Kaida didn't hear it.
But the wind did.
And somewhere far beyond the Vale
Something ancient shifted.