A Song For The Ages

The Saint Spirit Branch was quieter than most others, but not in a peaceful way. It was the sort of silence that sank into the bones, made your thoughts louder, your feelings sharper. It was a place of precision and discipline, of still air and burning minds. Among the meticulous halls and formation-laced walkways, Ren sat alone in his assigned stone chamber.

He had just finished etching another formation plate, and his fingers were smudged black with formation ink. The scent of refined ore dust and burned jade filled the air. All around him, sigil-etched papers fluttered faintly from the residual energetic currents. The room was dim, save for the occasional glimmer of light bouncing off the grooves of half-finished plates.

He leaned back, sighing, stretching his aching arms, and eyed his work with faint satisfaction. One more to the tally. Only five more to reach his quota. Now that he could use essence qi, testing each plate had become possible, tedious, but doable.

He had broken through a week ago.

It hadn't been dramatic. No fanfare, no lightning. Just a moment in meditation, when he let go of trying to think his way through it, and instead followed the feeling. The instincts that had kept him alive all those years alone on the streets whispered to him then, and he had listened.

His mind's eye had opened.

Since then, he had begun channeling essence qi, and had started understanding what the cultivators always meant when they said the world felt different after the breakthrough. It did. The air was thicker, but not heavy. The colors, slightly more vivid. The walls of his room almost seemed to hum softly in response to his breathing, and every etched sigil glowed just a little more clearly.

Even now, as he looked at the plates, he could feel something, an intuition, a deep instinct that tugged at the edges of his awareness. A gut-level sense of when things were off. A wrong angle here, an unbalanced spacing there, his body just reacted. That had been his way into formation refinement, not through study, but through feel. Like navigating a dark alley by heart, he could feel when a sigiled pattern wouldn't work before he even tested it.

He reached for a water flask, took a long drink, and let out another sigh. His stomach growled. Again.

"Guess it'll be dried rice and roots again," he muttered, glancing at the chipped bowl on the corner of his desk.

Being in the qi manifestation realm hadn't magically solved all his problems. He still had to earn points to eat, to buy better materials, to get access to advanced talisman papers and ink. The cheaper kind crumbled too easily and wasted his effort.

He rubbed his face and leaned forward again, absently tracing the carved grooves in the latest plate. His hands were steady, but his heart wasn't.

For the past month, he'd thrown himself into the branch's teachings. They were harsh. Precise. Ruthless, in their own way. Everything had to be calculated. Talismans were volatile, one incorrect stroke, and they exploded when infused with essence qi. Formation plates? If the placement of the sigils was off by a single breath's width, the entire system would collapse.

And yet, it wasn't any of that which made the silence louder.

It was the lack of voices.

Yue's dry wit, her exasperated complaints. Feiyin's quiet light, that constant presence like a still blade that could be relied on. Mu's aloof snark and the way he casually handed out antidotes like candy.

Hui's gentle laughter, always near the fire.

Ren pressed his palm against his face, hard.

His mind wandered back to the streets of the city he'd left behind, a tangled web of alleys filled with smoke, grime, and cruelty. He had been just a child, but already too familiar with hunger and pain. The people walking past never looked twice at the filthy, starving boy curled behind market stalls. No one wanted him. No one claimed him.

Stolen novel; please report.

He had to steal to eat. He remembered the shame of being chased through muddy roads for half a stale bun, of licking dew off leaves when water ran dry. Of sleeping beneath collapsed buildings, surrounded by rats that were bold enough to fight him over crumbs. Sometimes, he won. Sometimes, he bled.

He was used to being alone.

Then they came into his life, Feiyin, Yue, Mu, and Hui. Somehow, they'd cracked through the walls he'd built, without asking for anything but his presence.

Now, he was back to being alone.

His voice cracked. Just a little.

He hated this feeling.

He looked down at his ink-stained hands.

What did Hui always say? Something about sweetness after bitterness. Cooking metaphors. She always had one ready.

He leaned back, eyes tracing the ceiling.

"Guess I'll have to hurry to win that bet... or Yue won't let me live it down if I'm the last," he whispered with a weak chuckle.

His room was small, lined with talisman storage cases and a single desk covered in notes. He stood and walked over to a set of formation plates he'd been working on, brushing dust from their surfaces. He needed to focus.

The Saint Spirit Branch was one of the more cerebral of the sect's branches. Cultivators here were sharp-eyed, careful. They didn't brawl; they plotted, calculated, controlled from afar. Formations were weapons of preparation. Talismans, weapons of versatility.

He'd grown to respect it.

Sigils were mankind's painstaking attempt to imitate the sacred runes bestowed by the heavens, flawed, fractured shadows of divine design. Though they lacked the inherent perfection and permanence of real runes, these so-called false runes still held utility. By embedding them into specialized formation plates and aligning them with precision, a cultivator could evoke a fraction of a rune's power. The formations Ren crafted, though simple, could project intricate illusions, amplify or stabilize defensive barriers, and even cloak sounds within a limited radius.

Talismans, on the other hand, were a bit simpler to create but inherently temporary. These consumable items were usually crafted from specialized paper or thin slips of jade, into which sigils were carefully drawn. When infused with essence qi, they would unleash their effect, be it a burst of flame, a gust of wind, or a short burst of protection, before crumbling into ash. Their one-time-use nature made them valuable in emergencies, but expensive to rely on consistently.

Each effect depended on a careful combination of sigil types, placement, and the flow of essence qi, requiring a subtle blend of creativity, calculation, and control.

He smiled faintly.

"Maybe one day, I'll make a formation strong enough to shake the entire mountain."

He doubted it would be anytime soon. But the thought comforted him.

Later that day, he walked to the branch's exchange hall, clutching his completed plates.

The hall was a long corridor with walls carved with sigils that shimmered faintly in the dim light. Other third-class disciples moved in and out with bundles of talismans and boxes of plates.

He nodded at a few. Some gave short nods back, but nothing more. Time was precious here, and most disciples were too engrossed in their work to spare more than a glance. Everyone was looking out for themselves, Ren understood that now more than ever.

He stepped up to the attendant and handed over his quota.

"These are functional?" the man asked without looking up.

Ren nodded. "Tested."

The man reached for one and channeled a thread of essence qi. The plate glowed faintly.

"Approved. 25 points."

Ren accepted the seal and walked away, fingers already thinking of how he would budget those points. Paper. Ink. Food.

Maybe a few dried fruits. For Hui.

He stopped in the middle of the hall, staring at nothing.

"Dammit," he muttered.

His breath hitched. He took a deep one, then another. He wasn't going to cry. He refused to cry. Not here.

Instead, he walked out, back into the cool air, and stood on the outer walkway.

From this vantage point, he could see a few other branch mountains, shrouded in mist. Somewhere out there, Feiyin was probably breaking another limit. Yue was likely beating the hell out of sparring puppets. Mu was... probably poisoning himself again in the name of alchemy.

And here he was.

He placed a hand over his chest.

"Not alone. Not really. Not anymore."

He looked up at the sky, where the clouded sun broke faintly through.

"I'll win that bet. Just you wait."

And he walked back toward his room, determination solid in every step.