Soft, luminous, everywhere. No ground, no sky, just endless jade haze that glowed with its own quiet light. The transition hit like falling without moving—one heartbeat under an ancient pine, cold dirt under my knees, the next heartbeat standing barefoot on something that looked like air and felt like solid stone.
You’d think I’d get used to this by now.
Spoiler: I hadn’t.
I inhaled on instinct. Flow Cycle slid into place with the ease of repetition, Qitan warmth rising from my dantian like a shy flame. It drifted along the opened meridian in my torso, thick and slow but less clumsy than yesterday. Spirit Anchor followed a breath later—my thoughts tightening, focusing, like someone had tied a rope around my mind and pegged it to a rock.
Okay. Not screaming. Good start.
Mist stirred ahead of me.
Jian Shuhai stepped out of it as if the fog had decided to sculpt a man and then regretted giving him a sense of disapproval. Tall, lean, robes that moved without wind. His hair was long and silver, gathered in a simple knot. Eyes like two blades of polished glass pinned me to the spot.
“You returned,” he said.
Not exactly a welcome, but coming from him that felt almost affectionate.
“I did say I would,” I answered, trying for casual and landing somewhere between respectful and “please don’t crush my soul again.”
His gaze swept over me. The pressure that brushed my mind was feather-light compared to last time, but I still felt it—a testing weight, like a hand pressing down on wet clay to see if it would hold shape.
“Your Will has not collapsed,” he murmured. “Spirit Anchor holds.”
Somewhere deep in my chest, the Guard skill pulsed in response, a cool, steadying sensation. My pulse slowed. My thoughts stopped trying to scatter like chickens.
“I, uh… practiced,” I said. “During chores. Blocking out pain. People. Annoying supervisors. It seemed… applicable.”
A hint of something almost like amusement touched the corners of his mouth. “Guard skills serve the wise in all things. Even in the face of ‘annoying supervisors.’”
Did an ancient clan elder’s soul just quote me?
I’d take that win.
His expression smoothed. “You have touched Qitan Will. You have begun to circulate Qitan Flow. But your Flesh remains that of a half-starved servant child.”
He said it like a diagnosis, not an insult, but my pride still flinched.
“I’m working on that,” I muttered. “Food would help.”
“Food is fleeting,” he said. “Roots are not.”
I blinked. “Roots?”
He lifted a hand.
The mist rippled, parting around us. Shapes coalesced in the blankness—towering pines like the one in the real courtyard, their trunks dark and huge, their roots twisting deep into unseen earth. Wind that didn’t exist yet somehow brushed my face, carrying the clean scent of resin and ancient bark.
“Storms scour mountains,” Jian Shuhai said quietly. “Lightning splits stone. Waves erode cliffs. What endures?”
I swallowed. “Trees?”
“Trees fall. Roots remain.” He turned back to me. “You wish to stand before stronger foes. To not be broken by the first gust.”
“That would be nice, yes.”
“Then we begin with your roots.”
The forest illusion bled away, leaving only mist and the elder in front of me. He regarded my legs the way a carpenter might eye a warped board.
“Tonight, you will learn a foundational Qitan Flesh Form. Iron Root Stance.”
That sounded promising. And also painful. Mostly painful.
“What do I do?” I asked.
His answer was infuriatingly simple.
“Widen your feet. Sink.”
I obeyed.
Feet apart, more than shoulder-width—whatever that meant for my currently undersized shoulders. Toes angled slightly outward. Knees bent.
I’d seen enough martial arts movies back on Earth to recognize the shape.
“Horse stance,” I muttered.
“Root stance,” Jian corrected. “You are not a beast to be ridden. You are a tree that will not be moved.”
Okay. Tree stance. Got it.
I tried to settle deeper. Immediately my thighs lit up in protest.
“Lower,” Jian said.
“I am lower,” I grunted.
“Lower.”
I sank another handspan. My hips burned. My knees shook. The muscles along my inner thighs screamed in a language I understood perfectly: you hate us, we hate you, let’s fall over together.
Jian stepped closer, adjusting my position with minimal, precise touches. Fingers like cool iron pressed my knee outward, my tailbone under, my spine straight.
“Do not lean forward. Do not pop your ribs. Stack bone over bone. Let your weight drop.”
“That’s easy for someone with no body,” I said through clenched teeth.
His brows lifted. “You complain as if I did not earn the right to be bodiless.”
Fair point.
I took a breath, trying to relax into the posture. The trembling in my legs only got worse. My calves felt like they were being twisted. Sweat prickled at my hairline.
“Now,” Jian said calmly, “Flow Cycle.”
Of course.
I inhaled, reaching inward. The familiar warmth stirred in my dantian, sluggish but responsive. I guided it along the meridian—up my abdomen, around my ribs, tracing the narrow path that had been torn open in the pit. It flowed easier than it had that morning; the resistance still there, but less like a brick wall and more like a tight doorway.
As the Qitan moved, it brushed against the muscles in my thighs, my core, my lower back. Every place that burned seemed to echo the Flow, like the pain was a map of where the energy wanted to go.
“Good,” Jian said. “Now, Spirit Anchor.”
The trembling in my legs was creeping into my thoughts. A sharp little voice in the back of my mind whispered, This is impossible, just fall, just rest, you’ll never catch that five-meridian prodigy anyway—
I seized that drifting panic and pinned it. Spirit Anchor latched on like a hook sinking into bedrock. Suddenly there was distance between Me and Hurting Body. The ache didn’t vanish, but it no longer dictated my every thought.
The elder’s eyes sharpened. “Hold all three. Flesh, Flow, Will. Let Qitan Flesh sink to your legs and core. Draw from your dantian, guide through the opened meridian, and bleed it into the muscles. Do not allow the Flow to scatter.”
“I’ll just do the impossible then,” I said weakly. “No problem.”
“Everything is impossible until it is not.”
This guy would’ve killed on motivational posters.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
I inhaled again.
This time, when I pulled the warmth up from my center, I didn’t send all of it along the old circuit. I imagined a portion thickening, heavy and dense, dropping down instead—into my hips, my thighs, my calves. Qitan Flesh. The first of the three layers I’d glimpsed during Vital Surge, now under my conscious control instead of just flaring in a panic.
It was like trying to pour syrup in two directions at once. The Flow dragged along the meridian, sticky and reluctant, while a denser weight seeped downward, following no clear path, just spreading into tissue. My body responded instantly.
Heat flooded my legs.
The trembling turned into a full-body vibration. My muscles clenched and refused to unclench. I felt…heavier. Not in a “too much porridge” way, more like someone had quietly replaced my bones with lead rods.
“Sink,” Jian said softly.
“I am sinking,” I hissed.
“Not with your shoulders. With your weight. Let it fall through your feet. Into the earth.”
There was no actual earth here, only mist pretending to be solid. But I tried anyway. I pictured roots growing out of my soles—dark lines burrowing down, anchoring me to something deep and unmoving. I let the heaviness in my legs drop through those roots, trying to relax the muscles around it.
Something clicked.
My stance didn’t get easier, exactly. The fire in my thighs still burned, my knees still shouted obscenities. But the wobbling eased. My balance settled. I felt less like a fawn on ice and more like a very unhappy boulder.
“Yes,” Jian murmured. “That is Iron Root Stance. Remember this sensation.”
“Burning?” I rasped. “Regret? Life choices flashing before my eyes?”
“Stillness,” he said. “You are a reed shaken by wind that has just discovered it is, in fact, a tree.”
I wanted to argue, but my jaw had decided moving was optional.
Time passed.
I had no idea how much. There were no stars in the mist, no sun to mark the minutes. Just repeated cycles of breath and pain.
Inhale—draw. Exhale—guide. Inhale—split the Qitan, one stream along the meridian, one stream into the Flesh. Exhale—drop your weight, extend the roots. Hold Spirit Anchor tight so the rising tide of pain didn’t wash you away.
My thighs shook so hard they blurred at the edges of my vision. Sweat dripped down my spine, tickling. I couldn’t move to scratch it. Every part of my lower body felt exposed, every weakness magnified by the stance. The first meridian thrummed, stretched to capacity, a swollen channel pushing against its own limits.
“Do not chase comfort,” Jian’s voice cut through the haze. “Growth is at the edge of what you can endure.”
“Pretty sure…I passed…that edge…ten minutes ago,” I forced out.
“Then you have begun.”
He wasn’t helping.
The strain built, layer upon layer, until my meridian felt like it would tear. Panic surged—sharp, hot. If it ruptured again, if I undid whatever fragile repair Vital Surge had accomplished—
Spirit Anchor flared, crushing the panic flat before it could spiral. My mind narrowed to a single point: breathe. Don’t fall. Don’t break.
A strange sensation rippled along the meridian. Not tearing. Stretching. Like a too-tight band being pulled, fibers groaning but not snapping. The Qitan Flow, which had been forced into a thin stream, suddenly found a hair’s breadth more space.
The energy smoothed. Just a little. Enough that the next breath didn’t scrape quite as much.
Jian’s gaze sharpened. “There. Did you feel it?”
“Depends,” I panted. “Was it the part where my everything died?”
“The meridian yielded. A fraction. This is the first work of Iron Root—widening the channel through sustained pressure.”
“Great. So the goal is to almost explode my insides. Repeatedly.”
“Nearly,” he corrected. “Not quite.”
My knees buckled.
For a second the world tilted, my vision going white at the edges. I thought I was done, that I’d finally reached whatever limit my stolen body had.
“Hold,” Jian said, voice suddenly iron.
His Will descended—not like the crushing wave from our first meeting, but a firm, unyielding presence that locked onto my posture. My spine froze. My hips refused to rise. It was as if invisible palms kept me pressed there.
Pain surged into that restrained space, pounding against the walls of my mind.
Spirit Anchor screamed. Flow Cycle stuttered, then lurched into motion again as I forced the Qitan around the circuit. Qitan Flesh pulsed in my legs; every heartbeat thudded like a hammer blow down my roots.
I didn’t know I was making noise until I heard it—a low, animal sound dragging out of my throat.
“This is where you break,” Jian said quietly. “Or you are forged.”
He released his Will.
My body collapsed.
I hit the mist-ground on my knees, then my hands, then my side. The contact felt distant, like I’d been wrapped in wool. My legs were gone. Not literally, but they might as well have been. Just numb, quivering stumps attached to someone else.
I coughed, chest heaving as Flow Cycle tried to keep going on reflex. The Qitan in my meridian sloshed like water in a half-crushed hose. Each pulse sent dull aches through the channel, but the earlier sharpness had mutated into something else.
Room.
Not much. A hair’s width. But it was there.
I rolled onto my back, staring up at the endless mist. My heart pounded in my ears. Spirit Anchor flickered unsteadily and then reasserted itself, steadying the spin of my thoughts.
“This is…your idea…of gentle guidance?” I croaked.
Jian loomed into view, hands folded inside his sleeves. “You remain conscious. That is commendable.”
“High bar.”
“You will hold Iron Root Stance each night until your first meridian can endure a full incense stick of continuous Flow.” His tone made it sound like the most obvious thing in the world. “Each session will prepare your Flesh for the strain of opening the second.”
Second meridian.
The words drifted through my exhausted brain like a thrown rope. I grabbed onto them automatically.
“So this…this is groundwork for opening the next one?” I asked.
“Yes. Your body is a vessel barely reshaped by Foundation. Without stable roots, more Flow will shatter you. Iron Root Stance thickens your Qitan Flesh, fortifies tendons, widens channels. In time, you will sense the path of the second meridian more clearly.”
“In time,” I repeated. “How much time?”
“Three days,” he said.
I stared. “…Three days?”
“The clan’s minor tournament,” he added. “You hope to stand in it without disgrace.”
I hadn’t told him about that. Then I remembered: he lived in a token carried by a boy born and raised in this clan. Of course he knew its schedule. Of course he had access to memories I only got in shreds.
“Disgrace might be optimistic,” I muttered. “Catastrophic humiliation is also on the table.”
“Then let us move the table.”
Was that a joke? From his face, I couldn’t tell.
He extended a hand. Not physically—his arm stayed folded—but Qitan Will brushed my chest, nudging me upright. I groaned as my legs tried to remember what standing was.
“Again,” he said.
My lungs tried to climb out of my throat. “Right now?”
“Do you intend to rest between blows while your enemy obligingly waits?” His gaze hardened. “Stand.”
I stood.
Or at least that’s what I was aiming for. The first attempt looked more like a newborn deer attempting advanced yoga. I managed to get my feet under me, knees shaking so violently I could hear the vibrations buzzing in my bones.
“Widen,” Jian instructed. “Sink. Remember the roots.”
I breathed in, gathered the torn scraps of Flow Cycle, and dropped into Iron Root Stance again.
It was worse the second time.
My muscles had already spent everything on the first attempt; now they protested from the very first degree of bend. But the pattern was a fraction clearer. The moment I tried to split the Qitan between Flesh and Flow, my body aligned itself just a little faster, the roots image rising unbidden.
Sink. Burn. Hold. Don’t die.
Somewhere in the blur of pain and breath, Spirit Anchor stopped feeling like something I activated consciously and more like a reflex—an automatic brace that slammed into place every time my Resolve wobbled.
At some point I stopped thinking words at all. There was only stance, Flow, anchor. Stance, Flow, anchor. A brutal, static dance hammered into my body.
When Jian finally said, “Enough,” I didn’t so much exit the stance as fall out of it. The mist greeted my face like a pillow I didn’t deserve.
“Your first meridian has stretched again,” he said, voice distant. “Only the faintest amount. But it will hold more Flow by morning.”
I made a sound that might have been “good” or “kill me”; hard to tell.
“You will incorporate Iron Root into your menial duties,” he continued. “Every step, every task, a chance to root. Hold the stance while carrying water, sweeping, bearing loads. Let the world mistake training for toil.”
“Multitasking,” I wheezed. “My favorite.”
“Foundation is built in the unseen moments,” Jian said. “The tournament is a storm you cannot avoid. You will not stand at its center as you are now.” His gaze softened by a degree, which, for him, was basically a warm hug. “But perhaps you will not be blown away entirely.”
“That…is the most optimistic thing you’ve said to me.”
“Do not grow arrogant.”
“Trust me, arrogance is very far down the list of what I’m feeling.”
He inclined his head the slightest amount. “Return tomorrow night. Do not neglect Flow Cycle during the day. Do not allow your mind to scatter. The path to the second meridian will reveal itself when your roots are deep enough.”
Mist swelled around him. His figure blurred.
“Wait,” I blurted, lifting a hand that weighed as much as a stone pillar. “If…if I start sensing the second meridian before then—”
“Then you will endure even more,” he said simply. “Go.”
The jade world shattered.
Cold air slapped my face.
I was on my knees under the ancient pine, hands sunk into fallen needles. The real night was darker than the mist had been, full of insect clicks and distant torch crackles. The jade token lay warm against my chest, throbbing in a slow, steady rhythm.
Everything hurt.
I’d thought I knew what soreness was. I’d been beaten, whipped, tossed into a pit. I’d climbed out with meridians cracked like brittle glass. That had been pain.
This was…different.
This was every muscle in my legs singing the same angry song, every step sending harmony through tendons and joints. My first meridian ached with a deep, dull pressure, like someone had wedged a thumb inside it and was gently, insistently pushing outward.
I tried to stand.
My legs folded.
I caught the tree on the second try, hugging the rough bark like an old friend. “Okay,” I whispered to it. “You win. You’re the real tree. I’m…aspiring tree.”
Branches creaked overhead in what I chose to interpret as solidarity.
Somewhere in the compound, a bell chimed the late night watch. I swore under my breath. If I stayed out here any longer, I’d be very conspicuously missing from my assigned bed.
I forced myself upright, locking my knees when they tried to give way, and shuffled toward the servants’ quarters. It wasn’t walking so much as controlled falling in a specific direction.
Every few steps, out of sheer habit or desperation, I let Flow Cycle tug a little Qitan along my meridian. It moved sluggishly, but the route felt…wider. Not by much. But enough that the energy no longer scraped as harshly along one tight corner near my ribs.
“Tiny victories,” I muttered.
Host stamina critically depleted
The System whispered somewhere in the back of my mind, its tone matter-of-fact.
Recommend immediate rest and nutrient intake.
“Working on it,” I breathed.
By the time I slipped back into the servants’ dorm, most of the others were already asleep, their breaths filling the dark room in uneven waves. I collapsed onto my thin pallet with the grace of a dropped sack of laundry.
My legs throbbed in time with my heartbeat.
As my consciousness slid toward sleep, a thought surfaced, clear and sharp despite the exhaustion: three days. Three days until the tournament. Three days to turn horse stance and bruised meridians into something that resembled not dying on a public stage.
No pressure.
I let Spirit Anchor cradle the last fraying threads of my awareness, a quiet weight keeping my mind from spinning away into anxious circles. Pain hummed through my body, but beneath it, under everything, a new sensation pulsed.
Roots.
Not deep yet. Not strong. But starting.
I fell asleep thinking of trees standing alone in storms, and of a prodigy with five shining meridians walking past me without a glance.
Next time he did, I promised myself hazily, I’d at least be able to stand without shaking.