Yu Province's spring brought no divine blessings, no rain of fortune or soaring qi beasts; it brought mud. Mud in the alleys, mud on the boots, mud in the hearts of peasants who counted crops before they'd sprouted. Still, amid the grime and slow thawing frost, the Jin Clan observed a tradition more ancient than pride: the Festival of Embers.
It was said the flame danced long before sects ruled from mountaintops, when clans defended their lands with swords in one hand and spirit in the other. Now, the festival lingered as a shadow of that history—more performance than power.
But this year was different.
Not because of strength. No cultivators had emerged from Jin Clan's branch family for three generations. The clan barely qualified as "low-tier."
It was different because of a child.
The Jin courtyard—an open ring of smooth-worn stone encircled by wooden buildings—was swept until the dust shone. Junior disciples tied paper lanterns to every gate, each inscribed with ancestral sigils and clan hopes: wealth, health, awakening.
At the center of it all stood a polished dais of red pine, atop which burned the Ember Flame, a ceremonial fire imbued with a soul fragment from the Jin ancestor who founded the clan's first cultivation method.
Jin Wu-ren watched it burn from his mother's arms.
At six months old, his body was still helpless. But behind his black eyes was the soul of a man who had ruled ten thousand sects, slain gods, and rewritten techniques from first principles.
He inhaled deeply.
The air was thick—heavy with smoke from incense and old oil lanterns. The qi density was pitiful. Like sipping steam from an empty pot. Compared to his past life, where spiritual energy flowed like rivers through immortal cities, this was drought.
But a man did not complain about drought. He dug wells.
Beside him, Mu Qinglan adjusted her robes. Her fingers trembled slightly. She wore the clan colors—dusky gold with a crimson trim—but she kept her eyes low.
It had not been easy for her. Since her failed alchemy attempt and the mocking from other branch wives, she had been shunted to the edge of the clan estate. Her presence at the festival was mandatory only because her son had been born within the ceremonial window.
She did not expect anything from today. But Jin Wu-ren did.
He was studying the players.
Elder Jin Rou stood beside the Ember Flame, eyes sharp as ever. She had once been a competent cultivator in her youth, but age and mediocrity had pinned her down. Still, she held influence because of her son Jin Shuo, the supposed rising star of the new generation.
That brat now strutted near the ring in a robe two sizes too large, puffing his cheeks and blowing hot air from his palms like a duckling trying to breathe fire.
"Come, children!" Elder Jin Rou called, her voice smooth like a snake in silk. "Let the ancestral flame see your potential. One by one, offer yourselves to its gaze."
One by one, children stepped forward. Some hesitated. A few cried. Others glowed faintly—tiny sparks of qi brushing against the flame. For each, the Ember Flame either pulsed or flickered, rising slightly when it detected spiritual roots.
Then came Jin Shuo.
He threw out his hands dramatically, summoning a flicker of red mist that danced around his fingers. The Ember Flame responded with a faint surge.
Gasps rippled through the courtyard.
Jin Wu-ren smirked inwardly. The flame hadn't reacted to Shuo's actual spirit—it had responded to a stimulant, some qi-reactive powder smeared onto his palm. A trick as old as the sects themselves. Effective only on those who didn't understand true cultivation.
"Wonderful!" Jin Rou declared. "His root pulses early. Just like his uncle—our last real talent."
Mu Qinglan shifted, holding Jin Wu-ren tighter. Her turn was next.
And Jin Wu-ren, for once, reached forward.
Let them watch, he thought. Let them guess.
He focused.
Even with a damaged soul core, he could draw from his remaining fragments of divine insight. He inhaled, not with lungs, but with will—pulling the faintest strands of ambient qi around him.
As Mu Qinglan stepped forward and lowered her child toward the flame, Jin Wu-ren focused again.
The Ember Flame twitched.
Then surged. High, bright, blue-edged.
Not red. Not yellow. But blue—the color of spiritual resonance.
Elder Jin Rou's smile faltered.
Granny Mei, the oldest among the elders, stepped forward suddenly. Her gaze was sharp. "Stop."
She reached forward and placed the flame's cap—an iron sigil—over it, snuffing its response.
"This one..." she muttered. "Too soon to say."
"Trickery!" snapped Jin Rou. "Impossible for a child of that woman—"
But she was silenced by a look from Granny Mei.
Mu Qinglan bowed low, then backed away with shaking hands. She dared not speak, but her heart thundered.
Jin Wu-ren said nothing.
But inside, the fire had already begun to burn.
--
The ceremony ended at dusk, with the Ember Flame dimmed and the elders muttering in a quiet huddle. Jin Rou's expression remained sour, though she no longer dared voice her doubts. Granny Mei was no longer strong, but her word still carried the weight of an elder who had once shattered a warlord's talisman with a single stroke.
Back in their corner of the clan estate, Mu Qinglan lit a tiny oil lamp as Jin Wu-ren rested in his cradle.
"I don't know what happened," she whispered, brushing his forehead. "But I'm glad... I'm glad you weren't like the others."
She smiled faintly and stepped away.
Jin Wu-ren waited until she fell asleep.
The moment her breathing evened, he reached inward.
His soul core—damaged, fractured, still haunted by the echoes of his betrayal—glimmered faintly in his sea of consciousness. The burst of blue flame had come at a cost. He had forced open a part of himself too early. Now it ached, as if burned from the inside.
But pain was familiar. Pain was the currency of progress.
He slowly rotated the dregs of spiritual energy within his meridians, circulating them in the pattern of the Seven Breath Lotus Cycle—a breathing technique he had invented in his first life to survive in low-qi regions during the Heavenly Beast War.
Back then, he'd been hunted by the Goldspine Rhinoceros Clan, cornered in a barren canyon in the west. His qi had nearly depleted. With nothing but a broken saber and a wounded arm, he developed the technique under pressure, using breath itself as a pump to drive microscopic qi threads through blocked meridians.
Now, in this weak baby body, he adapted the same method.
One breath. Two. Three.
The strain was immense. Sweat broke across his brow. But each breath rewarded him with a trickle of qi.
He pushed it toward the shattered shell of his soul core. A faint glow answered.
Progress.
--
The day after the festival, the Jin estate buzzed with gossip. Everyone had seen the flame react. Everyone knew Granny Mei had silenced it.
And so, the whispers began.
"Mu Qinglan's child..."
"I thought he was born weak?"
"I saw blue flames—Qi fire! Don't lie!"
"It must've been a fluke."
Jin Rou clung to that last line as if it were scripture.
Two days later, she made her move.
The clan's elder wives called for a review of household resources, starting with medicinal herbs allocated to the outer quarters—Mu Qinglan's area.
They arrived with junior servants in tow, declaring they were merely 'organizing' supplies. But Jin Wu-ren saw the truth behind their eyes.
This was suppression. Punishment for daring to make a ripple.
Mu Qinglan bowed politely. "Elders, these were assigned for my son's constitution. He is still—"
"Enough."
Elder Jin Rou snapped a fan closed. "These herbs are above your station. Be grateful we leave you anything."
They turned to leave, carrying her baskets.
That was when Jin Wu-ren cried.
Not a normal cry. But one filled with pitch-perfect sharpness, timed just as Mu Qinglan's fingers trembled in shame. The servants paused.
"Unusual child," one muttered.
Jin Wu-ren screamed again, then stilled—eyes locking on the servant's waist.
A pouch. The smallest flicker of heat inside.
With a focus that should've been impossible, he gathered a thread of qi from within himself—then expelled it through a minor node in his palm.
The pouch burst into smoke.
Ash spewed into the servant's face. They stumbled back, yelping. "It burns!"
Elder Jin Rou gasped. "You brought spirit incense?! Near an infant!?"
The lie planted itself before she could stop it. Jin Wu-ren had framed them.
Other wives emerged, drawn by the noise. In minutes, the scene shifted.
Granny Mei herself arrived, her eyes dark. "Discipline them," she said simply.
And just like that, the tide turned.
Mu Qinglan clutched Jin Wu-ren close, whispering, "What did you do?"
He blinked at her, soft and innocent.
The fire was growing.