The second phase of the Breathforge Baptism began not with fire or frost, but with silence.
In the Spiral Grove, time bent unnaturally, making Jun question how long he had stood at the heart of clashing elemental forces. The chaos had stilled—but it wasn't peace. It was an inhale before eruption.
Legacy Breath Path Phase 2 Activated: Code Resonance Requirement: Attune to System Layer Frequencies
Jun frowned. "System layer frequencies? I thought this was a cultivation trial, not a hacking minigame."
The grove shimmered, and suddenly, lines of ancient code wove through the air like spiritual threads. Glyphs danced, runes oscillated between binary and brushstrokes. He reached out instinctively—and the pain was instantaneous.
His thoughts fractured.
A burning symbol etched itself into his retinas:
Accessing Forbidden Thread: Prime Breath Kernel ERROR: You do not have System Access Rootless Override Initiated
The world around him twisted, folding into a half-real construct. He wasn't in the grove anymore. He was inside the Breath Kernel—a metaphysical junction between the game engine's code and the ancient cultivation design buried beneath Heaven's Gate Online.
There, a figure waited.
New Character Introduction: Azure-Knife Lin
She hovered a few inches above the crystalline floor, wrapped in sky-blue breath silk, blades of light orbiting her shoulders.
Unknown Entity Detected Name: Azure-Knife Lin Alignment: ??? Class: Echo Inheritor (Rootless Variant)
"You're late," she said. "The Kernel opens only once per Rootless resonance cycle. I've waited three years."
Jun opened his mouth, but Lin cut him off.
"No time. You touched the Prime Thread. That makes you dangerous. That also makes you one of us. And that means they'll come for you."
"The system? The admins?"
"Both. But worse... the corrupted Rootless."
Gaming System Mechanics Unlocked
New Rootless Functionality Unlocked: Breath Mapping Interface (BMI) Allows players to record, customize, and merge Breath Techniques
New Passive: Breath Drift Awareness Effect: Sense nearby Breath Anomalies hidden from standard players
New Codex Entry: Echo Divergence Description: Rootless players who failed synchronization become Echoed—fragments of will hijacked by code entropy
Jun's interface flickered with primitive overlays—nothing like the polished menus of regular players. His map was hand-drawn. His quest list, a single ink-scribed scroll labeled:
The Unwritten Path
Real World Consequences: Echo Spike Detected
At NexSoul headquarters, alarms blared. Monitors overloaded.
"He breached the Kernel!" Sora shouted. "The Kernel hasn't been accessed since it was sandboxed in Alpha testing!"
Minase ran diagnostics. "And he's not alone. There's another Rootless already in there. Azure-Knife Lin. But her trace ended years ago. We thought she was dead code."
"She adapted," Sora muttered. "So the myth engine is actually… evolving through them."
"And we're losing control."
A pause. Then another technician whispered, "The Breath Kernel is teaching them."
Trial Completion: Phase 2—Successful Synchronization
Jun's arms trembled as Breath lines carved into his skin—ancient script alive with power. The Frostburn Core within his dantian pulsed.
Breath Fusion Achieved: Code-Breath Harmonization: 67% New Technique Created: Azure Embershell Grade: ??? (Experimental/Unscanned)
Lin stepped forward. "Take this. It's all I salvaged from the original nine."
Item Acquired: Fragment of the Forgotten Dao
"One warning," she said, eyes intense. "The system will now recognize you as a priority anomaly. They will send Purge Protocols. Not just admins. But players too. They've gamified your deletion."
"So I'm a bounty now?"
"You're the glitch with loot tables."
Jun exhaled. "Perfect."
The Kernel pulsed, and reality reasserted itself. He stood again in the Spiral Grove, the storm quiet, the grove peaceful.
Legacy Path Trial Completed Title Acquired: Kernel-Bound Rootless Bonus Trait: Unwritten Breath (+10% efficiency to self-created techniques)
Riven approached from the shadows, watching the glow fade from Jun's skin. "You found her. Didn't you? Lin."
"Yeah. She gave me a piece of the Forgotten Dao."
Riven nodded slowly. "Then it begins."
Jun frowned. "What begins?"
Riven unsheathed his blade, looking toward the heavens.
"The war to reclaim the Breath Myth. And the fall of the system that buried it."