Huang Ke swung the pickaxe with the weight of his body, a habit forged by countless days in darkness. Each motion sent a dull shock through his arms. His hands, blistered and cracked, bled freely along the wooden haft. The pickaxe struck the spirit stone with a pitiful clink, too dull to dig, too worn to break anything but hope.
Dust, bright as a sparkle, floated thick as mist, clinging to his skin, his tongue, his lungs. Every inhalation scraped his throat raw. His chest rose and fell like a dying bellows, ribs straining beneath sunken skin. The rag of loincloth hung from his hips, stiff with dried sweat, as worthless as dignity in this place.
Huang Ke's head hung low. The swing of his pick slowed, then stopped. His eyes blurred. He collapsed. A smile appeared on his face.
Then.
Smack!
A hand struck his cheek, sharp as thunder. He staggered back with a choked breath, coughing blood-laced dust.
"Boy! Are you trying to die?" hissed the old man beside him.
He gripped Huang Ke's shoulder with gnarled fingers, firm and shaking all at once.
"If the overseer sees you sleeping, your soul and body will be refined into puppets. Don't you know how rare our physique is ? They will not let it go to waste "
Huang Ke didn't answer. His eyes stared, unfocused, at the ground.
" Don't slack off, old man!" The overseer's voice echoed from above.
The old man shook his head and returned to mining.
Silence returned. The mine breathed. Huang Ke lifted the pick again. Slow. Shaking. Not because he wanted to but because he had to.
'Rare physique…' Huang Ke held back his laughter.
He remembered.
Not the pain in his arms, not the rawness of his breath, not even the blood pooling between his toes.
What returned to him just now was the rain.
That bitter, wet night.
Back then, he was nothing more than a tired soul struggling to survive. A college student, drifting through his days. His girlfriend had left him. And honestly, why shouldn't she? His pockets were empty, his future was bleak. His parents, the only light that had warmed his path, had been taken by a cruel twist of fate.
He stood at the top of the bridge's railing.
He had stepped up, leaned forward, hesitating, when the clouds parted. Not with sunlight, but with a man.
He had descended like a myth torn from the pages of cultivation novels. Flowing robes. Silver-white beard. Eyes that gleamed like stars.
"Young man," the old figure had said, voice cutting through the downpour like a divine wind, "do you wish to ascend?"
Huang Ke had thought he was hallucinating. But the man spoke again:
"You possessed the legendary Spirit Absorption physique. Your fate is too much for this heaven to bear, come with me, to ascend, to the cultivation world, a vast expanse of richness and opportunities awaiting you to harness."
He remembered weeping, not in fear, but in awe. How many times had he read stories like this? A broken youth chosen by fate, swept into the heavens to become something more. He thought his time had come at last. He was the protagonist now. A future Immortal Sovereign. The next Heavenly Emperor.
And so he stepped forward. Eager. Grateful. Blind.
That was the last time the sky felt close.
Now, in the choking dark of the mine, his hands shaking around the useless pick, Huang Ke let out a bitter breath.
"Spirit Absorption Physique," he muttered under his breath, voice so low the stone barely heard it. What a lie.
It wasn't a blessing.
It was garbage.
His body could absorb spiritual energy — yes — but only just enough to keep him barely alive while it slowly poisoned others.
The physique prevented him from major spirit energy poisoning.
It's not to say he could never contract it, far from it.
The physique just slowed down the process, he was still dying, just slower.
It made him perfect for the job.
Spirit stone mining.
The energy in the stones would not harm him as it would harm others. He wouldn't die as fast.
The perfect slave.
Chosen not by fate — but by cruelty. By design.
The old cultivator hadn't lied to him.
His physique was indeed rare, 1 out of 1 million people have this. But in the vast expanse of the cultivation world, 1 million was merely a grain of sand in the desert.
The old cultivator had lured a fool. And Huang Ke, desperate and grieving, had taken the bait like a fish begging to be gutted.
And now here he was. Underground. Broken. Breathing dust. Dreaming of bridges and rain.
Huang Ke cursed beneath his breath, voice hoarse from dust and despair.
"A vast expanse of richness and opportunities… my ass."
He had clung to those words once. Bright and naïve, his soul had lit up when the old man descended from the skies. When the rain split and the heavens opened, he thought it was fate. Salvation at the edge of death. The old cultivator had smiled, white-bearded and wise, and told him he was special. A rare physique. A chance to ascend.
How naive.
He remembered the ride — soaring on a paper crane across the clouds, wind singing in his ears, heart thundering with hope. Then came the palace: a vision of grandeur, white jade towers stretching into the clouds, dragon statues coiled around pillars of gold. The ancestral home of the Qin clan, an ancient power of the upper realm. Huang Ke had stood at its gates, mouth agape, drunk on dreams.
He had imagined it all — the face-slapping of arrogant young masters, the effortless rise through sect rankings, the smirks and scoffs of a protagonist standing tall.
He had seen himself cultivating immortal techniques, admired by jade beauties, revered by elders, feared by rivals.
But instead of glory… they dropped him.
Not inside the palace.
Not even in the outer halls.
They dropped him in the mines.
A place colder than steel, darker than his future. His clothes stripped, his dignity stolen. A rag for modesty, a pickaxe for purpose. They laughed and called it an honor.
You are from the lower realm" my overseer remarked. "It is with great gratitude and dedication that you must hold for the clan. For you once were nothing and now you are given the opportunity to ascend with us, serve us well and you shall be rewarded". And thus, Huang Ke was pushed into the mine.
"Reward my ass." Huang Ke cursed.
All there was down here was pain. Suffering. The slow erosion of hope.
This made his modern life not seem so bad.
Huang Ke clenched his jaw until blood filled his mouth. He would rather die than spend another day here. But even death would not come. He had tried to starve, to collapse, to hurl himself down a shaft but it was no use.
The Spirit Absorption Physique replenishes his fatigue with spirit energy flowing in the mine.
A curse wearing the mask of a blessing.
He could not die of fatigue. He could not poison himself with spirit energy. He could not will his body to break.
They had made him sign a contract, binding soul and flesh, shackling him to the will of the Qin Clan. Any self-harm was turned away by the curse-inked seal etched beneath his skin. Even despair had rules here.
His future was like this mine… It was this mine.
No light. No exit. Only darkness.
He wanted to escape, gods, how he wanted to escape, but the walls pressed tighter with every breath, the mine swallowing him day by day. Even dreams no longer dared visit.
He was not a cultivator.
He was not the chosen one.
He was a tool. A body that refused to die…