He was the first to arrive at the summit. The one whose steps had outpaced hundreds of thousands. And now, every eye turned toward him with quiet anticipation.

  The first-ranked.

  We were all holding our breath.

  What soul weapon would such a prodigy wield? What kind of cultivation method would be drawn to him? And above all… what kind of sect would claim him? Those were the thoughts most of us had.

  Then, the announcer’s voice rang out with crisp formality.

  “Rank One—step forward and manifest your soul weapon.”

  He did so without hesitation. His movement was smooth, unbothered, as if this moment bore no weight at all. His expression betrayed nothing. A face carved from quiet confidence. His hands slowly lifted.

  And then… He manifested it.

  A sharp gasp echoed from somewhere in the seats.

  “That can’t be right.”

  “Wait—what did he…?”

  “Am I seeing that correctly?”

  Even the elders stirred. All of them standing in unison.

  The elder from the Wudang Sect clenched his sleeve. The Shaolin monk’s serene expression wavered ever so slightly. And the Mount Hua elder whispered under his breath: “…Impossible.”

  I furrowed my brow, confused by their reactions.

  What was going on? What had he done?

  From where I stood, I hadn’t gotten a clear look—until he shifted slightly, turning just enough for me to catch the forms in his hands.

  And that’s when I saw it.

  Not one… but two soul weapons.

  Each one is just as real and sharply defined as the other, with no blurred edges, no split hilts, and no mirrored halves trying to pass as whole—just two distinct weapons, one held in each hand.

  I squinted harder.

  They were daggers—or at least dagger-like in shape. A little longer, perhaps, somewhere between short sword and long knife.

  One shone with a light so white it almost glowed in defiance of shadow. Its hilt was black, pitch as ink. The other—its reflection. A blade black as night, matte and hungry for light, but held by a hilt as white as snowfall. Yin and Yang.

  But how?

  A soul weapon was born from the soul. One soul. One weapon.

  This… what I was seeing… it shouldn’t be possible. And yet, it was happening. Right in front of us.

  He stood there, perfectly composed, holding both weapons in either hand as if it were the most natural thing in the world—while the rest of us struggled to reconcile what we were witnessing.

  The murmurs only grew louder.

  “Did the heavens make a mistake…?”

  “Has this ever happened before?”

  “No… I’ve read every record. Never.”

  “That’s not a dual-form weapon—it’s two separate soul weapons!”

  A storm of disbelief swelled throughout the chamber.

  And yet, he said nothing.

  He simply stood there… silent—and entirely beyond explanation.

  Though I could tell the elders were barely restraining themselves, questions clearly brimming in their eyes about the impossible sight of someone manifesting not one, but two soul weapons—they did not speak. Now wasn’t the time. The ceremony was still underway, and the next event had already begun.

  It was time for the cultivation method to reveal itself.

  As it had with Lan Rou and Mo Wugang, we all expected a single tome to descend—one book chosen among the countless, drawn to the very essence of its future wielder. That was the process. That was the pattern.

  But then, we witnessed something that shattered every expectation.

  One book lit up.

  Then two.

  Three. Five. Ten.

  Twenty.

  A hundred.

  Hundreds.

  All at once, the tomes scattered across the endless ceiling began to glow, one after the other, in rapid succession. Shimmering colors and swirling auras painted the chamber in waves of heavenly brilliance. And then—they began to move.

  Each book spiraled downward, not toward the floor, not toward the central pedestal, but toward him.

  The first-ranked.

  They circled around him, orbiting his body like celestial stars drawn to a sovereign sun. Hundreds of tomes hovered and turned around him in perfect balance, an archive of sacred knowledge acknowledging a single man.

  Gasps and exclamations erupted around me.

  “What in the heavens...?”

  “Is he calling them… all?”

  “I’ve never seen this, never heard of this, this isn’t possible!”

  “Every method… every technique… they’re responding to him!”

  Even the elders were no longer silent.

  Elder Qing Yanluo of Qingcheng took a step forward, his composed face visibly unsettled.

  “That’s not talent… that’s providence.”

  The elder from Wudang shook his head slowly, his voice barely contained with composure.

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  “No… that’s not providence. That’s authority. He’s not being chosen by them… they’re requesting him.”

  And yet, amidst the storm of awe and disbelief, the boy at the center remained motionless and calm. Unbothered by the chaos he was causing around him.

  It wasn’t just that he had manifested two soul weapons. It wasn’t just that he had reached the top of the stairs before anyone else. It was that the world of cultivation itself bent to meet him.

  And me… I just stood there, watching—thinking to myself:

  He wasn’t the fate-defying type.

  He was the fate-defining type.

  Yet despite the brilliance encircling him, despite the countless tomes offering themselves in trembling reverence, he did not even glance at them.

  His gaze remained fixed, not toward the ceiling where the exalted scriptures had descended like blessings from the heavens, but toward the lowest floor, tucked in the farthest corner of the chamber. A place so dim and humble that no one else had paid it any mind.

  And then… he moved.

  The orbit of books surrounding him, hundreds of cultivation methods vying for his attention, paused midair.

  And then, quietly… they parted with understanding.

  They knew—though they desired him, he did not desire them.

  He walked alone, cutting through that silence with every step. We watched, breathless.

  He walked toward one book. It just waited… as though it knew he would come. A simple tome. Nothing ornate.

  The cover was pure white, the pages within black as ink. And when he reached it, he stopped—no words, no flourish. He simply stood tall and stared, silent and still.

  Then, it responded.

  Just as it had with Lan Rou and Mo Wugang. Light erupted—but this time… it wasn’t radiant or divine. It was a swirling contrast—a vortex of black and white, coiling and splitting like oil and water, a balance between silence and motion.

  And from that… a form emerged.

  My heart thudded once in anticipation. Would it be another divine entity? A celestial phoenix? A dragon?

  Then I saw it.

  A… panda?

  It waddled from the light, Its fur shimmered faintly—pure white on one side, pitch black on the other, split perfectly down the middle as though its body housed two worlds.

  Gasps rippled across the chamber. Because even I could tell—this was no ordinary beast.

  Its round eyes, though gentle, shimmered with depths I couldn’t comprehend. Its presence, though comical, made the air tighten in my chest. And then… it blinked once, raised its tiny paw, and gently booped the tome toward the boy’s chest—a gesture of selection.

  The light disappeared. The panda turned into a spiral of opposing light… and vanished.

  He caught the book mid-air with a single hand.

  That was it.

  And yet—the silence was louder than thunder.

  The silence dragged on. No one dared to speak, as though any sound might shatter the strange miracle we had all just witnessed.

  Even the elders, usually quick to regain composure, remained seated in stunned quiet.

  Until finally—

  “Ahem.”

  The announcer cleared his throat, the sound strained and shaky. He blinked rapidly, as if trying to shake the last fragments of apparition from his eyes.

  He straightened his robe, then stepped forward and raised his voice, though it lacked its usual commanding tone.

  “A-as is tradition… First Rank, please come forward and offer your greeting to the honored elders, and your fellow cultivators gathered here today.”

  He moved as if unaffected by the wonder that still hung in the air like incense. He stepped toward the center of the circle and bowed—not too deep, not too shallow. A precise, respectful gesture—nothing more, nothing less.

  His voice was quiet, but clear. Measured like his every action. And when he spoke, it carried across the entire hall.

  “I greet the respected elders and peers gathered here. My name is… Tai Yinzi.”

  Tai Yinzi… even his name embodied harmony.

  The silence following Tai Yinzi’s introduction did not last.

  One of the seated elders abruptly stood. It was Elder Fang Heyi of the Wudang Sect. His brows furrowed, his gaze locked onto Tai Yinzi with the intense focus of a scholar unraveling a divine riddle.

  "Young man," Elder Fang began, his voice sharp but not accusatory, "in all my years of cultivating, never have I seen such a thing. Two soul weapons. A body that appears as the personification of yin and yang. A resonance with every cultivation tome in the archive."

  He gestured toward the space where the black-and-white panda had appeared only moments before.

  "Tell me… what is your body constitution? From what lineage do you hail? What rare bloodline runs through your veins to grant you such extraordinary compatibility?"

  The elder took a breath and added, quieter this time, but with unmistakable weight: "Who are you, truly?"

  The question echoed through the chamber.

  Everyone… everyone leaned forward—mentally or physically. Even the elders, who usually carried themselves with calm, said nothing. They, too, awaited the answer.

  Tai Yinzi, still standing within the circle, took a moment.

  He blinked once, slowly. Then twice. As if considering the question not for what it asked—but for whether it even deserved an answer. And then, with the smallest shrug of his shoulders, he spoke.

  "I was born this way," he said simply. "Two soul weapons. White hair. Black hair. Mismatched eyes. I’ve had them since the day I could remember."

  He looked up at the gathered cultivators—his expression neither proud nor ashamed.

  "My mother was a whore, and I never met my father. I grew up in the backroom of a brothel with no lineage, no rare bloodline, no grand inheritance—just me, scraping by to survive."

  The words were wrapped in silk—softly spoken, but with a weight that silenced the very air.

  "I don’t know why the tomes chose me. I don’t even know what it means. The one I picked was the only one that called my name… so I answered."

  He bowed slightly toward the elder and added, with sincerity but without submission:

  "I’ve only ever lived slowly… methodically… so I wouldn’t disappear. Nothing more."

  The chamber remained still—eerily so.

  They had expected legacy, heritage, divine bloodlines. Not… this.

  A child of a brothel. A life of methodical survival. And yet, before them stood someone who had been chosen by every path.

  It was Elder Fang who spoke again, but this time, his voice faltered ever so slightly—his composed tone cracked just enough to show the confusion behind his cultivated calm.

  “T-Then… might we know the name of your cultivation method, Tai Yinzi?” he asked carefully. “The title upon its cover. Perhaps through it, we may glimpse the nature of your constitution, or the destiny it represents.”

  The question was logical and reasonable. A title might explain everything. Might restore some sense of order to this lawless anomaly standing before them.

  Tai Yinzi looked down at the book. He seemed unbothered by the constant questioning. If anything, he looked… mildly curious himself.

  Then, he reached forward and turned the book to face the audience—toward the gathered elders, sect disciples, and curious eyes lining the chamber.

  Blank.

  Just a smooth, featureless cover—white and untouched, unmarred by brush or ink, title or seal. No name, no emblem, no hint of what lay within.

  Tai’s voice rang out: “The cultivation method has no title, Honored Elders. Its cover bears no words.”

  A visible shudder rippled through the crowd—not out of fear, nor awe.

  But confusion.

  A cultivation method with no title? Unheard of.

  Cultivation techniques were more than just power—they were living philosophies. Even the weakest, most obscure arts bore names—symbols of meaning, of purpose. But this…?

  Elder Fang took a cautious step back, his brows drawing tight. Elder of Mount Hua narrowed his eyes, as if sheer will alone might strip away the mystery. Even Elder Bai of Emei shifted ever so slightly in her seat—the first visible reaction she’d made since taking her place.

  All eyes gazed at Tai Yinzi—this boy of no background, no title, no lineage… and yet, who held every path in his hands.

  The silence that had settled across the room was broken at last by the announcer, his voice wavering slightly as he struggled to steady the room’s rhythm.

  "H-Honored elders," he said, trying to regain composure, "please proceed with your sect’s offerings to Tai Yinzi, so that—"

  But he didn’t get to finish.

  Because in that instant, a voice unlike any other resounded through the chamber—so profound it was as if the heavens themselves had spoken.

  “We will proceed with the offers.”

  Everyone turned, instinctively drawn to the source. At the far end of the room stood five figures—unannounced, yet impossible to ignore.

  Each one radiated a presence so vast, so impossibly heavy, it felt as though the very air warped around them bended beneath their existence.

  Even the elders, those revered cultivators whose voices had moments ago filled the room with power and pride, rose to their feet in visible shock. One by one, they descended from their elevated seats, heads lowered, hands folded in solemn respect.

  Then, a single voice rang out, joined swiftly by others, unified in respect:

  “We welcome the Sect Leaders!”