The morning bled into the afternoon before I even noticed.

  After recovering from that first failed attempt at holding the Root Position, I threw myself into the stance again and again—pausing only when my legs buckled and my breath grew too ragged to focus. Then, I would sit for a minute, stretch what I could, and begin again.

  Around me, the training yard—if the dirt between our shacks could be called that—buzzed with the rough energy of thousands of aspirants all trying to make something of themselves. The sound of strained breathing, frustrated grunts, and the occasional impact of a poorly timed exchange filled the air.

  “Drop your hips more,” a girl said nearby, her tone sharp but not unkind.

  “I am dropping them!” came the grumbled reply of the boy she was correcting, wobbling in place.

  “Yeah, well, your stance says otherwise. You're tilting forward. If someone pushes you, you're gonna fall flat on your face.”

  “I’d like to see them try.”

  That earned a snort from her and a swift jab at his shoulder—not a strike, just enough to make him stumble and, predictably, fall.

  “Told you.”

  They both laughed, and strangely, the sound didn’t bother me. Around us, others exchanged quick tips and advice, or just mutual complaints.

  “Bend your knees less, you’re overcompensating.”

  “Try matching your breathing to your footwork—it helps the rhythm.”

  “Don’t push off your toes like that, you’ll burn out your calves too fast.”

  We were all fumbling our way down a path we didn’t truly know how to follow. And yet… it felt good being among others who understood what it meant to start from nothing.

  By the time the sun started dipping behind the outer ridges, stretching shadows across the mess of shacks, my legs were shaking uncontrollably. Everything was soaked in this soft orange light and, like clockwork, the hunger kicked in, chewing at my insides.

  My stomach growled loud enough to be noticed, and I grumbled in response.

  I wanted food. Real food.

  Something warm. Something with flavor. Something that didn’t taste like it had been made in disappointment. But I didn’t have any merit points. Which meant no meal from the hall.

  Sure, I had a couple of those basic pills—the bland brown ones we were given upon arrival—but if I kept relying on those just to keep moving, I knew it wouldn’t be long before my mind started breaking.

  And that’s when a voice rang out, cutting through the fading light.

  “Alright, listen up!”

  Everyone turned toward the source.

  The man standing near the center of the common ground had a voice that wasn’t trying to be loud—it was loud.He was tall, broad-shouldered, and sun-darkened, with a jagged scar running down the side of his neck. His sleeves were rolled up to his elbows, revealing arms covered in faint burn marks and callouses. His hair was tied back in a short knot, and despite the dirt and sweat clinging to him, he still stood firm.

  “I’m Ren Yao,” the man said, his voice carrying with ease across the quieting crowd. “Rank forty-thousand.”

  A few heads turned. Some murmured. That rank meant one thing—he had been the first to be rejected. The first one beneath the banner, the first Unbound among us.

  He folded his arms, gaze steady.

  “I’m not here to act humble. I’m telling you this because it means one thing: I’m higher-ranked than the rest of you. And whether you like it or not, that means in terms of assessed talent, I’ve got more than any of you.”

  He took a step forward, scanning the gathered group of tired, hungry, disoriented cultivators.

  “So I’m nominating myself as the leader of this little band of losers—the first generation of this cycle’s Unbound aspirants. If anyone’s got a problem with that, step forward. Say your piece. You’ve got the right.”

  No one moved. Not yet.

  He let the silence hang for a moment, then continued, his tone softening just slightly.

  “Look… if we want to survive this, we’ve got to stop thinking like we’re alone. Because we’re not. None of us got picked. None of us got help. And if today’s training taught you anything, it’s that merit points aren’t going to rain from the sky. The pills we were given? They’ll be gone long before we make it out of this first stretch.”

  A few nodded quietly. Others looked down at the dirt, simply resigned.

  “So,” Ren said, lifting his chin, “I want to propose something.”

  He turned slightly, gesturing behind him—toward the trees rising just beyond the edge of the Unbound camp.

  “For some reason, they placed us right at the border of a forest. I went in earlier and scouted it a bit. Heard animals. Sounds that don’t belong to just bugs. There’s life in there.”

  He looked back at us, voice firm again.

  “I say we form small groups, assigning different roles. Build something with structure. Hunt for food, gather herbs, learn the terrain. We can rotate effort, and earn what we need to last long enough to even dream of earning merit.”

  Another ripple ran through the crowd—some surprise, some intrigue.

  “If you’re against the idea,” Ren said, stepping back and raising his hands, “that’s fine. Step forward now. Say it. I don’t plan to force anyone. But if you do agree… then let’s stop surviving separately.”

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  A brief silence followed Ren’s proposal—until a woman near the front raised her hand, her voice clear and direct.

  “What kind of groups are you talking about?”

  Ren nodded, as if he’d been waiting for that question.

  “We decide that now,” he said. “Because waiting will only make things worse.”

  He stepped forward again and raised a hand, ticking his fingers as he listed each role.

  “First, we need real food. The pills won’t last, and they’re already not enough. So we need a hunting group—people with sharp senses, tracking skills, or at least the guts to swing at wild beasts.”

  He raised another finger.

  “Second, we need flavor and medicine. So we need a gathering group—herbs, mushrooms, wild roots, whatever else we can find in that forest that won’t kill us the moment we eat it.”

  Then another.

  “Third, materials. Look at these shacks. You think they’ll last a season? One storm and half of them will collapse. We need to reinforce them.. Eventually build something that isn’t a joke. So we need a salvage and construction group—wood, stone, dirt, bark, clay, anything we can use to strengthen our homes.”

  “And for that,” he added, “we’ll need builders. Not just gatherers. People who know how to stack a beam without snapping it, or are willing to learn fast.”

  He kept going, his voice steady and sure.

  “We’ll also need cooks. Real ones. Even if all we get are rabbits and leaves, someone has to know how to turn that into something we want to eat, not something we dread.”

  Finally, he looked around the crowd.

  And one more thing—we need people who gather information. About the realm we currently live in, about the missions, about how merit flows, about the sects. Anything and everything. Because we’re Unbound, and if we want to survive long-term, we can’t just get by—we have to stay aware.

  Someone raised their voice in the back, clearly skeptical.

  “If we’re doing all of that… when the hell are we supposed to train?”

  A few heads nodded in agreement. The tension in the group began to ripple—questions forming, doubt taking root.

  Ren didn’t flinch.

  “You’ll train in the mornings,” he said. “Every morning is yours. From sunrise until noon, your time is your own. Train your bodies, study your manuals, meditate, swing your fists, burn your lungs. That’s your time to grow.”

  He folded his arms.

  “After that? We work. We rotate duties. We divide by skill and strength. We do what we need to survive. Because if we don’t take care of ourselves first, it won’t matter how well you stand in a stance or how sharp your sword is—you’ll starve before you ever reach your first breakthrough.”

  No one replied—because he was right, and every one of us knew it.

  Ren let his words hang in the air for a moment longer, then stepped forward once more, his voice ringing out clear and strong:

  “Raise your hand if you’re with me, if you wish to proceed with my proposition.”

  His gaze swept across the group.

  “And if you have a different idea, if you want to debate it, then come forward and speak. I’ll hear you out.”

  Silence.

  Then, slowly… hands began to rise.

  One by one.

  Then dozens at a time.

  In the end, every single person raised their hand.

  No one stepped forward to argue. No one challenged him. Because the truth was simple: what he had proposed wasn’t just sensible—it was necessary.

  He didn’t promise miracles. He didn’t try to inspire with flowery words or false hope. He gave us something to do. And right then, that was exactly what we needed. In that moment, Ren Yao wasn’t just a fellow Unbound. He was a leader in the making. And all of us, regardless of what we had been before, chose to follow.

  Until the day we no longer had to.

  He raised one arm and pointed toward an open section of the clearing, his voice firm and direct:

  “Alright! We’re organizing now—no delays.”

  He gestured left. “If you want to be part of the Hunting Group, gather over there.”

  Then to the right. “Gathering and Herb Team, over that way.”

  He pointed back toward the outer shacks. “Builders and Material Collectors, form up by that stack of logs.”

  Then the center. “Anyone who knows how to cook, or at least isn’t going to poison us—Cooks, over here.”

  Finally, he pointed toward the edge of the forest trail.

  “And those willing to study, observe, listen and report—Information Group, form there.”

  Some people already knew exactly where they belonged.

  A few burly men—broad-shouldered, with the calm confidence of those used to danger—walked without hesitation toward the Hunting Group. They moved like they had tracked prey their whole lives.

  Most of the women naturally drifted toward the Gathering and Cooking teams, drawn to work that required a gentler touch, a sharper eye, or perhaps just the comfort of tradition and familiarity.

  A handful of taller, leaner men, with calloused hands and straight backs headed over to the Construction group. They weren’t big enough for hunting or nimble enough for foraging, but they had the kind of strength made for swinging tools and hauling wood.

  As the minutes passed, people kept trickling into place. Slowly, the crowd thinned out, sorting itself into five forming groups—each one finding its shape among the thousands of us gathered.

  All but one.

  The Information Group remained the smallest by far—just a handful of individuals gathered in quiet clusters. But they didn’t fidget or shuffle nervously. No, there was something else about them.

  Most bore soul weapons that weren’t meant for combat—quills, instruments, brushes, fans, and other tools not forged for the battlefield or atleast at their current level, but for something more intricate.

  They were aspirant craftsmen, scholars, talismancers, spiritualists. The kind of cultivators who didn’t swing blades or hurl fire, but shaped the world through knowledge, through art, through specialized fields.

  And then there was me.

  I could’ve gone anywhere.

  Out there at the Golden Ascension Gate, surviving on my own for decades, I had to figure everything out myself. I hunted just to eat. Foraged whatever I could—that made up half my meals. Built a shack, patched it up every time a storm rolled in. That was just how life was.

  If I joined any of those groups, I would’ve done fine. Blended in. Pulled my weight.

  But that wasn’t what I needed.

  What I needed now… was knowledge.

  I needed to learn what this world was—how it functioned. What cultivation truly meant beyond the surface-level stories. I needed to understand what defined strength and what shaped progress.

  And most of all…

  I needed to understand this system that had embedded itself in my soul.

  If there was any chance of finding answers—records, scrolls tucked away in corners or buried beneath dust—I had to take it.

  So, without hesitation, I turned my steps away from the others. And walked toward the smallest group. I joined the quiet, watchful few at the edge of the field.

  The Information Group.