I turned the page, the sound of paper gently sliding against paper. I leaned in and began to read.

  Foundational Agility

  Among the Four Foundations, Agility governs movement—your speed, your reflexes, your balance, your ability to dodge, react, and control the space around your body.

  It is the difference between being quick and being untouchable.

  While Might allows you to strike, and Constitution allows you to endure, Agility allows you to survive. A swift cultivator can avoid a deadly blow entirely, rather than relying on strength to deflect it or toughness to absorb it. Agility enables flow of movement from footwork and redirection. The cultivators who master this foundation do not overpower their enemies—they exhaust and outpace them, dismantling them through motion alone.

  Training Agility involves much more than simply running fast. It requires control. Exercises designed to develop muscle memory, fluid movement, and instinctual response. Obstacle runs, footwork drills, tightrope walking, blindfolded sparring—all these are traditional methods used in foundational training.

  In combat, conditions change in the blink of an eye. A cultivator who cannot keep up with the motion will fall, no matter how powerful their strike or how firm their stance.

  After all, what power is more precious than the ability to move when death reaches for you?

  When I read the attribute for Agility, I already had a pretty good idea what it was just from the name.

  And sure enough, my assumption was correct.

  It was all about movement.

  Agility wasn’t complicated, at least not on the surface—it encompassed everything related to swiftness. The quicker you were, the harder you were to hit, and the faster you could strike. This foundation affected your movement speed, attack speed, reaction time, balance, and even your ability to evade danger entirely.

  It made perfect sense.

  I thought of possible fights—how often would a slower cultivator lose not because they were weak, but because they couldn’t keep up. One missed step, one delayed dodge, and it was over. The fast didn’t just attack more—they chose when the fight began and when it ended.

  And in a world where a single strike could decide everything… that mattered.

  As I grasped more of the foundation’s meaning, the more a conundrum began to take shape—one that made unsettling sense the longer I sat with it.

  There just wasn’t enough time in the day to equally train every foundation.

  Sure, in theory, you could try. Spend the morning building strength, the afternoon refining agility and the evening pushing your endurance… but cultivation didn’t work like that. Every foundation demanded focus and time.

  A full day dedicated to just one of them already felt like barely enough.

  It became clear that most cultivators had no real way to pursue all four evenly. They couldn’t. So they most likely had no choice but to specialize—training one or two foundations to define their style, while keeping the rest just strong enough to not fall behind.

  And that’s when something clicked in my head.

  The sects…

  That’s what separated them. That’s what defined them.

  Each one chose a different approach to the foundational path.

  The Shaolin Temple, with its rigid discipline most likely centered its training around the Foundational Constitution. It would explain their resilience: the ability to endure pain, hunger, and ailments.

  The Qingcheng Sect, deadly and swift, likely specialized in Foundational Agility. They were known to strike first—and end fights before their opponents could begin.

  Then there were the more balanced sects—like Wudang and Hua. Based on how they were described during recruitment, I would wager they emphasized both Might and Agility. Strength backed by grace. Techniques that balanced explosive force with elegant movement.

  I wasn’t entirely sure. But that was how I saw it now.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  Then my thoughts shifted to the Emei Sect.

  They hadn’t introduced themselves like the others during recruitment. Though they carried themselves with discipline, their presence didn’t radiate endurance like the monks of Shaolin, or raw strength like the cultivators of Wudang and Mount Hua. There was a touch of agility, yes—but something else lingered beneath it. As if their path as cultivators followed a different rhythm.

  Insight.

  That had to be it.

  The Emei Sect had to focus on the fourth foundation—the one I hadn’t read yet.

  And so, with that realization still fresh in my mind, I turned the page.

  Foundational Insight

  Among the Four Foundations, Insight is the least understood and the most overlooked—especially by beginners.

  Where Might shapes your strike, Constitution your endurance, and Agility your movement, Insight shapes your mind.

  It is the bridge between perception and understanding. It governs your ability to comprehend cultivation techniques, interpret subtle shifts in Qi, see through illusions, sense danger, decipher formations, and even grasp the threads of Dao comprehension.

  Insight is what allows a cultivator to make a technique their own. It is what transforms mimicry into mastery.

  Where others take months to learn a single technique, one with strong Insight may learn it in days.

  However, Insight is the most delicate of the four foundations. It cannot be built through muscle or pain. It must be cultivated through reflection, observation, and contemplation. Often, this comes In facing the unknown and asking questions not to receive answers—but to understand why the question matters.

  It can be trained through meditation, but also through exposure. Reading, debate, travel, and battle—all force the mind to adapt and interpret. Even failure can sharpen Insight, if the cultivator dares to look inward and learn.

  And yet… Insight is also the most dangerous.

  For those who peer too far and too fast, without the other foundations to stabilize them, often suffer from spiritual dissonance, Qi deviation, or mental collapse. The mind must be tempered, just as the body must be.

  To see clearly is a gift—but to see too much is a curse.

  I leaned back in my chair, absorbing the information of what I had just read.

  Insight…

  This was the one I was most unsure about. It wasn’t as obvious as the other foundations. Strength you could measure. Endurance you could feel. Speed you could see.

  But Insight… that was something invisible.

  I looked around the library—at the dozens of cultivators hunched over scrolls and books, chasing knowledge. And I couldn’t help but wonder: how many of them were truly training their insight by cultivating their mind?

  Was the Emei Sect built around it? Were they the ones who focused on Foundational Insight over the others? I wasn’t sure—but honestly, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were.

  There was Lan Rou.

  Her cultivation method—the Nine-Petal Amethyst Sutra—was still fresh in my memory from the first time I saw it listed in the Fate-Defying Ledger. A high-tier technique, locked behind a million Fate Points and a unique requirement I could never meet.

  Each stage was described as the blooming of a petal—refinement after refinement. Not dramatic breakthroughs or brute-force leaps, but quiet, deliberate evolution.

  And the result?

  Unmatched mastery over ethereal techniques. A cultivation that drew in ambient Qi not by force, but through harmony.

  That wasn’t Might.That wasn’t Constitution. And it definitely wasn’t Agility. That was Insight—pure and simple. A path rooted in perception, in clarity, in deep understanding of the world and the self.

  And if Lan Rou—now an Emei cultivator—had chosen that path… then yes.

  I would bet anything her sect was built on Insight.

  I sat in silence for a moment, letting it all sink in.

  I had read through each of the Four Foundations. I understood what they were—what they represented. What they demanded.

  And then—

  Ding.

  That familiar, subtle echo chimed softly in my ears.

  A faint shimmer of light formed in front of me, hovering just above the surface of the table.

  I blinked, caught off guard.

  The system... it had been watching and listening.

  This wasn’t like the Root Stance, where it rewarded me by completing a quest. This time, it responded to something else—something quieter.

  Understanding.

  It hadn’t told me to seek it out, hadn’t prompted me to reflect. But still, it recognized the moment I grasped it.

  That was Insight, wasn’t it?

  And somehow, just by reading and reflecting on the meaning behind each term, I had triggered a response.

  The system acknowledged that.

  And now, my Insight had grown.

  I sat there for a moment longer, a small smile creeping to the edge of my lips. For the first time since arriving in this place, I felt like I was doing more than catching up.

  Now what was left… was the question I had to ask myself.

  Which foundation would I shape my path around?

  I didn’t know yet.

  But I would. Soon.