The roots of the world remember those who dig deeper

  I. Awakening CuriosityThe dew had not yet dried on the bdes of violet grass when Aduin stepped through the thinning mists of dawn. His robes, tattered from the prior night’s escape, dragged slightly in the underbrush. Every movement of his foot stirred the loam, revealing a world hidden beneath — a world of stems, spores, and secrets.

  In Midgard, herbology had been a fringe craft, the stuff of old alchemists and eccentric healers.

  But here...On the Vermillion Bird Star...The pnts breathed Qi.

  Some pulsed softly.Others shimmered.Some whispered in tones only the spiritual could hear.

  And so, Aduin made a decision:

  “If I cannot yet master the martial path, then I shall walk the green one.”

  He would gather them — all of them. From the shallow-rooted to the thorned. From the luminous to the bitter-smelling.

  And he would experiment.

  II. The Valley of Silver RootsAduin trekked toward the valley whispered about in the torn scroll he had uncovered days earlier. The writing was faint, scrawled in the old characters of Zhao Wenshu, an eccentric cultivator-alchemist from centuries past. According to the scroll, “In the lownds where shadows fall before the sun, the earth gifts roots touched by moonlight.”

  He found it by intuition more than sight — a basin of pale fog, nestled between two mountains shaped like broken bdes.

  There, they waited:Silver roots. Soft as silk. Cold to the touch. Yet each one vibrated faintly — as though some forgotten spirit lingered within them.

  He knelt.

  Gathered.

  Stored.

  Carefully catalogued in his newly crafted Qi-sealed pouch.

  Next came the Verdant Cradle, a slope of yered moss that exhaled warmth and drew insects in droves. Aduin waved them away with a flick of Qi and dug gently. The green tendrils beneath twitched when exposed, drawing inward like nerves responding to light.

  III. The Lab Within the CaveBack in the cave — now reinforced with woven bark, bone, and fire-hardened stone — Aduin lit a small fme with a flint from Midgard. Around it, a series of crude crystal crucibles and stone mortars stood arranged in a deliberate pattern.

  From memory, he reconstructed a Midgardian synthesis circle, a rudimentary alchemy formation once used for transmuting simple toxins into healing powders. But it would not work alone here.

  Not without Qi.

  He aligned the formation with the flow of spiritual veins beneath the earth — something the Vermillion Star cultivators often overlooked in their arrogance. Aduin’s touch was different. Precise. Methodical. Rooted in logic as much as instinct.

  One by one, the herbs were tested:

  Silver Roots reacted violently to heat — expanding into a getinous mass that emitted calming vapors when cooled.

  Redscale Vine, when ground with Midgard’s frostleaf remnant, produced a powder that ignited like wildfire when struck by Qi.

  Moon Orchid Pollen dissolved when touched by blood, releasing hallucinogenic properties that warped spiritual perception.

  Aduin recorded every detail in a journal bound from bark and stitched with insect silk. Every change in color. Every shift in smell. Every flicker of energy.

  IV. The DiscoveryOn the third night, Aduin sat cross-legged, meditating beside a cauldron of blended extracts. The scent in the air was thick — earthy, floral, and tinged with metal. His cultivation had been stuck at the edge of the First Vein Opening Realm.

  But something was different now.

  He inhaled the fumes. Qi surged into his body — not wild, but focused. As though the herbs were a key fitting precisely into a hidden lock within his body.

  He exhaled sharply.

  And then—A pulse.

  Like a chain breaking.Like a gate swinging wide.

  His meridians screamed, but did not rupture.His blood roared, but did not boil.His spirit... lifted.

  Second Vein Opening—achieved through herbal alchemy, not combat.

  “This is my path,” he whispered.

  “The world of martial fists may belong to brutes, but the earth remembers those who listen.”

  V. The Eyes That WatchBut his work had not gone unnoticed.

  Deep in the mountain ridge, a small sect known as the Yunn Pavillion observed disturbances in the local Qi. Their scouts had reported waves of spiritual fluctuation around the lower valleys — signs of formation use, and more armingly, alchemy.

  Their leader, Mistress Lin Yuyan, was a sharp-eyed cultivator known for her silence and cruelty. She dispatched two disciples — Zhao Heng and Min Qixue — to investigate and cim any useful discovery in the name of the sect.

  “If it's some wandering fool,” she said, “break his legs. If he’s talented... break one, and bring him here.”

  VI. ConfrontationOn the fourth day, as Aduin filtered the essence of sunroot through a Qi-refined sieve, the wind changed.

  And he felt it.

  Two presences, fast and sharp. One hot and aggressive. One cold and methodical.

  He stood, slowly, not yet revealing his cultivation.

  From the treeline emerged Zhao Heng, face marred by a perpetual sneer, and Min Qixue, whose expression bore the calm malice of one born into entitlement.

  “Alchemist?” Zhao spat. “Or thief?”

  Min Qixue stepped forward. “This valley is under the Yunn Pavillion’s watch. Whatever you’ve made belongs to us now.”

  Aduin narrowed his eyes.

  “I didn’t see your name on the moss.”

  Zhao Heng grinned and drew his saber.

  “Then I’ll carve it into your bones.”

  VII. Test of ResolveAduin inhaled.

  The Qi from the herbal concoctions still lingered within him. His body was lighter. His veins clearer. And his spirit — forged by experimentation, not tradition — pulsed with raw potential.

  He moved just as Zhao struck. A sidestep. A twist. The saber grazed his robe but missed flesh.

  Aduin flung a silver-root extract capsule onto the ground. It exploded in a burst of smoke that deadened Qi movement.

  Zhao stumbled.

  Min Qixue unched a dozen needle-thin darts of spiritual ice, but Aduin ducked and rolled, activating a Qi pulse trap beneath his feet.

  The trap bloomed into a net of thorny vines enhanced with Redscale powder. One caught Zhao’s leg and wrapped tightly.

  “You fight like a rat,” Min snarled.

  “No,” Aduin replied coolly, “I fight like an alchemist.”

  With a flick of his sleeve, he crushed a Moon Orchid pill and cast the dust into the air.

  Min inhaled.Her eyes widened.Then turned gssy.

  The hallucinations had begun.

  VIII. Mercy is Not WeaknessHe stood over the two fallen disciples, panting lightly.

  “Go back to your sect,” he said. “Tell your mistress I am not to be touched.”

  Zhao tried to spit at him but coughed up blood instead.

  Min reached for her saber, but her limbs trembled under the lingering poison haze.

  “I could’ve killed you,” Aduin added, voice hardening. “I still can.”

  And with that, he turned and vanished into the mists of the valley, pouch of herbs swaying gently at his side.

  - Epilogue: The Seed Beneath StoneLater that night, beneath a fractured moon, Aduin etched a new symbol onto the stone wall of his cave.

  A spiral of three leaves encircling a droplet of fme.

  “The martial path is for the many,” he murmured. “But the rooted path... is mine.”

  Unbeknownst to him, deep beneath the soil where his alchemical waste had drained, a strange herb had begun to sprout.

  Its leaves shimmered in two colors.

  One from Midgard. One from Vermillion Star.

  And far to the east...Mistress Lin Yuyan narrowed her eyes at the report id before her.And wrote a single command:

  “Capture the alchemist alive.”

  [TO BE CONTINUED...]