Pain was no longer a feeling.
It was a memory — distant, drowned, dragging behind him like a rusted chain.
Aduin opened his eyes.
Barely.
The stars above spun slowly, and a constant hum echoed through the soil around him. Warmth pulsed from the cracked ground where he had fallen. His right arm was broken. His Qi was disordered. His satchel was gone.
“Still alive…” he thought. “That palm... it should’ve erased me.”
But something was wrong.
He shifted. His hand brushed against something — wet, warm, and moving.
His gaze dropped.
From his own spilled blood had risen a strange greenish vine, thick and pulsing, coiled with minute runic patterns along its stem. It had grown from the soil that mixed with his crushed herbs, fed by the rarest reagents he’d gathered.
“You... you’re not natural.”
The vine pulsed once, as if hearing his thoughts.
Then, it curled around his wrist — and pierced into his veins.
Aduin’s vision exploded.
He awoke inside... himself.
It was a strange field — a landscape of his spiritual sea, except now it had changed.
No longer calm or blank.
Instead, it had taken the form of a massive garden. Every blade of grass shimmered with herbal energy. Trees bore roots that hummed with Qi resonance, and flowers bloomed with Midgardian glyphs on their petals.
At the center stood the vine — now grown into a small tree, its trunk glowing with liquid light, its roots buried in his spiritual core.
From the air, a voice spoke — ancient, and yet familiar:
“I am the root you bled. The blood you lost. The seed you forgot.”
“You are... a spirit?” Aduin asked.
“I am born of your failure and your knowledge. I have no name... unless you give me one.”
Aduin considered for a moment.
“...Let it be Moyao, the Silent Medicine.”
When Aduin awoke again, it was morning.
His wounds had not healed — not in the mortal sense. But the Qi lines along his bones had realigned, slowly mending the spiritual damage inside him.
“Your root... it’s working.”
He could feel Moyao inside, coiling softly around his core — nourishing, stabilizing, not dominating.
But now, something else stirred.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
He reached out, placing his palm on the warm soil.
“This place... this pit… it absorbed something.”
He stood shakily and began digging.
Soon, his fingers touched a jade slab, faintly cracked but intact — an old transcription tablet bearing a cultivation manual. The glyphs on it were unmistakably Midgardian... yet rewritten in ancient Vermilion dialect.
“Someone like me was here... long before.”
He read the first line:
‘The root of all flame is not fire, but will. Cultivate your purpose, and the universe will feed your path.’
Days passed.
Aduin, hiding deeper in the old crater, began experimenting.
The Moyao root allowed him to fuse spiritual energy from local plants with knowledge from his Midgardian biochemical studies.
He crushed the Feather-Scale Lilies he had salvaged, blending them with Ashbone Mushrooms, producing a resin that amplified Qi concentration during meditation.
He documented it in a new journal:
“Formula 9: Feather-Ash Resin, boosts inner stabilization speed by 2.3x during meridian breathing. Side effects: burning skin, blurred vision.”
He smiled
“It’s progress.”
He tested Rootblood Ointment, Mist Vein Paste, and finally a pill that stimulated temporary Qi-sight, allowing him to see the paths of flow in others — a divine gift in combat or healing.
Each experiment brought him closer to mastering a personal cultivation path. Not martial. Not sectarian.
A path of Alchemical Ascension.
One night, as the mist curled thick and moonless, a figure slipped into the crater — dagger drawn, cloak tight.
Aduin, already waiting, watched from the high ledge.
“Yunlan, again.”
The assassin was cautious — too cautious. But not enough.
Aduin flicked a Mistflower Pellet into the air. It burst silently, releasing a scentless vapor.
The assassin stopped.
Sniffed.
Then dropped to the ground, convulsing.
Aduin descended slowly. His eyes cold.
“Crimson Vine paralytic. Works in three seconds if your Qi isn’t fortified.”
He stared at the dying assassin, then knelt beside him.
“Tell your sect... I’m not just surviving. I’m learning. And soon, I’ll start hunting.”
The assassin tried to speak, but blood poured from his mouth.
Aduin stood and walked back toward his cauldron.
He didn’t flinch at the body behind him.
Two days later, a roaming cultivator caravan passed near the crater, leaving a trail of fire-bloom incense. Aduin approached them disguised under herbal cloaks.
Among the caravan, he found an elder merchant selling spiritual texts, pills, and raw materials. His name was Bo Tianzhao — a disgraced former inner disciple of the Sovereign Lotus Sect.
Tianzhao raised an eyebrow as Aduin examined his goods.
“You don’t walk like a sect man... but your eyes are too sharp for a rogue.”
Aduin smirked.
“Let’s just say... I read a different kind of book.”
He traded one of his experimental flame pills for a map.
On it, a place was circled in red ink:
Shuijing Hollow — “Land of the Mirror Herbs. Untouched. Forbidden. Untamed.”
“You plan to go there?” Tianzhao asked.
“They say even Core Formation beasts avoid it.”“I’m not after beasts,” Aduin replied. “I’m after seeds.”
He disappeared back into the forest.
The next morning, Aduin arrived at the edge of Shuijing Hollow.
It was a dead zone.
No sound. No birds. No Qi fluctuations.
The air was heavy with static — like energy waiting to collapse. Trees shimmered with metallic bark. Flowers rotated in silence like they followed unseen stars.
He stepped forward.
Each step felt like walking through oil. Thick. Slow.
“This place... it’s like the border between realms.”
He sensed something watching.
A breath. A twitch. A growl.
He froze.
Then, from the mists, it emerged:
A creature of crystal bone, twenty feet tall, with vines for limbs and a face like molten jade — a Primordial Rootling.
Its voice rumbled, deep and wet:
“You are not of this world.”
Aduin’s pupils shrank.
He prepared a pill. Not to heal.
To ignite.
As the Rootling charged, Aduin tossed the Verdant Wrath Capsule — a pill made from Stardust Fern, Crimson Core Wax, and his own spiritual marrow.
It struck the beast.
Time slowed.
Then—
BOOM.
Flame without fire.
Light without heat.
Space buckled.
Aduin was thrown into the Hollow’s depths, past glass trees and screaming flowers, falling toward a cavern sealed by ancient Midgardian runes.
His body broke again.
But his mind whispered, even as he lost consciousness:
“This isn’t the end. It’s the gate.”
And above, the Rootling, scorched but still alive, let out a low, unending growl:
“You... are forbidden.”
[TO BE CONTINUED…]