Sun Mo sat cross-legged in the quietest corner of the Thousand Peaks Cultivation Academy. He had made it a habit to rise before dawn—not out of diligence, but because the silence at this hour reminded him that he was still here. Still behind.
While others walked paths paved with Spirit Qi and Dao techniques, Sun Mo sat alone on the margins. The stonebeneath him was cold. The academy's famed Thousand Peaks loomed in the distance, veiled in morning mist, like a solemn judgment.
He had failed again.
Another session with Elder Xuyuan. Another attempt to form his first Dao foundation. Another rejection. Not from the teacher—but from the Dao itself.
"Your meridians reject the flow," Xuyuan had said, his voice gentle but distant. "It is as if the Dao itself cannot find you."
He was a curiosity to the instructors. An enigma to his classmates. A disappointment to himself.
But that morning, something changed.
The wind stilled. The birds did not sing. And inside that silence, Sun Mo exhaled—not with effort, but with honesty. Not to control his breath, but to feel it.
He breathed.
In. Out. No intention. No technique. Just breath.
And something stirred.
Not in the sky. Not in the earth.
Within.
Like a ripple in still water, he felt it: a pulse that was not a heartbeat, a warmth that was not from the sun. It was not energy. Not spirit. Not Qi.
It was himself.
Every memory, every shame, every thought he had tried to bury—rose up and became still.
The world around him faded. The academy, the peaks, the rules, the path of the Dao—all vanished. And he was left with one thing: the soft, honest echo of his own being.
It did not scream. It did not burn. It did not demand.
It welcomed.
"This is the Source," a voice inside him whispered, or maybe remembered. "Not a force to wield. A truth to return to."
He did not know how long he sat there.
When his eyes opened, the light had changed. It felt… brighter, though the sky remained the same.
For the first time, he did not feel like a failure. He did not feel behind. He did not feel like someone grasping at someone else's destiny.
He felt present.
Alive.
And something had changed.
In the core of his being, a presence had settled. Not a power. Not a skill.
A resonance.
The first echo of the Source.
And Sun Mo smiled—not because he understood it, but because for the first time in his life...
He felt real.