The early morning mists clung to the winding stone paths of the Thousand Peaks Cultivation Academy. From the foot of the mountain, its silhouette resembled a grand beast slumbering amidst the heavens, its towers and pavilions reaching toward the clouds like claws of divine ambition. The sun had only just begun to rise, and yet the academy was alive.
Sun Mo walked the stone path in silence, his hands tucked within the sleeves of his plain disciple robe. He had long memorized the layout of the academy, not from eagerness, but from years of repeated failure. This would mark his fifth year as a Trial Disciple. Many came and went. Few noticed him. None remembered.
In this world, cultivation determined one's place, and Thousand Peaks was the gate to greatness. Founded upon the ruins of the ancient battlefield where Emperor Yhan and a Phoenix that had reached the Void once clashed and then transcended, the academy had become a sanctuary and crucible for young cultivators across the Zhenxian Realm.
The academy upheld a strict hierarchy:
At the top stood the Grand Council of Five Peak Lords, masters of the five primary divisions: Dao, Source, Combat, Pill, and Artifact. These were the true powers of the realm—each one rumored to have touched the realm of Immortality or Source Unity.
Below them were the Elders, esteemed cultivators who guided inner disciples, controlled access to secret texts, and judged the worth of potential heirs.
Then came the Inner Disciples, groomed and favored—students who had proven their potential and were given personal tutors, rare resources, and even spirit beasts.
Outer Disciples made up the majority. They were competent, capable, and determined. Every outer disciple dreamed of catching an elder's eye, passing the Inner Gate Exam, and ascending.
At the bottom were the Trial Disciples—aspirants with potential too weak, talent too unstable, or circumstances too strange. Sun Mo was among them.
Five years ago, he had shown no talent in Dao cultivation. His qi sea was shallow, his affinity nearly nonexistent. While others refined spirit qi and formed their foundational cores, he felt nothing. It was only in the quietest hours, in meditation, that he sometimes felt a strange echo within himself—a resonance that didn't respond to techniques or pills.
That resonance was not spirit qi.
It was something else.
The academy's Source Division was nearly forgotten, its buildings dusty and empty, staffed by only a handful of eccentric elders and one Peak Lord who rarely appeared. Other students mocked it openly, calling Source Cultivation a dead path. It had no manuals, no techniques, no clear path.
But that was because they didn't understand.
Source Cultivation was the act of resonating with one's entire Being—mind, body, soul, spirit, and identity—aligning the self with the Source, the origin of everything. It was not external mastery, but internal revelation. It did not refine qi, but awakened self-truth. It could not be forced. It had to be felt.
And once felt, it could never be forgotten.
Sun Mo's journey had not yet begun. He had not even truly cultivated. But the feeling—the elusive heartbeat of the Source—had brushed against him once.
And that was enough.
From that moment, he knew: his path would never be forged by heaven's laws, but by the echo that whispered to him when he was utterly alone.
He passed the gates of the Source Division. The stone arch bore a single inscription, ancient and faded:
"To cultivate the world, you must first cultivate the Self."
Sun Mo stepped forward, not because he was strong, but because something inside him still resonated.
And that was where all things began.