The caravan moved like a great, armored serpent, its head comprised of the elite Jade Sword disciples, its body the groaning wagons, and its tail the motley collection of servants, cooks, and baggage handlers. Lian was a single, insignificant scale on that tail. His world had shrunk to the space between two massive wagons, his task to help push them through mud and up steep inclines. He was surrounded by the press of humanity, a constant, suffocating presence that was a form of torture more refined than any physical pain he had ever inflicted upon himself.
The first days were a trial by fire for his will. The air was thick with the scent of unwashed bodies, acrid smoke, and the sharp, metallic smell of the disciples' polished armor. The noise was relentless: the creak of wagon wheels, the sharp commands of the guards, the inane chatter of the other servants. It was a chaotic symphony of everything he despised. The beast of his hatred, so carefully chained, writhed in its cage. More than once, he had to physically bite down on his tongue, the sharp pain a grounding anchor against the tidal wave of revulsion, to stop himself from unleashing the cataclysm coiled in his Dantian.
His mask of the simple-minded giant was his only shield. He learned to keep his gaze downcast, his powerful shoulders perpetually slumped. He grunted when spoken to, his responses monosyllabic and slow. He ate the tasteless slop they were given with a feigned, animalistic eagerness. He became a fixture, a piece of equipment. "The Mule," they called him. The disciples ignored him completely. The other servants, after a few days, mostly kept their distance, intimidated by his size and unnerved by his silence.
This was exactly what he wanted. In their disregard, he found his freedom. He was invisible, and from this position of invisibility, he observed everything. He learned the rhythm of the caravan: the pre-dawn preparations, the midday halt, the setting of the nightly camp. He memorized the guard rotations, noting how the disciples formed a tight, protective ring around the central wagons where the captain and the most valuable cargo resided, leaving the tail of the serpent—his section—relatively exposed. He learned that their discipline, while impressive, bred a kind of arrogance. They never looked down; they never paid attention to the ants scurrying at their feet.
His primary challenge came not from the proud disciples, but from within his own rank. The foreman of the baggage handlers was a man named Kael, a slab of muscle with a brutish face and small, mean eyes. Kael had ruled his small fiefdom of servants through fear and intimidation. Lian's arrival, his sheer size and quiet strength, was a silent challenge to Kael's authority.
On the fifth day of the journey, as the caravan struggled up a muddy incline, Kael saw his chance. One of the lead wagons, laden with heavy iron ingots, had become hopelessly mired, its wheels sinking deep into the sucking mud. The spiritual beasts pulling it strained, their powerful muscles trembling, but the wagon would not budge.
Kael stomped over to Lian, a cruel smirk on his face. "Hey, Mule!" he shouted, loud enough for the other servants to hear. "You're so strong, right? The Elder's pet beast. Prove your worth. Get that wagon moving. Alone."
It was an impossible task, a deliberate setup for humiliation. The other servants stopped their work, their eyes wide, sensing a confrontation. Lian looked from Kael's sneering face to the mired wagon. This was a test of his mask. Killing Kael would be effortless. A thought, a flicker of Qi, and the man would be a smear on the landscape. But that would destroy the careful persona he had built. He had to respond not as a god, but as "The Mule."
He gave Kael a slow, confused blink. Then he nodded ponderously, as if accepting a simple, reasonable request.
He walked to the back of the wagon. He placed his massive hands on the mud-caked wood. He did not tap into the chaotic storm in his core. Instead, he used only the pure, physical power of his cultivated body, the strength he had forged by lifting mountains. He let out a deep, guttural roar, a sound that was more beast than man. He leaned his entire weight into the task, his feet sinking deep into the mud until they found purchase on the bedrock beneath.
The muscles in his back and shoulders bunched into knots of solid stone. The wood of the wagon groaned and creaked under the immense, focused pressure. The other servants watched, their jaws slack. The spiritual beasts at the front gave a final, desperate heave.
With a great, sucking sound, the wagon lurched forward. It rolled out of the mire and onto solid ground.
Lian stumbled forward, collapsing onto his hands and knees, panting heavily. He made a show of his exhaustion, his chest heaving, his body trembling. He had moved the wagon, but he had made it look like it had taken every last ounce of his strength.
A stunned silence fell over the group. Kael's jaw was clamped shut, his face a mask of disbelief and thwarted rage. The other servants stared at Lian with a new emotion: awe, mingled with a healthy dose of fear. From that day on, no one bothered him. Kael still shot him venomous glares, but he never challenged him again. The Mule had proven its strength, but in a way that reinforced their belief in his simple-mindedness.
His nights were a different kind of challenge. He could no longer slip away to a secluded grove. The caravan camped in a tight, defensive circle. So he adapted. He learned to cultivate while the world slept around him. He would lie on his thin bedroll, his breathing even and deep, appearing to be fast asleep. But inwardly, his will was a silent drill. He practiced his "Devouring Skin" technique in microcosm, drawing in not a flood of Qi, but single, almost undetectable threads of energy from the earth beneath him. It was excruciatingly slow, like trying to fill an ocean with a single drop of rain at a time, but it maintained his connection to the world's energy and honed his control to a terrifying degree.
He was a serpent, coiled tightly in the heart of the caravan. They thought him a dumb beast, a tool to be used. They had no idea that the serpent was watching, learning, and waiting for the moment when the entire caravan, and the world it represented, would become his prey.