"Why can't I tell what my core is?" Aries muttered, his brows furrowed as he sat cross-legged on the cool grass under a fading sunset. "I've gone through the names of all the known cores... yet mine doesn't exist in any manual."
A strange silence followed. The gentle breeze brushed his white robes, but no answers came from the heavens. Only confusion.
"I'm so confused... what if this core is weak? What if it hinders my cultivation?" he whispered, a rare sliver of fear surfacing in his usually calm tone.
Born into an ordinary family—not noble, not poor—Aries Tianxu had always felt a pressure to prove himself. But this mystery gnawed at him.
He clenched his fists. "No... I won’t let this stop me. No matter what this core is, I will ascend to the top. I’ll rule everything beneath the heavens."
He inhaled deeply and turned inward, trying to feel the energy circulating within him. The moment he activated his cultivation technique, his eyes widened in disbelief.
"O-OMG?! This speed... this energy... it's insane!" Aries gasped. He nearly lost control as waves of pure, boundless energy surged through his veins.
His core glowed faintly in his dantian, a chaotic swirling orb of energy that pulsed with a pressure unlike anything he’d ever read about. The power rushed through him, sharpening his senses and strengthening his body by the second.
"This energy… it’s so dense and vast, it feels like my soul will get swallowed if I stop concentrating for even a second!"
Suddenly, he trembled. A wave of heat flooded his body. Bones popped, tendons tightened, and muscles surged with power.
CRACK—
"I... I BROKE THROUGH?! Already?!" he shouted.
Stage One of the Body Awakening Realm.
Moments later—another breakthrough.
And another.
By nightfall, Aries had reached the 5th stage of Body Awakening, something that normally took months, if not years.
Wiping sweat from his brow, he stood, breathing heavily but smiling wide. "With this cultivation speed... I’ll be unstoppable."
Wanting to test his newfound strength, Aries walked to the edge of the training field, where a massive ten-meter boulder loomed.
"Let’s see what this body can really do."
He pulled back his fist, gathered energy into his arm, and struck.
BOOOOM!
A shockwave blasted outward. When the dust settled, Aries stared at the scene with his jaw on the ground. The boulder wasn’t cracked—it was gone, reduced to dust. In its place, a crater the size of a pond.
"W-WHAT?! There's no way... Not even peak Body Awakening cultivators could do that!"
He looked at his hand in stunned silence. His pulse was calm, but his mind raced.
"Just what... is this core?"
As the moon rose high into the sky, Aries Tianxu stood alone, beneath the stars—his path now set, his destiny beginning to unfold.
And though he didn’t know it yet... the heavens had already begun to tremble.