Cultivation is Creation

Li Jie sat cross-legged in his private meditation chamber, surrounded by arrays of spirit stones carefully arranged in concentric circles, the complex array was designed to help gather and purify what little rouqi remained in the world.

If he was going to break through to Tier 3, it would have to be here. If it was even still possible.

Li Jie adjusted his breathing, following the rhythmic patterns laid out in the Three Leaf Clover method.

Inhale for seven heartbeats, hold for three, exhale for seven.

Each cycle drew in more rouqi, refining it through his meridians before circulating it through his dantian. The process was maddeningly slow – where once this chamber could fill a Rouqin’s reserves in minutes, now it took hours to gather even this modest amount. But those days were long past.

"Focus," he muttered to himself, pushing away the familiar bitterness. Self-pity wouldn't help him break through.

The real challenge would come next. Breaking through to Tier 3 required more than just gathering energy – it demanded a fundamental transformation of one's essence. The accumulated rouqi had to be compressed until it reached a critical density, forcing a phase change that would permanently alter their spiritual foundation.

Li Jie began the compression process. The rouqi in his dantian grew heavier, more concentrated. Sweat beaded on his forehead as he maintained precise control. Too fast and the energy would disperse, too slow and it would stagnate. The margin for error was vanishingly small.

Through his spiritual sense, he could feel the energy approaching the critical threshold. Just a little more... The air in the chamber grew thick with pressure as centuries of accumulated power condensed into an infinitesimal point within his dantian.

Then, like it had every time before, it slipped away.

The carefully gathered rouqi dispersed like mist, leaving behind only exhaustion and that bitter, familiar taste of failure. Li Jie slumped forward, not bothering to maintain his perfect posture. What was the point?

"Too thin," he muttered, running a hand through his sweat-soaked hair. "The energy's just too thin."

It wasn't just his failure – it was a fundamental problem with their world.

The ambient rouqi had grown so sparse that achieving the density needed for higher-tier breakthroughs might be impossible now. The last successful breakthrough to Tier 3 had been over a century ago, and even that cultivator had fallen back to Tier 2 within decades as they failed to maintain their realm in the face of declining energy.

Li Jie stood slowly, his joints protesting in a way that had nothing to do with his physical age and everything to do with the strain of failed cultivation. He walked to the chamber's single window, looking out over the sect's grounds without really seeing them.

How many times had he attempted this breakthrough? Hundreds? Thousands? Each failure brought him closer to accepting what he'd long suspected – that he would never reach Tier 3. That he would end his days as a half-step cultivator, forever stranded on the threshold of true power.

The thought should have filled him with despair. Instead, he felt only a tired resignation. Perhaps it was time to do what he'd been considering for years – step down as sect master, find a quiet place to live out his remaining centuries. Let someone younger, someone with more fire in their belly, take on the burden of leading a dying sect in a dying world.

A knock at the chamber door interrupted his thoughts.

Li Jie frowned. Everyone in the sect knew better than to disturb him during cultivation. For someone to dare interrupt meant something serious had happened. 𝑅ἁ𝐍ȯᛒЁṦ

"Enter," he called, not bothering to turn from the window.

The door creaked open, and he heard someone drop to their knees. The sound of cloth dragging on stone told him they were performing a full kowtow – not a good sign.

"Speak," he ordered when the silence stretched too long.

"Sect Master..." The servant's voice trembled. "Elder Zhou Shentong... he..."

Li Jie turned then, noting how the servant pressed their forehead to the floor. They were shaking, he realized. Afraid to deliver whatever news they carried.

"What about Elder Zhou Shentong?"

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"He…he's dead, Sect Master."

The words hung in the air like smoke, heavy and choking. Li Jie stood perfectly still, processing their implications.

"How long have you been waiting to tell me this?" he asked quietly.

"Five hours, Sect Master. We... we didn't dare interrupt your cultivation, but..."

"But this couldn't wait." Li Jie closed his eyes briefly. "You did right to tell me."

Without another word, he vanished, leaving the servant still prostrated on the floor. Space blurred around him as he employed the Three Leaf Clover method’s movement technique, reappearing instantly in a different chamber deep within the sect's heart.

The Soul Lantern Hall was ancient, its walls lined with thousands of delicate crystal containers, each housing a small flame. These were the soul lanterns, a tradition dating back to the sect's founding.

Every member who achieved Tier 2 or higher had their essence bound to one of these lanterns at their initiation. The flames served as both a symbol of their connection to the sect and a way to monitor their life force.

Li Jie moved quickly through the rows of lanterns. The flames flickered as he passed, responding to his presence. Some burned bright and strong, while others wavered like candles in a wind. A few had gone out entirely – those belonging to cultivators who had either died or severed their connection to the sect.

He found Zhou Shentong's lantern exactly where it should be, in the section reserved for elders. The crystal container was intact, but the flame within had been extinguished. Li Jie reached out with his spiritual sense, hoping to find some trace of the elder's essence, some clue as to what had happened. But there was nothing – just the cold emptiness of death.@@novelbin@@

"This is going to be a problem," he muttered, pressing his fingers to his temples.

Zhou Shentong hadn't just been an elder – he'd been a direct descendant of the sect's Seventh Ancestor. His bloodline carried a fragment of the Ancestor's power, making him theoretically irreplaceable. The Seventh Ancestor had been very clear about the importance of maintaining his bloodline within the sect.

The political ramifications alone would be nightmarish. Other sects would see this as weakness, would start testing their borders, trying to expand their influence. Younger disciples might question the sect's ability to protect them, might start looking for safer harbors.

And the Seventh Ancestor... Li Jie shuddered. The Ancestor rarely emerged from his seclusion these days, but the death of his descendant would certainly rouse him. The questions would be uncomfortable – How had this happened? Why hadn't the sect protected ‘young’ Shentong? Who was responsible?

That last question, at least, needed to be answered quickly.

"Truth be told," he murmured to Zhou Shentong's darkened lantern, "I'm not entirely surprised someone finally killed you. You made more enemies in a decade than most make in a lifetime."

It was almost funny, in a dark way. He'd spent years trying to rein in Zhou Shentong's excesses, trying to minimize the damage the man did to the sect's reputation. Now that someone had finally removed the problem... he had to avenge him.

"I hope you at least have had the courtesy to die at the hands of someone expendable," he said the empty lantern. "Some nobody I can execute without consequences."

But no, knowing Zhou Shentong, he'd probably managed to offend someone with a powerful backing. Which meant this whole situation was likely to get messier before it got better.

Li Jie turned to leave, already mentally composing the messages he'd need to send, the resources he'd need to mobilize. They would need to present a strong, unified response to this challenge. Show that the Three-Leaf Clover Sect was still—

He froze.

His spiritual sense had picked up something wrong. Something fundamentally, terrifyingly wrong.

The formations. The ancient arrays of protective formations that surrounded the sect, accumulated over centuries of paranoid sect masters adding layer upon layer of defense... they were silent.

Not destroyed, which would have triggered countless alarms. Not bypassed, which would have left traces. They were simply... inactive. As if someone had reached into their fundamental structures and turned them off.

Li Jie felt a chill that had nothing to do with the chamber's temperature. He knew these formations intimately – had spent centuries studying them, maintaining them, adding his own contributions to their complexity. They were supposedly unbreakable, unhackable, impossible to disable without the secret methods passed down through generations of sect masters.

Someone had just proved that assumption wrong.

Immediately, Li Jie left the Soul Lantern Hall. His steps took him through the sect's main corridors, past training grounds and meditation gardens.

On the surface, everything appeared normal – disciples practiced their forms, servants hurried about their tasks, the endless machinery of sect life ground on.

A group of outer disciples bowed as he passed. "Greetings, Sect Master!"

He ignored them, his attention focused on extending his spiritual sense to its limits, searching for any sign of the intruder. Whoever had disabled the formations had to be nearby – that kind of interference required physical presence.

Unless... unless they were powerful enough to do it remotely? The thought was almost too frightening to contemplate.

"Sect Master!" A voice called out, breaking his concentration. One of the sect elders approached, probably wanting to discuss Zhou Shentong's death. Li Jie waved them away without looking, his attention caught by something else entirely.

The Ancestor's Tree.

It stood at the heart of the sect's grounds, a massive oak that had been old when the sect was founded. According to legend, the First Ancestor had used it as a conduit to establish the sect's first formations, binding his power into its roots. Every Ancestor since had added their own power to it, making it as much a part of the sect as the buildings themselves.

But it wasn't the tree that made Li Jie's blood run cold.

A figure floated above it, suspended in midair as casually as if they were standing on solid ground. Their face was hidden in the shadows of a dark cloak, but their eyes...

Their eyes burned like pools of fresh blood, fixed directly on Li Jie with an intensity that made his centuries of cultivation feel like child's play.

As he watched, unable to look away, the figure slowly descended from the heavens, coming to rest atop the Ancestor's Tree. They made no sound, no movement beyond that measured descent, but Li Jie could feel the weight of their presence pressing down on him like a physical force.

Those red eyes continued to stare, and Li Jie had the distinct impression that he was being measured, evaluated, judged.

He had a feeling he knew who had disabled their formations.

More importantly, he had a feeling he knew who had killed Zhou Shentong.

The real question was... what were they going to do next?