The moon hung like a silver platter, and the sky bristled with stars.
Atop a cliff, Xiao Yan lay sprawled across the grass, a green blade of grass between his teeth, chewing slowly and letting the faint bitterness seep across his tongue. He raised a pale hand before his eyes and, peering through the gaps between his fingers, stared up at the enormous silver moon.
"Ah…" Remembering the afternoon's test, Xiao Yan sighed, lazily lowered his hand, and folded his arms behind his head, his gaze growing distant.
"Fifteen years now…" The soft mutter escaped his lips, drifting into the night with no warning.
Deep in Xiao Yan's heart lay a secret known only to him: he was not of this world. His soul did not belong here. He came from a blue planet called Earth. Why and how he had ended up here was a mystery he could not explain, but after living here for a time, he had finally understood the truth with belated clarity: he had traversed between worlds.
As the years passed, Xiao Yan had come to understand this continent in vague, broad strokes.
The land was called the Dou Qi Continent. There were no common spells of magic here as legend told of in stories; instead, Dou Qi was the sole dominant force of this world.
Across this continent, the cultivation of Dou Qi had, through the efforts of countless generations, been refined to its very peak. Because Dou Qi bred ever onward, it had even spread into common society, until it became inseparable from daily life. Small wonder that Dou Qi held such unrivaled importance on the continent.
Yet with Dou Qi so prolific, countless divergent methods of cultivating it had branched off the main line. Just as fingers come in different lengths, so too were these methods strong and weak, great and small.
After careful classification, the Dou Qi Continent ranked its cultivation techniques in four great tiers and twelve levels, from highest to lowest: Heaven, Earth, Profound, and Yellow.
Each tier was further divided into three grades: initial, intermediate, and high.
The rank of the technique one cultivated was a key factor in one's future achievements. A person mastering a Profound-tier, intermediate-grade method, after all, would naturally overpower a peer who trained only in a Yellow-tier, high-grade one.
On the Dou Qi Continent, strength was measured by three conditions.
First, and most important, was personal power. If your own strength reached only the level of a one-star Dou Warrior, then even a rare Heaven-tier, high-grade technique would do little to help you overcome a Dou Master who trained in a mere Yellow-tier method.
Second came the technique itself! When two fighters were of equal rank, whoever commanded the greater technique would instantly hold every advantage in a duel.
The third condition was called battle techniques.
As the name implied, these were special skills that unleashed one's Dou Qi. Battle techniques, too, had their own ranks upon the continent, generally divided into the same four tiers: Heaven, Earth, Profound, and Yellow.
Battle techniques on the Dou Qi Continent were beyond counting, though most of those common among the masses were only around the Yellow tier. To obtain anything more profound, one had to join a sect, or enter one of the continent's Dou Qi academies.
Of course, some who stumbled upon the cultivation inheritances left behind by long-dead predecessors discovered techniques that came with matching battle techniques. Such techniques, born from a cultivation method and wedded to it, were far more powerful when used together.
With these three conditions, one could finally judge who was strong and who was weak. All in all, if you could possess a cultivation technique of higher rank, the advantages for your future went without saying.
But rare were the high-grade methods available to ordinary people. The techniques circulating among the common folk were at most Yellow-tier. Some stronger families and mid-sized sects might hold Profound-tier methods—like Xiao Yan's own clan, whose highest technique, the Mad Lion's Rampant Fury, was reserved solely for the clan head. It was a wind-attributed technique of the Profound-tier, intermediate grade.
Above the Profound tier lay the Earth tier, yet such lofty techniques might be found only in the hands of transcendent powers and great empires.
As for the Heaven tier… it had not appeared for centuries.
In theory, obtaining a high-grade technique was nearly as hard as climbing to heaven. Yet nothing was absolute. The Dou Qi Continent was vast, teeming with countless races. To the north dwelt the Barbarian tribes, famed for their brute strength and their ability to merge with the souls of beasts; to the south lived all manner of highly intelligent, advanced magical beast clans—and beyond them, the dark races, notorious for their cunning and ruthlessness.
Because the land was so vast, many unknown and nameless hermits existed. When such solitary souls reached the end of their lives, they would often hide the techniques they had spent a lifetime creating in some remote place, waiting for a fated one to find them. A saying spread across the Dou Qi Continent: if, one day, you fall off a cliff and tumble into a cave, do not panic. Walk forward two steps—and perhaps you will become a master.
These words were no lie. Over the past thousand years, the continent's history was thick with tales of those who grew strong through such fortunate encounters.
The consequence of such stories was simple: legions of dreamers gathered each day at the edges of cliffs, ready to leap off in the hopes of claiming some peerless secret. Of course, most of them limped back with broken arms and shattered legs.
In short, this was a continent full of miracles—and a continent that forged them.
Of course, to cultivate a technique one had to at least first become a true Dou Warrior. And the distance between where Xiao Yan stood and that threshold seemed, at the moment, impossibly far.
"Pah." Spitting out the blade of grass, Xiao Yan suddenly leapt to his feet, his face twisted in fury. He roared at the night sky in a fit of madness: "Damn it all! You dragged me here just to make a waste of me? Curse you!"
In his past life, Xiao Yan had been one of the most ordinary of ordinary men. Money, women—these things had never been more than two parallel lines to him, forever never meeting. Yet upon arriving on this Dou Qi Continent, he had discovered with surprise that, because of the experiences he carried from two lives, his soul was far stronger than that of ordinary people.
One should know that, on the Dou Qi Continent, the soul was innate. It might grow slightly stronger with age, yet no technique could ever train the soul alone—not even a Heaven-tier technique! Such was the common knowledge of this land.
This strengthened soul was what forged Xiao Yan's cultivation talent—and likewise forged his name as a genius.
When a man of an ordinary, unremarkable life learns he holds the capital to become the envy of all, it takes extraordinary resolve to keep his feet on the ground. Clearly, Xiao Yan, who had been nothing more than a common man in his past life, lacked such superhuman composure. So once he began cultivating Dou Qi, he chose the path of a famed genius, hailed by all—rather than growing quietly in the shadows.
Had no accident occurred, Xiao Yan might well have carried that title of genius as he grew. But alas, at the age of eleven, the name of genius was slowly stripped from him by a sudden reversal of fate—and in a single night, the genius crumbled into nothing but the trash mocked on the lips of every passerby.
…
After roaring to his heart's content, Xiao Yan's emotions slowly settled. His face returned to its usual listlessness. There was nothing to be done—no matter how he raged, he could not reclaim the dou qi vortex he had worked so hard to cultivate.
Shaking his head bitterly, Xiao Yan felt a quiet injustice. After all, he had no idea what had happened to his own body. Every routine inspection revealed nothing amiss. His soul, with the years, only grew stronger, and the speed at which he absorbed Dou Qi now surpassed even his peak from years ago. Every one of these signs said his talent had never weakened—and yet, time and again, the Dou Qi he had so painstakingly gathered vanished without a trace. The strangeness of it all left Xiao Yan heartsick.
With a resigned sigh, Xiao Yan lifted his hand. On one finger rested a black ring, ancient and unadorned, cast from some unknown material and etched with faint, blurred markings. It was the only gift his mother had left him before her death. He had worn it since the age of four—ten years now. It was his mother's memento, and he treasured it. Gently stroking the ring, he smiled bitterly. "These past years, I've really let Mother's hopes down."
Letting out a long breath, Xiao Yan suddenly turned his head and spoke warmly toward the dark treeline: "Father, you've come?"
Though his Dou Power was only at the third stage, Xiao Yan's soul perception was far keener than that of even a five-star Dou Warrior. As he spoke of his mother, he had already sensed a faint stirring within the woods.
"Heh, Yan'er, what are you still doing up here so late?" After a moment of stillness, a concerned laugh drifted out of the treeline.
The branches shook, and a middle-aged man leapt out, a smile on his face as he gazed at his son standing in the moonlight. He wore a refined grey robe, and between his stride and his bearing there was a certain dignity; his thick eyebrows lent him a touch of boldness. He was the current clan head of the Xiao Clan—and Xiao Yan's father. A five-star Grand Dou Master, Xiao Zhan!
"Father, aren't you still awake as well?" Looking at the middle-aged man, the smile on Xiao Yan's face grew a little deeper. Though he carried the memories of his past life, ever since his birth this father had showered him with love. And after Xiao Yan had fallen, that love had only grown, never once diminishing. It was behavior enough to make Xiao Yan call him "Father" from the heart.
"Yan'er, still thinking about the afternoon's test?" Xiao Zhan stepped forward and laughed.
"Heh, nothing to dwell on. I saw it coming." Xiao Yan shook his head with a maturity beyond his years, though the smile came stiffly.
"Ah." Gazing at Xiao Yan's still-tender, fine-featured face, Xiao Zhan sighed. He was silent for a moment before suddenly speaking. "Yan'er, you're fifteen now, aren't you?"
"Yes, Father."
"In another year, it seems… the ceremony of adulthood will be upon you." Xiao Zhan smiled bitterly.
"Yes, Father. One year from now." Xiao Yan's hand clenched slightly as he answered calmly. He knew well what the coming-of-age rite meant. Once he passed it, should he prove to have no potential for cultivation, he would be stripped of the right to enter the Dou Qi Pavilion and claim a cultivation technique. Instead, he would be assigned to manage the clan's various businesses—mere commonplace duties. It was the clan's law, and not even his father, as clan head, could change it.
After all, unless he became a Dou Warrior before the age of twenty-five, he would never be acknowledged by the clan.
"I'm sorry, Yan'er. If, in a year's time, your Dou Qi has not reached the seventh stage, then it is with a heavy heart I must reassign you to the clan's businesses. This clan is not ruled by me alone, you see. Those old men are just waiting for me to make a mistake." Looking at the calm Xiao Yan, Xiao Zhan sighed with remorse.
"Father, I will work hard. In a year, I will reach the seventh stage of Dou Qi!" Xiao Yan smiled, trying to comfort him.
"One year, four stages? Heh, if it were before, perhaps. But now… there's basically no chance at all." Even as he consoled his father, Xiao Yan secretly mocked himself.
Xiao Zhan, who knew exactly how the land lay, could only sigh in agreement. He knew how difficult it was to cultivate four stages of Dou Qi in a single year. He patted Xiao Yan's head lightly and suddenly smiled. "It's late. Go rest. Tomorrow the clan has an honored guest—don't you dare be rude."
"An honored guest? Who?" Xiao Yan asked curiously.
"You'll find out tomorrow." With a wink at Xiao Yan, Xiao Zhan laughed heartily and walked away, leaving a helpless Xiao Yan behind.
"Don't worry, Father. I'll do my best!" Stroking the ancient ring on his finger, Xiao Yan looked up and murmured.
At the very instant he raised his head, the black, ancient ring upon his finger suddenly kindled with a faint, eerie glimmer. The light vanished in the blink of an eye, noticed by no one.