Ascension Log

The moon hung low over Coldstream Mountain, shrouded in a pale mist. Night had draped the sect in its usual silence, but beneath that stillness, something ancient stirred.

Kai Lin sat cross-legged in the abandoned outer pavilion, his breathing shallow and steady. His blood-soaked robes had dried stiff. A broken saber lay beside him. In his hand was a single black pellet — the Qi Compression Pill gifted by the system.

"Consume it only after circulating the Silent Pulse Scripture," the system had whispered earlier.

He obeyed.

The Silent Pulse Scripture was unlike any cultivation technique he had ever heard of. There were no mantras to chant. No mystical hand seals. It required only one thing:

Stillness.

Kai Lin sat motionless. His thoughts quieted. Breath slowed. He let the world fade — no intention to force qi, no will to dominate the heavens. He simply listened.

And in the depth of that silence… the world spoke.

A pulse beat within his body. It was faint — not his heart, but something deeper. A rhythm that resonated with the marrow of his bones, like a long-forgotten drum hidden beneath flesh and time.

He swallowed the Qi Compression Pill.

Instantly, heat surged through his meridians — wild, chaotic, too much for any outer disciple to endure.

But he didn't scream. He didn't move.

His silence was absolute.

The heat crashed against his dantian, trying to find release. But just before it could tear his body apart…

Ding—

[Silent Pulse Scripture: Passive Compression Activated]

Spiritual qi converted into core mist. Compression threshold reached.

Congratulations: Vein Tempering Realm (7th Layer) → Qi Formation Realm (1st Layer)

Qi Root formed: [Black Void Root]

Kai Lin's eyes snapped open.

The air around him shuddered. Dust rose. Pebbles rolled away from his feet.

He had broken through.

But what surprised him wasn't the power — it was the emptiness inside. His new qi root didn't glow like the others he had seen. It didn't emit warmth. It was a black hole, quietly devouring the spiritual qi around it.

It suited him perfectly.

Meanwhile, far above the outer sect, in a chamber carved into the mountain's peak, a pair of eyes opened in the darkness.

Elder Wu Qingshan, the Silent Sect's Third Pillar, furrowed his brows.

He had been meditating in isolation, attempting to comprehend a fragment of the Heavenly Dao, when he sensed it: a disturbance in the pulse of the sect.

It was faint, almost undetectable. But Wu Qingshan's perception wasn't ordinary. He had once sensed the birth of a heaven-defying genius through a single raindrop.

He poured his spiritual sense toward the outer pavilion.

He saw a figure — robed in black, surrounded by a soft gravitational distortion. The qi around him didn't circulate. It collapsed inward, feeding into a void.

"A Void Root?" Wu Qingshan murmured. "No… darker. Deeper."

He narrowed his eyes.

"Who is that boy?"

Back at the pavilion, Kai Lin slowly stood up. His veins no longer ached. His bones no longer felt brittle. His core burned with quiet strength.

But his expression remained unchanged. There was no joy in his breakthrough.

There was only a new target.

Tomorrow, Inner Sect disciples would arrive to evaluate this year's outer sect candidates. It was tradition — a mere formality for most. But to Kai Lin, it was an opportunity.

He remembered the one who crippled him before.

Jian Yuze.

A senior outer disciple favored by an Inner Sect elder. The same one who led the ambush on Kai Lin months ago, when he was at his weakest.

Tomorrow, the Silent Sovereign would return the favor.