Ash drifted from the sky again.
The sky was clear. No smoke, no clouds, yet ash still fell.
"Another ashrain? Wasn't there one two days ago?" a miner muttered, staring upward.
"Yeah," another sighed while wiping sweat from his neck. "The world's getting uglier by the day."
Lin paused his work and watched the pale drizzle that blurred the horizon. "Twice in two days," he murmured. "Ashrain is supposed to be irregular. Could it really be just a weather pattern."
"Hey, you. Stop staring and get back to work. Wood-refining ore doesn't dig itself."
The overseer's shout cut through the valley.
Lin lifted his pickaxe, but before he could swing, the air thickened. The ash darkened. Each flake glowed faintly red. The miners' complaints turned to choking, then coughing. One by one they collapsed, convulsing violently. The glowing ash clung to them like frost.
It wasn't normal ash. It was Rank Four Mortal Ash, residue from a temporary rift between realms.
A refiner could turn these ashes into Rank Four Fire Path Heavenly Shards. Even raw, they were valuable enough to feed someone for a week. Yet they were lethal. Any mortal who touched them directly died instantly as the flakes burrowed into flesh and ignited the lungs.
Only those with at least twenty Fire Dao Marks in their Vessel Realm could collect it safely.
Vale Ridge, where Lin worked, was a small Scarlet Bamboo Sect resource point. A few dozen miners worked under the supervision of a single Fire-path overseer.
Today, the overseer had not shown up.
Lin stood still, watching the corpses around him. "It seems I am not affected."
He breathed slowly. No heat. No burning. Nothing.
He extended his right hand. A faint shimmer appeared, thin and glass-like.
A Shard Gate. The innate ability of cultivators to send inert materials into their Vessel Realm. Even Rank One cultivators could form one, though small and unstable.
Lin guided the shimmering gate to the falling ash. The flakes slid inward, dissolving into his Vessel Sea like drops of red dye.
He continued until the Sea trembled slightly.
"That is enough. Any more would risk backlash."
He had collected over forty fragments. Enough for two weeks of food. Enough to possibly afford a cheap Rank One shard.
He sat among the corpses and wrote in a small notebook.
"Rank Four Fire material. Mortals die within thirty seconds. Vessel depletion none. Body unaffected."
He closed the notebook.
The sky trembled faintly. Crimson streaks moved behind the clouds. Two Immortals were fighting far above in the second realm. Their clash had caused the ashrain.
Lin watched silently. "Even disasters bring opportunities. This world hides its logic well."
He turned to leave. He would return to Shizu village and pretend he overslept. A small deduction of contribution points would be nothing compared to the risk of explaining how he had survived the ashrain.
As he walked, the road dipped downward. Shizu village came into view. Three hundred villagers lived there. One hundred and twenty of them were Dao Chosen, those born with Vessel Realms. The rest were Rootless. They could not cultivate unless awakened forcibly using rare Heavenly Shards. Half died attempting it.
Lin inspected the three shards in his Vessel Realm mentally.
Light Information, Rank One. It stored knowledge clearly but did not grant comprehension.
Light Reflect, Rank Three. It reflected Rank One to Rank Three attacks. A Rank Four attack would be partially blocked, but the shard would be nearly destroyed afterward.
Light Cat Eyes, Rank One. It allowed him to see up to one hundred steps ahead even in darkness.
"That is all I have," Lin murmured. "My Sea is shallow. If I exchange the ash too soon, elders will ask how I harvested it without Fire Dao Marks. I am certain that they have shards capable of inspecting Dao Marks. And I still need food."
He stepped closer to Shizu's gate.
A faint vibration rippled beneath his feet.
He froze.
The ground trembled. The remaining ash on roofs shook, rising. A red spark drifted upward like a dying ember reversing direction.
"The ashrain has not ended."
The sky behind him shimmered. A glow thickened and widened. Heaven was opening another rift.
And it was appearing directly above the village.
The rumble deepened. Dust spiraled. The air twisted.
Lin narrowed his eyes. "Heaven is probing something again."
The sky tore open. Light spilled through, molten and unnatural. From the rift fell symbols, actual symbols, golden, drifting, alive with strange logic.
Villagers screamed.
Lin saw patterns.
"Dao made visible," he whispered. "Compressed law."
The world slowed. His Shard Gate flickered open instinctively. He tried to close it. It refused. One golden symbol bent toward him, drawn like metal to a magnet.
"No," he whispered. "This should not be possible."
The symbol touched his palm.
Silence consumed everything.
His Vessel Sea surged upward in blinding light, then snapped into perfect stillness. A golden speck appeared in the sky of his Vessel Realm.
It stabilized instantly, settling into place like a star that had always existed there.
His Vessel Sea quieted. Nothing moved. Nothing reacted. No ripple remained.
Lin opened his eyes.
The rift closed.
Shizu village lay dead quiet. The ash had turned to black glass.
He lowered his hand. Ordinary. Untouched.
Inside his Vessel Realm, the golden star hung in the sky with absolute silence.
"That thing is inside me now."
His tone was flat.
"This is not something I can record."
He suppressed all Essence. His presence faded until he seemed no different than a Rootless villager returning home late. In this state, even a Rank Four cultivator would overlook him entirely.
Voices appeared in the distance. Sect envoys rushing toward the lingering heavenly distortion.
Lin calmly adjusted his clothes and walked into the village.
He would say he overslept.
No one would ever know what truly fell that day.
The next two days passed quietly.
He stayed inside his small hut in Shizu village, pretending to be sick. Sect members came, performed superficial checks, and left. They noted the mine's destruction, the missing overseer, and the dead miners. No one questioned Lin.
"Good," Lin whispered. "Too many coincidences already."
He waited until the investigation ended and the envoys left before stepping outside.
Shizu village's worn paths were busy again. Children ran between houses. Farmers tended fields. Dao Chosen practiced Light or Fire techniques on the outskirts.
The Scarlet Bamboo Sect dominated this region. They controlled two large Light Path resource points, three mid-sized Fire Path resource points, and six small points divided evenly between Light and Fire.
Light Path and Fire Path were closely related. Their Dao Marks connected well. As a result, conflict between their branches was rare.
Lin approached the small market area. Several stalls had opened. Fresh produce, basic materials, and low-tier shards.
He weighed the bag of ash fragments inside his Vessel Sea.
"If I exchange all of it for contribution points, I can afford food and maybe buy one Rank One shard. But I also need information."
The Scarlet Bamboo Sect sold knowledge through Light Information shards, Rank One or Two, which stored maps, politics, and cultivation texts.
But they were expensive.
Lin swallowed his irritation. "If I want to understand this world, I must pay the price."
He reached the contribution office and greeted the elder on duty, a stern man with three gray braids and a faint Fire aura.
"What do you want?" the elder asked without interest.
"I came to exchange material," Lin said.
"Show it."
Lin opened a Shard Gate the size of a fingernail and let a single ash fragment emerge. The elder's eyes widened.
"Rank Four ashrain residue… where did you obtain this?"
Lin bowed his head. "I… overslept, Elder. But when I woke, the ridge was covered. I collected what little remained."
The elder clicked his tongue. "You slept through an ashrain. Lucky fool."
In his mind the elder thought, "But how did this junior collect a Rank Four material while having Rank Three cultivation? Hmph. He is either a Rank Four Dao Chosen pretending to be Rank Three, or he has an appropriate method to harvest the ashrain even though he is Rank Three. He must be quite rich if he has such a technique."
Lin lowered his gaze but said nothing.
The elder examined the ash, nodded, and accepted the rest. Lin received a small bag of contribution tokens.
Far less than he expected.
The elder was suspicious as to how Lin managed to collect Rank Four material. For all he knew, this material could even be fake while he had no shard to inspect the authenticity.
Lin hid his annoyance.
"Food first. Shard second."
He went next to the market, to a stall selling simple bread and dried meat. Half of his points vanished.
Then he approached the Light Path stall. A young disciple stood there, bored.
"I want to buy a Rank One Light Information shard," Lin said quietly.
The disciple lifted a shard shaped like a piece of thin glass and held it out.
Lin paid.
He stored the shard inside his Vessel Sea, letting it float among the others.
He took a deep breath and opened it inside his mind.
Information flooded into him:
The Scarlet Bamboo Sect's map. Resource point classifications. Names of local elders and disciples. Rank systems. Dao Mark theory. Cultivation bottlenecks. Regional politics. Rumors of traveling Immortals.Warning signs of heavenly rifts.
Lin absorbed every detail but remained expressionless.
"So this is the world I must climb."
He walked back home slowly.
Night fell over Shizu village. Lanterns flickered. Crickets chirped.
Inside his hut, Lin sat cross-legged and stared inward at his Vessel Realm.
The Sea rested calmly. The shards floated above it. The sky held his Light Dao Marks, which formed as dwarf stars.
And above all of them…
A silent golden star. Unlike the rest of his Dao Marks, which had formed a cluster, the golden star was rogue. It was unknown which path it belonged to.
When Dao Marks solidify, they become dwarf stars and, based on what path they are, they form a cluster like a family. However, the golden star was rogue and far away from the cluster of Light Path Dao Marks.
Lin studied it for a long time.
It gave off no qi. Produced no Essence. Created no Dao Mark reaction. Ignored the Sea entirely. Behaved like nothing in any text.
A star that did not belong to the mortal layer.
He whispered to himself.
"I need more information."
He closed his eyes.
Tomorrow, he would go to the sect's outer library.
He would risk more contribution points.
He needed to understand what he carried.
He needed to know why Heaven reacted twice in one day.
And above all—
How a star appeared in the sky of a Rank Three mortal's Vessel Realm without clear reason.
Morning already came. Lin was excited as well as anxious. The first thing that came to his mind was the outer library.
"Even though I know how this world semi-functions based on the Rank One information shard that I bought, it isn't enough," he murmured. "I still need to figure out more of this world. What I got was only the basics."
He sat down on the edge of his bed. His movements were calm, but his thoughts were not.
The Rank One Light Information shard had been useful. It explained the surface rules. It explained what people were allowed to know.
Cultivation in this world did not begin with breathing techniques or tempering the body. It began with birth.
People were divided into Dao Chosen and Rootless.
Dao Chosen were born with a Vessel Realm. It was an inner organ that existed beyond flesh, anchored near the heart. Without it, no power could be stored, shaped, or converted. Rootless people lacked this organ. They could live ordinary lives, but cultivation was closed to them unless forcibly awakened.
Forced awakening was rare and dangerous. Half of those who attempted it died. The rest were left unstable.
Inside every Vessel Realm existed two spaces.
The Sea and the Sky.
The Sea was milky white and endless. It had no visible shores. It stored neutral power and Heavenly Shards. When nothing was happening, the Sea was calm and inert.
The Sky stretched above it, vast and empty. It could not store power or shards. It existed only for Dao Marks.
Dao Marks were condensed understanding. They appeared as stars in the sky of the Vessel Realm. Each star represented authority over a specific path such as Light or Fire.
Dao Marks were not fuel. They did not create power. They refined it. They dictated how power behaved once it was used.
Two cultivators could activate the same shard using the same amount of Sea. The one with deeper Dao Marks would always produce a stronger and more precise effect.
Heavenly Shards were the tools of cultivation. Crystallized-glass-like fragments of law that allowed cultivators to act on the world. Attack, defense, concealment, movement, storage.
A shard did not teach its path. It did not grant comprehension. It only worked.
But every shard demanded Essence.
Essence was not stored naturally. It appeared only when the Sea was forced into motion. When a shard was activated, neutral Sea power converted into Essence for the duration of the effect.
Essence leaked if it was not controlled. Leakage revealed a cultivator's rank and path. Those who could not suppress it announced themselves constantly.
Rank measured how much a Vessel Realm could endure.
Mortal ranks ranged from One to Twelve. Rank One cultivators could barely stabilize a Shard Gate. Rank Three were considered basic cultivators. Rank Five formed the backbone of sect forces. Rank Ten to Twelve stood at the peak of the mortal world.
Rank Nine was rarely discussed. The information shard mentioned it only briefly and without explanation.
Advancement was not free.
When a cultivator reached a threshold, Heaven responded. It descended with Heavenly Blockades. Three trials for every major rank.
The first attacked thought. The second attacked emotion. The third forced a battle against a reflection with the same power but no will.
Passing granted Dao Marks. Failure took them away. Sometimes it took more.
Lin slowly exhaled.
This was the system as it was taught. Clean. Logical. Balanced.
And incomplete.
None of it explained why his Sea could accept Rank Four material without strain. None of it explained a Dao Mark that produced no reaction. None of it explained why Heaven had reacted twice in the same place.
He stood up.
"If answers exist," he said quietly,
"they won't be in what they sell."
He stepped outside.