The aftermath of the marketplace confrontation was not a heroic cheers or a sudden elevation in status. It was a cold, suffocating silence. In the Iron Mountain Sect, a servant striking a disciple was not viewed as a feat of strength; it was viewed as a malfunction of the natural order. It was as if a chair had suddenly grown teeth and bitten its owner.
Su Meng was dragged from his shack at midnight.
He didn't resist. He knew that the "Fist" he had used against Wang Ba was a small, flickering candle compared to the sun-like power of the Sect's Enforcement Hall. Four disciples, their Qi radiating a suppressive pressure that made his lungs feel like they were collapsing, threw him into the "Pits of Reflection"—a series of damp, stone cells carved into the very roots of the mountain.
"You have three days," the lead guard spat, locking the heavy iron bars with a resonance that echoed through the dark. "Before the Elder decides whether to execute you for insolence or simply cripple your limbs and throw you to the wolves. Enjoy the dark, rat. It's the last thing you'll ever see."
Su Meng sat on the cold stone floor. He wasn't afraid. He was calculating. He knew the world of Earth had tried to kill him with poverty; this world was simply trying to kill him with steel.
The Trial of the Dark
As his eyes adjusted to the pitch black, Su Meng realized he wasn't alone. In the adjacent cells, he heard the ragged breathing of other "failures"—men and women who had dared to dream of rising above their station and had been crushed by the Sect's hierarchy.
He didn't waste time on self-pity. He crawled to the corner of the cell where a small trickle of groundwater seeped through the mountain's cracks. On Earth, he had been a mechanical engineer; he understood the concept of leverage and structural integrity. Here, he applied those concepts to his own body.
He remembered the Bone Forging Art he had seen in the servant's library—the manual everyone called "The Path of the Damned." It was a technique that required the practitioner to strike their own body until the bones cracked, then use a specific breathing technique to mend them, making them denser and harder than before. Most failed because they couldn't endure the agony or didn't have the "will" to shatter themselves.
Su Meng leaned against the stone wall. He thought of Julian Vane. He thought of the Mayor's son. He thought of the laughter of the wealthy as they looked down from their glass towers.
CRACK.
He drove his fist into the stone wall. Pain, white and blinding, shot up his arm. He didn't scream. He swallowed the sound, letting the fire of the pain settle into his gut.
Again.
CRACK.
He hit the wall with his knuckles, his elbows, his shins. He was a man possessed. Every strike was a strike against the "System." Every broken fiber of his muscle was a rejection of the weakness he had been born into. He realized that the "Geniuses" above him used Spirit Stones to avoid this pain. They used pills to "soften" the process.
"They are soft," Su Meng whispered, his breath coming in ragged gasps. "Their strength is a loan from their fathers. My strength... my strength will be paid for in blood."
The Alchemy of Agony
For seventy-two hours, Su Meng lived in a cycle of destruction and reconstruction. He discovered that the deep mountain air in the Pits was laden with "Earth Qi"—a heavy, stubborn energy that most cultivators found too difficult to refine. But Su Meng didn't try to refine it gently.
He used his lungs like bellows, dragging the heavy Qi into his body and forcing it into the fractures he had created in his bones. He was literally welding his skeleton together with the mountain's own essence.
By the third day, his skin was no longer pale; it had a dull, metallic sheen under the grime. His eyes were bloodshot, but they were steady. He felt a new sensation—a density in his limbs that made him feel as though he were made of lead and iron rather than flesh and blood.
The Judgment
The heavy iron doors of the Pits groaned open. Steward Feng and two high-ranking Outer Disciples stood there, accompanied by a man in long, flowing purple robes—Elder Wang, the father of the boy Su Meng had humiliated.
Elder Wang didn't look angry; he looked bored. To him, Su Meng wasn't a person; he was a nuisance to be cleared away. He walked into the cell area, his presence causing the air to vibrate with the power of the Foundation Establishment realm.
"Su Meng," the Elder said, his voice echoing with a weight that made the other prisoners curl into balls. "You have disrupted the harmony of the Iron Mountain. My son tells me you used a dirty trick to strike him. For the crime of attacking a superior, your sentence is death by the Shattering Palm."
Su Meng stood up. He didn't bow. He didn't beg. He felt the weight of his "Iron Bones" supporting him, making him feel taller than he was.
"Superior?" Su Meng asked. His voice was low, sounding like stones grinding together. "You think because you sit in a chair and eat pills, you are superior? On my world, we called people like you 'parasites'. You didn't earn that power. You bought it."
Elder Wang's eyes flashed with killing intent. "Arrogant whelp. Die."
He raised his hand. A palm made of pure, condensed Qi, three meters wide, slammed toward Su Meng. It was enough to turn a normal human into a red mist.
Su Meng didn't move. He didn't try to dodge. He braced his feet against the stone floor, grounded himself like the mountain itself, and crossed his arms in front of his chest.
BOOM.
The impact was like a cannon blast. Dust and debris filled the cell. Steward Feng laughed, expecting to see a pile of broken meat.
But as the dust cleared, Su Meng was still standing.
His arms were scorched, his clothes were burnt away, and blood was leaking from his ears—but he was upright. His new bones had held. The "unrefined" Earth Qi he had hammered into his skeleton had absorbed the shock, grounding the Elder's power into the floor.
The floor beneath his feet had shattered, but his legs were unbroken.
The Elder gasped, his face turning pale. "Impossible. You... you don't even have a Dantian! How did you survive a Qi-strike?"
Su Meng looked at the Elder, a terrifying, bloody grin on his face. "Because I don't rely on 'purity'. I rely on the dirt. I rely on the struggle you forgot a long time ago."
Su Meng took a step forward, the chains on his wrists snapping under the sheer tension of his newly hardened muscles.
"I am Su Meng," he said, his voice carrying a weight that made the disciples flinch. "I am a servant no longer. I challenge the Outer Sect Trial. According to the Sect Charter, any person who survives a strike from an Elder is entitled to a trial by combat in the Arena."
Elder Wang looked at the boy—this "ant" who had just shrugged off his killing blow. He felt a flicker of something he hadn't felt in decades: fear. He didn't understand the science of Su Meng's "Iron Bones," but he knew one thing: this boy was a monster in the making.
"Fine," the Elder hissed, hiding his trembling hand in his sleeve. "You want the Arena? You shall have it. In seven days, at the Assessment. But do not think you will survive. I will send my best to ensure you are buried beneath the mountain you think you understand."
As they left, Su Meng collapsed to his knees, his body screaming in pain. But as he looked at his scarred, blackened knuckles, he didn't feel despair. He felt a cold, crystalline joy.
Seven days, he thought. Seven days to turn this flesh into a weapon that even your 'status' cannot break.