The air in the small room was thick with tension, not spiritual Qi. Zhou Feng moved with a practiced economy of motion, preparing for his first venture outside the protective, yet suffocating, shell of the Zhou outpost. He knew he couldn't leave by the main gate; the concubines and their ambitious sons kept keen eyes on the traffic. He chose a rarely used service passage near the stables, hidden beneath a canopy of dense, old pines.
His preparation was meticulous, far exceeding any mundane effort. He first secured the Mystic Bone Disguise Art hide beneath his robes, the dry, stiff leather a constant, uncomfortable reminder of the painful, bloody path he was choosing. Then came the disguise.
He took the simple cloth Face Mask from his chest. It was designed to blur features, making him easily forgettable—the disguise of a minor functionary or a loose cultivator past his prime. But the true layer of defense lay deeper, in his spiritual sea.
He closed his eyes and summoned the Strange Fog.
It was always a chilling sensation—the sense of touching something vast and unnatural. He guided his spiritual sense to the fog, directing it not to hide him, but to transform him. He didn't want the aura of a confident youth; he needed the spiritual signature of utter mediocrity.
He needed to be Elder Feng.
He mentally projected the image of a haggard, middle-aged cultivator—someone who had stagnated at the low-liquid stage of Qi Tempering, plagued by a minor internal injury that prevented further advancement. This required the fog to mimic the subtle irregularities of an impaired Qi cycle and the general spiritual exhaustion that comes with failure.
A cool, almost numbing wave passed over his core. When he opened his eyes, he felt different. He felt a dull ache in his meridians and a palpable lack of spiritual vitality. He was no longer the sharp, ambitious Zhou Feng; he was the weary, unremarkable Elder Feng, a man whose best days were behind him.
The illusion was perfect.
He glanced at the courtyard one last time, ensuring the route was clear. The shadows of the pine trees offered sufficient cover. He slipped out, moving not with the agile evasion of his mother's teaching, but with the slightly stiff, cautious gait of an aging man nursing an old injury.
The journey to the Market Mountain was short but fraught with danger. The Zhou clan's outpost sat on a secluded spur of the mountain, separate from the immediate, clustered humanity of the valley below.
As he descended, the landscape transformed. The air grew thicker, heavier, saturated with the competing spiritual pressures of thousands of gathered cultivators. The path soon widened into a bustling thoroughfare, choked with merchants, mortals pulling carts of supplies, and armored cultivators on horseback.
This was the city built around the market—a furious, chaotic hub where the rules of the Great Qin Empire were enforced by the blunt, overlapping authority of the three controlling clans: Zhou, Luo, and Duan. Unlike the sterile quiet of the outpost, this place was alive with greed, ambition, and transactions.
The mountain itself loomed, its peak crowned by the tiered Market Mountain Castle, a fortress of black stone where the highest-grade resources were traded. Zhou Feng avoided the castle itself. His target was the sprawling, unregulated open market at the base—a sea of temporary stalls and smaller shops where minor cultivators sold basic materials and cheap herbs.
He entered the market district, merging with the flow of bodies. His disguise held. Guards in the livery of the Luo family spared him only a cursory, bored glance, registering him simply as another low-level, uninteresting customer.
He navigated the cacophony of vendors shouting prices and cultivators haggling over beast bones. He moved slowly, deliberately, playing the role of the cautious, cash-strapped buyer. His eyes scanned the market not for treasure, but for specific, mundane necessities: herbs.
He found the herb stalls clustered near the eastern wall, a chaotic array of dried leaves, roots, and pungent powders. The smell was overwhelming, a mix of earth and concentrated spiritual essence.
He eventually spotted the stall run by a stout, middle-aged woman whose eyes darted constantly between her wares and the passersby—a classic sign of a shrewd, slightly dishonest vendor. This was a good place to hide a secret purchase.
Zhou Feng, as Elder Feng, approached the stall. He allowed a slight tremor to enter his voice, suggesting weakness.
"Vendor," he rasped, keeping his head bowed slightly. "I seek two items. Do you carry them?"
The woman barely looked up. "We carry all that a small cultivator requires. Name your price and your need, old man."
"Silverleaf Ginseng," he said, naming the first of the two crucial herbs his mother required for the initial fusion process. The herb was known for stabilizing the spiritual essence during radical bodily change. "A full, healthy root, not the dried powder. And Stoneheart Fungus—the true heart, not the cap."
The woman finally looked up, her suspicion spiking. "Those are not common herbs, Elder. They are used for complex internal medicine or body refinement. And they are expensive. You look like a man who struggles to maintain his basic Qi."
Zhou Feng internally scoffed at her accurate observation, which confirmed the effectiveness of the Fog's disguise. He pulled a small, tightly tied cloth bag from his sleeve. It contained the few, low-grade spirit herbs his mother had accumulated—small tokens of affection from his father, never intended for sale.
"I have my resources," he stated, his voice now firm, cutting through the weakness. "I seek to make a simple tincture to soothe an old injury. I require the best quality. Name your price, or I shall take my custom elsewhere."
The vendor's eyes sharpened, drawn by the faint spiritual aura of the small bag. Even low-grade spirit herbs held value. She quickly weighed the risk of selling expensive herbs versus securing a rare, non-monetary trade.
"For a healthy Silverleaf root and the Stoneheart Fungus heart, I will take the three Clearwind Grass sprigs and the single Cold Iron Flower bud in your bag," she announced, naming almost everything he possessed. "It is a steep trade, Elder, but these roots are freshly pulled and potent."
It was an outrageous price, demanding nearly all of his current assets, but the quality of the herbs was non-negotiable for the dangerous Body Refining process.
"Done," Zhou Feng said instantly, showing no hesitation. In the cultivation world, the moment of purchase was often the most dangerous; speed and certainty deterred suspicion.
The woman, surprised by his immediate assent, quickly weighed the herbs and exchanged them for his small bag. She held the herbs—a silvery root that pulsed with faint spiritual energy, and a black, dense fungus that felt strangely heavy—in an oilcloth pouch.
"A word of advice, Elder," the woman said as he turned to leave. "Do not advertise your ailments or your purchases. The market has ears."
"I only seek peace, Vendor," Zhou Feng replied, giving her a simple, tired nod that perfectly fit the persona of Elder Feng. He turned and melted back into the crowd.
As he walked away, Zhou Feng felt the heavy, lingering gaze of a tall, scarred man wearing the insignia of the Duan Clan. The man had been watching the exchange closely. Zhou Feng immediately intensified the aura of fatigue and mild spiritual congestion he projected, making himself uninteresting and easy to dismiss. The Duan cultivator shrugged and turned his attention back to a weapons stall.
The return to the outpost was tense and swift. Zhou Feng did not stop until he was safely back inside the heavy door, the mask pulled down, and the False Aura of Elder Feng released. The surge of his own youthful, unburdened Qi was a physical relief.
Lady Mei was waiting in the courtyard, her anxiety poorly concealed.
"You are late, Feng'er," she admonished, rushing to him. "Did you encounter trouble?"
He presented her with the oilcloth pouch. "Only the greed of a vendor, Mother. But I acquired the Silverleaf Ginseng and the Stoneheart Fungus. They are freshly pulled, as you requested."
Lady Mei's eyes shone with approval and a desperate relief. She quickly inspected the herbs, her mortal knowledge of essences proving invaluable. "Excellent. This quality will suffice. We must begin immediately. The longer we delay, the greater the risk of the herbs losing potency, and the greater the risk of your father's rivals discovering your secret."
The sun had begun to set, painting the western sky in hues of blood orange and dark violet—a fitting sky for the ceremony they were about to begin.
Under his mother's direct, whispered guidance, Zhou Feng began the preparation. He ground the Silverleaf Ginseng root into a fine paste, its silvery essence faintly glowing. He then shaved the hard, black Stoneheart Fungus heart and mixed the shavings with the paste, adding a few drops of purified spring water his mother had gathered. The resulting concoction was thick, dark, and carried a potent, earthy spiritual smell.
This mixture, Lady Mei explained, was the catalyst. It would force his body into the highly receptive, unstable state needed to accept the future infusion of demonic beast blood.
He stood over a small stone basin, the thick, heavy mixture waiting. He knew this was the true start of his cultivation, a leap of faith into a path deemed too bizarre and dangerous for a clan son.
"The Beast Hide is attuned to your blood, Feng'er," Lady Mei instructed, her voice low and tense. "But this catalyst will be agonizing. It will feel as if your bones are twisting and your meridians are being scraped clean. You must not move. You must not cry out. And you must not fail to meditate on the patterns of the Mystic Bone Disguise Art as the medicine takes hold."
Zhou Feng swallowed hard. He took the basin in his hands. He looked at his mother one last time, seeing the desperate hope and love in her eyes. He nodded once, a silent promise.
He raised the basin and, in a single, rough gulp, forced the dense, bitter mixture down his throat.
The effect was instantaneous and violent.
A wave of internal heat erupted in his stomach, not a warm, refining heat, but a searing, agonizing fire that immediately began to snake through his veins. The pain was unlike anything he had ever known—it felt as if his very bone marrow was boiling, expanding against the constraints of his flesh. He clenched his jaw, biting back a scream as the power of the herbs began its brutal, painful work.
He stumbled to the floor, forcing himself into a meditative posture, his body already slick with sweat. He pressed his hands against his ribs, feeling the stiff, dry leather of the Beast Hide against his shaking skin. Through the blurring, agonizing haze of pain, he desperately visualized the hide's intricate, swirling patterns, trying to focus his mind on the Mystic Bone Disguise Art.
He was no longer Elder Feng, the tired mortal. He was Zhou Feng, the transmigrator, undergoing the first, agonizing stage of a bizarre transformation, driven by the desperation to survive a family that wanted him dead. The pain intensified, reaching a crescendo that threatened to shatter his consciousness. His future depended on whether his body could endure this initial, brutal cleansing.