Five years had passed since Lin Shen had traded the absolute stillness of the Void for the dusty floor of the Southern Desolation orphanage.
To the other orphans and the elderly monks, Lin Shen was a "blessed" child. He never threw tantrums, he ate whatever was put in front of him, and he spent most of his time sitting motionless under the gnarled peach tree in the courtyard.
They thought him slow-witted or perhaps mute.They were wrong.Behind those dark, unblinking eyes, Lin Shen was working.
While the other children played at being heroes with wooden swords, he was relearning the physics of existence. He spent every waking second feeling the Qi—the life-breath of the world—as it drifted through the air.
Thanks to the "Void-Anchor" jade hidden beneath his tunic, his own aura was a flat, dead pond, invisible to the world. But his soul, tempered by a thousand years of sensory deprivation, was like a high-precision sensor. He could feel the heartbeat of a bird three miles away. He could hear the sap rising in the trees.
At five years old, his body was small, but his spirit was a mountain.
"Lin Shen! Where is that boy?" Monk De's voice echoed through the temple. "It's time to gather the Blue-Stalk herbs from the forest edge. If he's staring at that tree again, give him a swat!"
Lin Shen stood up before the monk could find him. His movements were eerily fluid—none of the wasted energy or clumsiness typical of a child.
He picked up a wicker basket and headed toward the "Pine Barrens," the dense, fog-shrouded forest that bordered their village.
The Pine Barrens were dangerous. Everyone knew this. Even the lowest-tier monsters, like Shadow-Cats or Spotted Vipers, could kill a grown man.
But the monks sent the children to the edge of the forest because the herbs grew there, and the village was too poor to buy them from traveling merchants.
Lin Shen walked past the boundary stones, his bare feet making no sound on the dry needles. As soon as the canopy of ancient, iron-wood pines closed over him, he felt a shift in the air.The Qi here was thicker, wilder. It tasted of damp earth and old blood.Finally, he thought. A place that doesn't smell of incense and old age.
He moved deeper than he was supposed to. The Blue-Stalk herbs near the village were stunted and weak. He wanted the ones that grew near the "Qi-Vents"—small cracks in the earth where the planet's energy leaked out.As he reached a mossy clearing, he spotted them: three vibrant, sapphire-colored stalks glowing faintly in the shadows. But as he reached out to pluck them, the hairs on his neck stood up.The forest went silent. No birds. No crickets.
From the thicket of thorns to his left, a low, guttural growl vibrated through the ground. A Silver-Back Wolf stepped into the light. It was twice the size of a normal wolf, its fur matted with dried blood and its eyes glowing with a sickly, demonic red light. It was a Beast of the First Stage—equivalent to a human in the early Qi-Refining realm.
To a five-year-old, it was a death sentence.
The wolf crouched, its muscles coiling like steel springs. It saw a small, defenseless pup. It smelled no power coming from him, no threat.
Lin Shen didn't run. He didn't scream. He simply watched the wolf.A predator, Lin Shen mused, his mind as calm as the Void. It moves with intent. It uses the wind to hide its scent. Efficient. But its Qi is chaotic. It is hungry, and hunger makes it sloppy.The wolf leaped. It was a blur of silver fur and bared fangs, closing the distance in a single, powerful bound.In that split second, Lin Shen didn't use a secret technique or a hidden weapon. He didn't have any. Instead, he did something only a soul that had survived a thousand years of nothingness could do: he projected his "Intent."He didn't release his Qi—the jade pendant wouldn't allow it. Instead, he simply looked the wolf in the eye and showed it a glimpse of the Void.
He showed it the lightless, soundless, infinite grave where he had spent ten centuries.
The wolf froze mid-air.It wasn't a physical barrier that stopped it, but a sudden, soul-crushing terror. The beast's primitive instinct screamed that it wasn't jumping at a child; it was jumping into a bottomless abyss that would swallow its very existence.The wolf landed awkwardly, its legs buckling. It let out a whimpering yelp, its tail tucking between its legs. It began to back away, its red eyes wide with a fear it couldn't understand.Lin Shen took a step forward.The wolf turned and bolted, crashing through the undergrowth in a desperate attempt to get away from the small boy.
Lin Shen exhaled, the slight tension in his chest relaxing. He looked at his small, trembling hands. My body is still too weak. A simple projection nearly drained my mental energy. I cannot rely on parlor tricks forever.
He turned back to the Blue-Stalk herbs and plucked them carefully. But as he did, he noticed something at the base of the Qi-Vent.
Half-buried in the dirt was a fragment of a broken tablet, inscribed with ancient, weathered characters. He brushed the soil away and felt a jolt of recognition. The script wasn't from this world. It was a dialect of the "Old Heavens," the same tongue his father had used to command the starlight sword.
The fragment read: ...those born of the Emptiness shall find the path through the broken star...
Lin Shen's heart hammered against his ribs—the first time it had truly raced since his birth. His parents hadn't just abandoned him in a random village. This forest, this fragment... it was a trail.
He tucked the stone fragment into his basket along with the herbs."Lin Shen!" a voice called out from the distance. It was the other orphans, coming to find him.He smoothed his expression, returning to the mask of the dull, quiet child. He walked back toward the village, a five-year-old boy carrying a basket of weeds.But inside, the man from the Void was smiling. The adventure hadn't just begun; it had been planned long before he was ever born.He wasn't just a survivor anymore. He was a seeker. And if he had to tear this world apart to find the truth of his bloodline, he would do it with the same patience that had seen him through a thousand years of darkness.