Breakfast was uneventful.
That, in itself, was remarkable.
Fang Ze ate quietly, listening more than speaking. His father, Fang Yubo, scanned news on his tablet—city development updates, infrastructure adjustments, a brief mention of "localized environmental anomalies."
His mother, Fang Linying, poured tea with practiced grace, her movements precise in a way most people wouldn't notice.
But Fang Ze did.
Still sharp, he noted calmly.
Neither parent radiated Qi.
Neither revealed cultivation.
Yet their bearing was… steady.
Like anchors.
His older sister, Fang Yuhan, adjusted her schedule aloud—mock exams, university applications, campus visits. She was already preparing to leave home soon.
"You're spacing out again," she said, flicking a glance at him. "First day back and you look like an old man."
Fang Ze chuckled softly. "Maybe I just matured early."
She rolled her eyes.
To them, he was still just Fang Ze—the younger brother, quiet but capable, average but reliable.
No one sensed the compression behind his calm.
After breakfast, Fang Ze left for school alone.
Beijing's streets stretched out before him—buses, cyclists, vendors, students. The city moved with mechanical certainty.
Yet Fang Ze felt it.
Not Qi.
Not yet.
But potential.
The air carried a faint tension, like a sealed container under pressure. Spiritual energy had not surged openly—but it was accumulating, adapting, waiting for the correct threshold.
The Golden Era was not arriving.
It was incubating.
At school, nothing dramatic happened.
Classes proceeded. Teachers lectured.
Students complained.
Fang Ze listened, absorbed, observed.
He felt no need to act yet.
Cultivation required timing, not impatience.
During physical education, however, he noticed something subtle—another student's breathing pattern misaligning briefly, the faintest tremor in the air when someone sprinted too hard.
The body is already responding, he realized.
The world hadn't noticed yet.
But the human body had.
That night, alone in his room, Fang Ze sat cross-legged on the floor.
He did not circulate Qi.
He did not force anything.
Instead, he simply breathed.
Slowly. Naturally. In harmony with the environment.
A foundational rhythm he had once refined to perfection.
The air around him did not change.
But deep within, something aligned.
Fang Ze opened his eyes and smiled faintly.
"Good," he murmured. "This time… I'll walk it properly."
Outside, Beijing slept.
The Golden Era remained unnamed.
The prodigies unnamed.
The factions dormant.
But the board had been reset.
And Fang Ze was already seated