The morning that followed Kell's awakening was not like the others.
It wasn't in the mist that glided across the cliffs like ancient spirits. It wasn't in the sun's golden hands brushing the snow-tipped branches of the cherry tree. It was in the silence that stretched between Kell and Fuzi—a silence filled not with absence, but with anticipation.
Fuzi stood by the edge of a stone altar, wrapped in layered robes that shimmered faintly with the breath of frost and flame. In his hand lay a wooden box, carved with a lotus on one side and a dragon on the other.
Kell approached. His breath visible in the crisp air.
"What is that?" he asked.
Fuzi turned the box in his hand, letting the light catch its ancient lacquer. "A seed of balance. Born of contradiction. Forged from the breath of polar stars." He opened it.
Inside, nestled in black velvet, was a single pill—neither white nor black, but a spiraling vortex of both. It looked as if two drops of opposing essence had embraced mid-collapse, frozen in eternal harmony.
"The Yin-Yang Creation Pill," Fuzi said. "Made once every five hundred years under a sky that forgets its constellations. This… is not medicine. It is a reckoning."
---
Description of the Pill's Origin
Kell stared, entranced. The pill pulsed faintly—as though it breathed. As though it watched.
Fuzi spoke slowly, reverently.
"It was created when the last high alchemist of the Snow Flower Sect offered his life to the storm and the sun. His body was burned by celestial fire; his soul, frozen by lunar frost. His death birthed a recipe, a method of fusing extremes without destroying them."
He stepped closer to Kell.
"Inside you is a wall. Not of stone, but of separation. Heart and dantian, mana and Dao—they repel like oil and water. This pill invites them to dance."
"But will it break the barrier?" Kell asked.
"No," Fuzi said. "It will touch it. Like the wind touches a flame—gently, dangerously, with the potential to nourish or destroy."
---
The Moment of Ingestion
Kell held the pill. It was warm and cold at once. Heavy and weightless.
He looked at Fuzi. "I'm ready."
"No," Fuzi replied. "You are willing. That is more rare—and more powerful."
Kell placed it on his tongue. It melted instantly, not like sugar, but like a whisper dissolving into his blood.
He convulsed.
The world shattered into halves—light and dark, fire and ice, gravity and flight. One half of his body froze with ancient cold, the other burned with divine heat. His veins became rivers of contradiction. His eyes rolled back.
And deep inside, something stirred.
Not broke.
Not shattered.
But cracked.
Just enough.
A fissure across his heart. A glimpse through the barrier. Like a single ray of light piercing a sealed cavern.
He collapsed to his knees, gasping. Steam rose from his shoulders. Frost glistened on his fingertips.
Fuzi knelt beside him.
"Well done."
Kell blinked. "I… I felt it. Just a hairline crack. Like something… noticed me."
Fuzi nodded. "And now the world will wait to see what you do with that invitation."
---
That night, Kell dreamed of stars colliding and rivers reversing.
And in his chest, a silent voice whispered:
"The wall has seen you."...