Before heaven and earth took shape, chaos reigned as ink-dark void. In the wake of the Primordial Era, the skies birthed divine sects, the seas beneath roared with warring clans. Three thousand Daos, billions vying for fate. And now—a thousand-year-old game of Go—its final piece was finally falling.
Eastern Spirit Continent. Southern Wastelands. The border town of Nanyue.
A land forgotten by the cultivators of the world. Desolate plains, cold mountains, spiritual veins long dried. For a thousand years, not a single cultivator had emerged. No sect bothered to cast a glance. This place… was known as the "Land of Severed Paths."
In the northernmost corner of the town stood a shack with crumbling walls and a broken roof. Inside, a teenage boy named Wu Yue sat beneath a flickering oil lamp. The wind howled outside, but within, the rustle of pages echoed faintly.
His eyes were sharp, focused, as his fingers turned the worn pages of an ancient book—The Fragment of Primordial Dao, something he'd bought with his last spirit stone from a dusty street vendor. The book was faded, its ink smudged, barely legible.
Many had scoffed:
"You have no spiritual roots. What's the point of cultivation?"
Others sneered:
"That book's a scam—written by a madman to fool idiots."
But Wu Yue remained silent.
His mother lay ill in bed, and there were no more spirit stones to afford medicine. This battered scroll was the only hope he had left.
He whispered, voice steady:
"Heaven and earth birth spirit, one breath begins all, trinity forms the root, the five elements return to source... If this is Dao, why can't fate be defied?"
Since the age of five, he could recite the Spirit Awakening Manual. At ten, he deciphered minor formations on his own. At thirteen, he used a copper talisman to break the seal on the town's ancient western well. He was gifted—keen in thought and unrelenting in study—but born into poverty, with no master to guide him, he never stepped into the path of cultivation.
Tonight, amidst flickering shadows, he closed the scroll gently and shut his eyes. Following its cryptic instructions, he began to guide his breath as described.
Suddenly, a faint glow emerged from the scroll, forming a golden thread of light that floated silently… and sank into the space between his brows.
His mind exploded in a thunderclap. His sea of consciousness quaked. His blood pulsed with strange heat as a gentle current surged up from his dantian—
Spirit Invoking!
He had drawn spirit energy into his body!
At that exact moment, a thousand miles away atop the snow-capped peak of Divine Concealment Mountain, a circle of white-haired elders abruptly opened their eyes.
"A piece… has fallen. In Nanyue."
"Another one… with the surname Wu?"