The Ashen Root Sect stank of death.
Rot hung in the air—not just of decaying corpses, but of decay itself, as if the very concept of death had rooted itself in the soil. Every structure in the sect—crooked towers, jagged temples, bridges of bone—was twisted, weathered by a hundred generations of malice.
Lin Xuan stood in a sea of new recruits, most drawn from the gutters and prisons of nearby provinces. There were a few noble offshoots as well—disgraced sons and discarded daughters whose clans offered them as sacrifices for connections or shame.
A disciple stood before them in ash-colored robes. His face was scarred, half-burned, but his eyes were cold and bright.
"My name is Zhao Wuren, Outer Hall Overseer. From this moment forward, your name, identity, and status mean nothing. Only your marrow matters. You live to feed the root. You live to grow in the ash."
He pointed to a stone platform behind him, where a massive withered tree grew out of cracked stone. The roots were black, pulsing faintly.
"Place your hand on the Root of Ash. If it accepts you, you live. If not… you feed it."
The first five stepped forward. One screamed as his body was instantly drained. Another glowed faintly and was accepted.
Then—
"Lin Xuan."
He stepped forward. Calm. Silent.
When his hand touched the bark, nothing happened.
Then everything changed.
The root shuddered.
A pulse of void—unseen by others—passed from Lin Xuan's palm into the tree. For a heartbeat, the entire platform fell silent. The root recoiled.
And then—
Crack!
A splinter shot out from the root and embedded itself in his chest. Not painfully—but hungrily, like it recognized something forgotten.
Zhao Wuren narrowed his eyes.
"Accepted. Barely. Hmph."
But in the shadows, an elder behind the scenes frowned deeply.
Outer disciples were given one scroll to study. A broken fragment of the Ashen Marrow Scripture—a gruesome method of condensing death qi into one's bones.
But Lin Xuan... he didn't read it.
Because something else called to him.
As others fell asleep, he followed a strange tug—a ripple in the void. It led him beneath the sect's outer tower, through a crumbling fissure.
There, buried in black roots and dust, he found it.
A stone pedestal… and atop it, a manual.
A tattered black scroll bound with silver thread, sealed with a sigil that shimmered like a collapsing star.
Lin Xuan placed his hand upon it.
The seal unraveled.
A voice—not loud, but older than gods—spoke in his mind:
"You seek what cannot be known. You walk where even the heavens close their eyes. You are not a disciple. You are a void."
"Very well. Take the first step."
The scroll burned into his flesh, etching the first rune of Abyssal Understanding onto his soul.
"Erase, and ye shall become."
Contents:
Void Pulse Circulation: Instead of drawing qi, it teaches how to consume ambient force and intention, refining it into void essence.
Hollow Meridian Refinement: Hollow out qi pathways into "empty veins" that leak no signature.
Conceptual Digestion: Convert emotions, light, or even memory into fuel.
Unseen Presence: Cultivator becomes unfelt by divine sense and spiritual arrays.
Side Note: Practicing this technique defies the heavens. Any practitioner will be marked by the "Heavenly Correction"—tribulations far worse than ordinary cultivators face.
Lin Xuan's breathing slowed as he began the first cycle.
Cold. Still. Empty.
But in that stillness, something stirred.
A sliver of meaningless power—the antithesis of all things—gathered in his dantian.
The void seed pulsed.
He smiled.
As Lin Xuan returned to his quarters before sunrise, something inside him had changed.
Not visibly. Not physically.
But spiritually, conceptually, he no longer belonged in the world as it was.
He was not walking the path to immortality.
He was walking the path to non-being.