The Crimson Heaven Sword descended onto White Lotus Peak under a grey, overcast sky. The mountain was quiet, save for the constant, rhythmic sound of wood striking wood echoing from the training yard.
Su Ming walked past the bamboo grove and paused at the edge of the stone plaza to look at the training yard. Wang Tian stood near the center, holding a standard training sword made of ironwood. The boy's face was pale, his breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps, and his robes were dark with dried sweat.
Every swing of his sword was sincere, his muscles trembling under the strain of his damaged body, but his grip remained tight, his bloodshot eyes fixed on the empty air before him. His knuckles were raw, scraped, and bruised from the rough grain of the wooden hilt, and a trickle of fresh blood smeared the ironwood where his palm rubbed against the guard.
Su Ming walked over to the boy, observing his posture. Lin Yao stood nearby, watching in quiet concern. Under Essence Sight, he could see that the torn tissue in the boy's veins had stabilized slightly, but the marrow was still strained.
The residue of the high-grade healing elixir had settled, but the damage from his initial climb was still heavy. Yet, deep within the boy's body, his shattered meridians were vibrating. Every time the heavy wooden sword reached towards the ground to complete its arc, a faint, metallic resonance echoed within his skeletal frame—a natural sword rhythm.
"Rest for one hour after every hundred swings," Su Ming said, his voice flat. "Your bones are trying to heal. If you force them past their limit, they will set crookedly, and then no technique will save you. A broken sword can be reforged, but a warped bone can only be broken again."
Wang Tian stopped his swing, lowering the heavy ironwood blade. He gritted his teeth against the sudden, sharp ache in his shoulders, his knees trembling, but he bowed. "Yes, Master. I will obey."
"Lin Yao," Su Ming said, turning to his first disciple. "I am entering seclusion. Unless it is something of extreme importance or we receive direct orders from the Sect Master himself, no one is permitted to disturb me. If the deacons from other peaks arrive to deliver resources, receive them and let them know I am in seclusion."
He paused, looking down the mountain path. "Visit the Medicine Hall once a week and contact Elder Lu. Show him your token, and he will understand. We have some guests recovering there; check on their condition. When they awaken, ask them if they wish to relocate to the White Lotus Peak guest pavilions, but do not force them."
"Until I emerge, you are in charge of the White Lotus Peak."
"I understand, Master," Lin Yao said. She bowed deeply, her expression serious.
***
Su Ming walked into the inner chambers of the Peak Master's hall. The room was cold and quiet. He closed the heavy oak doors, sliding the iron bolts into place, and activated the defensive seals around the walls. The faint, yellow light of the spiritual stone lamp flared, casting long shadows across the wooden desk.
He sat down, placing the three groups of texts before him.
To his left lay the Medicine Hall's medical scrolls—thick, heavy bundles of parchment detailing the primary meridians, the major blood vessels, and the structural variations of the human skeleton.
In the center lay the jade slip he had filled with his own transcribed notes from the Moon-Shadow Repository, holding records on soul circulation, spirit-sense compression, and boundary array networks.
To his right sat the manuals he had requisitioned from the Central Library, detailing standard Qi circulation theories and various low-grade body-refinement scriptures.
"Three months...," Su Ming murmured, tapping his fingers against the desk. "I must gather all the knowledge I can before I touch my own meridians or attempt to reforge Wang Tian's core. One misplaced thread of Qi will cause a total collapse."
He picked up the first medical scroll, the Five Viscera Harmony Theory, closed his eyes, and sank his consciousness into the text.
Essence Sight. Halo of Insight.
The text before him dissolved into glowing threads of information, flowing directly into his mind.
***
The weeks passed in a silence broken only by the howling mountain wind.
Outside the hall, the season shifted. The green leaves of the White Lotus bamboo groves turned to a dry, rustling brown. The autumn wind swept through the crevices of the cliffs, carrying the first hints of winter frost that coated the stone steps in a thin layer of white ice. The morning dew froze on the eaves of the pavilion, hanging like small, crystal needles under the pale morning sun.
During this time, Su Ming did not emerge from his chambers once.
Every day was spent in the same intensive state of study. Under the guidance of the Halo of Insight, he wove the three independent disciplines together.
He used the Medicine Hall's anatomical scrolls to map the exact pathways of physical blood and muscle, studying how the marrow generates vitality. He compared the standard human liver's filtering function with the scorching Yang-fire path of the Primordial Yang Demon Body. He realized that the original art vented Yang-fire straight through the liver without any dampening, which would eventually dry out the blood. He designed conceptual pathways to circumvent this damage.
He used the Illusion Moon Peak's soul archives to study how the invisible soul attaches to the physical body. He analyzed the delicate thread that connects the sea of consciousness to the upper dantian, mapping how spirit-sense compresses under external pressure.
He used the Central Library's scriptures to study how spiritual Qi acts as the current between the two.
In his mind, he constructed a massive, three-dimensional blueprint of the human frame, a luminous, complex map of flesh, Qi, and soul.
He discovered that the human body was like a mountain range. The bones were the stone ridges, the blood was the flowing streams, and the meridians were the hidden paths of spiritual Qi. If a single path were blocked, the water would pool and flood the surrounding valley. If a stone ridge collapsed, the path would be scarred and severed forever.
'This is the key to Wang Tian's reconstruction,' Su Ming analyzed, his mind simulating the surgical steps one by one.
Still, these standard and even the advanced manuals were not enough for him to be completely confident. Even with a high-level understanding of the body, he did not know what he did not know.
He could not just ignore Wang Tian's current situation and reforge a brand new set of meridians. To save him, he must use the boy's natural sword rhythm as the bridge to repair his complete meridian network.
***
In the final weeks of his seclusion, Su Ming turned his attention to the fragment of the Myriad Soul Origin Scripture.
He scanned the text, mapping its complex meridian flows and spirit-sense rotations. Under the Halo of Insight, he found the structural gaps the Sect Master had warned about.
During this time, Su Ming made one interesting observation.
The scripture was a masterpiece of accommodation, but it was fundamentally flawed. It tried to teach the cultivator's soul to mimic every voice—to turn into a flame, a tree, a sword, or a beast, depending on the environment.
'It is too loud,' Su Ming thought, his brow furrowing as he analyzed the glowing runes.
'It is constantly moving, constantly changing its rhythm to match the world. If a cultivator follows this path, their soul will become an imitation of the world, losing the core that remains unchanged.
A soul that is everything is eventually nothing.
He compared this loudness against the nature of the body path, which focused on physical refinement and outward, material assertion.
The body path declares existence through building physical form. The soul path must do the opposite. It must remain still, acting as the silent background upon which the body stands. The Myriad Soul Origin Scripture tries to make the soul perform the opposite. That is the flaw.
With a calm mind, Su Ming began to draft the theoretical corrections. He used his deep understanding of the Tranquil Lotus Mantra's stillness discipline to counter-model the Myriad Soul Origin Scripture's active flows, designing a new method.
Rather than teaching the soul to speak every language, he would teach it to seek the silence beneath its existence. The Twilight Nether Lantern's white flame in his soul sea served as the perfect guide. The flame of the lantern was unmoved by the surroundings; it simply burned in quiet, still containment.
By the end of the two months, the theoretical blueprint was complete.
Every coordinate had been verified. Every meridian flow had been simulated a thousand times under the Halo of Insight without a single failure. The research phase was over.
Su Ming opened his eyes, the gray world returning to its physical colors. The spiritual stone lamp on his desk had dimmed, its energy spent, but his eyes were bright, filled with a cold, unwavering clarity.
"The map is complete," Su Ming said, determined. "It is time to forge the path."