The heavy parchment of the ancient text groaned as Wang Fang peeled open the very first page. Bathed in the cold, silver radiance of the three moons filtering through his window, the dark ink on the paper seemed to shimmer with a forbidden, suffocating intensity. It didn't look written; it looked as though it had been violently etched into the ancient fibers with a jagged blade.
At the very top of the page, four characters blazed into his vision: The Sovereign World-Root Scripture.
Directly beneath the title, a line of introductory text laid out the brutal, uncompromising philosophy of the path:
"To forge a vessel capable of holding eternity, one must reject the soft, fluid paths of traditional energy. This scripture is a forbidden sin against the heavens—a blueprint designed to manually compress, tear, and rebuild the mortal frame into an unshakeable vault. It uses pure physical pressure and progressive overload to force mass directly into the cellular walls of your muscles, blood, and bones. If your will flickers for even a millisecond, your physical form will collapse inward into a shapeless mass of blood. Read onward only if you consider life a cheap price for absolute strength."
Wang Fang's adult mind evaluated the terrifying logic of the text. His heart hammered violently against his ribs, but his eyes remained deadly calm. This is exactly what Doctor Li meant, he thought, a fierce, defiant smile stretching across his small face. It is pure, unadulterated anatomical torture. But it is my only salvation.
He turned the page, and the detailed breakdown of the 15-Stage, 9-Level progression system filled his vision.
Stage 1: Ironroot Flesh (Mortal). This stage required zero active Qi. Instead, it relied entirely on brutal physical trauma and raw strength. The muscles had to be completely broken down to reforge themselves stronger, and the veins had to burn out entirely before recovering with reinforced elasticity. To clear all nine levels of this first stage was a monumental feat; its absolute peak—the Level 9 breakthrough—would violently punch open the body's blocked sensory gates, forcing the user to sense and absorb external Qi for the very first time.
There are fourteen more stages after this, and just the first layer of the first stage is this insane, Wang Fang mused, closing the book. This path is going to be a living hell.
The Crimson Gardens
The next morning, the grand gardens of the Crimson Clan were alive with activity. Servants trimmed the spiritual flora, guards patrolled the sweeping stone pavilion paths, and messengers dashed back and forth on clan errands.
In the center of the gardens, a group of servants had gathered to gossip, but their hushed whispers were suddenly shattered by a frantic shout.
"Young Master! What in the heavens are you doing?!" Xiao Lan cried out, running alongside a small figure. "Stop! You are going to give yourself a severe side stitch!"
Wang Fang didn't break his stride, merely glancing back at her. "Don't worry, Xiao Lan. I will be fine."
"What is going on over there?" a maid asked, nudging the woman pulling weeds beside her.
"The Young Master," the other whispered back, shaking her head. "He has been running from his chamber door all the way up to the mountain training tracks. He's been at it for over six hours straight!"
One of the nearby guards let out a mocking laugh. "What is the point of that? Why is he just running in circles?"
"Maybe he's training his legs so he can run away faster when the duel comes," another guard chuckled, adjusting his spear. "Hah! What a complete joke."
But Wang Fang's mind belonged to a mature, seasoned adult. He didn't care about their shallow opinions, nor was he bothered in the slightest by the useless mockery they threw his way. To him, their barking was like wind passing through trees—entirely inconsequential. He secretly smiled to himself, amused by their ignorance, and kept pushing his legs forward. I thought the people of this world were supposed to be cultivators, he thought. But these fools are just blind.
"Stop it, all of you! How dare you insult the heir of our clan?!"
The sharp command cut through the garden air. The crowd of gossiping servants instantly fell into a heavy, suffocating silence. The mocking grins vanished from their faces as they frantically bowed their heads, their knees trembling against the garden soil.
Wang Fang, who had been mid-sprint, slid to a sharp halt. The intense physical strain of his six-hour run made his small chest heave, but his sharp eyes remained perfectly calm as he turned to see who had intervened.
Walking down the stone pavilion path was a young girl, roughly fifteen or sixteen years old. She possessed long, silken black hair that fluttered gracefully in the mountain breeze, and her dark eyes shone with an unyielding clarity. Her skin was as flawless as white jade, and her features held an astonishing, breathtaking beauty that seemed completely out of place in the mundane outer courtyard.
It was Wang Mei, the cherished granddaughter of the Third Elder.
Unlike the children of the Second and Fourth Elders, who openly despised and mocked Wang Fang, Wang Mei had always been different. Even though they were cousins by blood, she held a deep-seated affection for the boy and strictly preferred to address him as her "junior brother." While the rest of the clan's younger generation actively hated Fang for his lack of Qi, Mei treated him like a real sibling.
"Greetings, Senior Sister Mei," the servants stammered in a terrified chorus, keeping their eyes glued to the dirt.
Wang Mei ignored them entirely. She stepped past the line of servants, her gaze softening the moment it landed on Wang Fang's sweat-drenched frame.
"Junior brother!" she called out, her melodious voice carrying a mix of genuine worry and affectionate warmth. She quickly closed the distance between them, pulling out a soft silk handkerchief to gently wipe the sweat from his forehead. "Look at you! Xiao Lan is right. What in the heavens are you doing running around the mountain tracks for six hours straight? You look like you're about to collapse!"
Wang Fang offered her a faint, sincere smile. "I am fine, Senior Sister. I am just testing the endurance limits of this mortal vessel."
Mei sighed, placing her hands on her hips as she looked at his trembling legs. "I heard about the three-month wager inside the Gathering Hall. The whole clan is talking about it. Junior brother... Wang Zhi is a bully, but he is already touching the gates of the Qi Gathering Realm. You cannot defeat him with a regular, fragile body. Why didn't you come to me? I could have spoken to my grandfather to help you find a way out of this ridiculous bet!"
"There is no need to run away from a fight, Senior Sister," Wang Fang replied, his voice shifting into a tone of unshakeable gravity that made Wang Mei blink in surprise. "The elders want to see me fall, but I will show them that a mortal frame can break the heavens. My training has just begun."
Wang Mei stared at the young boy, a sudden, inexplicable sense of awe washing over her. There was a fiery, majestic light burning inside his eyes that she had never seen in anyone else—not even the core disciples of the inner sect. She let out a soft laugh, shaking her head. "You really are as stubborn as Uncle Yun. Fine. If you insist on this brutal training, your senior sister will not stand in your way."
She had urgent matters to attend to for her grandfather, meaning she had to leave the estate shortly after their brief meeting. But before she departed, she looked at him with fierce, unwavering support. "Keep pushing, junior brother. I will come check on you the moment I return."
With Wang Mei gone, the shield of her presence vanished, but Wang Fang did not care. His focus snapped right back to the grueling parameters of the Sovereign World-Root Scripture.
For the next five days, Wang Fang lived a life of absolute, unadulterated torment.
He didn't stop. Day and night merged into a single, blurry haze of agony. The core instruction of Stage 1 was absolute: the mortal muscles had to be broken down entirely so that the hidden internal vitality could reforge them. To achieve this progressive overload, Fang spent every single waking hour sprinting up the jagged, vertical mountain paths behind the clan estate, pushing through sheer muscle fatigue.
By the third day, the mechanical limits of ten-year-old body began to aggressively push back. His veins felt as if they were burning from the inside out, the intense blood pressure stripping away the lining of his vessels before his internal vitality could desperately rush in to repair them stronger. His flesh burned, raw and chafed, tearing under the continuous friction of his movements.
By the night of the fifth day, the brutal conditioning reached a terrifying tipping point.
Wang Fang was pushing his physical frame far past the boundaries of common sense. He was so utterly drained that he couldn't even manage a light jog anymore. His breath came in ragged, bloody gasps. His vision swam with spots of darkness, the silver light of the three moons spinning wildly above his head. He tried to force his right leg forward, but his nervous system completely rebelled. His muscles were completely unbundled, trembling so violently that they couldn't hold his skeletal weight.
Stand up, his adult mind commanded fiercely, locking his iron will against the failing flesh. If you quit here, you are nothing but the trash they claim you to be.
Using pure, unadulterated willpower, he forced his body to lock its joints. He dragged his heavy, non-responsive legs forward, trying to continue the sprint. But the structural trauma was absolute. Under the immense, unyielding pressure of his five-day marathon, the micro-fractures in his lower skeleton expanded.
A dull, sickening crack echoed inside his shins as the extreme stress pushed his bone density to its absolute limit. The structural frame of his body could no longer support the meat hanging from it.
Every ounce of energy vanished. His knees buckled completely outward, and his small, battered body collapsed heavily onto the hard, jagged dirt of the mountain track.
He lay flat on his back, staring up at the vast, uncaring sky, completely paralyzed by exhaustion. He couldn't lift a finger. He couldn't turn his head.
Suddenly, a wave of agonizing, unnatural pain injected itself straight into the marrow of his shattered bones and the torn fibers of his leg muscles. A violent tremor seized him, his teeth clacking together in a frantic, chattering rhythm as alternating currents of freezing ice and scalding heat ravaged his veins.
"Ahhh...!"
He tried to scream, but the sound died in his throat. The muscles in his thighs and hamstrings contracted violently, tightening with such horrific density that it felt as if his legs were trying to forcibly fold themselves backward.
Is this... just the consequence of the first technique?
The whites of his eyes began to rapidly flood with ruptured vessels, turning a terrifying, deep crimson. The agonizing surge began migrating upward, draining the blood entirely from his lower limbs and forcing it violently up into his spine. The sudden, massive shift in blood pressure caused his vision to warp and darken.
Urgh, what did I do wrong? he thought frantically, his adult intellect slipping as his body went into shock. It feels like my heart is running out of blood...
Helpless against the overwhelming physical collapse, he weakly stretched his trembling hand out toward the three moons, trying to call for help. But the world was rapidly fading. His vision blurred into complete darkness, and a sudden, chaotic flash of foreign, ancient memories exploded into his mind.
Ah... is this how I'm going to die?