The next three days, Kaelen lived two completely different lives.
During the day, he was the most invisible slave in the Blackstone Mine. He dragged his chains like everyone else, swung his pickaxe like everyone else, sweated and bled like everyone else. Gareth had raised the quota to fifteen jin, and everyone was digging like mad. The crack of whips, the screams of the beaten, the clang of picks against stone—it all blended into a dirge that never stopped.
Kaelen stayed in the middle of the crowd. Head down. Mouth shut. No trouble.
He turned in exactly enough ore—not so much that he stood out, not so little that he got beaten. It was a skill he had perfected over three years. Becoming part of the background.
But at night, when the tunnels fell silent, when the guards' footsteps faded, when the other slaves sank into their exhausted sleep—
He became someone else.
---
In the dungeon, the three fragments lay hidden beneath the straw in the rat hole.
Kaelen kept the smallest one on him, tucked into a fold of his shirt. The other two large pieces stayed in the rat hole. A medium-sized piece was hidden in a crack in the tunnel. He didn't dare keep all his fragments in one place.
The first two nights, he simply held the fragment in his palm, closed his eyes, and felt the warmth seep out of the stone, into his hand, up his arm.
The flow was faint. Like a thread so thin it was barely visible, crawling through his blocked meridians. Every inch forward felt like pushing through a wall.
He felt no pain. Just a dull ache—as if something was growing inside him.
On the third night, something changed.
Kaelen held the fragment as usual and closed his eyes. The warmth flowed again, up his left arm. But this time, it didn't stop at his shoulder.
It broke through.
Like a drop of water sinking into cracked earth, the warmth suddenly spread into his chest. Kaelen's breath caught. His body went rigid.
Deep in the center of his chest, something was pulsing.
Not his heart. A different point. Deeper. Heavier. Older.
With each pulse, a faint wave of power radiated outward, flowing through his meridians toward his limbs. The roads that had been sealed for eighteen years were being forced open, inch by inch.
Kaelen opened his eyes and looked down at his chest.
No light. No vision. But he could feel it—something new had appeared there. Like a sleeping seed that had just received its first drop of water.
He pressed his hand against his chest, feeling the unfamiliar pulse.
"Chaos Sovereign," he whispered the name again.
He didn't know what it meant. But he knew this seed was his only chance of walking out of this mine alive.
---
On the fourth day, the mine received uninvited guests.
Kaelen was digging when he heard a commotion near the tunnel entrance. Chains rattling. Low voices. Guards running.
He looked up and saw a group of people entering the tunnel.
At the front was a man in a black robe. Tall and thin, his hood pulled low, his face hidden. Behind him walked four fully armed guards, their armor marked with insignias Kaelen didn't recognize.
Gareth followed beside the robed man, bobbing and bowing like a wagging dog.
"This way, sir, this way. The kind of fragments you're looking for—they're mostly found in this area."
The robed man said nothing. He stopped and swept his gaze over the slaves in the tunnel.
Kaelen immediately lowered his head and kept swinging his pick. But his heartbeat quickened.
The robed man's gaze was like a blade, cutting across him. It wasn't surveillance—it was appraisal. Judging whether something had value.
"Everyone, hold out your hands," Gareth suddenly shouted. "Line up!"
The slaves hesitated for a moment, then put down their picks and formed a ragged line. Kaelen stood in the middle, holding out his hands, palms up.
The robed man started from the first slave, examining each one carefully. Not looking for wounds—looking at the lines on their palms.
Kaelen's mind raced. *What is he looking for?*
The robed man stopped in front of Kaelen.
Kaelen kept his head down, not daring to look at his face. He felt the gaze land on his palms. One second. Two. Three.
Three seconds. Four. Five.
Suddenly, the robed man's hand shot out and grabbed Kaelen's wrist.
Kaelen froze.
The hand was cold as a corpse. A chill shot up from his wrist straight to his skull.
"You," the robed man's voice was low and raspy. "Have you found any unusual fragments recently?"
Kaelen's throat tightened. But his face remained blank.
"No, sir," he said, his voice flat. "Just ordinary ore."
The robed man didn't let go. He squeezed harder, his nails digging into Kaelen's skin.
"The wounds on your hands heal fast."
It wasn't a question. It was a statement.
Kaelen's heart pounded against his ribs. But he remembered what Orin had said—in the Blackstone Mine, the most dangerous thing wasn't the whip. It was being noticed.
"I have thick skin, sir," Kaelen said. "Always have."
The robed man was silent for a few seconds. Then he let go.
"Next."
Kaelen stepped back into the crowd, his palms slick with sweat. He didn't dare wipe them. Didn't dare move. Didn't dare show any sign of abnormality.
The robed man finished checking everyone. He found nothing. He exchanged a few low words with Gareth, then left the tunnel with his guards.
Kaelen stood still, his fingers trembling slightly.
He knew he had just walked past the gates of death.
---
That night, Kaelen did not cultivate.
He lay on the straw, staring at the dungeon ceiling. The robed man's words echoed in his head over and over.
*"The wounds on your hands heal fast."*
He had been noticed.
That was an extremely dangerous signal. In the Blackstone Mine, being noticed meant being watched. Being watched meant being found.
He had to be more careful.
Starting tomorrow, he couldn't keep any fragments on him. Not even the small one. Cultivation could only happen when it was safest—deep in the night, after everyone had fallen into a dead sleep.
And he needed to know who the robed man was. What he was looking for.
Kaelen turned his head and looked at Orin in the corner.
The old slave had his eyes closed, but Kaelen knew he wasn't asleep. His breathing was too even. Fake sleep.
"Orin," Kaelen whispered.
No response.
"That man in the black robe. Do you know him?"
A long silence. So long that Kaelen thought he wouldn't answer.
Then Orin's voice came out of the darkness, raspy as wind over gravel:
"They are 'Source Seekers.'"
"Source Seekers?"
"People who search for ancient Chaos Fragments. They work for powerful masters." Orin paused. "This isn't their first time here. Every time they come, they take something… or someone."
A chill ran down Kaelen's spine.
"Someone?"
"Slaves who found special fragments," Orin said. "They disappear. No one knows where they go."
In the darkness, Kaelen's hand instinctively went to his chest. There was no fragment there now. But there had been.
Was he already marked?
"Don't let them notice you," Orin said finally, then turned over and fell silent.
Kaelen lay in the darkness, listening to his own heartbeat.
He wasn't afraid of being found.
He was afraid of being found before he was strong enough.
---
The next day, Kaelen dug ore like usual. Turned in his quota like usual. Played the invisible slave like usual.
But his eyes began noticing things he had never paid attention to before.
Every岔路 in the tunnel. Every exit. The shift changes of the guards. The footprints the robed man left behind. The expressions on Gareth's face. The gossip the guards traded during their breaks.
He was gathering information. Like a spider weaving a web in the dark.
His cultivation continued. But more carefully now—only in the deepest hours of the night, only in the most hidden corner of the dungeon, only with the smallest fragment, making sure no light leaked out.
The flow of warmth grew stronger.
From a thread to a thin rope. From his arm to his chest, from his chest to his abdomen, from his abdomen down his legs. Every meridian he opened made his body feel stronger.
Not spiritual energy. Not yet.
But he could feel it—the sealed roads were cracking open, one by one.
Slow. Maddeningly slow.
But he was moving.
---
Seven nights later, Kaelen was cultivating when he heard footsteps outside the dungeon.
Not the guards' patrol. Heavier. Faster.
He shoved the fragment into the rat hole, lay back on the straw, and closed his eyes.
The dungeon door burst open.
Torchlight flooded in, blinding. Gareth's voice rang out with an excitement Kaelen had never heard before:
"Get up! All of you! The master needs to choose!"
The slaves were dragged roughly from their sleep, shoved into a line.
The robed man stood at the door, two guards behind him.
In his hand, he held a fist-sized black fragment. In the torchlight, golden veins moved slowly across its surface.
Kaelen recognized those veins instantly.
Just like the small fragment hidden in his shirt.
"Can anyone tell me," the robed man's low voice echoed through the silent dungeon, "where this kind of fragment is found?"
No one spoke.
The robed man waited ten seconds.
"Whoever takes me to find more of these," he said, "I will free them from slavery. I will take them out of this mine."
The slaves began to stir. Murmurs rose like a tide.
Leaving the mine. A dream none of them dared to dream.
Kaelen's heart pounded.
He knew where the cavern was. He knew there were hundreds more fragments there.
But if he stepped forward, the robed man would take him away. And then what? Would he be used and discarded? Or would he simply "disappear," like Orin said?
He couldn't take that gamble.
A hand went up.
Kaelen turned his head, and his pupils contracted.
Orin.
The old slave stood at the edge of the line, his trembling hand raised, his raspy voice clear:
"I know."
The robed man's gaze fell on him.
"Lead the way."
Orin dragged his chains and limped toward the dungeon door. As he passed Kaelen, his eyes flicked sideways.
That look held too much.
Kaelen opened his mouth to say something. But Orin was already gone.
The dungeon door slammed shut.
Darkness returned.
Kaelen lay on the straw, listening to Orin's fading footsteps, a bad feeling rising in his chest.
He remembered what Orin had said:
*"Slaves who found special fragments disappear. No one knows where they go."*
---
Deep in the tunnel, the torchlight slowly faded.
Orin walked ahead of the robed man, limping.
His hands were trembling, but his steps did not stop.
*Kid,* he thought, *this old life of mine isn't worth much. But you're still young.*
*Don't let them find you.*