The mud in the Grey Basin didn't just cling to one's boots; it felt as though it wanted to pull you down into the earth's belly and keep you there.
Eight-year-old Han Yu wiped a smear of charcoal-colored slush from his forehead. He was small for his age, his ribs tracing faint lines beneath a tunic that was more patches than original cloth. In his right hand, he clutched a "Scavenger's Hook" - a piece of sharpened rebar he'd found in a gutter.
"Focus, Yu-er," he whispered to himself. His voice was raspy from the morning's chill. "The rain stopped two hours ago. The silt will be soft. The treasures will be exposed."
In the Aetheric Reach, the world was governed by Qi. To the great Sects in the distant Jade Mountains, Qi was the nectar of immortality. To Han Yu, Qi was simply the reason things glowed. He was looking for "Dross-Stones" - pebbles that contained a fraction of spent spiritual energy, barely enough to light a lamp, but enough to buy a bowl of watery congee at Uncle Zhang's stall.
He moved through the ruins of the "Old Manor," a place local folklore said was leveled by a stray palm-strike from a passing immortal decades ago. To a child, the shattered jade tiles and scorched pillars were a playground of ghosts.
His hook struck something hard. Not the clack of stone, but the dull thud of metal.
Han Yu knelt, his fingers digging into the cold, grey muck. He unearthed a hilt. It was wrapped in what might have once been sharkskin, now rotted into a slick, black substance. As he pulled, the earth groaned.
It was a sword.
It was neither elegant nor shining. It was a slab of rusted iron, wide as a man's hand and seemingly far too heavy for a child. When Han Yu tried to lift it, his small muscles screamed.
And therefore, instead of walking away, Han Yu dug deeper. He used a fallen branch as a lever, gritting his teeth until his gums bled. He wasn't a Cultivator; he didn't have a Dantian to store energy. He had only his "Stunned Persistence" - a trait the orphans of Oakhaven called his "Stone-Head."
"Why... won't... you... move?" he hissed.
As his sweat dripped onto the rusted guard, a strange sensation washed over him. It wasn't a power-up. It was a realization. He felt the heaviness of the sword. Not just its weight, but the idea of Heaviness.
In the philosophy of the world, Metal was the element of grief and persistence. It was the "unyielding." Han Yu didn't know the word 'affinity,' but he felt a strange kinship with the rusted thing. It was discarded. It was ugly. It was being swallowed by the mud. Just like him.
"You're coming with me," he grunted.
Using his tunic as a makeshift sling, he dragged the sword behind him, carving a deep furrow in the mud.
Oakhaven was three miles from the ruins. For a healthy man, a forty-minute walk. For an eight-year-old dragging forty pounds of iron through sludge, it was a four-hour ordeal. The sun began to dip, turning the sky a bruised purple - the color of Wood-Qi reacting to the fading Fire-Qi of the sun.
As he reached the outskirts of the town, the smell of woodsmoke and roasting "Cloud-Rats" hit him. But so did a shadow.
"Well, look what the mud-worm dragged in," a voice sneered.
Three boys, the oldest perhaps twelve, stepped out from behind a collapsed granary. This was Big San, a boy who had already "Sensed the Breath" and was thus a tyrant among the unawakened.
"That looks heavy, Yu-er," Big San said, eyes glinting at the metallic bulk in the sling. "Iron is worth copper. Copper buys wine. Give it here."
Han Yu stopped. His legs were shaking. His lungs burned. He looked at the sword, then at Big San.
If he gave the sword, he would be hungry tonight, but safe. If he kept it, he would be beaten. But more importantly, if he gave it up, he would be admitting that he was nothing more than the mud he walked on.
"I found it," Han Yu said, his grip tightening on the rotted hilt. "The ruins gave it to me. Not you."
"The ruins give to those with the strength to take," Big San replied, stepping forward. He raised a hand, and for a second, a faint, flickering brown light appeared around his fist.
Earth-Qi. It was rudimentary, barely a spark, but to a mortal child, it was the power of a god.
Han Yu didn't run. He couldn't. Instead, he did something illogical. He braced his feet, shifted his weight - mimicking the way the sword had felt buried in the earth - and waited.
He didn't know it yet, but he was performing his first act of Cultivation. He was attempting to understand the "Stance of the Mountain."
The first blow descended.