I am not a hero. I am not a chosen one.
I am unfortunate. At least, that's what the elders always told me.
They say fate is written in the stars, but I've spent most of my life crawling in the mud.
I was a child with no name, left on the steps of the Heavenly Radiance Sect on a stormy night. They gave me food when they had too much, clothes when others had outgrown theirs, and beatings when they were angry. I never belonged. I was a shadow in a place full of light.
They called me "dog." "Boy." "Trash." Only when I reached twelve did I dare claim a name for myself.
Yi Ma Nei Li.
The name was mine alone—chosen, not given.
For years, I lived in silence. I swept their halls. I fetched their tea. I bowed when they looked at me. But at night, when all candles had burned down and the elite disciples snored in silk robes, I stole into the training fields. I copied their movements. I mimicked their footwork. I whispered the chants from discarded scrolls.
They thought I was too broken to cultivate. They were wrong.
My body may have been weak, but my will was sharp. I didn't want to shine like them.
I wanted to survive.
But survival, it seems, is a threat.
The moment they sensed my spirit beginning to stir—when my meridians fluttered open—they threw me out like rotten meat.
"Leave, orphan! You are a curse upon our purity."
Those words came from Elder Qin himself, spit like venom from the steps of the Grand Hall.
I didn't argue. I didn't cry.
I walked.
The rain fell like blades that day. Every step I took away from that golden prison felt like peeling away layers of skin. But I didn't look back. I couldn't.
The world outside the sect was wild, green, and endless. I wandered through twisted forests and over rocky hills, guided by nothing but a quiet hum inside my chest. A strange feeling—like something far away was calling me.
I didn't eat for three days. My legs ached. My vision blurred. But still, I walked.
And then… I found it.
A narrow crack in the mountain wall, almost invisible behind vines and moss. Something inside me whispered: enter.
I didn't hesitate.
The cave swallowed me whole. It was cold, damp, and silent—but not dead. No… it was waiting. It was watching.
At the very end of the tunnel, on a single stone pedestal, sat a scroll.
Black. Ancient. Wrapped in red silk that pulsed faintly with symbols I had never seen before.
I should have turned back.
But I couldn't.
My hand moved on its own.
The moment I touched the scroll—
BOOM.
My world exploded.
My body collapsed to the cave floor like a puppet with its strings cut. But my mind… my mind was no longer mine.
I floated in a vast black sea.
Above me: stars. Below: endless water. Around me: silence so heavy it roared.
And there, floating before me, was the scroll—unfurling itself in the sky.
Its words—if you could call them that—burned into my eyes, into my blood. They glowed with a deep blue light that pulsed like a heartbeat.
Then came the pain.
Unimaginable.
I felt my bones splinter, my muscles twist, my skin crawl with filth as black sludge poured out of me. My meridians shattered—then reformed. My spirit screamed in silence.
But I did not run.
I endured.
Then… peace.
The scroll vanished—absorbed into my very soul.
It had chosen me.
Not because I was noble.
Not because I was destined.
But because I was empty.
A vessel.
When I opened my eyes, I was back in the cave. But I wasn't the same.
My body felt... light. Strong. Quiet.
My skin was clean. My breath deeper. My heartbeat slower, calmer.
That's when I saw it—a small jade box hidden beneath the rubble.
Inside, resting gently, was a black crystal pendant shaped like a droplet. Cold to the touch. Etched with the same symbol that had seared itself into my mind.
The moment I picked it up, I felt my thoughts sharpen. My breath steady.
A treasure?
No. A test.
A blade must be tempered.
I walked out of the cave into the night. The rain had stopped. The moon hung low.
I, Yi Ma Nei Li, was no longer a beggar… no longer a servant.
I had no sect. No master. No clan name.
But I had a scroll in my soul.
I had power in my veins.
And I had the calm.
The Calm Shadow.
And this… is where my path begins.