It was early in the morning. The sun's golden rays lazily crept across the horizon, gently consuming the shadows clinging to the earth. A faint breeze danced between the trees.
Leaning against a jagged rock, a young man stood with hunched shoulders, his breathing ragged. His simple white robe, oversized and draped like a loose shroud, billowed slightly in the breeze. A deep gash on his forehead dripped cold blood, its crimson trail smearing down his cheek and jaw. He didn't bother wiping it.
That numbness wasn't from cold or fatigue. He'd slammed his head against the rock he was now leaning against, desperate to ease the pain inside his skull. It wasn't madness, it was a desperate measure to ease the pain. He had discovered in the last few days that raw physical pain was the only thing that could temporarily silence the maddening pounding in his head after refining the demonic qi.
That young man was Zhuo Meng.
His eyes were glassy, not from tears, but from the sheer exhaustion that plagued every fiber of his body. His lips were cracked, skin pale, and sweat clung to his brow. Despite this pitiful state, a twisted smile played on his face.
These last few days, he had been forcing himself to refine demonic qi extracted from the demonized blonde hounds.
Two weeks ago, he had stared at the carcasses of those hounds, unsure what to do with them. But three days prior, Teacher Mei Shun had announced a small scale internal tournament, one limited to Class A.
The Blue Cloud Academy didn't care for meaningless rivalries. This tournament wasn't about pitting students against one another. It was about growth, a personal challenge. Everyone would be evaluated not by how they compared to others, but by how much stronger they had become. It was a way to track progress and reward diligence.
Still, pressure was pressure. Zhuo Meng felt it in his bones.
"One more time..." he muttered, lips cracking into a grin, blood still dripping from his chin.
He stared down at the mangled corpse of a stage two demonized blonde hound, its eyes glazed over, twisted muzzle locked in a final growl. He needed to extract and refine the demonic qi before it scattered or dissipated.
Bliss Pearl!
His voice was hoarse, but steady. A multicolored sphere of light, brilliant and almost ethereal, flared to life in his palm. The Bliss Pearl, his Thousand Silent Bloom's core technique, began pulsing in rhythm with his heartbeat. Reds, blues, and vibrant golds shimmered within the orb, swirling like a galaxy trapped in glass.
With a flick of his wrist, the Bliss Pearl shot forward and embedded itself into the beast's chest, phasing partially through the flesh. The hound's body jerked violently as the orb began extracting and purifying the demonic qi, converting it into specks of refined essence.
Demonic qi was vile, like a virus. It corroded both body and spirit, making it extremely dangerous to work with. Most cultivators avoided it entirely, only madmen, demonic cultivators, or desperate people like Zhuo Meng dared to try purifying it.
If the corruption reached stage three, the host could temporarily resurrect into a berserk monstrosity with exponential strength.
A week ago, he had broken through the fifth sub realm, now sitting just behind the class prodigy, Xiang Yimu.
The Bliss Pearl pulsed brighter as the hound's qi was extracted. What began as a sphere the size of a yoga ball shrunk gradually, first to a football, then to a compact golf ball, until it pulsed once and detonated silently.
No fire. No sound. Just a cascade of light red motes, like fireflies under moonlight, drifted into the air.
Zhuo Meng reached out with shaky fingers, drawing several of the refined qi specks toward himself. They spiraled inward, fusing into his core.
And that's when it began again.
The pain.
At first, it was a dull ache in his gut. Then it crawled up his spine like molten lava. Within seconds, blood began to pour from his nostrils, and his head throbbed like a drumbeat of impending doom. His body trembled violently.
"Damn it..." he growled, teeth clenched. "That feeling in my core... why is it back? It's been days without this...!"
His knees buckled, collapsing into the dirt. Sweat poured down his face. Blood seeped from his ears. His body convulsed, resisting him with every breath.
Zhuo Meng desperately tried to smash his head against the rock again, his last ditch method to force clarity through pain. But this time, his limbs barely responded. His vision blurred. His mouth foamed slightly at the edges.
The world spun. Then went dark.
The sky turned golden as the sun began to set. Hours passed. Birds chirped in the distance, oblivious to the young cultivator lying broken and unconscious. The wind picked up, dragging dry leaves across the rocky path in lazy spirals.
Then...
Creak. Creak. Creak.
A harsh, shrill sound sliced through the silence like knives on bone. It wasn't wind. It wasn't an animal.
It sounded like chalk grinding against slate, no, more like blades scraping against each other.
Zhuo Meng's eyes fluttered open. His vision swam. His entire body felt like it had been trampled by a thousand horses.
Zhuo Meng's body lay sprawled on a patch of dirt, his wounds bleeding profusely. The once fresh blood had soaked into the earth, staining it a deep, vivid red before darkening and drying into a grim maroon crust. His head spun like a broken top, dizziness wrapping around him like a heavy fog.
Slowly, with great effort, he pushed himself up, supporting his weight on his arms. His muscles trembled as he shifted into a sitting position, still wobbly and disoriented.
Turning his head cautiously to the right, he squinted through the haze of pain and fatigue.
"What the hell is that...?" he murmured, voice thick with confusion.
There, just a few meters away, sat a strange beast. Its back faced him, and it seemed completely unbothered by his presence, as if he were invisible, or perhaps already dead.
From behind, the creature's skin looked like it was covered in fish scales, only these scales were much larger and a deep, matte black. They gleamed faintly in the sunlight, solid and unyielding. Zhuo Meng guessed that not even a sniper bullet could pierce such armor.
Despite its tough exterior, the creature wasn't big at all. If Zhuo Meng stood next to it, the beast would only reach about his waist.
Zhuo Meng's exhaustion weighed heavy. His head throbbed, his vision still hazy, and he hadn't even recovered a fraction of his qi. He was utterly vulnerable, completely at the mercy of this mysterious beast.
"What should I do? Throw a rock at its head and run? No... that would be stupid..." he thought, frustration creeping in. "Maybe just back away slowly and run when I'm at a safe distance? But wait, how did it even get here? This city zone's supposed to be safe... I'm barely two kilometers from the city gate."
As Zhuo Meng wrestled with these questions, the creature suddenly turned its head toward him. But it didn't look hostile, it looked confused. Its brow furrowed as if trying to understand what it was seeing.
"Hmph?"
Zhuo Meng was so stunned he instinctively furrowed his own brows, mimicking the creature's expression.
For a moment, the two stared at each other like old fools, confused and sizing one another up.
Then, without warning, the creature sprang to its feet and in a blink was right in front of him. In its clawed hand was a small red speck, the refined qi speck Zhuo Meng recognized from the Bliss Pearl.
The creature extended its hand toward him, lowering its gaze in a gesture that almost seemed ashamed, like it had been scolded...
"Sit down!"
Zhuo Meng had an idea and commanded the beast. To his amazement, the creature obeyed immediately, sitting back down quietly, like a well trained pet.
Zhuo Meng sat frozen for two seconds, then realization dawned on him.
"So that's it!" he muttered, voice rough with disbelief. "You were the creature from back then... the one that attacked the carriage, killing five people right in front of me..."
He studied the beast closely. "But you look different. Weaker... that's because of my Thousand Silent Bloom, isn't it?"
The creature blinked twice and nodded slowly.
Zhuo Meng's mind raced, piecing it all together. "When you tried to devour my core, you must've sensed the affinity between you and it. So you agreed to become my beast bond. But since you were too strong for my cultivation level, the core had to sacrifice your cultivation to balance things out."
He chuckled darkly. "You let out all your strange qi in the process. That's what Jin Fen discovered and why he wanted to take me in. He probably thought it was the Resounding Madness core."
Zhuo Meng shook his head. "Which it's not. That core type is actually what you have, Resounding Madness. That's also why Mr. Eye and the academy inspector mistook my Thousand Silent Bloom for Resounding Madness. They didn't know what the hell it actually was and had to guess."
He sighed, a bit amused now despite everything. "Heh... you troublesome thing."
Gently, Zhuo Meng reached out and petted the creature's sleek head. The beast's ears perked up in excitement, twitching as it basked in the attention.
"What should I name you, huh? Maybe... Voru? Yeah, that fits you."
Voru straightened, chest puffed out, clearly proud. An arrogant little bastard, just how Zhuo Meng liked it.
"All right, Voru." he said, standing shakily. "Since you devoured all the light red specks, let's head back. It's getting late."
Although hesitantly, a green glow started to engulf Voru before it transformed into a glow light and flew towards Zhuo Meng's core, disappearing into it.
"You like it there?" Zhuo Meng asked quietly, almost to himself, his eyes flicking toward Voru. Without hesitation, Voru gave a slow, deliberate nod, as if saying, Yeah, this place suits me just fine. Zhuo Meng smirked to himself, glad the beast seemed at ease despite everything.
By the time Zhuo Meng arrived at the Jin house, it was already dark. The stars twinkled dimly overhead, and the air was cooler, carrying the scent of distant smoke and lantern light. When the family saw him, they immediately noticed his tardiness and appearance. Zhuo Meng wasted no time, he told the story he had made up on the way back about a breakthrough of cultivation ability that had kept him longer than he expected.
The Jin household members exchanged glances but seemed satisfied by his explanation. After a few polite questions about how things were going, they nodded in approval, their expressions softening with pride and understanding. With the way cleared, Zhuo Meng was allowed to slip inside without further fuss, relieved to finally be out of the cold night and back where he could rest.