Listening to Zhao Ziwei's grand vision—equal parts blue-collar hustle and pyramid scheme energy—Mo Fan raised his bowl toward the cold, clear moon hanging in the night sky.
The corner of his mouth curved into a smile that was genuine, even a little eager.
"Deal!"
"From here on out, I'm counting on Senior Brother Ziwei to lead this little brother straight to riches!"
The firewood cracked and popped.
Orange firelight danced across both their flushed, slightly drunk faces.
With the "business plan" for earning Sect Contribution Points at the Heavenly Works Workshop settled, the atmosphere of their housewarming banquet grew warmer—and then, gradually, deeper.
After a few bowls of high-grade spirit wine, Zhao Ziwei's usual scatterbrained energy had quieted considerably.
His eyes, lit by the swaying flames, carried a depth that only cultivators ever seemed to have.
He studied Mo Fan's physique—muscles gleaming bronze in the firelight, coiled with explosive force—and opened his mouth.
Then stopped.
He seemed to want to talk about the deeper realities of the cultivation path but kept hesitating.
He's worried about hurting me. The guy with the Waste Spirit Root who had to claw his way into the inner sect.
Mo Fan read the restless guy's mind in an instant.
He laughed it off, tossed a cleanly gnawed bear bone into the fire, wiped the grease from his hands, and raised an eyebrow.
"Senior Brother Ziwei, why are you suddenly acting all shy? I may not have a Spirit Root, but I'm not that thin-skinned. I'm definitely not made of glass."
"I'm actually counting on you to give me a real look at what this world of cultivation is. Say whatever's on your mind."
Seeing Mo Fan's easy openness, Zhao Ziwei stopped holding back.
He tilted his head back, gulped down a massive swig of wine, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and began.
"Xiaoqi, don't let those outer sect people fool you—the ones tearing each other apart over a scrap of spiritual energy or a single technique, acting like reaching late-stage Qi Condensation or Foundation Establishment makes them untouchable."
"In the eyes of the Azure Cloud Sect's upper echelon, the first half of cultivation..."
Zhao Ziwei pointed upward at the night-drenched sky overhead.
"From Qi Condensation through Foundation Establishment, all the way up to Golden Core—it's purely about talent. Raw Spirit Root 'hardware.' Whatever Heaven decided to give you."
"Those prodigies born with high-grade Spirit Roots? They really are Heaven's favorite sons. Their cultivation speed is a hundred times faster than low-grade, ten times faster than mid-grade."
"Stack enough sect resources on top of that, and their path straight to Golden Core is practically a highway with no roadblocks."
Zhao Ziwei's tone cut off sharply there.
His voice shifted. His eyes turned grave.
BUT.
"Golden Core is the absolute ceiling that pure Spirit Root 'hardware' can build."
Mo Fan's gaze sharpened.
Without realizing it, he leaned forward.
This is the kind of core secret I never found in the Body Forging Record's general overview.
"To shatter the Golden Core and form the Nascent Soul—to even set foot on the legendary Soul Transformation realm..."
Zhao Ziwei's voice took on a note of genuine awe, laced with something that almost sounded like grief.
"That is a true Heavenly Chasm."
"At that threshold, it's no longer about the physical Spirit Root. It becomes about comprehension of the Heavenly Dao, and the cultivator's own innate talent for enlightenment."
"The cultivation world is merciless. Throughout all of history, so many brilliant high-grade Spirit Root geniuses shone like suns in their early years—blazing effortlessly straight to the peak of Golden Core, dazzling an entire generation."
"And then they stopped."
"Not enough comprehension. Not enough enlightenment. Unable to pierce that final, invisible constraint of heaven and earth. Trapped at Golden Core for the rest of their lives."
"In the end, all they could do was watch their lifespan drain away, until they crumbled to dust."
"That is why, across this vast cultivation world, Golden Core cultivators—rare as they are—can still be found. But Nascent Soul elders and Soul Transformation grandmasters are so scarce they might as well be myths."
Mo Fan's gaze drifted, without thinking, to the crackling fire.
A thin, stubborn silhouette surfaced in his mind.
Zhao Ziwei had clearly thought of the same person.
He let out a slow breath. "Your little brother A-Song—high-grade Wood Spirit Root. That 'hardware' of his might be the best in the entire Azure Cloud Sect."
"Before Golden Core, he'll be an unstoppable force sweeping his generation."
"But the future..." He shook his head. "When he stands before that Heavenly Chasm, who can say?"
Mo Fan said nothing.
He simply, quietly, sent a silent wish toward the boy who was somewhere up in the clouds right now, grinding through his cultivation with everything he had.
I've already paved the road for him. Cleared the landmines from the early stretch. But the comprehension and insight needed to cross that chasm—no one can do that for him.
That part is yours alone, A-Song.
The night deepened.
A mountain wind swept through the canyon, carrying a bone-deep chill.
Both jars of high-grade spirit wine were completely empty.
Zhao Ziwei let out a loud, satisfied belch, patted his round belly with contentment, and pushed himself up from the armchair.
"Alright, that's enough for tonight! Ate well, drank well, and now this senior brother is going home to sleep."
He stretched his arms wide with an enormous yawn and waved a hand at Mo Fan.
"You rest tomorrow. Settle into the new place. Day after, I'll come get you first thing in the morning—and we'll go make a killing at the Heavenly Works Workshop!"
"Safe travels, Senior Brother Ziwei."
Mo Fan smiled and nodded.
He watched that tall, broad figure sway and stagger into the darkness, until it vanished entirely through the canyon's single, narrow entrance.
The noise faded.
In the vast cluster of stone dwellings, Mo Fan was alone.
Three sides of sheer grayish-black rock face rose around him like a natural fortress wall, sealing out every prying eye, every threat.
In the quiet night, there was only the soft drip-drop of clear spring water seeping through the rock, and the occasional crackle of the dying fire.
This was his true starting point in the inner sect.
His own hidden stronghold. Absolutely secure.
The spirit wine had not made him the least bit drowsy.
If anything, his mind had never been clearer.
He replayed Zhao Ziwei's words—the Grand Dao of Immortality, Nascent Soul, Soul Transformation—and felt something like a storm surge rising from the depths of him, waves crashing without end.
He lowered his gaze to his own hands.
Hands tempered over and over by corpse toxins and frost sand—bronze-hued, resilient, radiating a physical explosive power that could make a person's heart clench just looking at them.
"Pure Spirit Root talent alone... only gets you to Golden Core..."
Mo Fan murmured to the dancing flames.
The corner of his mouth curved—slow, deep, and feverish.
"I don't even qualify as the most garbage Waste Spirit Root. The Heavenly Dao of this world, the one built on spiritual Qi—it welded my door shut from the very beginning."
He slammed his hands into fists.
The formidable finger strength squeezed his joints until they let out a series of thunderous popping sounds, cracking through the canyon as if crushing some invisible shackle.
"But, so what?"
"My Necromancer system is a taboo existence built to reverse life and death, to play with souls themselves."
"Since the spiritual laws of this heaven and earth have their limits—have their Heavenly Chasms—then I will use piled white bones, endless death energy, and the remnant souls of the fallen to smash open my own path."
"Spirit Roots have a ceiling."
"Death does not."
Mo Fan stood.
He faced the biting night wind pouring through the canyon.
His eyes burned in the darkness—impossibly bright, impossibly steady.
Like two pale-blue soul flames roaring to life at the bottom of an abyss, blazing with an ambition that bowed to neither heaven nor earth.
"This path to godhood..."
"I want to see whether it can break the shackles of heaven and earth for me."
"And let me walk..."
"The true Grand Dao of Immortality."