By the time Lin Mo Chen reached the entrance of the Lin Clan, he immediately slipped onto one of the less traveled paths.
Showing up in front of his mother covered in dust and blood didn't seem like a particularly good idea. Unfortunately, the moment he opened the back door of the house, General Fatty came running toward him from the courtyard.
Tap, tap, tap.
The instant she saw him, General Fatty charged straight at him and began pecking at the bottom of his robe, probably offended that he had disappeared for the entire day without taking her along.
"General, now really isn't the time," Lin Mo Chen muttered as he tried to push her away with his foot. "Your commander just returned from battle."
A loud cluck answered him.
"Yes, a real battle. Three against one."
General Fatty tilted her head.
"Technically, I ran away, but retreating from a stronger force still counts as strategy."
Another cluck echoed through the courtyard, this one much louder.
"I don't need that attitude."
Before the argument could continue, footsteps from inside made Lin Mo Chen tense.
"Chen'er?" his mother called. "Are you back already?"
Real panic appeared on Lin Mo Chen's face.
Without thinking, he grabbed General Fatty and rushed into his room, shutting the door just as his mother entered the courtyard.
"Yes, Mother!" he called from inside. "I'm cultivating. It's very delicate!"
A few seconds of silence followed.
"Then why did I hear the back door?"
"Huan Qi."
"And why does it smell like smoke?"
Lin Mo Chen looked down at his burned robe.
"Also Huan Qi."
Mocking laughter came from the pendant.
Fortunately, his mother didn't press any further. After reminding him to come down for dinner, she returned to the kitchen.
Lin Mo Chen slowly released the breath he had been holding and leaned his back against the door.
"I came closer to dying just now than during the whole ambush."
After cleaning his wounds as best he could and changing clothes, he took out the two bottles of blood. Despite the beating and the explosion, neither one had broken.
That alone was enough to improve his mood a little.
"Master, I have the blood. Can we start?"
For a few moments, Huo Can didn't answer. Then a small crimson flame emerged from the pendant and floated in front of Lin Mo Chen.
General Fatty jumped backward, fluffing up her feathers as she stared at the fire with obvious suspicion.
"Close the door, cover the window, and take off your robe," Huo Can ordered. "You'll also need a clean bowl, a brush, and something you can bite down on."
Clearly confused, Lin Mo Chen couldn't help asking,
"I understand the first few things, but why do I need something to bite?"
"So you don't shatter your teeth."
An unpleasant feeling crept down Lin Mo Chen's back.
"Master, earlier you said I only needed the blood of a spirit beast."
"And you have it."
Every new explanation made this technique sound more and more like a terrible idea.
Still, Lin Mo Chen obeyed. He secured the door, covered the window with a blanket, and searched through his belongings until he found a small ceramic bowl. Finding a brush was harder, so he ended up taking an old one his mother used to keep household accounts.
Once everything was placed on the table, he removed the upper half of his robe and sat cross-legged on the floor.
Reddish marks and bruises covered his chest, arms, and part of his ribs. Seeing the result of his glorious battle made the pride he felt over escaping fade slightly.
"I'm ready," he said after placing a folded strip of leather between his teeth.
"Not yet."
Two thin threads of crimson fire emerged from the pendant. They wrapped around the bottles and slowly lifted them until they hovered above the bowl.
Without Lin Mo Chen touching them, the stoppers popped free and the dark blood began to pour. A strong, wild smell immediately filled the room.
General Fatty approached curiously, stretching her neck toward the bowl.
"Don't even think about it," Lin Mo Chen warned.
Offended, the chicken pecked him on the knee and returned to the bed.
Meanwhile, Huo Can's flames descended and wrapped around the blood. Under his control, it slowly began to boil as a layer of gray foam gathered across the surface.
"What are you doing?" Lin Mo Chen asked.
"Removing the medicinal water, preservatives, and any impurities that might interfere with the patterns. The old man diluted the blood quite a bit, but he didn't lie about where it came from."
Little by little, the contents of the bowl shrank to less than half their original amount. The color, once dark and dull, deepened into a red so dark it was almost black, while a faint bestial pressure began spreading through the room.
Lin Mo Chen's body tensed. He could feel something inside that liquid.
It wasn't true consciousness, but there was a lingering ferocity in it, a kind of wild instinct that belonged to the Ironback Wolf.
"This blood will be used to draw the fundamental pattern of your new technique," Huo Can explained. "Its purpose is to turn your body into a vessel capable of enduring and refining the Huan Qi contained within spirit cores."
"Turn my body into a vessel?"
"Your current channels are only prepared to absorb Huan Qi from the environment. If you tried to force the violent energy of a spirit core directly into them, your Qi core would explode before you even finished regretting the decision."
Lin Mo Chen remembered the earlier warning and swallowed.
"So these patterns will stop me from exploding."
"They'll reduce the chances."
A long silence filled the room.
"Reduce?"
"Nothing is completely safe, brat."
"I like this technique less every time you explain it."
"You can still give up."
Those words made Lin Mo Chen lower his gaze toward his own hands.
Only a few hours earlier, three cultivators had cornered him in an alley. He had survived only through deception, Huo Can's advice, and the desperate decision to blow up a resource he had barely managed to obtain.
Next time, there might not be a busy street nearby. There might not be guards either.
Slowly, Lin Mo Chen clenched his fists and raised his head again.
"I'm not giving up."
A satisfied laugh came from the pendant. The old brush floated above the bowl, wrapped in a thin layer of crimson fire, before slowly dipping its bristles into the refined blood.
Lin Mo Chen took a deep breath, preparing himself for what he was already certain would be hell.
"Where are you starting?"
"The center of your chest."
Before he could ask anything else, the brush touched his skin.
Burning pain tore through Lin Mo Chen's chest.
"Mmmph!"
Thanks to the strip of leather, his scream came out as little more than a muffled sound. Every muscle in his body tightened while a red line was slowly drawn from his sternum down toward his abdomen.
It felt nothing like ink being painted over skin. The blood boiled and sank into his flesh as the brush moved, leaving behind a glowing mark that pulsed in time with his heartbeat.
"That burns!" Lin Mo Chen protested after spitting out the leather.
"That's the point."
Without giving him time to respond, the brush drew a second line.
This time, the pain went even deeper, as though a red-hot blade were carving a path directly through his Huan Qi channels.
Lin Mo Chen quickly bit down on the leather again. Huo Can's voice had lost all trace of amusement as he continued.
"The pattern consists of nine main sections, one for each fragment of your first Spirit Ring. Once the ring is complete, all nine will connect around your core."
A third line appeared across his chest, curving around the first to form a complicated shape.
"Nine?" Lin Mo Chen managed between shaky breaths. "You're drawing all nine now?"
"Only the fundamental routes. With your current cultivation, trying to complete the entire pattern would kill you."
Lin Mo Chen's eyes widened, but before he could say anything, the brush left his chest and moved toward his left shoulder.
From there, Huo Can began drawing a series of thinner lines down his arm, following the path of his Huan Qi channels.
Pain and heat spread all the way to his fingertips.
As the patterns grew, tiny amounts of refined blood disappeared beneath his skin and merged with his meridians. Every new mark seemed to connect with the last, forming a reddish network that almost seemed to breathe with him.
General Fatty watched from the bed, unusually quiet.
"Master..." Lin Mo Chen murmured, sweat covering his face. "Is this going to stay visible forever?"
"Once the integration is complete, the patterns will hide beneath your skin. They'll only appear when you use the technique or absorb a spirit core."
"If you move and I ruin one of these lines, maybe you can explain to your mother why one of your arms stopped working."
Lin Mo Chen immediately fixed his posture.
For the next hour, Huo Can continued drawing.
Every stroke hurt more than the one before it. Lin Mo Chen couldn't move, and passing out wasn't an option either.
According to Huo Can, losing consciousness during the process would weaken Lin Mo Chen's control over his Huan Qi and allow the wild nature of the beast blood to invade his meridians.
So he stayed awake, biting down so hard that eventually he tasted blood.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, the brush stopped.
Crimson markings covered most of his upper body. From a distance, they might have looked like tattoos, but a closer look made it obvious that there was a precise structure behind them. Thick lines formed incomplete circles around his chest and back, while thinner paths connected those rings to his arms and core.
The blood remaining in the bowl was barely enough for one final stroke, but Huo Can didn't use it right away.
"Now comes the integration."
Breathing heavily, Lin Mo Chen looked down at the glowing marks.
"I thought they were already integrating."
"So far, I've only engraved them into your body. Next, you have to accept them."
"What's the difference?"
"When I activate the pattern, the nature of the Ironback Wolf's blood will try to spread through your channels. You'll have to use your Huan Qi to suppress it and guide it toward the four fragments of your ring."
A bitter expression appeared on Lin Mo Chen's face.
"Master, remember that my fragments haven't received any Huan Qi for an entire month because of you."
"That's exactly why this is the best time. They're hungry for Huan Qi."
"I don't think it works like that."
Ignoring his foolish disciple's protest, Huo Can raised the brush one last time.
A small circular mark was drawn directly over the center of Lin Mo Chen's chest, connecting all the previous lines.
For an instant, nothing happened, and Lin Mo Chen almost wondered if he had somehow been scammed.
Then every pattern lit up at once.
"Now, brat! Circulate your Huan Qi!"
A wild force exploded inside Lin Mo Chen's body.
The howl of a wolf seemed to thunder directly through his head as the markings burned with unbearable intensity. Bestial blood surged into his channels like an uncontrolled pack, smashing into everything in its path.
Lin Mo Chen shut his eyes and hurriedly gathered his Huan Qi. Compared to that ferocious energy, his own current felt like little more than a trickle of water facing a flood.
Even so, he gritted his teeth and forced it toward his chest.
"Don't try to stop it head-on!" Huo Can shouted. "Guide it. Use the patterns and force it along the proper path."
Following Huo Can's instructions, Lin Mo Chen stopped trying to resist the energy and began guiding it into the lines engraved beneath his skin.
Little by little, the uncontrolled ferocity found a path.
It moved down from his chest toward his core, circled around it, and finally flowed toward the incomplete fragments of his first Spirit Ring.
The moment the energy touched them, the fourth fragment trembled violently. Almost immediately, the hazy mass forming the fifth began to stir.
The fragment that had refused to fully consolidate for so long began rapidly absorbing the energy refined by the patterns.
A faint glow appeared inside it, and Lin Mo Chen could clearly feel the illusory portion beginning to take shape.
"Master! The fifth fragment...!"
"Focus, brat. Lose control now and you'll ruin everything I just did."
Lin Mo Chen immediately shut up and continued guiding the energy.
Gradually, the markings stopped feeling foreign. Each line sank deeper into his meridians, connecting with his core and the fragments of his pseudo-ring.
As the last of the Huan Qi inside the beast blood was brought under control, the pain began to fade.
The reddish glow covering his body weakened as well. One by one, the patterns disappeared beneath Lin Mo Chen's skin until only a faint circular mark remained over the center of his chest.
Even that eventually faded away.
Lin Mo Chen remained seated for several minutes, breathing heavily while sweat dripped from his face onto the floor.
He didn't dare move. His whole body felt as though it had been beaten, burned, and rebuilt all at once.
"Is it over?" he finally asked.
"The first part."
Lin Mo Chen slowly opened his eyes.
"The first part?"
"You've integrated the fundamental pattern. From now on, you'll be able to absorb a fraction of the energy contained within low-level, first-rank spirit cores."
A faint spark of excitement appeared on Lin Mo Chen's face.
"So it really worked."
"Naturally."
Remembering something, Lin Mo Chen closed his eyes again and turned his awareness inward toward his Qi core.
There, beside the other four fragments, the fifth no longer resembled an unstable mass of mist. Its edges had taken on a clear shape, and a faint light moved across its surface.
It still wasn't completely consolidated, but it was much closer than before.
A smile slowly spread across Lin Mo Chen's face. For the first time since arriving in this world, he could feel that something had truly changed.
"Master," he said as he opened his eyes, "maybe you're not completely useless after all."
A tiny spark flew out of the pendant and struck him directly on the forehead.
"Ow!"
"Show some respect, brat."
Startled by the movement, General Fatty jumped from the bed and landed on top of Lin Mo Chen's head.
After settling comfortably into his hair, she let out a satisfied cluck. Too exhausted to argue, Lin Mo Chen could only let his shoulders slump.
"Perfect. I get tattooed with beast blood, nearly burn alive, and somehow end up as a chicken nest again."
"They are not tattoos," Huo Can corrected. "They are spirit patterns."
Despite all his complaining, Lin Mo Chen couldn't keep the smile from his face. He had survived the ambush, obtained the blood, and finally taken the first step toward avoiding the miserable future of being thrown away in some remote village.
His satisfaction didn't last long.
"Rest tonight," Huo Can said. "I'll be sleeping for a while. I spent too much energy this time."
Lin Mo Chen's smile froze the moment he heard those words.
"Master... how long will you be asleep? What am I supposed to do when I need your help?"
"You'll have to learn how to handle things yourself, brat."
Remembering everything he had gone through in a single day just to obtain a miserable amount of resources, Lin Mo Chen felt a deep exhaustion settle over his soul.
General Fatty let out a cluck that sounded suspiciously like mockery.
"Shut up," Lin Mo Chen muttered. "You didn't contribute anything either."