Mystic Breath

“Lin Qi, with a spiritual root like yours, there’s no need for you to attend the Rite of Ascension.” Spiritual root: 0.3. No chance of reaching the Dao. In a city where cultivation techniques are code and magical power is computing power, people at the bottom like him are called foundation stones. Tonight, chasing a double-price bounty for exorcising a nightmare, he crawled into that abandoned Breath Rail. Sixteen years ago, his father went in and never came back, leaving behind one sentence: Go deeper. The answers are below. In a crack between the rubble lay a piece of black metal engraved with symbols that did not belong to humanity. He reached out and touched it. “Sealer, you have reached the seventh cycle of reincarnation. Fragment No. 47/49. Function module: Analysis.” From the lower city, he began his rise, seeking the Dao amid the mundane world. Every cultivation technique appeared to him as exposed low-level code. Cultivation techniques all had a rhythm of breathing, and he could hear the pause of less than a second in every breath. He dodged every slash from a True Realm master without taking a single hit. Seeing through something didn’t mean he could do it himself. His mind had climbed three floors, but his legs were still on the first. He was still just a 0.3 who could only dodge. The Security Bureau sealed off the lower city, while the highest-ranking Daoist academy offered him a special admission. Everyone said Chang’an Daoist Academy had gained a poor student who’d just gotten lucky. In truth, the fragment could analyze far more than cultivation techniques: protocols, data, Breath Fields, even the layer missing from official maps. It saw through everything. From beginning to end, all anyone saw was his 0.3. Years later, old friends had faded into the past. When he reached the door at the deepest point in the city, that voice sounded again: “You’re not the first person to carry one of my fragments. The previous one came here 47 years ago.” The faint orange light in his palm flickered. Power isn’t a matter of talent. It’s a choice.