The life of a menial laborer in the Green Mountain Sect was a monotonous cycle of grueling work, governed by the rising and setting of the sun. For Li Yu, the first few weeks were a brutal adjustment. He would awaken in the pre-dawn chill, the air still heavy with mist, and join the handful of other laborers under the grumpy supervision of Uncle Wei.
His first task was always the same: chopping the tough, fibrous stalks of Spirit Grass. The grass was a low-grade spiritual plant, grown specifically as fodder for the demonic beasts. Its stalks were as thick as his wrist and surprisingly resilient, and the heavy iron chopper felt like it weighed as much as he did. His small hands were quickly covered in blisters, which broke, bled, and eventually hardened into thick calluses.
After chopping a mountain of grass, he would have to mix the bait. This was the most stomach-turning part of the job. Huge vats of congealed blood from slaughtered land-based demonic beasts were delivered twice a week.
It was Li Yu’s job to scoop this foul-smelling jelly into buckets, mix it with the chopped Spirit Grass and a special blend of minerals, and stir it into a thick, pungent slurry. The stench clung to his clothes and hair, a permanent perfume of iron and decay that no amount of washing in the creek could ever truly remove.
Then came the feeding. He would haul the heavy buckets along the rickety wooden walkways that crisscrossed the vast lakes, tossing scoop after scoop of the slurry into the water. The surface would boil with activity as thousands of Green-Scaled Carp and other low-level aquatic beasts fought for the food, their scales flashing in the morning light.
It was a dangerous task. The walkways were slick with scum and a single misstep could send him plunging into the water, where the frenzied fish would not be able to distinguish between bait and boy.
The rest of the day was filled with endless chores: scrubbing the walkways, dredging scum and waste from the edges of the lakes, and mending the nets used to corral the fish. He ate his meals—thin rice porridge and a piece of coarse bread—in silence, listening to the other laborers complain about their aching backs and the miserable work.
They were a collection of desperate men who had failed to awaken a spirit or whose talent was too poor to enter the sect as a proper disciple. They saw this place as a dead end, a life of servitude with no hope of advancement. They still stayed because opportunities elsewhere were also difficult to find.
Li Yu saw it as his sacred ground.
Every night, when the exhaustion of the day settled deep into his bones and the other laborers were snoring in their huts, his true work would begin. He would slip out of his shack and find a secluded spot on a grassy knoll overlooking the lakes, far enough away that he wouldn't be disturbed. There, under the silver light of the moon, he would sit with his legs crossed and begin to cultivate.
He would close his eyes and activate the «Myriad Rivers Returning to the Sea Art». The world would transform. The physical exhaustion would melt away, replaced by a heightened state of awareness. He could feel the pull of life forces in the lakes below, each one a small, shimmering light in his perception. Following the profound instructions of the cultivation art, he would extend his will, and the red Koi in his dantian would begin to hum.
A gentle, invisible mist of spiritual energy would rise from the lakes. It was the result of him drawing a minuscule, harmless amount of Qi from every single fish within his range. At first, his range was barely five feet. Now, after three months of diligent practice, it had expanded to nearly ten. The mist of Qi would flow towards him, converging into a gentle stream that entered his body.
The Qi was chaotic, a mixture of different sources, but the «Myriad Rivers Returning to the Sea Art» was miraculous. As the energy entered his meridians, the technique would automatically begin to filter, purify, and refine it, stripping away the individual bestial auras and leaving only the purest form of spiritual energy.
But it did something more, something that was arguably even more important for his survival. As it refined the Qi, it also imbued his own spiritual signature with the faint, natural aura of the aquatic life from which it was drawn. To any cultivator who might try to probe him, he wouldn't feel like a human cultivator.
He would feel like a slightly stronger-than-average fish. It was a good camouflage, a gift from his spirit that allowed him to hide in plain sight. This pure disguised Qi would then circulate through his body before finally settling in his dantian, a placid and ever-deepening sea of power.
His progress was astonishing. Within the first month, he had broken through to the Second Stage of the Body Tempering Realm. By the end of the third month, he was already touching the barrier to the Third Stage. His cultivation speed was terrifying. He was able to hide because of the concealment of his cultivation art.
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While the Qi art built his internal foundation, the «Abyssal Leviathan Physique» tempered his external form. After absorbing his fill of Qi for the night, he would begin a series of strange, slow movements. To an outside observer, it might look like a clumsy dance or a form of calisthenics. But each movement was precise, designed to circulate the absorbed vitality and life essence through every inch of his body.
The process was not gentle. He would feel a deep, grinding sensation in his bones, as if they were being pulverized and reformed, growing denser and stronger. His muscles would ache and burn as they were torn and rebuilt on a microscopic level. It was a painful, arduous process, but Li Yu welcomed it. The pain was a sign of progress. It was the feeling of weakness being forged into strength.
The physical changes were subtle but profound. He was still a small, thin ten-year-old on the outside, easily overlooked. But beneath his simple clothes, his body was becoming as tough as tempered leather. The daily labor that had once left him gasping for breath now felt like a light warm-up. He could carry two buckets of bait at a time without stumbling if he wanted to but he continued to carry just one. The heavy chopper felt as light as a twig in his hands.
One afternoon, a problem arose. An outer disciple, a haughty young man named Brother Chen who was in charge of overseeing the Aquatic Pens, was standing on the shore of Lake Veridian, his face dark with anger.
"What is wrong with these fish?" he snapped at Uncle Wei. "A whole section of them are listless. They aren't eating properly. If the stock is ruined, it will be your head!"
Uncle Wei bowed and scraped, his face pale with fear. "This old servant doesn't know, Young Master Chen! We have fed them the same as always!"
Li Yu was nearby, scrubbing a walkway. He glanced over at the section of the lake in question. The fish were indeed sluggish, many of them floating near the surface, their gills barely moving. While Brother Chen and Uncle Wei were stumped, Li Yu knew the problem instantly.
His spiritual sense, his innate connection to aquatic life, gave him the clear picture. He could feel a sickness in the water, a subtle corruption that was irritating the fish. It wasn't a disease but an environmental issue.
He focused his senses and the feeling became clearer. It was coming from the lakebed. Something sharp. Something foul. Snails. Parasites.
He knew he couldn't just announce the solution. A ten-year-old menial laborer couldn't possibly know more than a sect disciple. It would raise questions he couldn't answer. He needed a different approach.
Later that day, as he was helping Uncle Wei store the empty bait buckets, he spoke in a hesitant, childish voice. "Uncle Wei," he began, looking at the ground. "My father… he used to say that sometimes, when the black river moss grows too thick on the rocks, it can make the carp sick. He said it makes their bellies hurt."
It was a complete fabrication, a story he had thought through over and over to sound reasonable.
Uncle Wei, who was still fretting over Brother Chen's threats, paused. He looked at Li Yu, his brow furrowed. "Black river moss? Nonsense. That stuff is harmless. There is black river moss in many of the ponds here."
"He said you have to pull it all up," Li Yu continued, as if he hadn't heard. "And that sometimes, nasty little snails hide in it."
The old man thought about it for a bit, thinking if that could be true. Snails? He hadn’t seen any snails recently. It was a long shot, but it was better than nothing. Facing the wrath of an outer disciple was a terrifying prospect. He would try anything that came to mind right now.
The next morning, Uncle Wei, without mentioning Li Yu's "suggestion," ordered the laborers to take the dredging nets to the afflicted section of the lake. "There's too much scum on the bottom here!" he told them. "Clean it all out!"
The work was filthy and exhausting. The laborers grumbled as they dragged the heavy nets, pulling up load after load of mud, weeds, and thick black moss. And then, one of them shouted. "What are these things?"
Uncle Wei and Brother Chen, who had come again to inspect the work, rushed over. Clinging to the roots of the black moss were hundreds of small, spiral-shelled snails. Their shells were a sickly grey color and they secreted a foul-smelling slime. They were Parasitic River Snails, a known nuisance that could poison a small body of water if their numbers grew too large.
Brother Chen's face went from anger to relief. "So that's it! Get rid of all of them! Dredge the entire section until it's clean!"
The problem seemed like it was resolved for now. Within two days, the Green-Scaled Carp were active and eating again. Brother Chen was in a much better mood. He didn't praise Uncle Wei for finding the issue but the absence of threats was a reward in itself.
That evening, as Li Yu was finishing his meager dinner of porridge, Uncle Wei approached his hut. The old man wordlessly placed something on his small wooden table. It was a warm, fluffy meat bun.
"You're a good worker, brat," Uncle Wei said, not meeting his eyes. "Eat up. You're too skinny. You won’t be able to do your work properly if you don’t grow more." He turned and shuffled away before Li Yu could say anything.
Li Yu stared at the meat bun, a warmth spreading through his chest that had nothing to do with cultivation. It was a small victory, a simple acknowledgment, but it meant the world to him. He had made a difference here.
He ate the bun slowly, savoring every bite. It wasn’t the normal bun that workers were given, it was a bun that cultivators ate. The rich meat and spiritual energy within it was a luxury he hadn't experienced from eating in his whole life. He felt his body absorb the nourishment, strengthening him further ever so slightly.