The sky above the Wang ancestral peaks had been quiet all morning.
No thunder.
No omen.
No restless winds.
Just silence—deep and expectant, as though the heavens themselves were holding their breath.
It was the kind of silence that comes before something irreversible.
Within the great Jade Ancestral Hall, sacred incense curled upward in spirals, drawn by unseen currents of qi. Spirit lamps flickered along towering jade columns carved with phoenixes and serpents, casting soft golden light across the gathering of clan elders, sect dignitaries, and cultivators of ancient lineages.
They had not come merely to honor tradition.
They had come to witness.
To judge.
Wang Jun was twelve years old when the elders brought him before the Spirit Mirror.
His silver eyes—blind from birth—remained still.
He could not see the mirror, nor the crowd, nor the suspicion draped across whispered silences.
But he stood straight, head high, his bearing calm and measured.
Though sightless, he had long learned to hear the thoughts behind silences.
The scent of dragonwood incense brushed his senses. His robes, simple undyed silk, stirred faintly in the presence of so many cultivators. Spiritual auras brushed against the edges of the hall like tides against ancient stone.
He stood alone at the heart of the Jade Hall, on cold blackened marble carved during the founding of the Wang Clan. Overhead, the ceiling depicted a celestial dragon devouring its own tail—the symbol of eternity.
All around him, the air trembled faintly with power: ancient, solemn, and unyielding.
He bowed low.
"Wang Jun, son of Wang Li, offers greeting to the ancestors."
His voice, soft and steady, rang like a clear bell through the hallowed space, brushing against the spirit banners that bore the names of those who came before—generals, sages, beast-slayers, and cultivators who had shaped dynasties and passed into legend.
Twelve elders—men and women of deep cultivation—formed a crescent around him. Their robes bore the fivefold crest of the Wang Clan: sword, dragon, flame, cloud, and mountain, embroidered in threads of spirit silk that shimmered with protective seals.
Their eyes held many things.
Some, pity.
Others, the quiet glint of hope.
And a few—sharp intent, like blades drawn in shadow.
But all eyes eventually drifted toward the man seated at the head of the hall.
Wang Long.
The Supreme Dragon General.
The man who had shattered the siege at Red Mist Gorge with a single roar. Who led the Emperor's vanguard through the poisoned pits of the Withered Realms. A legend among cultivators, he stood at the peak of the Nascent Soul Realm, his presence bending qi itself.
His long white hair was bound in a golden ring. Nine dragons embroidered in storm-black thread coiled across his crimson war robe. Though age had lined his face, his aura coiled like a slumbering flood dragon—vast, untamed, and dangerous.
His arms were folded across his chest. His eyes were closed. Still as stone.
And yet, no one mistook that stillness for inattention.
The hall held its breath.
Because he held his.
A low hum stirred the chamber.
The Spirit Mirror was awakening.
Smithed from pure qi crystals harvested at the roots of a heavenly mountain and set into an ancient dragon-bone frame, the mirror had stood in the Wang Clan's Hall of Awakening for 2,300 years. It had judged the potential of every heir since the founding patriarch, Wang Tian.
Now it faced a blind child.
Though the hall remained steeped in ritual silence, currents of private thought flickered beneath the surface—elders exchanging Sound Transmissions, sharp as daggers behind smiles.
"Both parents dead, and now the blind child stands before the mirror?"
"A quiet tragedy… but unfit for the clan."
"This is not duty. It is sentiment."
"Wang Long moves unchecked—grief does not excuse recklessness."
"If the mirror shatters… the shame will stain us all."
Their voices vanished as quickly as they rose. Subtle. Controlled. Measured.
But Wang Long opened one eye.
Just for a moment.
And all thoughts fell silent.
Grand Elder Wang Qing stepped forward. Once a rival to Wang Long, now gray-bearded and broad-shouldered, he carried the ceremonial Staff of Resonance.
"Wang Jun," he intoned, "son of Wang Li, heir of the seventh son. Step forward. Let the ancestors judge your worth."
Jun stepped forward.
He could feel the weight of eyes, of lineage, of a thousand souls pressing down from above.
The crowd's qi was heavy and unmoving.
But beneath it—something else.
Something vaster.
Like a river behind stone.
The Dao itself.
He lifted his hand.
And placed it on the mirror.
The heavens split.
Qi surged into him like a divine flood—not gentle, not coaxing.
It devoured.
It tore through his flesh and spirit like lightning through dry wood.
Thought vanished.
Breath vanished.
Even self.
Then—
Light.
One.
Two.
Three.
Four.
Five.
Fire—a blaze of the Vermilion Bird, wild and exultant.
Water—a veil of the Black Tortoise, cold and inexorable.
Earth—solid, brown-gold, the spine of the Yellow Dragon.
Metal—silver-edged, the razor bite of the White Tiger.
Wood—living green, the reaching grace of the Azure Dragon.
The Five Elements.
All awakened.
All present.
All in perfect harmony.
The chamber exploded in uproar.
"Five roots?! Madness!"
"No cultivator has awakened all five in a thousand years!"
"He'll be torn apart before reaching Foundation!"
"Too much chaos—his channels will collapse!"
But Wang Jun did not fall.
He stood trembling, breath ragged.
And yet…
He felt no pain.
No flame warred with water.
No metal clashed with wood.
They moved—flowing, circling, yielding.
Harmony.
I saw it. Not with my eyes—but with something deeper.
The Five Elements did not riot.
They danced—like a sacred cycle.
Fire fed Wood.
Wood nourished Earth.
Earth birthed Metal.
Metal refined Water.
Water calmed Fire.
A divine circle.
A mandala of creation.
Not a storm.
A song.
Most cultivators awakened only Pseudo Roots—mixed, impure, often contradictory.
A rare few awakened True Roots—three elements in loose alignment.
Rarer still were Twin Heavenly Roots—two perfectly matched elements in resonance.
And once in an era—an Immortal Root.
But five?
Even in legend, only one name was whispered: Yuan Mei the Broken.
She did not survive.
But Wang Jun…
Felt no breaking.
Only becoming.
The mirror's glow surged.
Five elemental colors danced across the jade walls like awakened spirits.
Then—
Step.
Step.
Step.
The Supreme Dragon General descended from the altar.
Each step was quiet.
Each shook the earth.
Elders bowed.
Cultivators held their breath.
He stood before his grandson, and placed a scarred, calloused hand on the boy's shoulder.
"He does not bear five curses," he said, voice low but resonant as thunder.
"He bears five blessings."
The murmurs stilled.
"The Dao has chosen him—not for balance, but for unity.
Five roots. One will. One spirit."
He lifted a palm. The Spirit Mirror flared again.
"The elements do not clash.
They kneel."
He turned, eyes sweeping the chamber.
"Let all who doubt remember this day.
Wang Jun, born blind, sees the Dao more clearly than any of us."
He faced the boy again, voice softening.
"You are no longer a child, Jun'er.
You are a cultivator now."
He knelt.
Pressed his palm to Jun's forehead.
Qi surged—warm, vast, grounding.
The breath of a dragon.
The legacy of blood.
"This is your first step," Wang Long whispered.
"Let the heavens witness it."
That night, Wang Jun sat alone on the cliff behind his family's manor.
The pines whispered in the mountain wind.
The stars shimmered above.
He could not see them.
But he felt them—kissing his skin like distant rain.
Each a voice in the sky of the Dao.
Footsteps approached.
A girl's voice—gentle and unsure.
"Brother Jun?"
He didn't turn.
"It's you, Sister Lian."
Wang Lian—his cousin, two years older. Sharp of mind. Soft of heart.
She sat beside him. The cliff's edge stretched out before them.
She glanced at him.
His silver eyes gazed into the dark.
"They're beautiful tonight," he said.
She looked up.
"The stars?"
He nodded.
"I can feel how the wind carries their light."
She hesitated. Then smiled.
"You really can sense that?"
"I don't need eyes to know the sky is vast," he said quietly.
"The Dao moves through everything. Even starlight leaves a whisper."
Silence. Deep and still.
Then—
"They're afraid of you," she said softly.
"I know."
"They think… you'll be torn apart."
He gave a small shrug.
"Maybe I will."
The trees stirred. A hush in their branches.
Then her voice—firmer.
"But you won't."
He turned slightly toward her.
"Why are you so sure?"
"Because you're not just one thing.
You carry them all—but you're still you.
You're not broken.
You're whole."
She didn't have the words of sages.
But he didn't need her to.
He tilted his head back. Let the wind kiss his brow.
And beneath it, he felt the rhythm of the world:
The pulse of qi in stone.
The silence between leaves.
The breath of heaven.
And he knew.
The path ahead would not be kind.
It would test him.
Burn him.
Refine him.
But it was his.
And it had begun.