The stones hummed.
That was the first thing Arion noticed as the traveling merchant held up a rough-edged crystal the size of a child's fist.
It wasn't glowing. Not exactly. It was more like a faint shimmer pulsed from it with every breath the merchant took.
"The beast came too close," the merchant grunted, patting the stone pouch tied to his side.
"The shard sang its warning. Worth its weight in gold, this one."
A lie. Or at least a stretch.
Arion knew how sales worked. He'd sat across polished tables, driving up valuation with wordplay and performance.
But even so… the reaction was real. There was something resonating between that stone and the nearby danger.
And now he had a name for it: spirit stone.
He memorized the shape, the surface pattern, even the way the merchant held it—carefully, as though even the oils of a dirty finger could interfere.
---
Later that evening, Arion sat by a cracked basin, washing vegetables with freezing stream water, and replayed what he'd seen.
Spirit stone—reacts to energy. Likely absorbs ambient aura. Could serve as both sensor and fuel.
The village believed spirit stones were gifts of the heavens, formed when lightning struck a pure mountain or when a beast bled under the full moon.
Arion didn't laugh. He listened. Every myth was a thread. Enough threads wove truth.
From scattered talk, he pieced together the three "sacred foundations" of a cultivator's journey:
Spirit Root: The innate channel. A spiritual organ, unseen but crucial, that allowed one to absorb energy from the world.
Spirit Stones: Crystallized essence. Used to heal, power techniques, or trade for favors.
The Path: Techniques, trials, and tempering one's body and soul through hardship.
And Arion had none of it.
No root.
No stone.
No path.
He was five winters old, barely stronger than a lamb, and—according to everyone—spiritually mute.
But what they didn't know was that he'd already built corporations from ash and steel, navigated geopolitical chaos, and pulled entire systems from theory to empire.
They didn't know he was already planning his rise.
He just needed data.
---
The next morning, he wandered the edge of the woods with a blunt stick and a scrap of dried meat tied to it.
He wasn't hunting. He was watching.
Some beasts responded to noise. Some avoided sunlight.
But one—an iron-furred badger with red-tipped claws—circled slowly when he laid a pebble coated in fire pit ash near its nest.
When it drew close, a faint static clung to the air. The grass shimmered unnaturally.
"There it is again", Arion thought. That field of tension.
He began to suspect that spirit energy wasn't just some mystical concept—it was real.
Measurable. Environmental. And beasts, especially those who cultivated instinctively, carried and leaked it.
What if spirit stones weren't heavenly gifts… but condensers?
What if roots weren't mystical only, but biological as well?
What if talent was optimization?
---
That evening, as the village children huddled near a borrowed fire and old man Gharo recounted stories of the Heavenroot Sect, Arion sat apart, tracing lines into the dirt.
He drew three circles: body, soul, spirit.
Then three more: energy, conduit, reservoir.
He stared at them for a long time, letting the wind blow some lines away. He redrew them differently.
Not as mystic geometry—but as systems.
Not questions of faith—but of function.
And quietly, under his breath, he whispered:
"Everything that flows can be understood. Everything that can be understood can be shaped."
---
The village's talent test was coming. A ritual once every two winters, when the wandering seer returned and pressed bone against skin and declared your fate.
Arion would be tested.
He would fail.
But failure… was only the beginning.