Lin Shu stood before the library, its towering shelves stretching endlessly into the shadows. The air was thick with the scent of old parchment and ink. As he stepped inside, the silence pressed against him, heavy and expectant. Hundreds of books lined the shelves. For a moment, he wondered if the place where the institute stored its battle skills looked anything like this. Then, a ridiculous thought crossed his mind.
Could I steal them?
He almost laughed out loud. Madness. Even if he managed to find the battle skill vault, the institute wouldn't leave such things unguarded. Besides, he was nowhere near strong enough to pull off something so insane. Yet.
Shaking the thought away, Lin Shu set his focus on what he came for. He needed answers. About the cultivation world. About the institute. About his talent. Everything.
After some searching, he found a thick tome titled "On Talent and the Path of Cultivation." Settling into a quiet corner, he cracked it open and began to read.
Talents in the cultivation world are divided into six ranks:
Rank 0: The doomed. Those born with no ability to sense or manipulate Qi. They are forever barred from the path of cultivation.
Rank 1: The lowest of the cultivators. They can cultivate, but their future is bleak. Most will never advance beyond the peak of Rank 1, and those few who manage to claw their way into Rank 2 will find further progress nearly impossible. Refining Qi becomes an agonizing crawl, taking decades for even a small advancement.
Rank 2: A step above the lowest. Rank 2 talents can reach the peak of Rank 2 but no further. Their control and refinement of Qi are limited. Progress is slow, but not as hopeless as a Rank 1.
Rank 3: The first glimpse of real talent. Rank 3 cultivators can reach the peak of Rank 3 and might even glimpse the fabled realm of Soulpiercer. The name sent a shiver down Lin Shu's spine. To pierce the veil between body and soul, stepping into a level of power that few could comprehend — that was the realm of legends.
Rank 4: The truly gifted. They can ascend to Soulpiercer with certainty and have the potential to push even further into the near-mythical realm of Voidbreaker. Those of this rank are destined for greatness — if they survive.
Rank 5: The monsters. Also known as Heavenrend. Limitless potential. These rare beings can shatter the limits of human beings and reshape the land. Their only true enemy is time — and those who would kill them before they reach their peak.
Lin Shu's fingers tightened around the edges of the book.
Rank 1.
That was him. The bottom of the barrel. Barely better than a cripple.
He read further. It was said that a Rank 1 talent typically took a full year to advance a single stage at the start and it would only get harder. Lin Shu clenched his jaw. That lined up with his own experience. He'd been cultivating for almost a year now. His tenth birthday was only two months away, and he could feel himself nearing the mid-stage of Rank 1.
A Rank 2 talent could advance in less time, cutting months off the process. A Rank 3 could advance in half the time of a Rank 1. A Rank 4 needed only a quarter of that time, and a Rank 5 progressed even faster, leaving the rest in the dust.
Lin Shu closed the book and sat in silence.
His path would be long. Painfully long. But that was fine.
He needs talent. He needs shortcuts.
He needs time.
And he would make shortcuts if he couldn't find them,and raise his talent by any means necessary. No matter what.
Lin Shu continued to browse through the library, his eyes scanning page after page, taking in every piece of knowledge he could find. The deeper he read, the clearer the picture of the cultivation world in this region became.
This place was called Stormridge — a vast and rugged land known for its unforgiving nature. Towering mountain ranges loomed in the distance, forests stretched endlessly, and storms often swept across the skies, leaving behind a land both harsh and alive with power. Cultivation in Stormridge wasn't a refined art. It was a struggle, where the strong crushed the weak and carved out their place through blood and steel.
At the heart of this land stood four mid-tier sects, each commanding fear and respect in their own right. Lin Shu had never heard their names before, but as he read about them, he could feel the weight each one carried.
The first was the Stormbreak Sect — the very sect affiliated with his Martial Institute. The name alone carried a sense of impending destruction. Known for its thunderous sword arts, the Stormbreak Sect embodied power and rage. Its disciples were like tempests, each strike of their swords cracking through the air like a bolt of lightning, shattering anything in their path. They believed in overwhelming force, in dominating their enemies so utterly that resistance became unthinkable. To face a Stormbreak disciple was to stand before the fury of the storm itself, and few survived such encounters unscathed.
Then there was the Venomheart Sect — feared and reviled in equal measure. Where the Stormbreak Sect shattered their enemies head-on, the Venomheart Sect seeped into the cracks, poisoning from within. Masters of toxins and silent kills, they wielded venom like a blade, striking unseen and leaving corpses behind with no clear cause of death. Their enemies called them cowards, hiding behind their poisons and assassinations, but Lin Shu knew better. In a world where only strength mattered, it didn't matter how you killed — only that you survived.
Next came the Ironblood Sect — a bastion of raw, unrelenting strength. If the Stormbreak Sect was a thunderclap, the Ironblood Sect was an avalanche. Their disciples wielded massive weapons — hammers, axes, and clubs — each strike meant to crush bones and shatter defenses. They believed in the purity of strength, in meeting enemies head-on and overpowering them with sheer might. To them, poison was the weapon of the weak, and they loathed the Venomheart Sect with a passion. Theirs was a path of brute force and unyielding power. To fight an Ironblood disciple was to stand against a mountain — and hope it didn't fall on top of you.
Finally, there was the Silverpeak Sect — elegant, deadly, and precise. Their weapon of choice was the spear, a weapon they had turned into an art form. Every movement was calculated, every strike a piercing gale, capable of skewering enemies from afar before they even realized they were under attack. The Silverpeak Sect valued discipline above all else, their techniques honed to perfection through endless practice. To face a Silverpeak disciple was to be caught in a storm of cold, deadly precision — one mistake, and the spear would pierce your heart before you could even blink.
As Lin Shu read, he learned that these sects, along with the Martial Institutes and even the clans, followed the same ranking system. Rising in rank wasn't just about having a powerful leader — it required land, resources, and influence. Even these four sects, with all their power, had not yet reached the level of true mid-tier sects. Their leaders had the cultivation required, but they lacked the complete foundation needed to claim that title without question.
Stormridge was a land ruled by strength, ambition, and blood. The sects fought in the shadows and from the mountaintops, each seeking to climb higher, to seize more power and territory, to rise above the others.
Lin Shu closed the book, his heart pounding. He had grown up a beggar in a land like this. He had survived in the shadows, clawed his way up from the filth, and now he stood on the first step of a path that could lead him to power.
But power in Stormridge wasn't given. It was taken.
And Lin Shu had every intention of taking it.
Lin Shu's fingers brushed over the aged parchment as he flipped through the final pages of the book, his eyes narrowing. Beneath the surface of Stormridge's constant power struggles, there was something larger — something looming over the sects, institutes, and clans like an invisible hand, quietly dictating their fates.
The real reason no large-scale sect had ever emerged here was because of the empire that ruled over them all. An empire would never allow a large sect to rise unchecked. Large sects were more than just powerful — they were equals to empires, capable of standing against their might. For a sect to reach such heights, one condition had to be met: a cultivator must step into the realm known as the Voidbreaker Realm.
Lin Shu's pulse quickened. The Voidbreaker Realm. It wasn't just a higher stage of power — it was the threshold of legends. Those who reached that realm weren't mere cultivators anymore. They were called Emperors. To reach that level was to claim dominion over the earth, to bend reality itself with a flick of their fingers. A single Voidbreaker could change the course of history.
And that was precisely why the empire would never allow one to emerge in Stormridge.
Lin Shu scoured the shelves, looking for more. He found only scraps — vague mentions of emperors and sects that had risen and fallen long before his time. It seemed even the Martial Institute's library didn't hold the full truth. Or perhaps the truth had been buried long ago.
His gaze darkened as he stumbled across another piece of information. Beyond Stormridge, the world became even more mysterious. Almost nothing was documented about what lay outside this region. The few records he found described the lands beyond as chaotic, lawless, and impossible to pass through — as if the region itself was caged in by some unseen force.
He closed the book, frustration curling in his chest. If the outside world was unreachable, then what was the point of all this struggle? Did the sects fight endlessly, knowing they could never escape this land? Or was there a secret path, hidden from all but the most powerful?
Unable to find more, he approached the old man who oversaw the library. The librarian barely glanced at him, eyes half-closed as if lost in a dream. When Lin Shu asked him about the outside world, the man only chuckled softly.
"Nothing is really known beyond our region," the librarian said, his voice low and raspy. "Even in the large-scale institutes and clans, it's the same. I once visited a great sect's library — far grander than this place — and while it held many secrets, the knowledge of the world beyond was the same. Only the higher-ups of the sects… and the empire itself, know the truth."
Lin Shu thanked him quietly and left. His heart pounded with excitement. There was so much he didn't know, but that only stoked the flames inside him. The unknown… it called to him. He feared it, yes — but he longed for it.
He had also learned more about the realms of cultivation. Mid-tier sects like the Stormbreak Sect were led by cultivators at the Soulpiercer Realm — a level of power so far beyond him that he could barely comprehend it. But above even that stood the Voidbreaker Realm. He could only imagine what such a being was capable of.
Yet one question gnawed at him. Why would a Voidbreaker, someone who could destroy entire sects with a wave of their hand, bother ruling through subtlety? Why didn't the emperor crush them all and take everything by force? The books offered no answers. Perhaps the gap between realms was so vast that to him, these sects were mere ants, unworthy of his attention. Or perhaps there was another reason.
Lin Shu clenched his fists. All of it — the empire, the Voidbreakers, the unknown lands beyond Stormridge — it was far beyond him for now. But that only made him hungrier.
One day, he would know. One day, he would rise high enough to see what lay beyond the clouds.
And when that day came, not even the empire would stop him.