Rain gently tapped the rooftops of the outer district of Emberlight City, a bustling yet stratified urban landscape where lineage determined one's worth, and power was currency.
In a modest courtyard shrouded by an aging peach tree, Kael stood alone. His hair, damp from the rain, clung to his forehead, and his deep black eyes reflected a rare calmness for someone just sixteen. Today should have marked the celebration of his betrothal to Lin Xue, the eldest daughter of the Lin family—renowned alchemists with deep roots in Emberlight.
Instead, silence dominated the courtyard. Guests had already left, whispers of humiliation trailing behind them. The bride-to-be had refused the union. Not because Kael lacked manners, intelligence, or appearance—in fact, those who paid attention might have noticed that the boy's features were becoming inexplicably more refined with each passing day. No, the rejection was due to a single reason: Kael was believed to be spiritually crippled.
"He doesn't have a cultivation base. That's the truth," Lin Xue had stated coldly in front of her elders. "I will not tie my future to someone who cannot protect me."
What none of them knew—what even Kael himself didn't fully understand—was that his cultivation base couldn't be sensed by ordinary means. The truth was, his soul sea and spiritual veins had long surpassed what city-grade techniques could detect.
The whispers in the Lin family manor echoed:
"Pity, such a promising young man…"
"Handsome, yes, but useless."
"Lin Xue did the right thing."
Kael stood beneath the tree, soaked in rejection and silence. His father had left the world when Kael was a child, after saving the Lin patriarch during a fatal beast tide. The marriage was supposed to be a way of honoring that debt.
But debts meant little when the future was at stake.
Suddenly, a soft voice broke the silence.
"Kael… you should come inside. You'll get sick."
It was Lin Mei, the younger sister—only fifteen. Unlike her sister, she had always watched Kael from afar with curiosity, sometimes admiration. She didn't speak much, but her voice now held a gentleness that Kael had not expected from anyone today.
He turned and nodded. "I'm fine, Mei. Just needed the air."
He stepped back inside, the warmth of the room doing little to thaw the coldness in his heart. He wouldn't cry. He wouldn't break. Instead, he opened the old scroll he had hidden beneath the floorboards—a forbidden technique salvaged from a rogue cultivator's corpse two years ago.
Its script danced like fire, its contents cryptic to anyone with ordinary perception. But Kael's eyes glowed faintly, and the characters unfolded like long-lost memories.
"I won't force anyone to believe in me," he murmured. "But when I rise, the world will have no choice."
He closed the scroll and began meditating. Unknown to even himself, his spiritual energy coiled like a dragon in slumber—vast, unfathomable, and completely undetectable by those who had dismissed him.