The automated blinds of the Jiang family's apartment slowly creaked open as the sunlight of Songhai City spilled into the boy's room. A soft breeze from the open ventilation unit stirred the curtains, carrying the scents of high-altitude air and the metallic tang of a city suspended above the clouds. Jiang Luo, now ten years old, stirred beneath his covers and blinked at the ceiling.
The ceiling projection was already active, displaying the current date: Year 4688, April 17th. His name was on the corner of the screen—Jiang Luo, Class B-03, Skyview Academy—and beside it a small notice blinked: Your assignment deadline is today.
He groaned and rolled over.
"Luo'er, up already?" Xuan Yi's voice echoed from the kitchen. Her voice was clear, firm, and as always, impossibly graceful. She had the aura of a woman from a noble family, though Jiang Luo knew his mother never liked talking about her background. Every time he asked, she'd just smile mysteriously and change the subject.
"Almost!" he called back as he sat up, rubbing the sleep from his eyes. His black hair was a wild mess from sleep, sticking out like a lion's mane, and his blue eyes—so piercing and unusual in contrast to his otherwise humble appearance—shimmered in the dim light.
He dragged himself from the bed and shuffled into the bathroom. The mirror's scanning panel lit up as he stood in front of it. The interface hummed.
> Biometric check complete: Jiang Luo. Status: Normal. Cultivation Level: Unawakened.
Mood: 57% Neutral / 31% Bored / 12% Hungry.
He splashed water on his face and dried off quickly. The interface had no idea how wrong it was. But that was the point.
---
In the living room, Jiang Mu sat at the table reading a holographic newspaper. His father wore a sharp sky-blue suit, the kind he always wore to the Ministry of Urban Affairs, where he worked as an infrastructure regulator. Not a particularly glorious job, but it paid well. Jiang Mu was a serious man, but his eyes softened the moment he saw his son walk in.
"There's my boy," he said, lowering the newsfeed. "Breakfast is ready. You've got school in forty."
Xuan Yi was already placing a tray on the table. "Three sunny-side-up eggs, sweet soy buns, and fruit tea. Eat it all this time, Luo'er."
Jiang Luo smiled sheepishly. "I will, I will."
He sat down and took a bite. The food was warm, the yolk runny just the way he liked it. He could feel the Qi particles woven into the ingredients, faintly. Urban citizens didn't often have access to powerful cultivation resources, but even regular food in Songhai City was enhanced with minor spiritual energy.
He wondered, for a moment, what would happen if he simply absorbed it all—transformed the energy, refined it, displayed even a flicker of what he truly was.
But no. That would be reckless. Too soon.
He picked up the buns and focused on eating like a normal child.
"How are your classes going?" Jiang Mu asked between sips of tea.
"Fine," Luo replied. "We're learning about the Warring Clans of the 3800s and how spiritual harmonics changed cultivation techniques in the northern provinces. Professor Shen says I ask too many questions."
"That's my boy," Jiang Mu said with a chuckle. "Curiosity is strength."
"Just don't push yourself," Xuan Yi added. "There's no hurry to stand out. Being quiet has its own wisdom."
Jiang Luo nodded. He didn't need to be told twice.
---
The hover tram to Skyview Academy was always crowded. Students in various colored uniforms filled the compartment, their chatter mixing with the humming of the magnetic rails. Jiang Luo stood near the window, his slim figure and average height blending in with the rest.
Songhai City, built atop a floating platform in the skies, stretched endlessly around him. Towers of jade-infused steel, neon talismans fluttering in the wind, and glowing spirit runes carved into the surfaces of buildings gave the city an otherworldly look. Ancient mysticism fused with hypermodern architecture.
He leaned against the handrail, watching a golden-winged courier beast soar between towers. His classmates, oblivious to the deeper fabric of reality, babbled about assignments and gossip.
"I heard Jin Wen from Class A-01 broke through to Yellow Rank Tier-2 yesterday!"
"No way! That's insane for a thirteen-year-old."
"Yeah, his parents are both Inner Sect elites from Tianlan Mountain. Makes sense."
Jiang Luo smiled faintly. If only they knew.
His spiritual presence was sealed so deeply that even formation masters would mistake him for a Qi-less mortal. Yet, under that mundane disguise was a force that could erase entire sects from existence. But he was content—content to play the part of a normal boy, content to live a life that was peaceful, if only for now.
---
Skyview Academy's campus was split into cultivation disciplines: sword arts, talisman studies, alchemy, beast taming, formation theory, and the rarely selected "Academic Stream"—which focused more on history, theory, and logic.
Luo belonged to none of them. Not officially, anyway. His 'unawakened' status placed him into the general class—B-03—where students were treated as average until their spirit roots manifested.
His homeroom teacher, Miss Feng, was a young cultivator in her late twenties, a Spirit Refinement Realm expert who believed in tough love. She greeted them as they filed in.
"Seats! Sit down!"
Jiang Luo sat near the window, as always. From there, he could see the academy's floating arena in the distance and, above it, a formation that projected illusions of past tournaments.
"Alright, class," Miss Feng said, "today we'll review elemental affinities. I expect your homework scrolls ready after this. No excuses."
As she droned on about fire-natured spirit roots and their weaknesses against water-based techniques, Jiang Luo's eyes wandered.
There was a bird perched on the railing outside. A small one. Blue feathers, golden beak. It stared at him.
No. Not stared—watched.
Jiang Luo blinked. A moment passed, and the bird took off.
He leaned back and smiled. "They're still keeping tabs on me, huh?"
Of course. A few powers in the world weren't so easily fooled. His existence may have been hidden, but anomalies leave ripples. And ripples draw attention.
But none of that mattered. Not yet.
He turned back to his book and raised his hand.
"Yes, Jiang Luo?" Miss Feng said, surprised.
"Is it true that dual-attribute spirit roots are unstable if not refined through a Beast Core process?"
She raised an eyebrow, then smiled. "That's... a very good question."
His classmates turned to look at him. This was rare. Jiang Luo rarely participated in class. Most assumed he was just quiet and maybe even a little slow. A soft chuckle rippled through the room.
"Hey, he finally spoke!"
"Didn't know he had a voice."
Jiang Luo just smiled and looked out the window again.
---
The day passed uneventfully. Classes. More classes. Lunch. Training halls he wasn't allowed to enter. Everyone focusing on breakthroughs, progression, and earning the right to be seen.
At sunset, he walked home alone.
The city glowed with thousands of lantern lights. Spirit beasts moved through the streets under the watch of patrol formations. Vendors sold trinkets that promised to "awaken latent roots," most of them scams.
Jiang Luo moved silently past them, steps light, gaze indifferent.
He stopped by an alleyway on the way home. A kitten mewled, caught under a trash bin. A teenager from another school was laughing, poking at it with a stick.
Jiang Luo's eyes narrowed.
"Hey," he said.
The boy looked up, scowling. "What? You want to fight?"
Jiang Luo just stared.
There was something in that look—something deeper than anger. An ancient stillness. For a moment, the teen's heart skipped. He dropped the stick and ran without another word.
The kitten stared up at Jiang Luo. He knelt and gently lifted the bin, letting it scamper away.
And then he walked home.
---
That night, as the stars above Songhai shimmered with artificial constellations and spiritual satellites blinked silently in the sky, Jiang Luo sat on his balcony and stared upward.
Below, his parents were talking in hushed tones. They didn't know the truth. They didn't need to.
"I'll live this life slowly," he whispered. "Like an ordinary boy. Until it's time."
His eyes, like deep blue voids, glinted under the moonlight.
The following morning began like any other, but the skies over Songhai City shimmered with stormy clouds, a rare weather pattern for the city that floated high above the lower atmosphere. Rumors spread quickly across comm-screens and message talismans: an anomaly in the atmospheric Qi density had been detected. Some said it was a prelude to a great awakening; others believed it was the result of an ancient artifact being unearthed beneath the city.
Jiang Luo didn't care much for the gossip.
He sat quietly at the family dining table, his breakfast untouched. A bowl of steaming millet porridge sat in front of him, but his attention was on the nearby window, where gray clouds churned like restless spirits. There was something in the wind that whispered to him—an old presence, like something ancient calling out.
Xuan Yi, ever sensitive, noticed his silence. She reached across the table, placing a gentle hand on his.
"You alright, Luo'er?"
He blinked and turned to her, quickly composing his face with a soft smile. "Yeah, just thinking about school. We've got a mock exam today."
Jiang Mu looked up from his datapad. "The affinity examination?"
Luo nodded. "They want to measure potential even in the unawakened students."
Xuan Yi's brow furrowed. "What for? You're still young. There's no rush for awakening."
Jiang Mu folded the pad and set it aside. "It's the system, Yi'er. They want to funnel talents into specialized academies early. Even the Ministry's getting pressure to revise the age brackets. I heard the sects are watching the new generation closely."
Luo listened quietly. Of course the sects were watching. Of course the government wanted numbers. But none of them could comprehend what he really was. And that was exactly how it needed to stay.
"I'll just score average," he said with a soft laugh. "Wouldn't want to stand out."
---
The academy's affinity testing chamber was located on the fourth floor of the eastern tower. It was a circular room built of spirit-forged glass and stabilized by a Qi-lock array that glowed faintly with golden lines running through the floor and walls.
Students entered one by one, placing their hands on the spherical resonance crystal at the center of the room. A series of floating screens would display their spiritual potential—color-coded for the five elements, plus rare attributes like lightning, ice, metal, and void. Most students displayed faint pulses of one or two elements, a sign of minor affinity waiting to blossom. The stronger the resonance, the brighter the glow.
Jiang Luo stood at the back of the line with the rest of Class B-03. He watched passively as one by one, his classmates took their turn.
"Wu Min," the teacher called.
Wu Min stepped forward and placed his hand on the orb. A faint blue glow lit up—water affinity. The class clapped politely.
"Next. Yan Zhi."
A red-orange flare. Fire affinity. "Impressive," the teacher muttered. "Tier-1 responsiveness."
"Zhang Lei."
A dull gray flicker. Metal, but weak.
Then finally—
"Jiang Luo."
He stepped forward.
He had done this countless times before. Always the same result: no reaction, no response, just a dull, silent orb. And he had trained himself not to flinch, not to react, to perfectly imitate a confused and disappointed child. Today would be no different.
He placed his hand on the orb.
Nothing.
Silence.
The teacher, a middle-aged cultivator named Old Instructor Bai, scratched his chin and glanced at his clipboard. "Still nothing, huh?"
Luo shook his head, feigning embarrassment.
Instructor Bai sighed. "Unfortunate. But not unheard of. Some cultivators awaken much later in life. Go ahead and sit, Jiang Luo."
He walked back to his seat without looking at anyone. Some classmates smirked. Others whispered among themselves.
"Ten years old and still nothing…"
"I heard his mom's a cultivator. Weird he didn't inherit anything."
"Maybe he's adopted."
Jiang Luo ignored them. That was easy.
What wasn't easy was ignoring the orb itself. He could feel it. That fragile thing humming with such primitive design. It had tried to read him, to scan for spiritual essence—but it was like dipping a teacup into an ocean and expecting to measure the tides.
He had let it find nothing.
---
After the exams, Jiang Luo slipped away to the upper courtyard gardens, a part of the academy grounds often overlooked by the more aggressive students. It was peaceful there. Rows of cherry trees bloomed with white petals, and spirit birds nested quietly in the stone lanterns.
He sat on a bench and watched the petals fall.
He'd always liked quiet places. Places that reminded him of something… else. Not a memory, but a resonance, like a song long forgotten. Sometimes, when the world was still and the sky grew dark, he felt like he could hear the echoes of voices not bound to time. Perhaps it was part of who he truly was. Perhaps it was loneliness.
"Jiang Luo?"
He turned to see a girl standing nearby.
It was Li Mei, one of the few students who treated him like a person instead of a disappointment. She was from Class A-01, destined for cultivation greatness, with a thunder affinity and a noble background. Her father was a council elder of the Eastern Sect. Yet she spoke to him as if they were equals.
"You alright?" she asked, sitting beside him.
"Sure. Just avoiding the chatter."
She smiled. "I heard the results. Don't let them bother you."
He tilted his head. "You don't believe I'm hopeless?"
She shook her head. "I don't know why, but… you don't seem ordinary. Not exactly. There's something calm about you. Something… strong."
His heart skipped. For a moment, he feared she saw too much.
But she looked away. "Besides, who needs flashy talents? Some of the greatest cultivators started as nobodies."
He chuckled. "Thanks."
They sat in silence a while longer.
A blossom drifted onto his lap. He picked it up and flicked it into the air, watching it dance on a breeze.
Li Mei turned to him suddenly. "Do you ever… feel like you're pretending?"
His smile faltered. He looked at her carefully.
"I mean," she continued, "like everyone expects you to be one thing… but inside, you're something else? Something you don't know how to explain?"
He stared at the sky. "Yeah," he said after a moment. "All the time."
She smiled softly. "Me too."
---
That night, Jiang Luo returned home quietly. He ate dinner, washed up, and sat by the window as rain began to fall.
His parents had gone to bed. He could hear their soft voices behind the wall—his mother laughing gently, his father humming an old lullaby.
He closed his eyes.
A drop of water slid down the glass.
A memory surfaced.
He was three years old. Standing on the balcony alone. The sky had cracked open with lightning that night. He remembered staring up into it—not with fear, but with recognition. As if the storm had called his name.
That was the first time he had heard the voices.
"You are not born, Jiang Luo. You are remembered."
"You must forget yourself to become yourself again."
He had never told anyone about the voices. Or the feeling in his chest when the stars aligned. Or how, sometimes, mirrors didn't reflect him properly.
He didn't understand it all yet.
But he knew one thing:
He was not who the world thought he was.
And that was a secret worth keeping.
For now.
He lay back, eyes still open, and whispered to the quiet.
"One day…"
And then he closed his eyes and let the rain sing him to sleep.