All Chapters of Rebirth of the Weakest: Chapter 61
- Chapter 70
102 chapters
61: The Crack in the Cocoon
Ken woke to the sound of his own heartbeat, too loud, too fast, hammering against his ribs like something trying to get out.He sat up in the dark, chest heaving, hand pressed to his sternum. Inside his soul space, he could feel it; the cocoon, pulsing again, harder this time, a rhythm that didn't match his own.“Mirinda.”Her presence answered instantly, sharp and alert. "I feel it too.""What is it doing?""I don't know."Ken swung his legs off the bed. "That's not comforting.""I wasn't trying to comfort you. I was stating a fact.""Could you at least pretend?""No."He almost laughed, except the cocoon pulsed a third time, and this pulse came with pain, a jagged line of heat that shot up through his spine and out through his clenched teeth. He doubled over, one hand braced against the wall, breath hissing between his teeth."Ken." Mirinda's voice lost its usual dry edge. "Something's wrong.""You think?""I'm serious. This isn't the cocoon settling. This is—" She stopped."This is
62: Why the Cocoon Held
Ken's vision returned in fragments, the training yard, tilted at a wrong angle; Suzuki's face above him, pale with fear; the sky, far too bright.He was on the ground. He didn't remember falling."Ken. Ken, look at me." Suzuki's voice cracked with an urgency he'd never heard from her before. Her hands were shaking against his shoulders, and that alone told him how bad this looked from the outside."I'm—" His voice came out ragged. "I'm here.""You weren't. Your eyes were white. *Completely* white. You stopped breathing for almost ten seconds.""That's dramatic.""I am not exaggerating, you absolute—" She stopped herself, jaw tight, and for a moment Ken saw something rare cross her face: real, unguarded fear. Not the calm, controlled concern she usually wore like armor. This was raw.He tried to sit up. His arms buckled."Don't move," Suzuki snapped."I'm fine.""You are not fine. You just told me something inside you might be dangerous and then you nearly died proving it.""Technicall
63: Thin Ice
Ken felt eyes on him long before he saw who they belonged to.The registration crowd had thinned, disciples drifting back toward the training platforms, but Fang Han hadn't gone far. He leaned against a stone pillar near the Inner Disciple Platform, arms crossed, watching Ken the way a wolf watches a rabbit that hasn't noticed the teeth yet."He's still staring," Seven muttered, not quite whispering. "Should we be worried?""Should you be worried," Ken corrected. "I insulted his observation skills. You just stood there looking amused.""Guilty by association is a valid legal principle in at least three sects.""Is that so.""I made that up on the spot, but it sounded convincing, didn't it? Say it sounded convincing."Lila laughed despite herself, covering her mouth with her sleeve. Suzuki didn't laugh. She was watching Fang Han with the flat, assessing look of someone cataloguing a threat, filing it away for later.A Li sighed through her nose, long and pointed, the kind of sigh that
64: Seven Days
Morning in Pai Zhua arrived without warning — no gong, no announcement, just the sudden roar of hundreds of disciples converging on the outer training grounds before the sun had fully cleared the peaks.Ken found Seven already there, stretching with the loose, restless energy of someone who'd slept badly and blamed it on excitement rather than nerves."You look terrible," Seven said cheerfully."Thank you. I worked hard on it.""Did Fang Han visit you last night too?"Ken raised an eyebrow. "You as well?""Zhao Tian, actually. Fang Han sent one of his lackeys to 'test his cultivation base.'" Seven made air quotes with visible disgust. "Zhao Tian broke the lackey's wrist and went back to sleep. Didn't even bother waking me up to watch.""Rude of him.""Terrifying, honestly. He didn't even seem angry about it. Just annoyed, like someone had interrupted a nap he was really looking forward to.""That's somehow worse than if he'd been furious.""That's what I said. He told me to go back to
65: Seven Days to Prove Yourself
The bell of the Pai Zhua Sect rang across the mountains at dawn.Dong! Dong! Dong!Thousands of outer disciples poured from their residences at the sound, boots pounding stone, voices rising into the cold morning air. Today marked the first day of the seven-day evaluation, and every newcomer in the sect was about to learn exactly why becoming an inner disciple was considered far harder than simply being accepted into Pai Zhua in the first place.Ken stood outside his assigned residence, staring up at the enormous mountain looming above him. At its peak sat the inner disciples' training grounds. Below, scattered and crowded, were the outer disciples' quarters. The difference between the two was not subtle. Resources. Status. Techniques. Everything was divided, everything separated by an invisible but absolute line.Ken touched the token at his belt. "Seven days," he murmured."Seven days won't be enough."He didn't need to turn to know the voice. Fang Han stood behind him, flanked by a
66: The Spark in the Storm
Ken entered the testing chamber alone. An elder set a crystal down on the stone table before him without preamble."Release your Martial Spirit."Ken summoned his Thunder Panther, and lightning immediately filled the chamber, crawling along the walls in bright branching veins. The crystal on the table began to glow in response.The elder's eyes narrowed with interest. "Thunder attribute. Strong."Ken allowed himself to relax, just slightly.Then—CRACK.A tiny red spark flared inside the lightning, gone almost as fast as it appeared.The elder's brow furrowed sharply. "What was that?"Ken smothered his Beast Qi on instinct, voice carefully even. "What was what?"The elder leaned toward the crystal, studying it. "There was a flame."Ken's pulse jumped. He saw it.But the elder only shook his head after a moment, dismissing it. "Must have been a reaction in the crystal itself.""Probably," Ken agreed, keeping his face calm even as his heart hammered.Inside his soul space, Mirinda staye
67: The Combat Evaluation
The next morning, the outer disciple training ground was already crowded.Hundreds of disciples packed the stone platforms ringing the massive circular arena, voices rising and falling in waves of speculation. Ken stood among the five selected youths, hands laced behind his head, looking for all the world like a man waiting for breakfast rather than a fight.Seven glanced sideways at him. "You look too comfortable.""I slept well.""You're about to fight.""I know.""And you're smiling."Ken shrugged. "Should I cry instead? Would that make you feel better?""It would make you look normal, at least.""Normal is overrated." Ken tilted his head, studying Seven's rigid posture, the way his jaw kept tightening every time the crowd noise spiked. "You're the one who looks nervous.""I am not nervous.""You're gripping your own sleeve like it insulted your ancestors."Seven looked down, realized his fingers had twisted deep into the fabric, and let go like it had burned him. "I am *focused*."
68: The Red Spark
Ken stepped into the arena, and the noise around him folded down into a single, expectant silence, hundreds of eyes fixed on him like he was the punchline of a joke they were all impatient to hear.Fang Han's voice carried easily from the crowd. "This should be interesting."Ken didn't look at him. He'd stopped needing to look at people to know exactly what they thought of him.His opponent followed him in — a young man carrying a heavy sword nearly as tall as he was, its edge catching the morning light in a way clearly meant to be intimidating. It was, Ken had to admit, a little intimidating. Not enough to matter.The elder looked between them. "State your cultivation."The swordsman answered first, chin lifted. "Level 19 Beast Master."Ken hesitated a half-second, the way he always did before this particular lie, and then gave his usual answer. "Level 17."Laughter rippled through the crowd. Even the elder's eyes lingered on him a moment too long, weighing something.Behind him, on
69: A Different Kind of Test - Part 1
Ken walked back to the waiting area in silence, replaying the sword's arc in his mind — the whisper of steel that had passed close enough to stir his hair.Seven was on him before he'd even sat down, eyes wide, voice pitched somewhere between admiration and accusation. "You almost got hit.""Almost," Ken said."That sword was inches from your head, Ken. Inches.""But it didn't hit me."Seven stared at him for a long moment, the way a man stares at someone who has just walked away from a cliff edge without noticing it was there. "You're impossible. You know that? Actually impossible."Ken allowed himself a small smile. "You say that like it's new information.""I say it because it needs repeating. Loudly. Possibly every day until it sinks in."Across the training ground, Zhao Tian stood with his arms folded, his gaze fixed on Ken with the flat, assessing look of someone updating a mental ledger. Beside him, Fang Han watched too — but where Zhao Tian's expression held calculation, Fang
70: A Different Kind of Test - Part 2
Suzuki broke the silence first, her mouth curving into a faint, deliberately careless smile. "Don't look at me like that."Ken crossed the distance between them, arms still trembling faintly from the puppet's last blow. "You said you weren't going to rely on it too much.""I didn't.""You used it.""Only a little." She said it lightly, like the words themselves could make the flame smaller than it had actually been.Ken exhaled, not quite a laugh. "Suzuki.""Ken." She mimicked his tone exactly, eyebrow arched, daring him to push further.He wanted to. He wanted to grab her by the shoulder and ask her, right there in front of everyone, what that flame actually was and why it always showed up exactly when things got desperate — his desperate, once, and now hers. But the arena wasn't the place, and the look in her eyes told him she already knew that, and was using it as a shield."You're one to talk," she added instead, tilting her head toward his hand — the one that, moments ago, had sp