The Almighty Cultivator

Chris could hardly breathe. Sweat streamed down his face and soaked the tattered shirt clinging to his back, but he could not stop smiling at the silver projection hovering above his palm.

The crystal core he had just refined was flawless. Its light filled the mountain cave, turning the rough walls silver and revealing the blood on his fingers.

“Seven years of hard work,” Chris whispered. “I finally did it.”

Joy made the pain in his body feel distant. For seven days, he had remained inside the mountain, drawing spiritual energy into his body and forcing it through his core. The crystal contained no crack, stain, or impurity.

The wealthy children in his village had always said this day would never come. Their parents bought potions and hired private tutors, while Chris survived with an old manual and whatever energy he could gather.

Diego, the village chief’s son, had mocked him more than anyone. Whenever Chris spoke about Cultis Academy, Diego reminded him that dreams did not turn beggars into cultivators.

Now Chris had one of the essential elements that he needed to pass the academy's trial.

“I made it, Rachel. I finally made it.”

He gathered his remaining strength and rose from the ground. His legs nearly folded beneath him, but the thought of Rachel’s reaction kept him standing.

She was the only person in the village who had never treated him like a disease. When Chris appeared there years ago with no memories, no family, and nothing to eat, Rachel placed a piece of stale bread in his hands. That small kindness had meant everything to a frightened boy everyone else avoided.

An elderly woman later took him in and raised him as her son. When she died, Rachel became the only family Chris had left.

Once the Academy accepted him, he would learn proper cultivation techniques and find good work. He would take care of Rachel, marry her, and build the family he had wanted since arriving in the village alone. That future mattered more to him than the core itself.

Chris pulled a communication stone from beneath his shirt. He had promised Rachel that she would be the first person he contacted after completing his refinement, so he traced a message across its runes and pushed spiritual energy into it.

He waited near the cave entrance until familiar footsteps approached through the darkness. Chris knew their gentle rhythm immediately and forced himself upright as Rachel stepped into the silver light. Her face was the one he had pictured whenever the pain became unbearable.

“I did it, Rachel. We finally did it!”

He crossed the cave and pulled her into his arms. Rachel’s body stiffened, reminding him of their agreement not to become intimate before marriage. Chris released her immediately.

“I am sorry,” he said. “The excitement carried me away.”

Rachel adjusted her dress. She did not ask about the blood on his hands or the exhaustion on his face. Her eyes remained fixed on the silver light above his palm.

“Show me the core properly,” she said.

Chris mistook her impatience for excitement. Smiling, he circulated more spiritual energy until the projection became clearer, revealing the perfect crystal resting inside his core chamber.

Rachel stared without blinking before removing a thin red cord from her sleeve.

“I brought this for you,” she said. “Wear it before I examine the core.”

Chris studied the strange symbols woven into it. “What does it represent?”

“It represents our love and the future we promised each other, unless you no longer trust me.”

“You already know that I trust you.”

Chris held out his wrist, and Rachel tied the cord around him. It felt tighter than it should have, but he ignored the discomfort and brought the projection closer to her. Stories warned that cultivators could steal cores, but Chris trusted the woman he planned to marry.

A slow smile appeared on her face.

“Congratulations,” she said.

Happiness warmed Chris’s chest. “Thank you. I could not have reached this point without—”

“I was not congratulating you.”

Chris’s smile faded. Rachel was looking beyond him, towards the mouth of the cave.

Several armed men emerged from the darkness. Diego entered behind them, dressed in an expensive cultivation robe and wearing the mocking smile Chris had endured since childhood.

“What is Diego doing here?”

Rachel walked past him and stopped beside Diego.

“Do you have a problem with me inviting my boyfriend to the greatest day of our lives?”

Chris waited for the joke to end. “What do you mean by your boyfriend? I am your boyfriend.”

“You truly believed that?” Rachel asked.

She wrapped her arms around Diego’s neck and kissed him directly in front of Chris.

Every promise Rachel had made and every future Chris had imagined rushed through his mind as she kissed the person who had tormented him for years.

“This cannot be real,” Chris said. “Rachel, tell me this is some terrible joke.”

“The only joke here is you,” Diego replied. “You believed a beggar could enter Cultis Academy, become a respected cultivator, and marry a woman like Rachel. You never understood your place.”

Chris ignored him and looked at Rachel. “You gave me food when I had nothing. You told me you believed in me.”

“That bread was an investment,” Rachel said. “Diego bet that I could never turn you into someone useful. I promised him I could make you refine a core for him, and all it took was a little kindness.”

Her gaze returned to the silver crystal.

“Now I get my place beside him at the Academy, and he gets your perfect core.”

Chris felt as though she had poisoned every good memory they shared.

“You cannot take it. You know removing my core will kill me.”

“I know exactly what it will do.”

“You knew what losing my mother did to me. You knew you were the only family I had left.”

Rachel’s smile contained no trace of the kindness he remembered.

“That was why you were so easy to control. I gave you one piece of stale bread, Chris. That was essentially all it took to put you on a leash.”

Diego stepped forward, staring hungrily at the silver projection.

“Do not look so broken,” he said. “For once, your worthless life is about to be of use.”

Chris tried to dismiss the projection, but the red cord tightened around his wrist. Its symbols burned as a painful force entered his body and sealed his spiritual energy.

The armed men seized Chris before he could tear it away. He fought against them, but after seven days of continuous refining, it took effort even to breathe.

Diego drew a narrow blade and pressed its glowing edge beneath Chris’s breastbone.

“You will not survive this,” Chris said through clenched teeth.

“I don't see that happening, ” Diego replied. “You're the one that's going to die once your core is removed. You will have only minutes to live.”

The blade entered his core chamber, and pain ripped through Chris as Diego severed every connection around the crystal. He struggled until his muscles failed, but the men held him down while Diego slowly pulled the perfect core from his body.

It had taken Chris seven years to create. Diego needed only minutes to steal it.

When Diego raised the bloodstained crystal, its silver light fell across Rachel’s smiling face. That smile hurt Chris more than the blade.

He wanted to tear it from her face. He wanted to survive long enough to make both of them feel everything they had done, but his life was already slipping away.

Diego sealed the core inside a crystal container.

“Nobody will search for you,” he said. “The village will assume the useless orphan died while trying to refine his core.”

Rachel followed him out of the cave without looking back.

Cold spread through Chris as their footsteps disappeared. His lips cracked, his skin became pale, and each breath grew weaker. The academy, his family, and his future had vanished with them.

Just before his eyes closed, a faint sound came from deeper inside the cave. It resembled someone gasping for air.

Chris listened as the broken breath came again. Thinking another person might be dying nearby, he dragged himself towards the sound and left a trail of blood across the frozen stone.

A narrow opening led him to the bones of a long-dead cultivator dressed in the remains of a black robe. The skeleton’s hands rested over its rib cage, where a cracked black core contracted like a failing heart.

Another desperate gasp passed through the cave, and the core seemed to be calling him.

Chris reached between the ancient bones and touched it. The gasping stopped as the black core tore itself free from the skeleton and plunged into the empty chamber beneath his breastbone.

His heart beat once inside his chest, and from the hollow place beside it, a second heartbeat answered.