The CopyCat Immortal

The sensation of being alive returned not as a blessing, but as a cruel joke narrated by fire.

Ren’s eyes snapped open. For a long, terrifying second, the ceiling of the servant’s quarters—a patchwork of rotten cedar and water-stained plaster—refused to hold steady. It flickered like a dying candle. Every breath felt like dragging a serrated blade through a throat filled with glass. His lungs, once scorched and collapsing, spasmed with an agonizing rhythmic thrum that resonated deep within his bone marrow.

The smell was the worst part. It wasn't just the damp stench of a low-tier disciple’s shack. It was the pungent, unmistakable aroma of ozone and burnt sulfur. It was the scent of his own skin, cooked in the crucible of a technique that should have ended him.

I’m dead. I have to be, Ren thought, his mind sluggish. 

But death didn’t come with this much baggage. It didn’t come with the throbbing headache of a hundred-year-old hangover. He tried to shift his weight, but a scream died in his dry throat. His meridians—the invisible pathways through which a cultivator's Qi flowed—felt different. They used to be brittle, clogged with "waste" from a birth defect that had made him the laughingstock of the Azure Cloud Sect. Now, they were wide, raw, and terrifyingly hot. 

His memory flickered. The Forbidden Training Grounds. The red sun. The laughter of those who sat at the high table while he scraped the dirt for scraps.

"Get up, trash! You aren’t done entertaining us yet," the voice of Senior Brother Li roared in his head, vivid as a fresh wound. 

Ren remembered the heat of the Inferno Burst. It hadn't been a spar; it had been an execution. Li had wanted to see how long a "useless ant" could survive a Tier 2 elemental strike. The golden-red flame had consumed his vision, the shockwave shattering his ribs and melting his spirit roots. 

But as he lay there on the cold, sweat-soaked mat, something shifted. The "heat" in his veins wasn't damage. It was... fuel.

Ren reflexively reached out a hand, his fingers trembling with phantom tremors. "God, everything hurts like a bitch," he croaked, his voice a jagged rasp.

Suddenly, his vision pulsed red. A single spark, no larger than a grain of rice, blossomed from the tip of his index finger. It wasn't the dull orange of a campfire; it was a concentrated, searing crimson—the exact hue of Senior Li’s pride and joy.

Ren flinched, pulling his hand back as if bitten. The spark danced on his skin but didn't burn it. Instead, it felt oddly familiar, like an old friend returning after a long trip. 

"What the...?" 

He stared at his palm. It was scarred, pink with fresh skin where the burns had been deepest just hours ago, yet the internal fire remained. He closed his eyes and looked inward, using the rudimentary meditative focus they taught to even the lowliest water-carriers.

His internal world, which usually looked like a dry, cracked riverbed, was now a swamp of smoldering embers. But they weren't chaotic. They were structured. Deep in his consciousness, a phantom script seemed to write itself out in wisps of smoke: Inferno Burst – Foundation Mastery Level.

His heart hammered against his ribs. This is impossible. You don’t learn a manual by getting hit by it. You learn by decades of breathing, refining, and chanting until your hair turns grey. 

The door to the shack creaked open with a violent shudder, the hinges screaming. The sudden light blinded Ren, and a heavy, leather-clad boot slammed into the side of his cot.

"Still breathing, are you? Damn, you’re like a cockroach, kid," a voice drawled, dripping with a casual, bored cruelty.

Ren squinted. It was Li’s sycophant, a brute named Zhao. He wasn't even a true disciple—just another hanger-on who got his kicks from bullying those at the absolute bottom.

"Senior Brother Li is pissed off," Zhao continued, leaning down so his sour breath washed over Ren’s face. "He thinks he missed his mark since you didn't actually turn to ash. He sent me to finish the cleanup. You really want to make his life difficult by staying alive, don’t you? That’s not very polite, Ren."

Ren’s fingers gripped the tattered edges of his thin blanket. He didn't feel the usual paralyzing terror. He felt a cold, pragmatic clarity. If he stayed silent, he died. If he showed what he had, he was a thief. In the cultivation world, stealing a sect's signature technique was a fate worse than a quick death in a shed.

"I’m just... lucky, I guess," Ren forced out, keeping his gaze low. He made sure his breathing stayed shallow, hiding the inferno roaring beneath his skin.

Zhao chuckled, a low, wet sound. "Luck runs out, trash. Senior Li is a generous guy, but his patience has a ceiling. He wants you out of the sect. Preferably in a box."

Zhao reached out, his hand glowing with a faint green light—the Whirlwind Palm, a basic agility technique. It wasn't enough to kill instantly, but it was enough to snap Ren’s neck.

As the hand descended, Ren didn't think. He reacted.

The memories of his near-death experience—the exact rhythm of the Qi circulating through Li’s body before he launched the strike, the specific resonance of the flame—hit him all at once. His body moved with a fluidity he had never possessed.

He didn't dodge. He caught Zhao’s wrist.

The contact sent a jolt of energy through Ren’s arm. Instantly, the Inferno Burst surged, unbidden. It was small—deliberately dampened by his frantic survival instinct—but it was potent. 

"Argh!" Zhao shrieked, recoiling as if he had touched a hot furnace.

His wrist was blackened, the sleeve of his robe already curling into ash. He stared at his hand in pure, unadulterated shock, his eyes bulging. "Fire? How the hell... You don’t even have an essence core, you worthless sack of shit!"

Ren’s mind raced. Think. Fast. If he screams 'Inferno Burst,' the Elders will come for my head.

"It's... internal friction, Zhao," Ren hissed, scrambling out of the cot, despite the agony in his legs. "They say if a peasant’s Qi is stagnant for long enough, it spoils and ignites. Or maybe the sun stayed in my bones. You really want to report back that you got burned by a 'trash' who can't even cultivate? How’s that gonna look to Li?"

Zhao paused, the pain on his face clashing with his ego. Ren was right. Admitting that a mere "water-carrier" had defended himself would destroy what little reputation Zhao had among the other bullies. 

"You think you're clever?" Zhao spat, clutching his scorched wrist. "You're still a dead man. I'm gonna tell Li you've got some weird infection. Let's see how you handle him next time he wants to practice his forms."

Zhao backed toward the door, eyes darting toward Ren’s hands as if he expected a fireball to fly out at any moment. He slammed the door behind him, his footsteps fading into a panicked sprint.

Ren collapsed back onto the floor, his vision swimming. The brief flare-up of the stolen technique had drained him. His skin felt like it was shrinking.

I didn't just survive, Ren realized, his breathing coming in ragged gasps. I stole it.

The logic was insane. The Inferno Burst was a high-level fire technique of the Azure Cloud Sect. It took most outer disciples five years just to spark a flame, and ten more to learn the Burst manual. He had acquired it in the seconds before he blacked out from the sheer trauma of the impact.

The pain returned, settling into a low, thrumming hum. 

Ren stared at the ceiling again. He thought about Senior Brother Li’s face—the arrogance, the way he looked at Ren like a bug that hadn't quite been squashed. Then he thought about the Shadow Demon King, the figure from the legends his mother used to whisper about. He thought about the high, cold towers of the Inner Sect where the geniuses like Hua Ran resided, looking down on the world as if they were already gods.

"If dying is the only way to get strong in this hellhole..." Ren whispered to the empty, dark room. 

A ghost of a smile, bitter and razor-sharp, played across his lips. It was the smile of a man who had already been to the other side and realized there was nothing there to fear.

"Then I guess I better get used to the reaper."

He held up his hand again. This time, he didn't try to summon the fire. He looked at the faint, silver veins now tracing their way under his skin—an anomaly that shouldn't exist in a human. 

The Copycat Immortal. 

It was a curse if he were caught, and a divine path if he could hide it. Ren didn't care about divinity. He cared about the weight of his own footprints. He cared about the fact that for the first time in his life, he didn't feel like an ant.

He felt like a disaster waiting to happen.

Ren struggled to a seated position, ignoring the protests of his joints. The sulfurous smell had faded, replaced by the cool evening air flowing through the gaps in the walls. In the distance, the sect's morning bell began to toll—a call for all disciples to begin their labor. 

For the others, it was the start of another day of seeking immortality. For Ren, it was the first day of his hunt. 

Li thinks he can just discard me like old trash, Ren thought as he slowly stood up, leaning against the damp wall for support. He gave me a gift. A spark. I’m going to make sure that before the end of this month, that spark becomes a forest fire.

He walked to the corner of the room, picking up his water-carrying yoke. His arms felt heavy, yet there was a deceptive lightness in his spirit. Every strike that landed, every drop of blood he spilled—as long as it didn't kill him permanently, it was just another page of a manual he hadn't yet read.

He stepped out of the shack. The morning sun hit his face, and for the first time in sixteen years, Ren didn't squint or shy away. He looked right at it. 

The ash of his previous life was gone, swept away by the winds of his own resurrection. What remained was cold, pragmatic, and utterly lethal.

"Wait for me, Li," Ren murmured, the words vanishing into the wind. "I'm a quick learner."