The CopyCat Immortal

Chapter 3 The Watching Eyes

The morning bell of the Azure Cloud Sect didn't just wake the disciples; it demanded their submission. To Ren, its bronze chime felt less like a call to order and more like a countdown. 

He moved through the early morning fog of the Outer Peak, the familiar weight of the water yoke biting into his shoulders. Ordinarily, this task was a soul-crushing slog—a slow attrition of muscle and will. Today, however, something was off. The buckets were just as full, the path just as steep, but the ground seemed to meet his feet with a strange, magnetic cooperation. 

Deep within his gut, a residue of heat from the Inferno Burst acted like an internal furnace, burning away the lactic acid before it could settle. When a stray gust of wind threatened to unbalance him on the narrow mountain pass, his body adjusted with a preternatural grace he’d "borrowed" from the training mannequin's Wind Blade.

"Look at that," a voice snickered from a nearby courtyard. "The dead man's actually moving today. I thought Li’s little lesson turned his brain into porridge."

Ren didn't break his stride. He kept his head low, eyes fixed on the dirt. The speakers were a trio of low-level outer disciples, the kind who spent more time polishing their boots than their cultivation. They expected a flinch, a stumble, or the usual stuttered apology. 

Instead, Ren passed them with a rhythmic, steady pace that hummed with a quiet efficiency. He felt their whispers follow him like biting insects. 

"Is it just me, or does the trash look... taller?" 

"Just luck. Some people are too stupid to stay down."

Ren's jaw tightened. Luck had nothing to do with it. Every cell in his body felt like a coiled spring. He wasn't just walking; he was recalibrating. The "waste" in his meridians was being scoured clean by the very techniques meant to destroy them. It was a beautiful irony, one he had to guard with his life. 

By mid-day, the chores were done in record time. Rather than retreating to his shack to nurse his wounds, Ren made a detour toward the Granite Yard. This was the secondary training area, home to the heavy lifting and the rudimentary defensive trials. It was where the disciples practiced the Earth Shield—a technique that turned one’s Qi into a skin-deep layer of literal stone.

He needed it. If he was going to continue this suicidal path of learning, he couldn't rely on dodging forever. He needed a way to survive the "first hit" from opponents far stronger than Zhao or Li. 

The Granite Yard was sparsely populated. Most disciples were at the Main Pavilion for a lecture on Daoist scripture. Only a few stragglers remained, practicing their stances against the Ironwood Golems. These automatons were taller than a man, weighted with stone plates, and moved with a ponderous, crushing inevitabilty. 

Ren walked toward an unoccupied Golem at the edge of the yard. His heart hammered against his ribs—a frantic, visceral rhythm.

"What are you doing, Ren?" a sharp voice called out.

Ren stopped. It was a senior disciple named Mao, a man with a chest like a barrel and a temperament to match. Mao was responsible for maintaining the golems.

"Just... clearing the dust, Senior," Ren lied, holding up a rag he’d grabbed. "And maybe testing the weight. I want to see if I’m strong enough for the recruitment trials next month."

Mao laughed, a loud, booming sound that carried across the courtyard. "You? Against a Grade-1 Earth Golem? Kid, one punch will turn your ribs into toothpicks. Go back to your buckets before you get hurt and I have to fill out the paperwork."

"I just want to see how the Earth Shield feels from the outside, Senior," Ren said, putting on his best "earnest but dim-witted" expression. "If I can time my breath to its swing, maybe I’ll learn something."

Mao sighed, rolling his eyes. He checked his sun-clock and shrugged. "Fine. Five minutes. But don’t blame me when you’re spitting teeth. I’ll set it to the lowest offensive tier—The Falling Rock. It’s slow. Even a turtle could dodge it."

Mao tapped a sequence on the Golem’s back. The stone-plated machine groaned, its runic eyes glowing a dull, earthy ochre.

Ren stepped into the ring. He didn't plan on dodging.

The Golem raised a massive, slab-like fist. The air around the machine thickened, a heavy pressure descending that made Ren’s skin itch. That was the Earth Shield—it wasn't just on the Golem; the Golem emitted it to destabilize its target.

Ren focused. He opened his meridians wide, ignoring the mental alarms screaming for him to flee. 

The fist descended. It was "slow" by Mao's standards, but to Ren, it looked like a falling mountain. 

CRACK.

The impact was spectacular. The fist slammed into Ren’s raised forearms, the force vibrating through his skeleton and pinning him into the dirt. The Earth-Qi poured into him like liquid lead—dense, cold, and utterly suffocating. 

Ren choked on a lungful of dust, his knees buckling. He felt his radius groan, a hairline fracture threatening to snap. But in that moment of absolute pressure, the "Grafting" sparked.

His ruined meridians didn't just break; they molded. They mimicked the crystalline structure of the Earth-Qi, weaving it into his own biological lattice. The heavy, sluggish flow of the technique became his own rhythm. 

"Ren! Damn it, kid!" Mao shouted, stepping forward. "I told you to dodge, not stand there like a target!"

Ren rolled to his feet, swaying dangerously. His skin looked strangely grey, as if a layer of fine silt had settled over him, but the fractured feeling in his arms was already fading. 

"I... I missed my timing," Ren wheezed, wiping a streak of red from his chin. He looked down at his arms. For a split second, the skin went dull and hard, the color of weathered basalt, before returning to normal.

Earth Shield – Golem Grade – Initial Understanding.