The Green-Eyed Blademaster

A thunderous roar tore through the earth’s tranquility.

BOOM!

A column of soil, stone, and splintered wood erupted a hundred meters into the heavens, blasting a gaping maw into the serene forest floor. From the heart of the explosion, a figure shot upwards, landing with impossible lightness amidst the falling rain of debris.

His robes, once fine silk, were now little more than tattered remnants clinging to his frame. His long black hair, unbound, drifted in the disturbed air. He stood silently in the center of the newly-formed crater, his jade-green eyes surveying the devastation with an unnerving calm.

Li Qingyan.

He took a slow breath, the first in a very long time. The air was rich with the scent of damp earth and shattered pine.

"One thousand years..." he whispered, his voice raspy from a millennium of disuse. "So the Qianqiu Mianqi Jue was a success."

The Thousand Autumns Slumbering Qi Sutra. A forbidden technique he had unearthed from a forgotten ruin, a desperate gamble. To seal oneself in a state of suspended animation, a hundred meters beneath the world, to passively absorb the natural Qi of the earth for a full millennium.

The goal was not immortality, not yet. It was to accumulate a foundation so terrifyingly vast that the path to eternal life would be paved before him. His lifespan, once that of a mortal man, was now a great, flowing river. But even the greatest river eventually meets the sea.

He looked down at his hands, pale and slender, yet coursing with a power that could sunder mountains. A thousand years, gone in what felt like a single, long night’s sleep.

Memories of his previous life emerged before his eyes.

He had been nothing, a lowly outer disciple in a middling sect, scorned for his mediocre talent. He was a stepping stone for others, an insect to be crushed at a whim. Every day was a struggle for the most basic cultivation resources, a life lived on scraps and enduring humiliation. It was that burning resentment, that unquenchable thirst for power, that led him to the Qianqiu Mianqi Jue.

“To abandon one life, to gain another.” Li Qingyan stated quietly to himself. There was no regret in his heart, only cold, hard calculus. The price was paid. Now was the time to collect the debt.

He willed his body to move, testing his newfound vessel.

With a single thought, he executed a lightness technique. His form flickered, leaving no impression upon the soft soil. He drifted like a fallen leaf, coming to rest atop a single blade of grass that bowed but did not break. He then shifted his weight, standing perfectly balanced upon a single, minuscule leaf on a low-hanging branch, a leaf no larger than his little finger.

The leaf did not tremble. The branch did not stir. Not a whisper of wind was generated by his movement. His control was absolute.

At that moment, his piercing gaze shifted towards the east. His spiritual sense, now an ocean where it was once a puddle, had detected ripples in the distance.

People were coming.

With another flicker, his form vanished from the leaf and reappeared high in the boughs of a towering, ancient pine tree, cloaked by the thick canopy and shadows. From his perch, he looked down upon the crater he had created.

Soon, five figures streaked through the woods and arrived at the edge of the chasm. They wore the matching blue-and-white robes of a local sect; cultivators drawn by the massive tremor.

They stared into the hundred-meter-deep pit, their faces a mixture of shock and avarice.

“Gods above! What power could have caused this? Was it a tribulation?” one of the younger disciples exclaimed, his voice trembling.

“No lightning residue. This… this feels like the birth of a rare artifact!” another speculated, his eyes gleaming with greed. “Such a powerful eruption of spiritual Qi! It must be a heaven-defying treasure!”

“Don’t be a fool!” a senior-looking man snapped, though his own eyes darted nervously into the pit. “Whatever emerged from there is powerful enough to obliterate us in an instant. We must proceed with caution.”

They bickered amongst themselves, a dance of fear and desire. Each wanted the potential prize for themselves, yet none dared to be the first to descend into the ominous darkness of the crater. They were paralyzed by their own craven hearts.

From his hidden vantage point, Li Qingyan watched on, a sliver of contempt touching his lips. A thousand years had passed, but the nature of men had not changed in the slightest. Still worms, squabbling over a crumb they did not understand and were too fearful to grasp.

He had seen enough. There was nothing for him here.

His focus shifted from the cultivators below to the vast world beyond. His business was not with ants like these.

As the cultivators continued their hesitant debate, Li Qingyan’s presence simply… faded. He dissolved into the shadows like a wisp of smoke caught in the wind, leaving no trace, not even a rustle of leaves to mark his departure. The forest was silent once more, save for the worthless chatter of five men standing at the edge of an empty grave.