The Rejected Disciple, Successor to The Demonic Path

The Immortal’s Inheritance

Rong Tian took a deep breath, calming the rapid pounding of his heart after everything that had happened since the previous night.

He pressed the tip of one black boot into the sand and tested its force again, this time with far more control than before.

The strange feeling that had clouded his thoughts slowly faded, replaced by a clearer understanding of the boots’ uniqueness. It was not pure magic, and it was not pure Qi.

It was something between the two, something he did not yet have a name for.

Whoosh!

His body rose into the air with astonishing speed. He soared five meters upward, propelled by a force far greater than the strength of his legs.

The black robe on his body fluttered wildly, spreading behind him like the wings of a bat hunting in the night.

Then something unexpected happened.

A faint gust of wind moved around him, almost too soft to hear. His body rose again, this time higher than he had expected.

Rong Tian’s eyes widened.

The cave that had been his target passed beneath him.

“So this is how it works,” he muttered, barely believing what he had just experienced.

He narrowed his eyes and studied the back of the robe more carefully.

The black robe was not ordinary cloth. Hidden behind its flowing folds were two small rotating blades, almost impossible to see unless someone knew what to look for.

The boots on his feet were not merely footwear either. They were a device with a complex mechanism that granted him extraordinary jumping power.

This was the work of a grandmaster who understood that true strength did not always come from inside the body.

From more than ten meters above the ground, the scenery beneath him looked tiny. The morning wind swept across his face, carrying the biting chill of the desert into his bones.

Then Rong Tian realized another danger.

He did not know how to land.

Panic seized him as his upward momentum disappeared and gravity began pulling him down. Rong Tian tried to control his balance, but without proper control, his descent only became faster.

The wind struck his face from below as he fell. The sandy floor of the abyss grew larger and larger in his sight.

Bang!

His body crashed into the sand, creating a small crater and sending dust into the air before the wind swept it away.

Rong Tian groaned, bracing himself for pain.

But strangely, there was none.

He raised his hands and inspected his body carefully from his fingers to his elbows. There were no new wounds, no scratches, and even his clothes remained completely intact.

A thought crossed his mind.

“These are not ordinary clothes.”

“This is equipment designed for a grandmaster-level cultivator!” Rong Tian exclaimed.

Excitement washed away the exhaustion that had clung to him since the night before.

He clenched his fists, sensing a faint force flowing from the boots into the soles of his feet. It felt like a gentle current moving through his body.

“I have to master them,” he whispered.

From that moment on, Rong Tian stopped wasting time. He trained without rest, trying to understand the mechanisms of the robe and boots in the same way he had once studied literature.

He repeated every attempt without tiring.

The first jump sent him too high. His body spun out of control, and he landed sideways.

The second jump was too low because fear made him hold back too much strength.

The third nearly succeeded, but the hidden blades of the robe folded inward when the wind shifted direction.

“This is different from memorizing poetry,” Rong Tian muttered to himself after falling yet again. His breathing was rough. “Poetry does not punish your mistakes by throwing you into the sand.”

Still, there was a similarity.

Teacher Hui Yan had always said that mastering literature was not about memorizing words. It was about understanding the rhythm behind them.

The robe and boots had their own rhythm as well. The right pressure from his feet, the correct angle of his body, and the timing of the hidden blades all had to work together with the force rising from below.

Rong Tian’s body was not the body of a cultivator.

But his mind was the mind of a scholar who had spent years facing difficult examinations.

Every failure was simply a question he had not answered yet. It was never a reason to stop.

By the thirtieth jump, his body began to find the right position.

By the fiftieth jump, the hidden blades of the robe fully activated for the first time. His body hovered in the air for two full breaths before descending.

By the hundredth jump, he could control his direction, although his landings were still rough.

“If Teacher Hui Yan saw me now,” Rong Tian thought as he brushed dust from his robe, “he would never believe that his student, who once only knew how to hold a brush, is learning how to fly at the bottom of an abyss.”

The thought caused the corner of his lips to lift slightly.

It was the only smile he could manage through bruises, sweat, and exhaustion.

Every failed jump and every imperfect landing became part of his training. Rong Tian memorized each detail with the discipline of someone trained to retain every line of a difficult text.

By the time evening approached, he had finally mastered the equipment.

His breathing was still heavy after hundreds of attempts, but satisfaction shone through his pale and dirty face.

With one final leap, controlled and precise, Rong Tian rose toward the cave above the cliff.

This time, he landed smoothly.

His feet touched the edge of the cave entrance with a level of control he could never have imagined possessing only twelve hours earlier.

Inside the dark cave, Rong Tian’s eyes shone.

He stood there, breathing heavily after the long day and exhausting training that had drained nearly all the strength he had left.

His eyes swept across the narrow interior, making sure this place could truly become his temporary shelter.

He looked down.

The dark desert stretched endlessly below him, filled with savage creatures that could tear him apart at any moment if he remained on the ground.

“I will survive here,” Rong Tian whispered. “Here, I can stay safe from the wild beasts and demonic creatures below.”

The unease that had haunted him since he fell into the Abyss of Suffering disappeared. In its place was something harder and more useful.

Only one thought remained in his mind.

He would survive.

And one day, he would repay those who had thrown him into this cursed place.

With hands trembling from exhaustion rather than fear, Rong Tian opened the wooden chest wider and carefully searched through its contents.

Suddenly, his eyes widened.

He pulled out an old silk scroll, folded neatly and marked with ancient characters that could still be read despite their age.

“A copy of the Black Bat King’s Qinggong Technique,” Rong Tian murmured.

The words felt heavy in his mouth.

His heart began to race.

Qinggong was an extraordinary movement technique in the martial world. Once mastered, it could allow someone to move with the speed and agility of a phantom, becoming almost impossible for opponents to touch.

To be continued.