The Samsara Jade

Chapter 6

The heavy, falling raindrops suddenly curved in the air. Instead of dropping straight down, they pulled toward Li Chen’s body. 

The spiritual energy hidden inside the rainwater and the storm winds was weak, but it was everywhere.

Normally, a cultivator at the first level would sit for hours just to gather a tiny drop of this energy. They had to coax it, invite it carefully into their bodies.

Li Chen did not invite it. He ripped it out of the air.

WHOOSH. A faint, dark wind started to swirl around Li Chen’s sitting body. It was a vacuum. The ambient spiritual Qi of the storm was violently sucked into his skin.

As soon as the energy entered his body, it felt like cold water hitting a burning hot stove. The Qi rushed wildly through his veins. It moved directly toward his dantian—the energy center just below his stomach.

There, his Primordial Chaos Root sat in the dark. For fifteen years, it had been a starving, empty mouth. Now, finally, it got a taste of food.

The Chaos Root acted like a wild beast waking up from a long sleep. It eagerly swallowed the tiny bit of storm energy. But it was not enough. It wanted more. It demanded more.

The dark vortex tattoo on Li Chen's chest began to glow with a faint, black light. The sucking force of his breathing increased by ten times.

The muddy water on the ground started to tremble. The fallen leaves in the courtyard spun around him. 

The thin, invisible spiritual energy of the earth and the sky was dragged violently into his body. It rushed through his pores like a massive, unstoppable river.

Li Chen’s body began to shake. He was pulling in too much energy, too fast. His normal, weak blood vessels felt like they were going to burst. 

But the Chaos Root was a perfect machine. It took the wild, raw energy from the storm, swallowed it, and spat back out a thick, dark, and incredibly pure Qi.

This dark Qi did not just sit in his stomach. It flowed outward, rushing directly to his terrible injuries.

Li Chen gasped as the dark Qi reached his crushed chest. It wrapped around his shattered ribs like cool, invisible hands. Then, the healing began. It was not a gentle process. It was fast, brutal, and shocking.

CRUNCH.

Li Chen bit his tongue to stop himself from screaming. His left rib, which had been pushed inward towards his lung, suddenly snapped back into its correct place.

POP. CRACK. SNAP. Sickening sounds echoed in the quiet, rainy courtyard. Li Chen’s bones were forcefully bending and twisting back together. 

The dark Qi acted like powerful glue, sealing the cracks in his bones perfectly. The broken blood vessels stitched themselves back together. The huge, ugly bruises on his skin began to fade away quickly.

The pain was terrible, but it was followed by a feeling of incredible warmth and power.

His muscles, which had always been thin and weak, began to grow tighter and harder. The dirt and mud on his skin were pushed away by a layer of sweat and black impurities escaping from his pores. The art was not just healing him; it was cleaning his body, upgrading it.

Li Chen kept breathing. He kept devouring the storm. He felt a massive barrier inside his body. It was the door between a normal human and a true cultivator. For ten years, he had knocked on that door, and it had never opened.

Now, with a surge of violent dark Qi, he did not knock. He kicked the door off its hinges.

BOOM. A muffled sound echoed inside Li Chen’s body. A powerful shockwave of air burst out from him, pushing the rain away in a perfect circle for a brief second.

Li Chen opened his eyes.

They were no longer the dull, tired eyes of a broken boy. Deep inside his pupils, a faint black light swirled, ancient and hungry.

"First Level of Qi Condensation," Li Chen whispered.

He looked down at his hands. He slowly closed his fingers into fists. He felt a surge of strength he had never known before. He felt light. He felt powerful. The pain in his chest was completely gone. His breathing was smooth and deep.

He had done it. After years of being called trash, after years of eating dirt, he had finally stepped onto the path of cultivation.

But Li Chen did not celebrate. He knew this was only the very beginning. The first level was nothing compared to Zhao Feng’s fifth level. 

And Zhao Feng was just a tiny ant compared to the inner sect disciples, the elders, and the people who killed his family.

He needed to hide. He needed to grow stronger in the dark before he could show his fangs.

Li Chen stood up. His legs were completely healed. He did not stumble. He walked smoothly and quietly through the muddy courtyard. The heavy rain quickly washed the black impurities off his skin.

He headed toward his home. It was not a real house. It was a tiny, ramshackle wooden hut near the edge of the Outer Sect mountain. 

The roof was made of cheap straw and leaked everywhere. The walls were thin and rotting. It was a place meant for holding firewood, not a person.

Li Chen pushed open the creaky wooden door and stepped inside. It was completely dark. The wind howled through the cracks in the walls. Water dripped from the ceiling, making small puddles on the dirt floor.

He stood in the center of the dark room, letting the cold air wash over his newly healed body. He closed his eyes and tested his new senses.

Reaching the first level of Qi Condensation changed his body in many ways. His hearing was much sharper. He could hear the sound of the rain hitting the leaves outside.