MTLNOVEL Chapter 11: *Chapter 11: The Mortal Veil*
The village of Qingyun lay nestled in the shadow of the Mistveil Mountains, a cluster of thatched-roof huts clinging to the edge of a verdant valley. Rivers of morning mist snaked through the pine forests, and the air carried the tang of damp earth and wild herbs. To most, it was a place of humble simplicity—a haven from the wars and cultivator sects that ravaged the outer provinces. But to the Eternal Sovereign, reborn as the frail boy Li Tian, it was a prison of flesh and bone.
His mother, Wen Lin, was a woman whose hands told stories she never spoke aloud. Calloused from years of tending barley fields and mending fishing nets, they were hands that had buried a husband to fever and cradled a son who had nearly followed. Li Tian watched her now, hunched over a clay stove, stirring a pot of millet porridge. The firelight carved shadows into her face, aging her beyond her thirty years.
"Eat," she said, pushing a chipped bowl toward him. Her voice was gentle but carried the unyielding edge of a survivor. "You'll need strength for the fields today."
Li Tian nodded, his small fingers trembling as he lifted the spoon. The porridge was bland, flecked with wild onions she'd foraged at dawn. His mortal body revolted at the meager sustenance—a far cry from the ambrosia of the heavens—but he forced it down. *Patience*, he told himself. *Even gods must crawl before they walk.*
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The village children found him at midday, while he gathered firewood at the forest's edge.
"Look! It's the ghost boy!" sneered Hong, the blacksmith's son. At twelve, he was already broad-shouldered, his fists thickened by years of pumping bellows. His cronies—Wei and Jiao—snickered, their faces sharp with malice.
Li Tian froze, an armful of kindling pressed to his chest. He knew what came next.
Hong kicked the bundle from his hands, sending sticks clattering. "Why do you even bother, weakling? You'll just drop dead again."
The taunt was routine, but today it ignited something in Li Tian's chest—a spark of the divine fury he'd once wielded like a blade. He straightened, meeting Hong's gaze. "Move."
The boys blinked. No one defied Hong.
The blacksmith's son recovered first, his face flushing crimson. "Or what? You'll cough on me?" He shoved Li Tian hard.
The boy stumbled but didn't fall. His back struck an oak, its bark biting into his thin tunic. Pain flared—mortal, *infuriating* pain—and with it came a memory: the Thunder Sovereign's lightning chains cinching his divine wrists, the Void Serpent's laugh echoing as he fell.
*Never again.*
Li Tian's hand shot out, fingers curling into a sign he hadn't consciously remembered—the first seal of the **Eternal Supreme Scripture**. A whisper of qi, thin as spider silk, coiled in his meridians.
Hong froze mid-lunge. His eyes widened as the air between them *rippled*, unseen but palpable, like heat off summer stones. For a heartbeat, the forest fell silent—no birdsong, no rustle of leaves.
Then Li Tian's knees buckled. Blood trickled from his nose, hot and metallic. The spark guttered out, leaving him gasping.
Hong laughed, high and shrill. "Demon! The ghost boy's cursed!"
A rock struck Li Tian's shoulder. Another grazed his temple. He didn't run. Couldn't. His vision swam, the world narrowing to the taste of copper and the fading echo of power.
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That night, while Wen Lin dabbed goat's milk on his bruises, Li Tian slipped into the woods. The villagers called the western ridge "Bone Hollow"—a jagged cleft where the mountain's ribs pierced the earth. They avoided it, whispering of restless spirits and wolves with human eyes.
Li Tian climbed.
His hands bled, torn on thorns and shale. His breath came in ragged gasps. But he climbed, driven by the memory of that fleeting spark. *There is power here. I felt it.*
The cave mouth yawned at the ridge's crown, veiled by curtains of ivy. Inside, the air hummed—not with the sterile grandeur of the heavens, but with the raw, untamed qi of the mortal realm. Lichen glowed faintly on the walls, painting the chamber in eerie blues and greens.
And there, atop a stone plinth slick with condensation, lay the book.
Its pages were yellowed, its leather binding cracked with age. Yet the characters etched into its cover gleamed as if freshly inked: **"Whispering Willow Manual: Foundation Stage Cultivation."**
Li Tian laughed—a hoarse, broken sound. A peasant's manual. A child's primer. To the Eternal Sovereign, it was less than kindling.
But to Li Tian, the half-starved village boy, it was a lifeline.
He opened it.
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**Daybreak, Seventh Moon Cycle**
*The body is a vessel. The mind, its master. To cultivate the qi of heaven and earth, one must first forge the vessel into steel.*
The words were crude, their metaphors clumsy. Yet as Li Tian traced the diagrams—poses that strained mortal sinew, breathing patterns that defied instinct—he felt the faintest resonance. The **Eternal Supreme Scripture** had been crafted for a god's anatomy, its demands catastrophic to mortal flesh. This… this he could survive.
He began with the first stance: **Rooted Willow**. Feet shoulder-width, knees bent, arms arced as if cradling the moon. The manual's qi channels were laughably simple—a trickle compared to the torrents he'd once commanded—but they were *possible*.
Hours passed. Sweat soaked his tunic. His legs trembled, muscles shrieking. But when he finally collapsed, his palm pressed to the cave floor, he felt it—a thread of earth qi, sluggish but undeniable, seeping into his meridians.
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Weeks blurred. Li Tian split his days between chores and stolen hours in the cave. The manual's exercises carved his frail body into something harder, leaner. He learned to draw qi from dawn mist and midnight dew, to cycle it through pathways the scripture had deemed unworthy.
Progress was agonizing. Mortal limits chafed like chains. Yet slowly, stubbornly, the changes came:
- A stone that once strained his arms now lifted with ease.
- The mile-long trek to the river, once a panting ordeal, became a brisk walk.
- And the bullies—Hong's fist, which had once left him bedridden for days, now only bruised.
But power drew eyes.
"Where do you sneak off to, ghost boy?" Hong demanded one evening, blocking the forest path. Autumn leaves crunched under his boots, the setting sun painting his sneer blood-red.
Li Tian said nothing. The **Rooted Willow** stance hummed in his muscles, earth qi pooling at his soles.
Hong swung.
Li Tian sidestepped—a fraction too slow. The punch grazed his cheek, but he seized the boy's wrist, leveraging Hong's momentum to send him sprawling.
The forest held its breath.
Hong scrambled up, face purple with rage. "Witchcraft! His mother consorts with mountain demons! I'll—"
A voice cut through the chill: "Enough."
Elder Guo emerged from the tree line, his bamboo staff striking the frost-hardened earth. At seventy, his back was bent like a windblown pine, but his eyes—sharp as a hawk's—pinned Hong in place. "Return home, boy. Now."
As Hong fled, the elder studied Li Tian. "You move like someone who's tasted the Path."
Li Tian tensed. In the heavens, such words would have been a death sentence.
But Elder Guo merely sighed. "Come. Your mother's looking for you."
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That night, Wen Lin knelt by Li Tian's pallet, her work-roughened hands smoothing his hair. "The elder says you've been climbing Bone Hollow."
Li Tian said nothing.
"They say the mountain takes payment for its gifts," she whispered. "First your father, now you…"
He turned his face to the wall, guilt a stone in his throat. *You don't understand. I have to become more than this.*
But as her footsteps faded, he slipped a hand under his straw mattress, fingers brushing the **Whispering Willow Manual**. The cave's earth qi had begun seeping into its pages, awakening faint sigils between the lines—a hidden layer, visible only to one who knew to look.
Or to a fallen god.
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