Chronicles of the Eternal Sovereign: The Magic Emperor's Ascent

The first snow of winter dusted Qingyun Village like ash from a distant fire. Li Tian knelt by the frozen riverbank, his rawboned hands scrubbing linens against a washboard. The water bit into his skin, turning his fingers into stiff, crimson claws. His breath fogged the air, each exhale a reminder of the frailty of his mortal shell.

*Patience*, he told himself, the mantra a fragile shield against the cold. *The body is a vessel. The mind, its master.*

But the mind, he was learning, was no match for the relentless grind of survival.

"Still playing washerwoman, ghost boy?"

Li Tian didn't need to turn to know Hong's sneering face loomed behind him. The blacksmith's son had taken to shadowing him since their last encounter, his cronies—Wei and Jiao—snickering at his heels like hungry jackals.

"Elder Guo said to leave him be," muttered Jiao, his voice barely carrying over the river's icy murmur.

Hong spat into the snow. "Elder's gone to trade in White Maple Town. Three days' ride."

The crunch of boots on frost. Li Tian braced as Hong's shadow engulfed him.

"Heard your ma's been coughing blood," Hong said, feigning concern. "Maybe the mountain demons want her back, eh?"

Li Tian's hands stilled. The cold seeped deeper.

A kick sent the washboard skittering across the ice. "Answer when spoken to, curse-spawn!"

Li Tian rose slowly, muscles coiled in the **Rooted Willow** stance. Earth qi trembled at his soles, thin but steady. He met Hong's gaze—and saw the flicker of fear beneath the rage.

*He remembers.*

The older boy recovered quickly. "Think you're clever with your demon tricks?" He snapped his fingers. "Wei!"

The gangly youth lumbered forward, clutching a burlap sack that squirmed and hissed. Li Tian's nostrils flared—the sharp musk of pine marten, laced with bitter fear.

"Found this in your woodshed," Hong crooned, shaking the sack. "Strange, a sickly thing like you catching fresh game."

Li Tian's stomach clenched. He'd set the snare for his mother, hoping the meat might strengthen her cough-ravaged lungs.

Hong drew a skinning knife from his belt. The steel glinted, cruel and clean. "Let's see if it bleeds black, like you."

"No." The word left Li Tian's lips before he could leash it.

Hong smiled.

The fight was short, brutal, and utterly human. Li Tian's fledgling qi evaporated under the onslaught of fists and knees. They pinned him face-first in the snow, Hong's boot grinding his cheek into the ice.

"Watch close, demon," the blacksmith's son hissed.

The marten's shriek split the air—a sound Li Tian would hear in his dreams for years.

---

**Dusk, Tenth Moon Cycle**

Wen Lin found him hours later, curled in the hollow of an ancient cedar. The village herbalist had warned against moving her, but she'd crawled from her sickbed nonetheless, leaving bloody handprints on the frost.

"Tian'er," she rasped, cradling his swollen face. Her palms smelled of crushed ginger and despair.

He wanted to tell her. About the cave, the manual, the whispers of qi that might yet mend her lungs. But the words curdled on his tongue. What good were promises when your hands couldn't even hold a washboard?

"We'll leave," she whispered into his hair. "At dawn. There's a caravan passing through—"

"No." Li Tian's voice startled them both. He grasped her wrists, feeling the bird-like frailty beneath her shawl. "This is our home."

*And I will make them kneel for it.*

---

The Bone Hollow cave welcomed him like a scorned lover. Li Tian stumbled past the glowing lichen, his ribs a cage of fire. The **Whispering Willow Manual** lay where he'd hidden it, beneath a slab of shale etched with crude protection sigils.

He flipped to page thirty-seven—**Mending Breeze Form**. A beginner's healing stance, its efficacy laughable. But as he contorted his battered body into the prescribed posture, something shifted.

The cave's earth qi stirred. Not the thin trickle he'd grown accustomed to, but a torrent that burned like liquid moonlight. It surged through his meridians, scouring the damage from flesh and bone. Li Tian gasped as bruises faded, as fractured cartilage knit whole.

When the pain subsided, he found the manual's pages glowing. New characters swam beneath the old—an overlay of celestial script only visible through qi-enriched sight.

**Earthen Veil Technique: To cloak one's presence, become stone among stones.**

The Eternal Sovereign's laughter echoed in his skull. Of course. The manual wasn't some mortal's scribblings, but a palimpsest—a foundation text overwritten by fleeing cultivators. Each breakthrough would reveal deeper layers.

Li Tian traced the unfamiliar hand signs. His qi shifted, flowing not through the manual's crude channels but along pathways etched into his divine soul. The cave's shadows deepened. The lichen's glow dimmed.

When Hong came hunting at dawn, he found only empty air where Li Tian should have been.

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