Zu Mari slammed his fists into a tree in a steady rhythm.

Yes, a tree. Not his family's training equipment, not the soft stomach of his cruel cousin, not the smug faces of those half his age who boasted twice his strength.

The forest echoed with the dull thuds as he strained to control his breathing, unheeding of the blood that seeped from cracked and split knuckles. He trained alone, as far from anything familiar as he could go without stumbling into beast-clan territory, deep in the forest of his clan's ancestral lands.

Zu's breath came fast and uneven as he pushed his body to its fullest extent. If he were a weaker man, there would have been tears of frustration in his eyes, but he was not weak. Whatever they said, he would not let their words reach his soul.

Defective.

Unworthy.

Stupid.

Useless.

Incapable.

Weakling.

No.

Zu refuted their words with every day he refused to give up. He would prove them wrong with every scrap of strength in his body. With every drop of energy in his deformed spirit. So he couldn't cultivate, so what? He could still be a mighty warrior!

How many years would it take? How long would he run alone, strive alone, push himself because no one else cared to bother with him any more? How long, before they acknowledged him?

It didn't matter. He would show them. One day, he would step into the clan and they would see him in a new light. They would murmur in awe and wonder how they'd ever dismissed him.

So what if the ten-year-olds were better at meditation? So what if the twelve-year-olds could outrace him with the smallest application of their inner strength?

Zu had outer strength and that would be enough. He would close the gap, even if it seemed to only yawn wider with every passing year.

He slammed his fists into the tree again, yet its outer covering remained unscathed. His strongest efforts were insufficient to so much as flake the bark off, let alone leave the kind of craters he'd seen from others.

This tree would not outlast him! He was Zu Mari! One day, the heavens would resound with the sound of his name. He would do whatever it took to reach the pinnacle!

Sound boomed out from overhead, the sharp crack of someone flying at incredible speeds. Zu lifted his eyes to look. He didn't find the flying immortal, but did see a glint of silver drifting down toward him, light as a feather but glowing like the moon.

Even as it fell, it seemed to be drifting apart, as though it were a wisp of fog that would dissolve in a moment. Zu reached out, catching it in his scarred hand. It was a small perfect sphere, silver and glowing, the exact shape and size of the expensive cultivation pills used by so many others in the clan, those deemed of greatest value and highest potential.

Though he could see it resting upon his palm, it exhibited no presence either to his touch or to his weak spiritual senses. When he closed his hand around it, he may as well have been grasping wind. And when he focused deeply in an attempt to feel its presence, it seemed almost to be a void drawing into itself all lingering threads of free-floating energy from the surrounding forest.

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For a moment he turned his gaze upwards again. Perhaps the immortal would return for his prize. But no one appeared.

Zu's eyes returned to the thing he held. The tiny orb's silver surface drew him in, seeming to grow even as he watched, a promise of strength and prominence. Unconsciously his hand cupped closer around it, protective. With this, he suddenly knew, his dreams of strength and honor would no longer be so unreachable.

This power came to him for a purpose. He was chosen.

No sooner did the thought cross his mind than he put it into action. Suddenly afraid that the immortal would return and search for his treasure, Zu swallowed the air-light moon pill.

The change was immediate. Power like pure fire flooded through his empty and unmoving core. He felt his lifeless channels being purged and strengthened, the thousand tiny cracks that made his own cultivation attempts worthless sealed in an instant. Power condensed within him and impurities burned away like chaff.

He felt the power of the world rushing in toward him to fill the sudden void at his center as the power inside him compressed it all tighter and tighter, refining his spirit purer and purer into the most perfect core he could ever have imagined.

Zu Mari hardly noticed the other changes, so consumed by the spiritual awakening taking place within his soul, but his scrawny and weak body was growing at an incredible rate, making him taller and his muscles twisting and flexing with new power. He now looked like the sort of person who had been building his body for centuries rather than the sort who was too weak and useless to even be given a basic training manual.

But when he returned to the clan in the evening to do his chores, everyone else certainly didn’t fail to notice. Whispers followed him, girls giggled and batted their eyes at him, and the senior disciples followed his progress with wide eyes and jaws dropping open in awe.

His grandfather had been visiting this branch of the clan for political reasons, but as he sensed Zu approaching he came out in person to greet this powerful stranger. When he saw that it was his own weakest grandchild, his heart almost stopped.

“Zu? You have grown since I saw you last.”

“Isn’t it wonderful! I finally feel like I can perform the secret techniques and not bring shame to the Mari name.” Zu bowed respectfully. “Please, grandfather, I have only one request. May I be granted access to our library? I will study harder than anyone you have ever heard of in all of history, and prove that I can bring the greatest respect to our Mari clan!”

Grandfather Gari stroked his beard and nodded thoughtfully. “Yes, my wonderful Zu. I have always secretly hoped that you would become the greatest among us. You were my favourite, you know. You may have access to the library, but more than that. Take this.” Grandfather Gari held out a key that was blacker than oil at midnight, so black that Zu had a hard time looking at it. “This will open the Sacred Vault beneath the library. Take any of the treasures that you like, and study well the sacred tomes within. I know you will become worthy of the power I am granting you.”

“I will! Thank you!” Abandoning formality, Zu stepped forward and threw himself upon his grandfather, hugging him close. “I always liked to imagine someone secretly cared about me,” he said.

Grandfather Gari nodded and patted his back, tears in the old man’s eyes. “I only wish it had not been necessary to withdraw all visible support from you, but until you were strong enough to protect yourself any sign of my favor would have only led to your being murdered by the envious. It is better this way. Now you can take up my mantle and inherit everything when I am gone.”

He had twenty-seven other older grandchildren who were in line ahead of Zu, but it would only take a few words in his will to change that. Soon, Zu Mari would be the sole heir and designate future leader of the entire Mari clan and all its holdings across seven provinces.

Zu had worked hard his whole life. He absolutely deserved every reward that was coming to him.

But even as Zu and Grandfather Gari celebrated their new loving relationship, other eyes were watching with envy and hatred.

Mari Kayli crossed her arms and watched the old man take the fool under his wing so easily, as though he'd ever cared for him.

Zu… It was unbelievable that someone so talentless would suddenly become so mighty. But it was undeniable that he had become incredibly powerful in just one day. He had changed in everything from demeanor to core strength since the morning.

Kayli had worked for seventeen years to earn her place as third granddaughter, and she fully intended to become head of the clan one day. To have the talentless Zu suddenly jump past her… it was unacceptable.

Zu Mari would submit to her precedence, or he would die.

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