The old man's hand lifted in a small, dismissive motion.

  "Choose," he said.

  And the first floor's shelves seemed to breathe.

  Not with wind.

  Not with sound.

  With pressure, subtle, layered, ancient, like the techniques sleeping inside the bound bamboo slips had opened one eye to see who dared touch them. The candlelight along the walls steadied, then brightened by the thinnest fraction, as if the pavilion itself was listening.

  For a heartbeat, none of the six moved.

  Not because they lacked desire, any cultivator who had clawed their way through trials would trade pride, comfort, even blood, for a true foundational technique, but because the pavilion made you remember your place.

  This was not a storeroom.

  This was inheritance.

  The silence inside a clan was different from countryside quiet. Here, even the stillness felt trained. The doors behind them were shut, and the world outside had vanished as completely as if they stood inside the belly of a bell.

  Then, one by one, they began to drift apart, each following the faint pull of their own spirit item's resonance.

  The shelves were arranged in curves rather than straight lines, spiraling subtly around the circular array carved into the floorboards. Pillars interrupted sight. Light fell in islands. It was easy to feel alone.

  Chen Ba did not rush.

  The Black Pole on his back felt heavier the moment he stepped deeper.

  It had been silent since the awakening. Silent during the tests. Silent beneath the eyes that weighed him like grain.

  Chen Ba walked until the shelves around him changed, until the air carried a different density, until the bamboo slips hanging in neat rows seemed… attentive.

  He slowed his breathing until it matched the pavilion's quiet.

  Then he listened, not with ears, but with the instinct he had sharpened since the day the Black Pole appeared without brilliance.

  The pole shifted.

  Not a jerk. Not a tug.

  A subtle lean, as if a mountain had moved a finger's width.

  Chen Ba stopped.

  His eyes swept the shelf beside him. Bamboo slips hung from lacquered hooks, each sealed with a thin thread of Qi, strong enough to discourage idle touch, weak enough to yield to rightful selection.

  The Black Pole leaned again.

  Chen Ba reached out.

  The moment his fingers crossed the sealing thread, the air cooled, not because the pavilion was cold, but because something inside the slip recognized what stood at his back. The seal snapped open without resistance, as if it had been waiting.

  His hand closed around the first bamboo slip.

  The title characters were carved deep, filled with ink that did not fade.

  Heaven-Toppling Strike.

  The concept pressed into his mind like a stone placed on the chest:

  A cultivator planting their feet like roots.

  Earth Qi flooding into the weapon until it became more than wood or iron, until it became mass.

  Not speed.

  Not finesse.

  Just the certainty of falling mountains.

  A single downwards swing, slow enough that even a child could follow the motion, yet heavy enough that the world itself seemed reluctant to stand in its way. When the strike landed, it did not cut.

  It broke.

  Formations cracked like pottery. Spirit shields shattered like glass. The ground buckled, as if the mountain had decided to kneel.

  Chen Ba's fingers tightened around the slip.

  The Black Pole responded, not with excitement, but with a cold, steady agreement.

  As if it could do this.

  Easily, too easily.

  Chen Ba's mind moved quickly, not in panic, but in calculation.

  Heaven-Toppling Strike was powerful. Simple. Direct.

  It was also an announcement.

  The moment he used it, everyone watching would see his road. A technique like this could not be hidden. And the Black Pole already drew too many eyes.

  Worse, it demanded Earth Qi, a heavy infusion, a foundational commitment. Chen Ba could feel Earth Qi beneath the pavilion's floor, steady and present, but his own affinity had never been confirmed with certainty. He had survived by endurance and instinct, by pushing forward when weakness tried to claim him, not by refining elemental balance with the careful certainty others took for granted.

  If he forced his foundation into Earth from the start, and it didn't fit?

  He remembered the rare, real truth spoken by elders and proven by tragedies:

  A collapse could cost more than pain.

  It could cost a spirit item.

  Chen Ba looked down at the carved characters once, respectful.

  He could already hit hard.

  He did not need a technique to teach him how to be heavy.

  What he needed was a foundation that left him room to adapt, room to learn what the Black Pole truly was before he named it with a single element and a single style.

  He hung the slip back on its hook.

  The sealing thread closed itself again, quiet as breath.

  The Black Pole did not protest.

  It simply leaned toward another hook.

  Chen Ba reached.

  This one resonated the moment his fingers touched it.

  Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!

  Not heavy.

  Hot!

  A clean crimson warmth surged into the air, smokeless, controlled, refined.

  The title burned into his eyes before he read it fully.

  Scorched Earth Red Lotus.

  The concept bloomed, vivid and merciless:

  Fire Qi igniting along the weapon, forming crimson flame that did not disperse.

  As the user spun and swept, the flames did not dissipate. They painted the air, leaving behind arcs of fire that lingered for several seconds, shaping into the outline of a blooming lotus around the battlefield.

  It was not merely attack.

  It was territory.

  The lingering arcs were solid barriers of heat; touching them burned an enemy's Qi. And the user could detonate the "lotus petals" at will, one explosion feeding the next, a chain reaction surrounding the wielder like a ring of judgment.

  Chen Ba's gaze sharpened.

  He imagined narrow corridors, allies beside him, the wrong sweep turning protection into collateral. He imagined crowded training grounds, juniors too slow to retreat from a hazard that lingered. This technique demanded precision not just in movement, but in temperament, because Fire Qi was hungry, and this art did not ask to be used gently.

  He felt the Black Pole respond again.

  Not with agreement this time.

  With distance, as if the pole disliked the heat, or as if its nature rejected being wrapped in something of the Fire Qi linenge.

  There was another reason, quieter but sharper:

  If Chen Ba chose this, he chose spectacle.

  A crimson lotus blooming in battle was impossible to ignore.

  And Chen Ba had lived by enduring eyes, not inviting them.

  Most of all, the same truth returned, steady as a pulse:

  His weapon's strength and ability were still unknown.

  A fire-based zoning art would bind his future to one element and one battlefield shape. If the Black Pole later revealed itself incompatible with fire, or even worse, rejecting fire totally, this foundation could become too risky.

  Chen Ba let the bamboo slip rest in his palm one breath longer, feeling the temptation of power.

  Then he returned it to the hook.

  The warmth faded.

  The seal closed.

  The pavilion's air cooled again.

  He did not hurry.

  He listened.

  The Black Pole at his back felt lighter, acknowledgement could be felt.

  After some walking, the Black Pole leaned forward again, toward a different section of shelving at another direction. The hook on one of the bamboo slips were etched with faint lightning patterns, pale silver lines carved into the bamboo strip. This bamboo slips were longer, slimmer, and less ornate, as if it valued function over ceremony.

  Chen Ba reached.

  The sealing thread broke instantly.

  The moment his fingers closed around the slip, a sharp, clean sensation snapped through his calves.

  Not pain.

  Activation.

  As if someone had struck flint inside his legs.

  The title characters were bold, alive with a faint crackling Qi.

  Thunder God's Three Steps.

  The concept entered him as a path rather than a spectacle:

  Lightning Qi channeled into the calves.

  Compressed.

  Contained.

  Then released in bursts so sudden the ground could not "hold" the cultivator's position.

  The movement wasn't straight.

  It was jagged—a "Z" shape, mimicking the path of lightning.

  One step forward-left.

  One step forward-right.

  One step forward-center.

  Unpredictable.

  Fast.

  Very fast!

  And at the final step, as speed peaked, the cultivator struck. The attack was greatly enhanced, not by forcing an element into its core nature, but by the kinetic surge of acceleration itself.

  Chen Ba's breathing slowed.

  This technique did not demand he decide what his pole was.

  It demanded only that his body learn to move.

  Speed was a language any weapon could speak.

  Whether the Black Pole later revealed itself as weight, shadow, frost, or something stranger...

  Feet could still step.

  A body could still evade.

  A cultivator could still choose distance, angle, timing.

  And Chen Ba needed choice.

  Because the Black Pole was still a sealed box.

  One of the main reasons he chose this was simple, and it cut through all temptation:

  His weapon's strength and ability were still unknown to him.

  Thunder God's Three Steps would still serve him regardless of what the Black Pole revealed in the future.

  If the pole became heavy, speed would keep him from being predictable.

  If it became strange, speed would keep him alive long enough to learn why.

  If it became something that demanded the battlefield, speed would let him shape that battlefield first.

  Even if, it turn out weak, he is determined to not let go of his Black Pole.

  He tightened his grip around the bamboo slip.

  The Black Pole shifted on his back.

  This time it did not lean away.

  It did not "agree" like a mountain.

  It simply settled, as if, for once, it did not feel forced.

  Chen Ba's expression did not change, but something inside him anchored.

  This was his first step.

  At the far end of the hall, the elderly old man rose from beside the low table, teacup unsteaming, brush unmoving until now, blank slips stacked like quiet verdicts waiting to be written.

  His robe was still plain. His hair still thin and white. His eyes still like clear water over deep stone.

  He walked without hurry, yet the space seemed to make way for him.

  Chen Ba approached and bowed.

  The old man's gaze dropped to the slip in Chen Ba's hand.

  A single nod.

  "Name," the old man said.

  "Thunder God's Three Steps," Chen Ba answered.

  The brush moved.

  Ink kissed paper.

  A choice became record.

  A road became official.

  Chen Ba stepped aside, holding the slip carefully as the technique's hum settled into his calves, tendons, breath.

  Around the pavilion, the other five finished as well, no grand announcements, only the soft clink of bamboo slips, the brief pulse of resonance, then silence reclaiming the space.

  When all were done, the old man returned to the table and opened the ledger fully.

  His brush hovered once.

  Then, with clean, practiced strokes, he recorded the foundational techniques that would follow them into every training hall and every future conflict:

  Chen Shun -Nether Emperor Lance

  A straight, domineering lance art: Drives forward with Darkness Qi, piercing shadows with emperor-like pressure, suppress and break.

  Chen Xueyin -Phantom Wind Dodge

  A movement technique: Sharpens agility and reflexes, reading subtle wind shifts to sense danger and evade like a phantom.

  Chen Lanyue -Golem Invocation

  Summons a stone golem: Serves as a guardian, attacking enemies and providing unbreakable defense.

  Chen Yiru -Echoless Ghost Drift

  A covert art that erases presence: Drifting silently through space and leaving no trace for ambush, escape, or unseen repositioning.

  Chen Gao -Ninefold Tyrant Breaker

  A nine-stage breaking technique: Each stage compounding power, shattering defenses progressively like a tyrant's hammer cracking layers of steel.

  Chen Ba -Thunder God's Three Steps

  Three instant burst movement technique: Weapon enhanced not by forcing an element into its core nature, but by the kinetic surge of acceleration itself

  The ledger closed with a soft tap.

  The pavilion elder did not warn. He simply placed the ledger down, turned his wrist, and lifted two fingers.

  The air changed.

  A faint ripple spread from beneath his sleeve, rolling outward through the floor array and climbing the pillars like an invisible tide. The candle flames did not bend, yet the light seemed to sharpen, edges cleaner, shadows deeper.

  "Hold still," the elder said.

  The six instinctively straightened.

  Chen Ba felt it first in his bones.

  A pressure, light as mist yet absolute as a decree, brushed along his meridians.

  It did not invade.

  It aligned.

  The bamboo slip in his hand warmed, then cooled, then became weightless, rose and revealed its contents.

  The moment the elder's two fingers closed into a gentle pinch, the words and diagrams inside the slip surged upward, not into Chen Ba's eyes, but into his mind. They unfolded with unnatural clarity: the flow of Lightning Qi, the compression in the calves, the exact rhythm of the three jagged steps, the timing of the strike that followed.

  It was not memorization.

  It was engraving.

  Chen Ba's pupils tightened.

  He could feel the technique settling into him like a new organ, quiet, present, ready.

  Around him, the others reacted in small, involuntary ways.

  The elder's fingers loosened.

  The pressure withdrew.

  And the pavilion returned to its previous quiet as if nothing had happened.

  Only the six knew better.

  Because every line, every principle, every tactical nuance of their chosen methods sat in their minds with pristine certainty, so sharp it was almost frightening.

  The elder's gaze drifted over them once.

  "Foundation techniques are inheritance," he said calmly. "Inheritance is not meant to be carried in your hands."

  He flicked his sleeve.

  The bamboo slips rose again.

  Closed up again on it's own.

  They floated into the air, turning slowly like autumn leaves caught in a wind that did not exist.

  Chen Ba watched his slip hover a finger's width above his hand, rotating once so the carved characters faced him:

  Thunder God's Three Steps.

  Then the slip shot backward in a clean arc. Fast, precise, unhesitating, returning to the lightning-etched hooks as if pulled by an unseen thread of fate.

  All around, bamboo slips flew to their places: a whispering storm of lacquered wood and sealed Qi. Not a single one collided. Not a single one wavered.

  Each found its rightful hook.

  Each sealing thread re-formed with a quiet snip.

  The pavilion's shelves looked untouched again, as if no one had ever chosen anything here.

  Chen Ba's hand remained half-open for a breath too long.

  Empty.

  Yet his calves still carried the faint, crisp hum of Lightning Qi, like a promise waiting to be tested.

  The elder rose from behind the desk.

  He did not need to raise his voice for authority to exist. His presence was enough to make the air feel more disciplined.

  "You have what you came for," he said.

  His eyes paused on each of them, no longer weighing their worth, only acknowledging their new burden.

  "Remember this: a foundation is not power. It is the road you agree to walk."

  He turned slightly, gesture small, but the meaning was clear.

  "Exit the pavilion."

  The doors behind them did not creak. They did not groan.

  They simply opened, as if the building itself had been waiting for permission to release them.

  Light from outside spilled in, pale and ordinary compared to the pavilion's dense quiet.

  All six of them exit the Pavilion.

  Elder Chen Zhaolin and the two gray-robed disciples was still waiting outside...