Su Qingquan still wasn’t used to hearing his childhood nickname. He smiled, tapped his mother’s hand, a gentle ripple on calm water.

“Qingquan, remember this. In front of outsiders we may have to wear the mask of ‘the gods’,” Su Qinghe’s voice was warm as spring, fingers raking his hair like a breeze through reeds, “but what our forebears left us is the Hall of Legacy and one ancestral line.”

He thought of the Hidden Vault, of a sentence carved into the mountain like a scar that would never weather away.

“Humanity shall never kneel to gods.”

Arrogant as a cliff; fierce as a blazing standard. The Church held the outside world in an iron grip of faith. Only hidden clans like the Su dared chisel such words into stone. Qingquan had seen the Church’s control—how it smothered like fog—so when his mother raised the ancestral law again, a bold guess rose in him like a tide.

“Mother, that power in the Hall of Legacy… is it our ancestors? Why would it still speak to us?”

He asked lightly, but inside the elders surged with waves. Mystery in the Hall they knew—the scrolls had prophecies like starlight in old ink—but never that something inside could talk back.

“I’m curious too,” Lin Mengqing blinked out of her daze, voice soft as a lantern-glow. “The moment I walked in, a gentle woman’s voice asked if I was her heir.”

“In the Hall, what’s sealed is our ancestors’ battle might,” Lin Fengxian said, tone as steady as bedrock. “But communion? We’ve never seen a will survive the grindstone of time. The twelve ancient scrolls record nothing of it.”

“We know too little,” Su Qinghe added, pausing like a cloud snagged on a peak. “Many precious scrolls and epics from the Era of Ruination never survived. In the Epoch of Destruction the Church shattered what remained. In that chaos, the Eastern Continent’s heritage was nearly burned to ash, all for tighter religious control.”

“The Eastern Continent’s legacy either hides in families like ours, drifted to the Western Continent like leaves on a river, or sleeps under dust in ancient ruins. As for your problem,” she said after a breath, “answers may only sit in other scrolls.”

Qingquan frowned. He knew the Church’s terror. The literary inquisition fell like frost; a single wrong character, and your whole family went to the stake. In a world like that, could he really trace the cause of his anomaly? Standing against the Church was a storm even his clan couldn’t weather.

Su Qinghe caught the shadow in his eyes and softened. “The Church clamps down on scrolls, but not all are caged. Hidden races hoard libraries like caves of jade. If you earn their goodwill, you might trace your omen. But strength rules this wind-swept world. Without power, you won’t even get close.”

The reminder hit like a bell. Qingquan realized he’d let worry gnaw at his focus and forgot the single iron road—cultivation. Only strength lets you speak to the strong. He sank into his sea of consciousness, lantern-light spreading over dark water, and checked his soul-flame—then sucked in a breath. The number hadn’t grown, but the fire had thickened like poured metal; within the blaze, a thread of blood-red glowed.

“Xiaoquan, you’ve at least reached Break Calamity, right?” Murong Tianjiao’s voice carried like a drumbeat. “I probed your soul. It’s absolutely that tier.”

“Not just the soul,” he added, and the air over his words felt sharp as steel. “Your body could run wild across a battlefield.”

He and Lin Fengxian traded sharp looks, sparks in dry straw.

“No,” Qingquan said, stunned. “I’m not at Break Calamity. I’m still at Initial Opening.”

“I’m stuck at Initial Opening too,” Lin Mengqing chimed in, a smile that drifted like mist yet somehow felt otherworldly. “Did the ancestors’ legacy not work?”

On the Dawn Continent, realms inherited from deep antiquity laid out like mountains: Initial Opening, Break Calamity, Chaos, Parting the Clouds, Reaching the Summit, Feathered Transcendence, Godhood—Ascension. Between Godhood and all below yawns a gulf like man and ant. To take a legacy and not advance an inch—Qingquan felt blindsided.

“It’s fine, Qingquan. I’m only at Initial Opening,” Lin Mengqing said, eyes crescented, movements light as wind through bamboo—already touched by a transcendent chord.

Shame pricked him like thorns. Same legacy: he suffered like a body on a rack; she moved like a swan on still water. His strength hadn’t budged; her bearing blurred toward the ethereal. That last line was a neat blade to his pride.

“Don’t brood. You haven’t awakened your legacy yet,” Lin Mengqing rushed in, seeing the storm gather behind his eyes. “Even Sister Xiaoya approved your talent.”

Qingquan felt as if he’d fallen behind them by whole eras. Awaken? He had never heard that term at all.

Su Qinghe tried to smother a laugh behind her sleeve, moon behind cloud. Lin Fengxian fought it, but seeing his daughter hand the boy a stumble, his smile flickered like candle flame. Murong Tianjiao laughed outright, loud as rolling thunder.

“If you keep laughing, I’ll jump into the Heavenly Lake!”

“How would you die?” Lin Mengqing’s smile was bright as a pearl. “With the Ancestor guarding the Heavenly Lake, the water lifts you like a hand.”

“I…” Qingquan choked, words snagged like fish on a net.

In the end, under Su Qinghe and Murong Tianjiao’s very physical brand of “persuasion,” Lin Fengxian agreed to help Qingquan awaken the legacy.

“Open your sea of consciousness. Don’t resist,” Lin Fengxian said, tone solemn as a temple bell. Entering another’s sea was a narrow bridge over a chasm; if the host fought back, and Fengxian couldn’t strike, his own soul would take the backlash like a falling stone.

“I understand,” Qingquan answered, spine straightening like a drawn bow, and opened his sea.

“Heh. Last time a princess showed up,” Murong Tianjiao grinned at Lin Mengqing, sparks dancing in his eyes. Su Qinghe said nothing, gaze on Qingquan heavy as rain.

“This kid’s sea is strange,” Lin Fengxian sent by soundless voice, words gliding like cranes. “Still at Initial Opening, yet his strength is Break Calamity.”

“Wait. There’s something odd inside his sea.”

“What is it?” Su Qinghe’s voice quickened like a stream after rain. Her son had never crafted anything there; unknown shapes made a mother’s heart lurch.

“A temple—or a palace,” Lin Fengxian murmured, awe under the calm. “I’ll rouse Qingquan. We’ll go in together. It should be the source of his legacy. Don’t worry.” He cut the link, a door closing on wind.

“Don’t worry, Auntie,” Lin Mengqing said gently, voice like silk on stone. “Dad plays around, but he’ll be careful.”

“Trust him, Qinghe,” Murong Tianjiao added, hand light on her shoulder. “In soulcraft, aside from those few monsters, I’ve never seen better.”

“I know,” Su Qinghe whispered, fingers tightening around her husband’s hand like ivy. “I just… worry.”

Lin Fengxian led Qingquan into the temple. “Tell the truth,” he asked, steps echoing like drops in a cavern. “Did you ever cultivate something like this in your sea?”

“No. Not before I took the legacy,” Qingquan said, eyes roaming the hall. Shapes and lines tugged at him like half-remembered dreams.

“Good. Then this is the spring where that power wells up. Your legacy seems frighteningly strong.”

“Why do you say that?” Qingquan frowned. He felt no mountain settle in his bones.

“Most legacies in the sea form simple elements—flame, wind, a single wave. Stronger ones condense into beasts. Your father—guess what formed.”

“A tiger? Or some savage thing?” Curiosity flickered like flint. His parents kept this land of knowledge veiled on purpose.

“A creature of legend,” Lin Fengxian said quietly, the word weighty as stone. “A god-beast recorded in the ancient scrolls. They call it the jiao.”

Jiao? The name rippled through him without an anchor. He had read most of the family’s scrolls, yet no page held it. Lin Fengxian saw the fog in his eyes and waved it away like smoke. “You’ll learn. Because of it, your father’s cultivation rose like a river in flood. In our generation, he’s the strongest—except…”

“Except who?”

“Nothing.” Lin Fengxian sat where the air thrummed thickest, cross-legged beneath an unseen current. “We’re at the place where the energy is strongest. Listen. See if something calls you.” He began to chant, words like beads on a string.

Qingquan felt himself drawn to a raised mural, a single panel catching light like a shard of lake. The image was simple: a pattern like rivers and lakes winding across stone. His hand lifted and touched it, as if the stone called his palm like a reed calls wind.

“Stack the blocks that touch heaven,

Strike the hymn of omniscience,

Open the gate of omnipotence,

Pluck the fruit of apocalypse,

Welcome the world’s crimson ending…”

A ballad rose in his heart like smoke from incense. The mural’s tiles loosened and fell, one by one, and something long-hidden opened its eyes behind the stone.