The first day I tried to condense a physical body.
Failure, failure, still failure.
The energy always dispersed at the very instant it was about to take shape, like quicksand slipping through my fingers.
Feeling somewhat agitated, I went down the mountain for a walk.
Then, at the edge of those blood-soaked ruins, I saw him.
Six years old, perhaps younger. He was curled up beneath a scorched wall, covered in mud and scabbed wounds. Before him sat a broken bowl containing half a hardened bun.
Hearing footsteps, he slowly lifted his head.
Those eyes held no tears, no pleas, no expectations of this world—only a deathly gray emptiness.
For some reason, my heart trembled.
An absurd thought suddenly struck me:
Take him as my disciple.
When the words left my lips, even I froze for a moment.
His ash-gray eyes shifted, slowly turning toward me.
"Why?"
His voice was hoarse, as if he had not spoken in a very long time.
I had no answer.
I simply held out my hand to him.
His talent was astonishingly good.
Dou Zong at ten. Dou Venerate at fifteen. By the time he was forty, he had already broken through to Dou Saint.
At such a pace, perhaps only Xiao Yan of that era could surpass him.
I took him across the continent, over scorched earth and through battlefields. He saw with his own eyes the dead lands left barren after the Outer Realm Evil Clan passed through, the shattered skies when Dou Di after Dou Di fell, and the Tunling Clan ravaging the land, devouring the bloodline origins of one ancient clan after another.
He remained silent all along.
Until one day, I asked him, "Having witnessed all this, what do you intend to do?"
He raised his eyes. The