The Baleful Bead

Jing Wen clenched the wooden box in his hand, his knuckles turning bluish white from the force.

"Another failure..."

When he had transmigrated here three months ago and learned that this body had no spiritual roots, he had fallen into despair.

Unwilling to accept it, he had tried all manner of cultivation methods, yet had never sensed even the slightest ripple of spiritual energy.

"The world of A Record of a Mortal's Journey to Immortality... without spiritual roots, you're worthless."

Jing Wen gave a self-mocking smile, his fingertips unconsciously tracing the bizarre patterns on the wooden box.

The pitch-black box felt cold to the touch, and the runes engraved on its surface glimmered blood-red beneath the dim lamplight.

This was the keepsake his mother had left him-or, more precisely, the spiritual root she had carved out of her own dantian with her own hands: the "Baleful Bead."

Memories surged over him like a tide.

On that rainy night three days ago, his mother, Red Rose, had dragged her battered body through the door, throwing it open.

"Wen'er... Mother is home..."

She had been drenched in blood, her left arm twisted out of shape, black blood seeping steadily from the hideous wound in her abdomen.

Though Jing Wen had spent little time with his mother in this life, at that moment he had still felt an invisible hand clench hard around his heart.

"Mother! What happened to you..."

"Listen to me..." Red Rose's trembling hand seized his collar in a death grip.

"There's not much time... this... is for you..."

When she took the wooden box from inside her robes, a foul odor of rot mingled with rust struck his face.

"You're a mortal... you have no spiritual roots... once I die, they won't spare you either!"

Jing Wen knew who Red Rose meant by "they"-the Black Fiend Cult.

Just as Jing Wen was about to ask, he heard Red Rose speak again.

"But Mother... has left you a way to survive..."

Red Rose's voice grew weaker and weaker, yet the light in her eyes burned ever brighter.

"The Baleful Bead... implant it in your body... and you can become a cultivator..."

His mother coughed up a mouthful of black blood. "But the price... is steep..."

What chilled Jing Wen to the bone most was what happened next-his mother's hand suddenly turned ink-black, her nails lengthening into blades, and she plunged them straight into her own dantian!

Her face contorted as she forcibly dug an egg-sized black bead out of her body. Blood-red threads covered its surface, and it pulsed faintly like a living thing.

"Take it... my Baleful Bead... shares... your bloodline..."

His mother placed the bead in the wooden box, her breath already as frail as a candle in the wind. "Wen'er, live well..."

Before she had finished speaking, her body shriveled at a speed visible to the naked eye, becoming a withered husk in the blink of an eye.

Jing Wen's eyes snapped open, his forehead covered in cold sweat.

He lowered his head to stare at the wooden box, his fingers trembling involuntarily.

"The Burning Blood Art... the Baleful Bead..."

"Once I take it, there'll be no turning back..."

As the son of a Black Fiend Cult member, he knew all too well how dangerous this thing was.

Once the Baleful Bead entered his body, it would transform him. From then on, he would no longer be able to draw in the spiritual energy of heaven and earth on his own, and could only improve his cultivation through pills.

Worse still, every cultivation session would deplete his blood and vitality.

Moreover, the Baleful Bead would constantly release baleful energy. Once too much accumulated, he would lose his mind.

Jing Wen still remembered the horrific sight of a Black Fiend Cult member tearing his own chest apart after suffering cultivation deviation.

Jing Wen rose and walked toward the bronze mirror.

The youth in the mirror looked about fifteen or sixteen, his delicate features tinged with a sickly pallor.

Jing Wen stared at the dark shadows beneath his reflected eyes, his fingertips unconsciously rubbing the patterns on the wooden box.

"The Burning Blood Art... baleful cores..." he murmured, recalling the descriptions of the Black Fiend Cult in A Record of a Mortal's Journey to Immortality.

The entire Black Fiend Cult was, in truth, the Yue Emperor's Spirit Medicine Garden.

And the cultivators within it were the Yue Emperor's medicinal ingredients.

When his mother had breathed her last three days ago, he had still harbored unrealistic fantasies-perhaps he would awaken spiritual roots, perhaps some special cheat would appear, perhaps...

"Heh. As if there could be so many 'perhapses.'"

His transmigration had granted him no other cheat beyond his knowledge of this world.

But in this resource-starved cultivation world, what good was foreknowledge without a heaven-defying treasure like the Heaven-Palm Bottle?

Both parents dead, no spiritual roots, and a remnant of the Black Fiend Cult to boot... Jing Wen tugged at the corner of his mouth.

His starting position was far worse than Han Li's in the original story.

At least Old Devil Han had four-attribute spiritual roots, whereas he was a mere mortal.

"Run?"

He snuffed out the thought the moment it surfaced.

Could a mere mortal escape pursuit by cultivators?

The Black Fiend Cult had survived beneath the noses of the Seven Great Sects for years. Naturally, it had its own means of staying alive.

The words his mother had repeated before her death rang in his ears again:

"Take the Baleful Bead, and at least you can live..."

Jing Wen suddenly laughed.

His smile held a measure of madness and a measure of resolve.

"Since I'm falling into hell anyway..." he murmured to himself, "I might as well burn straight through it."

Jing Wen hesitated no longer and slowly opened the wooden box.

The pungent stench of blood struck his face.

A pitch-black bead lay quietly on the dark-red velvet lining. Weblike blood-red threads on its surface shone with an eerie luster beneath the lamplight, quivering faintly as though alive.

The instant Jing Wen's fingertip touched the Baleful Bead, it suddenly shook violently, and a bone-piercing chill shot up his finger straight toward his heart!

"Ah!"

He instinctively tried to pull his hand back, only to discover that his finger was firmly stuck to the bead's surface.

More terrifying still, those blood-red threads crawled up his finger like living things, covering his entire palm in the blink of an eye!

Agony crashed over him like a tide. Jing Wen dropped to his knees, his entire body convulsing.

He felt countless foreign things pouring frantically into his body through his blood vessels, boiling his blood and twisting his muscles wherever they passed.

His vision began to blur, and the shrill screams of countless tormented souls rang in his ears.

"No... I can't... pass out..."

He bit the tip of his tongue, forcing himself to stay conscious.

His mother's dying words echoed in his mind-implant it in your body.

Trembling, Jing Wen grabbed the dagger from the table and sliced open his abdomen without hesitation.

The instant blood gushed out, the Baleful Bead in his hand surged free of the wooden box like a shark scenting blood and burrowed straight into the wound!

"Aaagh-!"

Indescribable pain swept through his entire body.

Jing Wen curled up on the floor, feeling as though countless steel needles were roaming through his insides.

The instant the Baleful Bead entered his dantian, he distinctly felt some presence being "awakened."

Jing Wen gasped for breath, sweat soaking his clothes.

The wound in his abdomen had eerily healed, leaving only a hideous scar.

He could feel a cold source of energy in his dantian, steadily releasing some kind of power.

"It worked...?"

Seeing that the Baleful Bead had fully fused with his body, Jing Wen's lips curved into a smile he had not worn in a long time.

Suddenly, a heart-rending burst of agony exploded from his dantian.

Jing Wen gave a muffled groan and curled into a ball.

The Baleful Bead shook violently inside him, and black-and-red patterns began spreading toward his heart.

He realized that the Baleful Bead was frantically devouring his life force.

"No... I can't let it end like this..."

Jing Wen clenched his teeth and forced himself to sit cross-legged.

He recalled the key instructions of the Burning Blood Art his mother had left him: "Guide the energy to the dantian... transform blood into spiritual breath..."

As he focused his will, the Baleful Bead in his dantian quivered slightly and released a thread of icy energy.

Jing Wen guided that thread along the prescribed meridians. Every inch it advanced felt like steel needles twisting inside him.

"Aaagh!"

Amid his piercing screams, tiny beads of blood seeped from every pore in Jing Wen's body.

Yet strangely, as his blood and vitality transformed into spiritual power, the spreading black-and-red patterns began to retreat, finally settling below his chest.

He collapsed limply onto the floor, gasping for breath.

Though he had temporarily curbed the backlash of baleful energy, his extreme weakness made him realize that the danger had not passed.

"I have to... replenish my blood and vitality..."

Jing Wen crawled painfully toward the bed and felt beneath his pillow for a small cloth pouch-it held three first-grade Blood-Replenishing Pills.

Trembling, he swallowed one pill, and a warm current spread through his body.

Jing Wen leaned against the edge of the bed and let out a long breath.

Though the medicinal effect was weak, at least he was no longer in danger of dying.

Looking down, he saw that the black-and-red patterns had receded beneath his skin, appearing only when he moved.

"So this means... I've reached Qi Refining, First Layer?"

He circulated the Burning Blood Art again, and this time it flowed much more smoothly.

A wisp of dark-red spiritual power emerged from his dantian, slowly circulating through his meridians.

"At the cost of my blood and vitality... and I still can't cultivate independently..." Jing Wen smiled bitterly.

But at least he was no longer a mortal left helpless on the chopping block.

Jing Wen stood up, sensing the faint yet unmistakable flow of energy inside him.

He knew that from this day onward, he had embarked on a path utterly different from that of Han Li, the original story's protagonist-a perilous road strewn with blood and thorns.

The first ray of morning sunlight passed through the window lattice, falling on the now-empty black wooden box.

Jing Wen pushed open the door and stepped into the morning light.