Their truce was a fragile thing, a pact woven from pragmatism and held together by the quiet threat of mutually assured destruction. The days settled into a new, strange rhythm, a double life more profound than the one Lian had led before.
By day, he was still Lian the Simple Giant. He returned to the village before dawn, his immense power leashed, his aura drawn deep within his core until it was little more than a whisper. He performed his tasks—felling trees, hauling water—with the same feigned, brutish simplicity. The villagers, oblivious to the divine drama that had unfolded on the ridge above them, treated him as they always had: with a mixture of casual disdain and wary respect for his raw physical strength. He was a piece of the village furniture, unremarkable and ignored. And Lian, the master of his own hatred, allowed it. The ant hill was his camouflage.
But each night, he would return to the Sacred Grove. It had become his true home, a sanctuary of power and solitude. He would spend the first hours absorbing the pure, refined Qi from the Spirit Spring, a stark contrast to the muddy, ambient energy he had survived on before. The water was like a whetstone, slowly smoothing the jagged edges of the chaotic storm in his Dantian. The process was slow, but for the first time, he felt a sense of harmony alongside the raw power. It was like learning to tame the wild serpent he had swallowed, teaching it to coil gracefully instead of thrashing in his gut.
Elder Maeve, as promised, became his library.
She would appear in the grove shortly after moonrise, a silent specter moving between the dark trunks of the Ironwood trees. She never approached him directly while he cultivated, showing a wary respect for the immense, dangerous power he was wrestling with. She would simply sit on a smooth, moss-covered rock on the other side of the pool, her presence a quiet invitation.
On the third night of their truce, Lian concluded his initial Qi absorption. He felt the old woman's gaze on him and knew it was time for his first lesson. He rose and walked towards her, the ground barely seeming to register his weight.
He stood before her, the student before the teacher. But their roles were not so simple. He was the one with the power to shatter mountains, yet she held the knowledge he craved more than any treasure.
He did not know where to begin. The questions in his mind were a chaotic jumble, a lifetime of ignorance pressing for answers. He started with the most fundamental thing. He pointed a thick finger at his own chest, at the swirling vortex of power in his Dantian.
"This," he rasped, his voice still a rough, unfamiliar tool. "Power. Has... names?"
Maeve looked at him for a long moment, her ancient eyes seeming to pierce through his flesh and see the storm within. She had to choose her words carefully. She was not teaching a student; she was briefing a natural disaster.
"It does," she said, her voice a calm, steady counterpoint to his rough growl. "What you feel, what all cultivators strive for, is Qi. The breath of the world. But it is not a single thing. Like water, it can be a gentle stream or a raging flood. It can be pure, like the water from this spring, or it can be muddy and chaotic, like the energy of a battlefield or the heart of a storm."
She watched his face, gauging his reaction. He remained impassive, a statue of focused attention.
"The path of controlling it," she continued, "is called Cultivation. It is the journey of gathering Qi and refining the self. It has stages, levels of understanding and power that mark a cultivator's progress. They are the rungs of a ladder that leads to the heavens."
Lian's interest sharpened. A ladder. A path. This was what he lacked. He had power, but no measure of it, no direction for it.
"Names," he repeated, the single word a command.
Maeve nodded. "The journey begins with Qi Condensation. It is the stage of first sensing the Qi of the world and learning to draw it into your body. Most spend their entire lives at this stage, never truly mastering it. You, Lian... you seem to have skipped this step entirely."
"Next," she said, ignoring his unique nature for the moment, "is Foundation Establishment. The cultivator forms a stable core in their Dantian, a 'foundation' upon which all future power is built. Their spiritual sense expands, their body is cleansed of mortal impurities. They are no longer truly mortal."
Lian thought of his own Dantian. It was no stable foundation. It was a raging, chaotic war between a mountain and a storm.
"Beyond that lies Core Formation," Maeve's voice grew softer, tinged with a hint of reverence. "The Qi in the Dantian is compressed until it forms a solid Golden Core, or a core aligned with one's specific path. At this stage, a cultivator's power becomes truly formidable. They can fly on swords, their techniques can level hills, their lifespan increases by centuries."
She paused, looking at him intently. "And far, far beyond that... lie other realms. Nascent Soul, Spirit Severing... stages of power so great that those who reach them are closer to gods than to men. They can destroy sects with a wave of their hand, their will can change the landscape."
Lian absorbed this information in silence. It was a map. A crude, incomplete map, but it was the first time he had seen the shape of the mountain he intended to climb. He had no "Golden Core," no "Foundation." He had simply smashed his way through the wall of reality with brute force and raw, stolen power. He was an anomaly, a monster that existed outside their neat, orderly ladder. And a part of him, the wild, arrogant part, felt a surge of pride. He had achieved what they took lifetimes to do, and he had done it alone, with nothing but his own will.
"This world..." he grunted, changing the subject, his mind latching onto another piece of information he craved. "Caravan... from the south. What is it?"
Maeve looked surprised by the question. "You have sharp ears. The caravan is our lifeline. It comes once a year from the great city-states in the south, places ruled by the Core Sects. They bring materials we cannot find here—refined metals, alchemical ingredients, and most importantly, news. They are our window to the wider world."
Core Sects. Wider world. The words resonated with Lian. This village, this entire forest, was just the backwater. The real power, the real resources, lay elsewhere.
"The caravan is due in two moons," Maeve added, a shadow of worry crossing her face. "But the roads have grown more dangerous. Bandits, beasts... and there are always whispers of trouble from the north."
Lian did not react, but he filed the information away. A caravan. A tangible link to the outside world. A potential vehicle. A potential target.
He had his answers for the night. He gave another single, slow nod, the now-established signal that their lesson was over. He turned his back on her and walked to the Spirit Spring, kneeling to drink.
Maeve watched him go. She had given him the barest outline of their world, a child's first lesson. But she had the chilling feeling that she had not just given a child a map. She had given a hungry tiger a map to the sheep pasture.