The village of Yanshi lay at the edge of the Azure Mist Forest, where even Core Formation beasts dared not tread. It was a place forgotten by empires and sects alike.

  Here, mortals lived and died without touching the Dao.

  “Li Fan, you rootless brat! Back to the well with you!”

  Twelve-year-old Li Fan flinched as a bucket hit his side. He caught it before it spilled, bowing low to the old butcher. His robes were tattered, barely more than rags. His fingers were blistered. But he said nothing—just trudged through the mud toward the communal well.

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  He was known as the Boy with No Root.

  In a world where even peasants had a hint of spiritual energy, Li Fan had none. Every year during the Awakening Festival, the village seer would measure the children’s spiritual roots. Every year, the crystal would glow. But when Li Fan touched it?

  It shattered.

  No one knew why. But ever since then, people said he was cursed. That the heavens had rejected him.

  But Li Fan remembered the truth.

  On the night of his fifth Awakening, when the crystal cracked and elders gasped in horror—he saw something. A vision, or maybe a dream.

  A starless sky. A silver gate. A voice:

  “You are not rootless. You are unbound.”