CHAPTER 14: CHAPTER 14

The Spirit-Eye had opened, and to Ethan the world had become unrecognizable—not as a nightmare or a paradise, but as something vaster, layered, and alive beneath the surface.

Colors now sang, surfaces whispered with secret patterns, and every breath he drew shimmered with invisible flavor.

He sat on the edge of his battered cot for a long moment and simply looked.

The dirt on the floor was no longer mere dust and grit; it pulsed in thick brown waves, as if the earth of the hut contained the slow, steady heartbeat of a sleeping creature.

He focused on his hands, and strands of pale jade and gold light curled beneath his skin, forming rivers that surged through muscle and bone—his own body now half-illuminated, tangled in translucent celestial script.

In the corners of the hut, green shoots had forced their way out of cracks. Now, Ethan saw them clearly: halos of radiant, golden-green energy eddied around their stems, their leaves hungry for sunlight like tiny suns fighting darkness.

Even the old wood of the hut—worn out after years of exiles passing through—was woven through with fading streaks of Qi, soft networks left behind by generations of cultivators.

He breathed deeper, and the air became a tapestry. Nearly invisible filaments of Qi twisted through the drab light, curling in delicate spirals between his mouth and his lungs, threading out through windows, linking him to everything outside.

For the first time since his transmigration, Ethan felt truly connected—no longer an exile, no longer invisible or broken.

It was as if the Spirit-Eye was not just seeing but revealing his place in a web of energy that held the entire world together.

But even that awe faded before curiosity about the Moonflood Reaper.

He turned to where the scythe lay, and its presence seized his attention like a thunderclap.

Before, the weapon had been simply impressive, radiating system-bestowed power—its blue edge gleaming, handle polished, the pressure enough to make lessers shiver. But now, with his new vision, every inch of the Reaper was changed.

The crescent blade shone with a living blue, as if moonlight poured down from the heavens and froze in metal. Fine silver runes floated above the surface, shifting in ways no ordinary mind could decode.

The haft looked elegant and smooth, but within, Ethan now glimpsed streams of silvery-blue energy, winding like river-spirits through wood and crystal.

The weapon pulsed, its very rhythm out of phase with the hut or even Ethan himself—a heartbeat from somewhere else, some unreachably distant place.

It was not just a weapon, not just an artifact, but an entity. Something alive, or maybe something haunting death itself.

Ethan felt a chill as he realized the scythe’s true nature: it was neither beast nor tool, but a vessel for something completely unhuman. Something not made to fit inside any mortal hand.

What have I been given? he wondered, both awed and anxious. How much deeper does this go?

His moment of wonder was interrupted by discomfort—a sensation that snapped his attention back to earth. He was almost naked.

What remained of his clothes clung to him like old cobwebs, stuck by a tar-like black liquid that seemed to defy soap and water at first touch.

Scraps still attached to his body, fused by that sticky goo, barely covered him at all; the substance reminded him of some oily slime from his previous world.

Ethan peeled away the remnants, wincing as the goo tugged at his skin. He hurried outside, grabbing a battered bucket and a wooden ladle, determined to wash away the black filth.

The village bathhouse was cold—stone floors chilled to the bone, half-frozen buckets and spigots that dripped painfully—but Ethan did not care.

He scrubbed himself raw, watching as black rivulets spiraled away from his skin and vanished down the drain.

The process was surprisingly satisfying.

The more he washed, the lighter and cleaner he felt. Muscles that had been sluggish now thrummed with energy.

He ran his hand over his arms and felt the texture: stronger, smoother, almost like polished stone flecked with jade.

As Ethan washed, his mind wandered. Baths—and yes, even the primitive latrine beside the bathhouse—were places that sparked thought, reflection, insight.

What IS this black liquid? he mused, mind spinning through everything he’d learned and read. The stories from the sect, the scrolls about spiritual bodies—all pointed to one conclusion.

Impurities.

Physical cultivators were plagued by them. When most people trained their bodies in this world, they strengthened muscle, thickened bone, but the filth buried deep never left.

Only a few chosen by fate or genius would ever have the chance to expel their deepest contamination, to cleanse marrow and remove blocked Qi. For spiritual cultivators, purging filth was almost routine—they did it early, their Qi strong enough to burn away most obstacles. But for those who walked the body-refinement path? It was almost impossible.

He remembered tales, whispered more as legend than history: a handful—maybe a dozen in all the ages—who had cleansed themselves of impurities and become monsters in strength, living relics among men.

Even so, most never reached that stage, because once impurities blend with marrow, extraction takes either the purest elixirs or the most brutal miracles.

Even then, these rare medicines were hoarded, never wasted on body cultivators with "unknown potential."

Ethan stared at the black filth swirling down the drain and realized, I am now one of those legends. By chance, by system, by suffering—I have crossed a hurdle nearly no one ever does.

He felt an exhilaration greater than breakthrough alone could give. The chains that held him back were gone; his flesh was new, his marrow bright.

The system had gifted him what the Azure Origin Dao Sect would never have considered worthwhile.

He finished his cleansing, wrapped himself in a faded towel, and sat for a moment in the cold damp of the bathhouse.

Steam rose faintly, blurring the edges of his new vision, but even here, in the emptiest place, he could see the dance of energy, life force, and change.

Just as this certainty settled in his mind, a sharp, distinct knock echoed from his hut’s door, loud enough to startle him from thought.