CHAPTER 22: CHAPTER 22

The sun sinks low behind distant peaks, and in its place, the moon rises, casting the world in cool silvery light.

The stars drift lazily overhead, hidden beyond rolling clouds and the swirling mist that hangs above Serene Mirror Lake.

In the blink of an eye, ten years have passed since that spar with Kael—a decade sloughing by with the relentless patience only cultivators can truly endure.

It is deep winter, and the heavy snow has transformed the village into a landscape ghostly and serene, each hut and tree blanketed under a thick quilt of white.

By the water’s edge, a solitary figure stands—tall, silent, blending into the cold quiet of the scene.

He wore a blue robe, the fabric thick and woven for warmth, layers overlapping and tied with a simple hemp belt at his waist.

The color wasn’t loud, but was as intimate as the river itself: deep indigo streaked by subtle silver lines, tracing the robe’s rim like the veins of water and moonlight mingled.

Wide sleeves hung from his arms, over hands made strong by years of training.

The hem sweeps the snow softly, collecting a few crystals with each step. The collar rises high, protecting the skin but revealing the muscular, reliable line of his neck.

Over it all, Ethan wore a woven bamboo hat, angled low—a fisherman’s crown, shielding against wind and falling snow.

In the evening light and the haze of falling flakes, he looked like a spirit conjured from the river itself: at once man, monster, and memory, kin to koi and crab and the hidden things that dwell beneath water.

The fishing rod rested easily in his hand, weighted and aged by long use. Ethan watched his line, patient as winter itself.

He was not in a hurry, the way most cultivators are—pacing and praying for ascension, their eyes always fixed on tomorrow.

For him, this moment is enough.

Calm flowed through his chest, a quiet that has become his habit and his shield. If anything,

Ethan was more river than man—steady, persistent, lending life quietly, nurturing nothing and everything.

The system did not give daily fishing quests any longer; its rhythm is erratic, unpredictable.

But Ethan has made fishing ritual—a tradition not for resources, not for sustenance, not for cultivation, but for the pure pleasure of immersion.

Two to four hours spent at the edge of the lake, each day, eyes tracing the water’s movements, listening to the sigh of wind through reeds and the distant crack of snow-laden trees.

Here, Ethan found peace apart from the roiling world of cultivators—a world of blood, politics, and ambition.

His fingers twitched minutely as a bite pulls at the line. The world felt suspended. He tugged gently, and, with a clean splash, pulls a golden fish from the water. It glimmers in the moonlight—a spectacular koi, scales bright as sunlight, leaping against the winter gloom.

[Congratulations to the host for completing today’s fishing mission and receiving the reward: Dirt World Flower.]

[It is detected that the host has caught a Moonscale Koi, which triggers great luck and wins a surprise grand prize: Skycleaver (halberd).]

Ethan lets out a small breath, a soft sound curling with joy.

"Here it comes," murmured Ethan, listening to the system, the familiar voice sliding into his thoughts, confident as always.

A bright, fleeting smile printed itself on Ethan’s lips.

Ten years of relentless practice and ten years of quiet fishing had changed him profoundly—the scared boy of the past waas gone, replaced by a man whose calm was his shield and his blessing.

His face still gentle beneath the broad brim of his bamboo hat, but the lines were set, jaw strong, eyes both warm and cold.

The robe, the hat, the muscular frame—all gave him the look of someone who might have walked from myth or legend.

A brown spiritual flower slide into his hands, so sudden and beautiful it dimmed the snowy landscape. Its petals were shaped like overlapping shields, curling in concentric layers, each tip edged in golden light, each heart veined with rich earth.

The flower glowed briefly, and the air around Ethan seemed to freeze—the snow stilled, the grass underneath tried tried to grow, as if fed by invisible hands.

The dirt world flower is a heavenly gift, a reward grown by the Heavenly Dao itself wherever death and emptiness would demand renewal.

In places where life is stripped not by war or malice, but simply by the impersonal truth of nature, this blossom restores all that is lost.

Its roots became gardens, orchards, forests. The flower is impossibly rare, its value both spiritual and mundane, a mark of the favor and balance of creation.

Ethan turned the blossom in his hands with reverence, feeling the pulse of its mystery.

In 10 years, he had earned nearly ten thousand system rewards. Most of them are trinkets, scrolls, ordinary martial secrets—many of which hold little true value.

Only a handful rise to the status of treasure, and fewer still are suitable for his path, compatible with the demands of body refinement.

For a decade, every waking moment not spent fishing is poured into practice. The Celestial Jade Physique Scripture is and will be both his foundation and his tormentor—the progress each level slower than the last, each leap forward measured in centuries for most.

The first level, Meridian Purification, cleansed his meridians, soaking them with essence light, burning away filth and blockages. With that, his Qi circulates as easily as the river flows, wounds heal in hours instead of days, stamina replenishes with sleep and breath alone.

The second level, Flesh Refinement, is no simple transformation. It reshapes muscle from mortal to divine—fibers tuned for speed, for power, for endurance. Yet Ethan does not bulge in unsightly ways; his body refines, not mutates. He moves with grace, agility, and strength all interwoven, patterns of motion lost to most.

The third level of the Scripture—Jade Bone Formation—has proven the most brutal yet. For more than a year, Ethan has suffered, his bones transforming painfully, membrane by membrane, fragment by fragment.

Every accident, every misstep, every injury is churned through the relentless power of jade, hardening and clarifying. He feels them sometimes: his bones, beneath the flesh, growing slick and smooth as polished stone, their centers hollowed then remade into gleaming conduits of raw, pure energy.

With each step, the third level resists, stubborn, demanding sacrifice.

Even so, with the system’s rewards, he stood on the verge, progress marked not in weeks or months, but slow, persistent struggle.

He shook his head, storing the Dirt World Flower in the system’s inventory space with a gentle nod of thanks.

"The surprise weapon—the Skycleaver halberd—is spiritual grade," Ethan thought.

But later Ethan simply muses to himself, "I already have what I need."

The Moonflood Scythe—his true companion—was unmatched.

Though the system had rained weapons upon him, none ever truly rival the scythe’s quality.

As Ethan grows in mastery, he realized the scythe’s hidden depths, the ways it responds and adapts; if anything, he himself was the limiting factor, the bottleneck for the weapon’s full power.

With deft motions, he unhooked the fishing line, releasing the Moonscale Koi and three small fish back into the lake, keeping the six largest for dinner.

His appetite has grown with his strength—three small fishes are barely enough to sate him now, and alongside fish he gathers wild monsters for his table, supplementing meals lest the blandness of fish alone dull his senses.

He pushed off his bamboo hat, dusted it for snow, then set it firmly on his head. Blue robe trailing behind, Moonflood Reaper slung over his back, Ethan started walking toward his hut, the snow crunching softly underfoot as the moon blazes overhead.

He left behind the lake, the legends, and the ghosts of ten winters, heading to the hut, he called home.