The Outer Disciple Selection was not a test—it was a culling.
Every year, the Ironcloud Sect invited a hundred servant-class youths to fight for ten spots among the outer ranks. No written exams. No philosophy debates. Just combat, raw and bloody, in the arena of stone and steel.
Most never made it past the first day.
Many didn't leave alive.
---
Yun Mu stood at the edge of the trial grounds, his black robe sleeveless, frayed at the edges, his arms bandaged tightly to hide the Bone Sigils beneath.
No one recognized him.
No one even noticed him.
He was just another nameless servant, bone-thin and quiet.
But within him, the Hollow Seed trembled, eager to feed.
---
The trial began with the Overseer's call.
"Let the culling begin!"
One hundred names were drawn.
Fifty matches. No rules.
Victory required incapacitation, surrender… or death.
Those who refused to fight were removed—quietly, and forever.
Yun Mu's name was drawn in the second wave.
His opponent?
Feng Kai. Seventeen years old. Outer disciple candidate for the third year in a row. Body-refining cultivator, Third Layer. Not talented—but brutal.
The betting crowd loved him.
---
The two stepped into the ring—sunlight beating down on the cracked marble floor. Spectators watched from shaded towers, sipping spirit tea and laughing.
Feng Kai cracked his knuckles.
"A stick like you? They send you to die first, huh?"
Yun Mu didn't answer.
The announcer raised his hand.
"Begin!"
---
Feng Kai rushed forward immediately, fists coated in iron essence. His technique was crude—but powerful.
Yun Mu didn't move.
Didn't even blink.
At the last moment, he whispered:
"Dual Flame Memory Shard."
The Bone Sigil on his wrist burned.
And suddenly—he was gone.
A flicker of motion—two feet to the left, behind Kai's shoulder.
The crowd gasped.
Feng Kai spun, but too late.
Yun Mu struck with open fingers.
Not a punch. A pierce.
His Hollow Qi surged into Kai's shoulder, drilling inward like smoke through cracks.
Feng Kai screamed, staggering back—blood pouring from a hole that hadn't even torn muscle.
> [Silent Cut: Internal damage successful.]
[Nerve disruption triggered.]
Kai howled, swinging wildly.
Yun Mu danced around him.
His eyes were empty.
Not cold—just hollow.
Like he'd already forgotten his opponent existed.
The second blow shattered Kai's kneecap.
The third severed a tendon in his neck.
The fourth—
Stopped.
Yun Mu paused.
Kai lay on the ground, weeping. Snot and blood mixing in the dirt. His hands twitched, still trying to crawl.
Yun Mu raised a single finger.
Black qi shimmered around it.
And then—he turned away.
"Submission."
The referee hesitated, then raised his hand.
"Victory! Yun Mu!"
---
The crowd was silent.
Then—uproar.
A no-name servant defeating a known contender?
With a strange, silent style that left no spiritual ripples?
It wasn't just shocking.
It was terrifying.
---
By evening, Yun Mu's name had become the day's most whispered topic.
Not just among servants.
Among disciples.
Among instructors.
And one name reached a particular ear:
Lin Yu—outer disciple, favored son of Elder Lin.
He remembered that name.
Chen Bo's killer. The brat no one had seen since.
A servant who now stood on the path of outer discipleship?
That was unacceptable.
That was a threat.
---
That night, Yun Mu meditated in the ruins of the Soul Annex.
He didn't revel in victory.
Didn't even feel pride.
The Hollow Seed had consumed part of Feng Kai's spiritual instinct—the raw, animal desire to dominate.
It now rested in Yun Mu's spirit sea like a flickering ember.
> [Instinct Fragment Absorbed: Aggression Pulse - Rank 0]
Passive increase to combat presence. Targets subconsciously hesitate.
He filed it away.
Then turned to the jade slab.
It pulsed.
And from its surface, a second phrase appeared:
> Form is the cage. Spirit is the chain. Break both, and the Hollow becomes true.
---
Yun Mu knew what it meant.
He needed to abandon normal cultivation methods completely.
To step forward, he had to shatter his own spirit framework—the natural formation of meridians and dantian every cultivator used.
Instead, he would construct a Hollow Pathway.
A structure made of scars, of fractures, of voids.
He would forge an anti-spiritual vessel.
One that could contain not just power—but opposing powers. One that wouldn't collapse from contradiction, but feed on it.
---
But to do that?
He needed something violent.
Something pure.
A spirit core.
And the next round of the trials… was a free-for-all.
No referees.
No pairing.
Only survival.
---
As he closed his eyes that night, the Hollow Seed showed him a vision.
A battlefield.
A broken tower.
And a mask, floating in the dark—half white, half black, with no mouth.
It whispered:
> Claim the void.
Let nothing remain.
Become what even spirits fear.