The mist hadn't left Kai Lin's robes.
He returned to the outer sect like a ghost walking backward through time. Other disciples were still stumbling out of the Rootless Forest, torn robes, pale faces, and hands full of marrow flowers.
Kai carried nothing.
Yet his name spread faster than those with rewards.
Not because he succeeded.
Because he came back untouched.
And because two disciples who followed him inside were now listed among the dead.
Elder Xun, the Outer Hall's supervisor, watched from a high platform, arms folded behind his back.
The man's spiritual sense swept the crowd below like a hunting hawk.
When it passed over Kai Lin… it hesitated.
The boy had no cultivation.
No qi signature. No fluctuations. No trace of suppression or breakthrough.
It was as if the space around him was… inverted.
"What are you hiding?" Elder Xun whispered.
A glint flickered in his eyes.
Later that evening, Kai stood beneath a withered tree behind his courtyard, arms crossed, face to the wind.
The system hadn't spoken since the forest.
He didn't expect it to.
He hadn't earned silence. Not yet.
The cracked seal within his dantian pulsed faintly. Behind it, a tide of violent qi churned — his true cultivation, locked and sealed by forces beyond heaven and earth.
But the seal… was weakening.
Each step, each duel, each sign-in…
It wasn't just growing him stronger.
It was waking something.
Suddenly, a scroll flew into his courtyard.
Kai caught it midair, one finger.
A golden emblem glowed faintly on its seal — Inner Sect Selection Invite.
He narrowed his eyes. They never sent these to outer disciples directly.
He unrolled the scroll.
"Kai Lin.
By recommendation of Elder Xun, you are invited to a preliminary challenge.
Date: Two days from now.
Location: Sky-Ascending Steps.
Success will grant you entry into the Inner Sect Trial Grounds.
Failure… will not be forgiven."
He let the scroll roll shut.
"So they're watching now."
He didn't sigh.
He didn't smile.
He only turned to face the horizon, where the peaks of the Inner Sect pierced the clouds.
Two days later.
The Sky-Ascending Steps were carved directly into the cliffside behind Azure Sky Mountain. Each step was forged from the bones of a slain beast — a trial not just of spirit, but of mind and memory.
As Kai Lin stood at the base, others whispered from behind him.
"That's him. The silent cripple."
"Someone said he returned from Rootless Forest with zero injuries…"
"But look. Still no qi. Still a ghost."
Elder Xun waited at the top of the steps, arms behind his back. His gaze was calm — too calm.
Kai began to walk.
Each step wasn't just a physical elevation.
They carried pressure.
Visions.
Echoes of every death, every scream, every soul that had fallen here since the sect's founding.
By the fifth step, most outer disciples would kneel.
By the tenth, they would crawl.
Kai Lin reached the tenth with his eyes closed.
His pace was steady. His aura unreadable.
A disciple halfway up the steps stared in disbelief.
"What is he…? He's ignoring the pressure?"
Elder Xun narrowed his eyes. "No… he's absorbing it."
Kai's foot touched the twelfth step.
And the system awakened.
[Sign-In Successful – Location: Sky-Ascending Steps]
Reward: Soul-Forged Silence (Passive Spiritual Art)
Effect: Suppresses divine sense from those one realm above. Shatters aura tracking. Amplifies silence into soul pressure.
Secondary Effect: Grants Kai Lin's steps an echo that reflects internal killing intent back onto the perceiver.
Progress Toward Seal Break: 5.7%
Elder Xun felt a sudden cold in his chest.
As Kai Lin ascended the steps, he did not grow brighter. He grew dimmer.
Darker.
And his footsteps… they rang with a sound that Xun realized wasn't sound at all.
It was memory.
Each echo made him recall someone he had killed, someone he had betrayed, someone whose name he had forgotten.
Elder Xun staggered a step back.
"This boy… is not walking toward heaven."
"He is dragging it down to him."
Kai Lin reached the top of the Sky-Ascending Steps.
He stopped in front of Elder Xun.
The elder composed himself, then raised his sleeve to offer the black badge — the token of qualification for the Inner Sect Trial.
Kai didn't reach for it.
He looked past it.
And for a moment, the wind carried his whisper:
"I don't want to join the Inner Sect."
Elder Xun frowned. "Then why—"
"I want to burn it down from the inside."
He took the badge and turned, leaving no further words.