The feelings in that moment were overwhelming, and yet, he could only love them.

  Dreams and hopes long buried surfaced once again- visiting the library on his own, making friends, sating the curiosity that shaped his life, repaying Mother and Father for their sacrifices, seeing his little sister grow- and his hands shook, for once not because of his illness, but for the sheer emotions he was feeling.

  He had accepted his fate for so long, a fate he hated at the same time, and now another possibility awaited him for the first time.

  His eyes got watery, the smile on his face almost hurt, interrupted only by a coughing fit. It was less painful than usual, but more than enough to double him over and dampen the excitement.

  Even after being brought back to the grim reality of his condition, he was still smiling.

  I have to be realistic. I have a shot at living for much longer, but it will only be relevant if I grow fast enough, and I’m already sixteen…

  Most cultivators born in common families awakened to it between the ages of fourteen and fifteen, the later they did, the lower their talent. Even then, true talents awakened around thirteen, or even earlier.

  At the age of sixteen? Chang Heng knew already how hard, and especially how slow, his journey would be.

  Others can spend time getting acquainted with their new life, slowly building up their Cultivation as they experience the world and learn, but I can’t. I’ll die before I accomplish anything if I don’t rush through the Realms as much as I can.

  With this thought in mind, he walked as fast as he could to his bedroom, doing his best not to wake anyone. Sneaking while passing his parents’ room was new for him. He didn’t know why he wanted to avoid them so much in that moment.

  The fatigue that going up the stairs made him feel was less than usual, and it cheered him up a bit.

  His already small room was clearly divided in two halves: one was tidy, with an always-made bed, an oil lamp by its side, and an orderly closet; the other half had his desk and study materials.

  Not only were the books left open on seemingly random pages and filled with lines, drawings, and short sentences, but the whole desk was covered by pages and pages of notes, pieces of paper filled with ideas and inspirations thrown around, to the point he even left some on the floor. And those that he found most important? Attached to the wall, some with cheap, animal-based glue, others with straight-up nails. That was his only other experience in sneaking from his parents.

  All those books, all those notes, covered the one topic that, once medicine failed, could cure him and grant a new life: Cultivation.

  His main inspirations were the works of his ancestor, the people who tried to imitate him, and the famous Qi Theorist, another brilliant mind he admired.

  For many others, this work was pointless: if you were poor, chances were you weren’t a Cultivator and would never be; if you weren’t, then just buying the techniques you wanted was much easier and less time-consuming.

  But for Chang Heng, this was both a passion and the one way to survive his curse: make his own Technique, better than any his now poor family could afford him.

  So he spent years studying and studying, researching both the few important authors on the topic, few Cultivators had reason to publish books other than public recognition, and a non-cultivator could never be considered an expert, and those who imitated them or came up with their own, often nonsensical ideas.

  From Chang Ling, he learnt mostly about Cultivation Techniques: they were traditionally based on a powerful cultivator’s comprehension of a specific Dao, crystallized in one or more symbols, that would attract Qi with similar properties and use it to grow in the ranks.

  His ancestor disliked the idea that such a process could only be based on abstract concepts and even more abstract symbols, so he tried to make up a new “language” that could interact with Qi in the same ways, based instead on logic and mathematical processes.

  The Qi Theorist, instead, had a more vague comprehension, but it spanned over many different topics, at times even branching into philosophy and the Heavens themselves.

  The others were usually small-ish publications, on niche topics, or about weird ideas, bursts of inspiration, and more.

  With his ancestor’s logical Qi language, the Qi Theorist’s knowledge, and the ideas of many passionate fools, he had spent far too much time designing his own Cultivation Technique, based around a symbol that Chang Heng himself theorised, capable of accepting energy from any source, surpassing the barrier his ancestor never could.

  From the pile of paper, he took out a specific set of his notes, the final design he had decided for his technique. It was quite complex, spanning over almost five pages and represented from various angles, and for him, it was beautiful.

  He sat cross-legged on his bed and entered his Dantian for the first time.

  ***

  It took him a few minutes to properly gain consciousness of his internal world, but he savored the new experience.

  What he saw inside was just an empty space, with tiny, almost translucent motes of Qi wandering around its center, where more of those motes were gathered still. That was his Core, still, amorphous, dim, and with no element of its own.

  But that would soon change.

  He gathered the motes scattered inside the whole Dantian around his Core. It was a painfully slow process, especially since he had to stop the ones too close to it from entering the Core and advancing his Cultivation in a so inefficient way that it was pretty much a waste of Qi and time.

  When he finally gathered all of them, he noticed a simple, almost stupid detail:

  I don’t have enough.

  So, another slow process began: gathering Qi manually from the external world.

  This is often described as a brutal way to conclude basically nothing, let’s see how true the description is.

  And brutal it was.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  Even with his best efforts, he could only perceive the motes closest to the centre of his body where the Dantian resided, to the point that even just the extension of his arms ended up outside his range.

  He had to apply his will to each single mote and slowly move it inside his dantian, and then stop those external motes from leaving his body or entering his Core.

  The process was long, and even an instant of distraction meant losing progress; the pains that randomly flared in his body taught him this lesson.

  He pushed away the signals coming from his body, be it the pains that flared or persisted, ignoring them all until they barely registered.

  At first, it took all his concentration to do this with more than just one mote, but as the hours passed, he could feel his control increase: from one, to two, to more than ten, he was in control of so many motes that he could expend half the Qi in his Dantian and recharge most of it.

  Not that it was any big amount anyway, but progress was progress, and he could only thank the Blue Moon for its presence.

  As the sun rose, it was time to build up a proper Cultivation Technique.

  “But before that- yaaawn- a quick nap would be for the best”

  He barely changed position before falling asleep.

  ***

  “Heng Bro” the voice of a young girl called “Heng Brooo” her tone shifting to the whining of an annoyed sibling.

  “HENG BRO!”

  SLAM

  Chang Heng’s younger sister, Chang Xia, slammed the door open. “Wake up come on, I’m hungry Ineedbreakfast!”

  At eleven years old, she already resembled both their parents: taller than her age would suggest, she almost reached his chin, always reminding him how soon he stopped growing; she carried a lively face, with big eyes and an infectious smile, her smug expression reserved for their bickerings; her red hair was darker than their father’s, close to the deep brown of their mother, and just like her clothes and hands, they were often dirty from all her playing.

  Unlike her brother, she often complained about being too memorable, but he didn’t know if she meant it or if it was just to spite him.

  “It’s late, I’m hungry, and I don’t want to wait for you to eat, so GET UP!”

  As she did whenever her brother slept too long, Cheng Xia woke him up with screams and noises.

  In the past she could have given him some slaps or pulled his ears, but her body grew up and got stronger as her brother’s only got weaker, with bruises being too common to keep acting like that.

  She got closer to scream in his ear, and noticed the red stains on his face and clothes.

  After a whispered swear, she went to her mother.

  ***

  Chang Heng woke up with the steps of his sister leaving his room. A rare occurrence.

  As he got up, he took notice of the bloodstains on his clothes. Feeling his face, there were some more.

  Ah yes… I was nosebleeding when I practiced yesterday. OH RIGHT!

  “Mother!” he screamed “Ignore whatever the pet is saying and don’t worry! I have good news!”

  He put on some clean clothes hastily, cleaned his face, and walked downstairs to his family, waiting at the table with breakfast in front of them.

  “Oh? What’s the big news?” said his father with a smile.

  The man, Chang Jun, was in his early forties, with hair the color of copper, like his son’s. Whilst his height was very above average, his skinny frame and long limbs made him look smalles than he actually was. He always wore a kind smile, no matter who he met, and Chang Heng often thought that, if his father used glasses, he would look even more like a doctor than his actual doctors. Despite working around lots of ink, he was always perfectly clean, with a matching composure belonging to the highest levels of education. Looking at his eyes, he carried the care and intelligence that had strangers actually mistake him for a doctor.

  But Chang Heng knew just how exhausted they could look.

  “We should all sit down before I tell you. It’s big, BIG news.”

  “Just hurry up and come here, I don’t care, I have places to be!”

  “You really needed to say that, didn’t you, you dumb animal?”

  “Yes, I did! And I’m not dumb, I’m just not as boring as you, old and decrepit people.”

  “It was rhetorical” Chang Heng replied to his sister while sitting “which proves you are dumb. Also, you do realise I called you an animal, right? You got nothing to say about that?”

  “You are using rhetorical questions with a kid, it doesn’t prove anything! And, if I’m an animal, also my parents are animals, and I don’t think you wanna say that right in front of them. But feel free to do so, my dear Hen-Hen!” Chang Xia finished the conversation with an undisputable win, as his brother blushed.

  I hate that name. He glared at his mother. He knew she knew what he was thinking, so her answer wasn’t unexpected.

  “Hen-Hen, what’s wrong? I didn’t notice your sister calling you names, why do you look sooo… defeated, Hen-Hen?”

  She rubbed it in with a smug smile, as his father and sister openly laughed.

  All Chang Heng could do was blush and start eating.

  “Mother… please. Don’t use that name ever again. I’m begging you.”

  “I’ll pay more attention, but it just comes out so naturally, Hen-Hen. Oops, I did it again, didn’t I? Sorry, Hen-Hen…”

  His sister patted his back. She knew that, no matter what she said at him, this would be much worse. All she could feel for him was understanding, with a sliver of pity mixed in. He grumbled unintelligible noises under his breath.

  As they ate, his mother sneakily slipped in his plate some extra meat, to help him with the blood loss of the night.

  He always ate little, but her care was always waiting for him.

  Not that she needed the meat herself, as she already looked the part of a strong and hardworking woman: between her tanned skin from the hours spent under the sun, to her thick arms, the only thing that made her look unthreatening was the plumpness covering her muscles.

  Not that Chang Heng wasn’t scared of her anyway.

  Between her feats, the stories that came from the staples, telling increasingly absurd ways she handled both farm animals and beasts, and the way she also towered over her son, he would always be sure not to say the wrong thing.

  Remembering the easy time she had when they last moved, he worried the stories that involved fighting wild animals into submission could be true.

  Just like her husband, she also always had a bit of a smile, the same one an overconfident character from a children's book may have. That, together with her droopy and relaxed eyes, had people assume she wasn’t the brightest, and she always made sure to prove them wrong with her sharp tongue, a trait her daughter had clearly inherited.

  “So, what’s the great news?” said his father, after they finished eating.

  Chang Heng stood at the head of the table, fidgeting. He didn’t know why, but he felt anxious. As if just saying the truth would make it disappear.

  Watching their faces, he only saw support, even from his sister. They were waiting for him, silent so that they were sure they couldn’t interrupt him.

  A warm smile blossomed on his thin lips, his heart aching not from the pain his body always brought him, but from the warmth of seeing his family so blatantly loving.

  With calm, he let it out:

  “Last night, I found out I’m a Cultivator. Mother, Father, Sister, I’ll live long enough to give you back all the love you gave me for the last sixteen years. I’ll-”

  They rushed to hug him tight, with tears of happiness in their eyes, and the kind of true laughter their house had missed for too many years.