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Chapter 1: The Dead End and the Script Scroll
The sky rumbled.
Dark clouds boiled above the Cloudveil Sect's outer courtyard as lightning crackled across the peaks. A boy lay face down in the mud, coughing up blood. His sect robe was torn, his face pale and bruised.
Li Tianyu, age seventeen, had collapsed again during cultivation training.
The same result. Always the same.
"No talent, no spirit root, no future," he whispered, voice barely audible over the storm.
The other outer disciples didn't even bother mocking him anymore. It was boring. He was a joke that had long lost its flavor. At best, he was tolerated; at worst, ignored entirely. No Qi sense. No meridian resonance. Nothing. The sect elders had already marked him as spirit-wasted — someone born with blocked Qi veins.
He lay there, alone, cold, and soaked. But this time, something felt different.
The thunder stopped. Completely.
No wind. No sound. Not even the drip of rain.
Tianyu blinked and slowly pushed himself to his knees. The courtyard was frozen. Literally. Raindrops hung in mid-air. A bird in the sky stood still like a painting. The world had stopped moving — except him.
Then he saw it.
Floating before him was a scroll of golden light, unfurling itself in the air. His name pulsed at the top of the glowing text:
[Life Script: Li Tianyu]
Lines of glowing script shimmered across the panel like words in a divine book:
> Li Tianyu, born of the mortal realm, blocked of spirit root, destined to die in his 18th year in obscurity.
His breath caught.
It was like the heavens were mocking him — writing his death sentence in light.
But as his fingers touched the scroll, a faint voice echoed in his mind:
> "The quill of destiny is not for the heavens alone. Write, and become more."
Suddenly, the panel flickered, and a new option appeared:
>> Edit Script Line? (Cost: 5 Life Points)
Line: "Li Tianyu dies in obscurity."
Suggested Replacement: "Li Tianyu awakens an ancient bloodline on the brink of death."
His heart pounded. He had no idea what Life Points were or how many he had, but his hand moved instinctively.
> Confirm edit?
[Yes] [No]
He clicked Yes.
The scroll blazed gold, then disintegrated into glowing threads that shot into his body. Pain exploded in his chest — like his bones were melting, his blood boiling. He screamed as light poured from his eyes, his veins, his very soul.
In the depths of his dantian — the empty sea where Qi should flow — something stirred. A crimson dragon scale, ancient and cracked, pulsed with light.
The Azure-Blood Dragon Vein — long dormant in his ancestry — had awakened.
The clouds above dispersed in an instant. Thunder retreated. The rain stopped. The world resumed.
But everything had changed.
Li Tianyu stood up slowly, his eyes glowing with a faint golden hue.
He felt it.
For the first time in his life, Qi flowed through his veins like a raging river.
And deep within his mind, the Life Script Panel hovered silently, waiting for its next edit.
> Heaven writes fate in stone. I write it in fire, he thought.
> Let's see who gets the final word.
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