The sect stirred long before the morning bell. Mist clung to the slate tiles and silent courtyards, curling around stone statues and moss-covered stairways like the breath of sleeping dragons. In the gray hours before dawn, Heaven's Gate Sect appeared timeless—eternal, aloof, and untouched by mortal concerns. But Lin Xian knew better.
A crisp knock at his door broke the stillness.
"Letter for Disciple Lin Xian," came a voice, too formal to belong to a fellow outer disciple.
He stood, already dressed, and slid the door open. A steward in dark blue robes handed over a scroll sealed with golden lacquer. The insignia embedded into the wax was unmistakable: a six-petaled lotus wreathed in fire.
Elder Ma's seal.
The steward did not wait for acknowledgment. He turned and vanished into the morning fog, leaving only the faint creak of sandals on stone.
Lin Xian's fingers brushed the edge of the seal, sensing the faint residual heat of a protection spell. It was real.
He cracked it open and read:
"Disciple Lin Xian, you are hereby invited to participate in the Internal Ascension Trials, seven days from today. Prepare accordingly. —Elder Ma"
Seven days.
Far too early. He had been in the sect for less than a full season.
Lin Xian sat back at his desk, scroll still unfurled. There was no honor in this message—only manipulation. No other outer disciple had been pushed into the Trials this quickly unless their cultivation base was exceptional… or their presence inconvenient.
He looked to the screen wall, where dozens of parchments were neatly pinned. Red threads linked names to events, tasks to officials, instructors to disciples. A quiet web of influence and debt.
At the center of it all—unconnected to anyone, untouched by every recorded event—was a single name:
Yan Tian.
Lin Xian had ignored it before. But now, the blankness of it, the silence around it, drew his focus like gravity.
...
By late afternoon, the sect bustled as usual. Disciples sparred in training fields, herbalists sorted through spring-grown spiritual roots, and task stewards barked orders from their post under the green-tiled pavilion. The sect appeared serene, disciplined, and full of purpose.
It was an illusion.
Lin Xian passed unnoticed through the chaos, robes plain, expression calm. He took the northern path, ascending the lesser-used stone trail that led to the higher outer disciple quarters.
There, far from the crowded dormitories, stood an isolated compound. No banners flew above its roof. No other disciples trained outside it. The gate was old, framed in black pine and carved with the image of a coiled serpent—its tongue reaching toward the threshold.
Lin Xian paused.
According to sect records, this had once been a retreat for promising disciples on the verge of ascension. Now, it housed only one.
He stepped forward and knocked once.
Silence.
He waited. Counted ten full breaths. Knocked again.
The door creaked open on its own.
The interior courtyard had the stillness of a forgotten shrine. Weeds pushed between stones, yet none touched the center circle where five yin-yang stones formed a silent formation. A copper brazier stood cold. Nearby, a withered tree bent with age and quiet defiance.
Lin Xian took three steps inside.
"You came sooner than I expected," said a voice from behind him.
He turned.
A tall figure leaned against the doorframe. Robes of faded gray clung to broad shoulders, and long hair was tied back in a silver thread. His face was angular, sharp, and his eyes were gray—not dull, but deep, like the surface of still water that concealed untold depth.
"Yan Tian," Lin Xian said evenly.
The man offered a half-smile. "Most who come here expect a madman. You don't."
"I expect a survivor."
Yan Tian's smile faded.
"You know why I'm here."
"I do. They've invited you to the Trials."
Lin Xian nodded.
"Then come inside. We'll speak where walls don't have ears."
The chamber beyond was small but impeccably clean. Scrolls lined the walls—some half-burnt, others sealed. On a raised stone platform sat a meditation cushion untouched by dust. There was no sign of madness here. Only discipline. Isolation. And knowledge.
Yan Tian poured two cups of bitter spirit tea from a kettle that had been warming quietly over a low flame.
"I know what they've asked of you," Yan Tian said. "And I know what lies at the end of that path."
"You refused it," Lin Xian said. "Why?"
Yan Tian reached behind him and retrieved a jade medallion. It was cracked down the center, but the etching remained: a seven-pointed lotus wrapped in flame.
"Because I saw what was on the other side."
Lin Xian didn't interrupt.
"The Inner Sect is not salvation," Yan Tian continued. "It is a crucible. One designed not to test strength—but to ensure loyalty. Absolute, unquestioning loyalty."
"To what?"
"To forces far older than this mountain."
Lin Xian's eyes narrowed.
"Do you think our elders still serve the sect's founding ideals?" Yan Tian asked. "Or even the cultivation of disciples? No. They serve contracts. Old ones. Written in blood and spirit and bound to artifacts that rest deep beneath the main temple."
"You've seen these?"
Yan Tian raised a brow. "Why do you think I'm still alive?"
A silence passed between them. Heavy. Not with suspicion—but understanding.
"You were once like me," Lin Xian said. "You watched. You waited."
"And then I flinched. I let fear stay my hand. You won't."
"Are you offering help?"
"I'm offering perspective. The rest is up to you."
Yan Tian lit a thin stick of incense, the scent woody and bitter. It trailed a curling plume upward into the rafters, vanishing like a spirit called home. He spoke without looking at Lin Xian.
"Do you know the story of Elder Xuan Lu?"
Lin Xian shook his head.
"Fifty years ago, he was like us. A prodigy of the Outer Sect, known for his silence and clarity of mind. The elders took a particular interest in him. He passed the Trials without effort, was brought into the Inner Sect, and vanished from public training."
Yan Tian placed a folded scroll before Lin Xian, brittle from age.
"When he reappeared five years later, he was... altered. His cultivation had advanced too quickly. His techniques had changed—strange, foreign, marked by soul-burning glyphs and techniques that could not be traced to any of our lineages."
Lin Xian unrolled the scroll. Diagrams of meridians warped into unnatural configurations filled the parchment. In the margin, a scribbled note:
"No qi root should curve thus—unless... unless it was reshaped."
"They broke him," Yan Tian said. "They remade him into a tool. A weapon for the Pact."
Lin Xian sat very still.
"You've suspected it already. The sect's politics are not just about hierarchy or power. They're about eligibility. Compatibility. Some of us are marked from birth. And those of us who aren't... they find ways to 'adjust' us."
"You said the Pact is old. Older than the sect?"
Yan Tian nodded. "The original founders made a deal with a celestial being—perhaps even a fallen Immortal. Power in exchange for obedience. Every decade, a disciple is sacrificed in ritual. The Trials aren't a test. They're a selection."
A thousand thoughts rushed through Lin Xian's mind. He thought of the carved stone beneath the main temple's altar. Of the way the elders glanced at each other when talking of "the true legacy."
"And why tell me this?" he asked.
"Because I saw something in you that reminded me of myself, before I gave in."
"You want me to fight them?"
"I want you to remember that victory here is not only survival. It's the refusal to be reshaped. You are clever, Lin Xian. You learn quickly. So listen carefully: do not show your full talent in the Trials. Hide the scope of your soul. Mask your strength. Let them underestimate you. If they believe you manageable, you may see what lies beneath."
"And if they don't?"
Yan Tian looked him straight in the eye. "Then you must become what they fear—a person they cannot control. And destroy the rot from within."
As Lin Xian left the compound, the sun had fully risen, spilling pale gold across the cloud-wreathed peaks. He did not feel the warmth.
He walked slowly, eyes distant, the gears of his mind turning with quiet fury.
The Trials were no longer about ascension. They were a labyrinth. And somewhere within, a minotaur waited—an ancient contract still drinking from the veins of the hopeful.
He had seven days.
Back in his quarters, Lin Xian closed the door and locked it thrice. He retrieved a scroll from a hidden panel beneath the floor. It contained his own records—an exacting log of every technique he had learned, every cultivation deviation he had intentionally caused to mask his progress, every false plateau he had feigned.
He studied it now with new intent.
To survive, he must not just deceive the elders. He must perform the role they wished to see—a promising, yet still bound disciple. Controlled. Predictable.
He would create a persona for the Trials: one that was powerful, but clumsy in manipulation. Gifted in raw talent, but naïve in strategy. The kind of person the sect could mold.
A mask.
Behind it, he would observe. Identify the other chosen. Look for the signs of pact influence. And slowly, silently, piece together the truth.
He would not let them shape him.
He would shape them.
...
In the following days, Lin Xian played the part to perfection.
He began training in more open areas, his techniques just flashy enough to draw attention. He 'struggled' with advanced forms, asking for guidance from task stewards and instructors. His conversations with fellow disciples became warmer, more casual. He became visible, but not threatening. Curious, but unwise.
Exactly the kind of talent they wanted to see ascend.
And from the shadows, Yan Tian watched.
The older disciple never appeared again in the daylight, but now and then, Lin Xian would find small signs—a strip of incense laid sideways at his door, a red string tied to a tree near the alchemy hall. Messages.
They were not alone.