The First Glimmer

Chapter 4: The First Glimmer

Ren returned to his small, spartan room, his mind buzzing with a mixture of hope and fear.

He locked the door and pulled the blank scroll from his robes, placing it on his small wooden table. The surface of the parchment was still blank, but as he focused his mind, the words he had sensed in the library began to appear, glowing faintly as if written in starlight.

The **Phaseless Bloodline Scripture** was a maddening text. It did not speak of specific techniques or the flow of qi through meridians. Instead, it spoke in metaphors, of still lakes, silent echoes, and bottomless voids. The first principle was the most puzzling: *To copy, one must first be empty.* He understood the meaning. His meridians were already empty. They were a void that no one could fill. But the scripture instructed him to meditate not to fill his void, but to cultivate its emptiness, to make it more receptive. He spent the entire night in meditation, his mind a blank slate, his focus on the very emptiness that had been a source of such shame for so long.

The next morning, his mind felt clearer than it had in years, but his body felt no different.

There was no surge of power, no rush of qi. It was a silent, internal change. The scripture then spoke of observation. *The echo is found in the heart of the sound.* It was a call to observe other cultivators, to feel the essence of their power, and to let it resonate with his own emptiness.

That afternoon, he went to the training grounds, but he kept his distance, hiding behind a large boulder. His cousin Lei was there, now solidly in the **Middle Foundation** stage, showing off his Fire Dragon Bloodline. Lei raised his hand, and a small fireball, no bigger than an apple, formed in his palm. Ren watched, not with jealousy, but with an intense, quiet focus, following the flow of Lei’s qi as it moved from his dantian, up his arm, and into his hand. He felt a faint, hot sensation on his own palm, but nothing more.

He returned to his room, discouraged but not defeated. The scripture was a slow, arduous path, and he knew he had to be patient. That evening, he decided to try a simple technique.

The scripture instructed him to mimic the sensation of the observed power. He closed his eyes and tried to remember the heat he had felt from Lei’s small fireball. He focused on his hand, concentrating on the emptiness within.

For a long time, nothing happened. He sat there, his arm extended, feeling foolish. Just as he was about to give up, a tiny, almost imperceptible warmth spread across his palm. It was not a fireball, not even a flicker of flame. It was just a sensation, a wisp of heat that vanished as quickly as it appeared. But for Ren, it was everything. It was proof. He had **echoed** the power.

The next day, he observed a boy with the Earth Titan Bloodline attempting to move a heavy boulder. The boy grunted with effort, and Ren felt a sensation of immense weight and resistance in his own body. He returned to his room and tried to replicate it, and a strange, heavy feeling settled in his limbs. It was the same feeling, the same power, but in a far, far weaker form.

Ren realized that the elders, his family, everyone, was right in a way. His bloodline was weak. Terribly so. It took him hours just to get a fraction of a sensation that others could manifest instantly. But it wasn’t nothing. He wasn’t a void. He was an echo, a copy. And the more he practiced, the more he felt the power strengthening. The path was long and difficult, but for the first time in his life, Ren felt he had a future. He had a secret. He was **Phaseless**.

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