Day 2 of Exponential Growth
Lin Xun sat with his back against the cold wall.
The air in the hidden ruin was damp, quiet, and heavy with dust. It smelled of old stone, sealed time, and forgotten things. The kind of silence that pressed against the chest and made each breath feel like it echoed.
This place wasn't meant to be found.
It wasn't a cave, not naturally formed. The shape of the walls was too clean. Flat, carved with purpose. The narrow tunnel he'd entered through had opened into a square chamber—no more than four strides wide—empty except for a shattered stone pedestal at the center and ancient symbols carved into the walls.
He'd wiped one of the symbols clean earlier, just to see if he could understand it.
He couldn't.
The script was jagged and angular, nothing like the scholarly calligraphy used in the sect's manuals or travel records. If it had meaning, it wasn't meant for people like him.
Still, he felt safer here than anywhere else.
His body ached. Not with pain, but tension.
The kind of strain that felt like his muscles were trying to hold something back. Like his flesh and bones were too small for what was trying to grow inside him.
He took a slow breath and glanced at his right hand. The swelling had gone down since yesterday—but now his fingers felt heavier. Denser.
I'm changing, he thought.
Not in the gradual way disciples did when they trained. Not like those who refined their bodies over months to strengthen their muscles.
This wasn't earned. It was happening to him.
It was dangerous.
He reached to the side and pulled the satchel toward him.
Inside: two water flasks, a few steamed buns, a pouch of dried wolf jerky, and a rolled-up outer sect robe he could use as a pillow. He hadn't been able to grab much—just enough to survive a few days if he rationed it carefully.
He picked up a piece of jerky, bit into it, and chewed slowly.
Even his jaw felt stronger.
When he bit down, he heard a faint crackle. The same dried meat he'd struggled with before now split like old bark between his teeth.
It's not just strength, he noted. My body's adjusting. Bones, ligaments... everything is changing.
His thoughts drifted back to the spar with Wen Tao.
The scream. The bone. The silence afterward.
Lin Xun didn't regret what happened. He'd merely defended himself. But it was too fast, too violent, too strange. No technique he'd ever studied could explain the force that came from his limbs.
I only blocked...
The sect's elders might already be investigating. Maybe they'd find his robe fragment in the forest trail. Maybe not.
But until they knew what he'd become, they wouldn't know how to handle him.
He didn't fear being hunted.
He feared being discovered before he was ready.
Lin Xun stood and stretched slowly. The room wasn't tall enough for full movement, but it was just wide enough to pace. He walked to one wall and placed a hand on it.
Cold stone. Solid.
He knocked once—lightly.
Hollow.
He paused.
A section of the wall felt different beneath his palm. Lighter. Not carved, but shaped like a doorway.
He stepped back and crouched low, studying the base.
There. A thin line in the dust. A crack that hadn't settled naturally. It ran in a square, forming what looked like a small hatch or trapdoor in the wall.
No handle. No hinge.
Just a seam.
He brushed his fingers along it, then stopped.
Not yet, he told himself.
He didn't know what lay beyond. He wasn't strong enough to risk traps or awaken old mechanisms. For now, this room would be enough.
A place to think. To grow.
To prepare.
He returned to the pedestal and sat cross-legged before it.
In the sect, they called this pose "Silent Body, Listening Mind." A resting state for body tempering, and a basic stance for meditation. Outer sect disciples were required to memorize the posture before they were even allowed to touch a cultivation manual.
But for Lin Xun, this wasn't about following rules.
It was about survival.
He slowed his breathing.
Heart steady. Spine straight. Hands resting naturally on his knees.
He wasn't sure if he had reached the first stage of cultivation yet—Body Forging Realm—but he knew enough about it from stolen glances and whispered conversations.
The Clear Spring Sect didn't hand out manuals freely. Knowledge was earned, not given. Outer sect disciples had to qualify just to learn the first layer of basic body cultivation techniques.
But Lin Xun wasn't like most disciples.
He had always been... curious.
Even before joining the sect, he'd loved listening to the traveling cultivators who passed through the mountain towns, scribbling half-truths in his journals, copying symbols from their books when they weren't looking.
When he arrived at Clear Spring, he spent his free hours in the outer sect's library—not in the cultivation wing, which was guarded—but in the miscellaneous section.
It was where the discarded scrolls, damaged logs, and incomplete adventure notes were thrown. Most disciples didn't bother with them.
But Lin Xun read them all.
He learned to recognize subtle patterns—techniques hidden in metaphor, truths buried in story. One scroll described a traveler who "felt the pull of gravity change" when he crossed a realm. Another noted a cultivator who "shed weakness like a second skin." Strange phrasing... but repeated across different sources.
Over time, Lin Xun pieced things together.
He didn't have the full manuals, but he had glimpses. Clues.
Enough to deduce the basics of the Body Forging Realm.
The first realm in the path of cultivation.
It wasn't about qi or flashy techniques. It was about the body.
Strengthening bones. Hardening muscles. Purging impurities from blood and organs.
Cultivators in this stage refined their physical form, laying the foundation for everything that came after. Without a strong body, any future realms would crumble under their own weight.
But Lin Xun had already passed the starting line.
He hadn't even tried to temper his bones—and yet they were stronger.
He hadn't flushed his marrow—but his strength doubled overnight.
What realm had he reached already?
Or... was he forging a new path entirely?
He opened his eyes slowly.
Still nothing in the room had changed. Still dark. Still quiet.
But inside him, something pulsed.
Like a heartbeat—but not.
It wasn't in his chest.
It was in his dantian.
He froze.
Then exhaled slowly.
The dantian was the energy center in the body. Cultivators only felt it once they crossed from Body Forging into the Qi Gathering Realm.
But Lin Xun felt something now.
A faint presence. A sphere of warmth just below his navel. It wasn't fully formed—but it was there.
Impossible, he thought. I haven't even practiced a qi technique.
Yet his instincts didn't lie.
Something was growing inside him. Forming on its own. And the pressure he felt in his chest earlier? It had shifted.
Now it was lower. Centered.
Focused.
If my strength doubles again tonight… what will I be tomorrow?
He reached for a stone shard from the broken pedestal, wrapped it in cloth, and began carving a line on the wall.
A single mark.
Then another.
He'd keep track of each day.
One line for each doubling.
Not to remember how far he'd come—but to remember how fast.
Exponential growth is a curse if it's not controlled.
He wouldn't let it spiral.
He would pace it. Learn it. Direct it.
He'd hide until he was ready to face the sect… or leave it entirely.
Lin Xun lay back against the stone floor.
No pillow. Just the rolled robe under his head.
He closed his eyes and let the darkness settle.
His heartbeat slowed.
His thoughts drifted.
The world above kept moving. Elders debated. Disciples trained. The sun rose and fell over the mountains.
But down here, in the quiet and cold, something was changing.
Something unnatural.
Something powerful.
And tomorrow, it would be stronger.