Early in the morning, while the thick mist of the Immortal Realm still enveloped the mountain slopes of the Cloud Sword Sect, Ye Tian was already awake. Ever since his mortal frame began assimilating the lingering remnants of Lady Mei’s Ascension energy, he no longer required long hours of sleep. His body constantly overflowed with vigor, as though fed by an endless spring.

Ye Tian's duties expanded today. Besides chopping Black Ironwood, Overseer Zhao ordered him to sweep the outer courtyard of the First Training Hall, where newly recruited outer disciples were taught the fundamentals of breathing techniques and martial arts. To other servants, this was a tedious and exhausting chore. To Ye Tian, however, it was the golden opportunity he had been desperately waiting for.

Swish... swish... swish...

The rhythmic scraping of Ye Tian’s bamboo broom against the white marble floor echoed from the corner of the courtyard. His head remained lowered, making him appear entirely focused on the piles of dry leaves. Yet beneath his messy bangs, Ye Tian's dark eyes darted sharp glances, tracking every movement in the center of the training grounds.

There, dozens of gray-robed outer disciples sat cross-legged, listening intently to a burly Sect Instructor chanting a mnemonic in an authoritative voice.

"Draw your breath from the universe, channel it through the chest meridians, and lock it inside your Dantian! This is the foundation of the Wind-Guiding Art. Feel your body grow as light as cotton!" the Instructor shouted as he demonstrated a hand seal, then leaped effortlessly five meters into the air without any external aid.

The outer disciples gasped in awe and immediately tried to replicate the feat. Most stumbled awkwardly, their faces flushing red as they struggled to control the wild, unrefined spiritual energy within their bodies.

In the corner of the courtyard, Ye Tian kept sweeping. Inside his mind, however, a mental simulation of those movements was running at terrifying speed.

Draw from the universe... to the chest meridians... then to the Dantian... Ye Tian thought, mentally tracing the instructor's verbal guidance.

The moment he attempted to practice it in his mind, the dormant Ascension energy inside his body suddenly stirred. Unlike the outer disciples, who had to absorb raw, unrefined environmental spiritual energy from the outside world, Ye Tian already possessed a reservoir of pure celestial energy bound to his very flesh and bones! He didn't need to draw energy from the universe; he only needed to awaken the sleeping power within himself.

BOOM.

A soothing heat flared in Ye Tian’s chest. The stream of pure energy flowed effortlessly through his meridians, which had already begun to widen from his brutal woodchopping session days prior. Strangely, Ye Tian felt that the technique being taught was riddled with flaws. When the instructor mentioned "locking the energy in the Dantian," Ye Tian instinctively felt it restricted circulation instead. His physically tempered body intuitively sensed that the energy should be dispersed throughout every pore, skin layer, and muscle fiber—not hoarded in a single spot.

Unconsciously, Ye Tian refined the technique within his mind, adapting it to complement his path of Mortal Body Cultivation.

That afternoon, once the training hall emptied and the servants returned to their barracks to rest, Ye Tian slipped away into the spiritual bamboo forest behind the old temple where the Bodhi Tree stood. The place was intensely quiet, filled only with the rustling of bamboo leaves and the whistling of the wind.

"Let's test this out," Ye Tian whispered to himself, setting his broom aside.

He recalled the footwork and hand seals of the Wind-Guiding Art he had overheard that morning. Taking a deep breath, Ye Tian allowed the Ascension energy to circulate freely into every cell of his body, loosening every strand of muscle.

He took a step forward. WHOOSH!

Ye Tian’s body shot forward at a terrifying speed, leaving behind a blurry streak in the air. His velocity vastly outstripped what the instructor had shown that morning. Pushing lightly off the ground, he launched himself upward.

SWOOSH!

Without using a flying sword or a talisman, Ye Tian's slender frame soared high into the sky, vaulting over the treetops of the bamboo forest. He hovered in midair for several seconds with flawless balance, as though gravity no longer held sway over him. While airborne, he executed several bare-handed combat strikes he had copied from the disciples, refining their angles of attack into something far more lethal and efficient.

THUD!

Ye Tian landed back on the ground with absolute grace, without kicking up a single speck of dust. His breathing remained steady, his face refreshed, devoid of any sign of fatigue.

"Extraordinary..." Ye Tian stared at his hands, his eyes gleaming with suppressed excitement. "Their arts waste so much motion because they rely too heavily on external energy manipulation. My body... my body is the energy itself!"

With this ability to copy and perfect techniques on sight, Ye Tian knew he was no longer at the bottom of the food chain. He might lack a spiritual root to become a traditional spell-casting cultivator, but he possessed a divine physical vessel capable of mastering any martial technique in a matter of hours.

Ye Tian smiled faintly, touching the bag of rice tied securely at his waist that he carried everywhere.

"Wait for me just a little longer, Xiao Mei," he murmured with absolute confidence. "Your Gege... can practically fly now."

His joy, however, was short-lived. From behind the dense thickets of bamboo nearby, a loud, distinct snap of a dry twig echoed through the air.

Someone was spying on him!

"Who's there?!" Ye Tian barked. His eyes instantly sharpened as he glared into the darkness of the bamboo forest, his body coiled and ready to launch a lethal strike using the technique he had just perfected.