Dual Cultivation Path

Roderic sat cross-legged on his straw pallet, the relic cradled in his palms like a secret he didn't dare speak aloud. The shack was quiet now, save for the faint crackle of the hearth in the main room where Tansy hummed over her mending. The candle stub flickered on his shelf, casting jittery shadows across the mud walls, but his eyes stayed locked on the shard of metal he'd unearthed. It was no bigger than a child's hand, its edges jagged and worn, yet it gleamed with a dull sheen that defied the grime of the quarry. Fine lines etched its surface—swirls and sharp angles that might've been writing or just scratches from time. He couldn't tell.

He turned it over, squinting in the dim light. The hum he'd felt earlier pulsed faintly against his skin, a vibration so subtle he wondered if he'd imagined it. His core twitched in response, that weak ember of qi stirring like a moth against glass. It wasn't much, but it was something—more than he'd felt in months of fruitless meditation. This wasn't junk. It couldn't be. Junk didn't hum. Junk didn't make his pulse race like he'd stumbled onto a vein of spirit stone.

"What are you?" he muttered, tracing a fingertip along the etchings. The metal was cold, unyielding, but the lines seemed to shift under his gaze—tricks of the light, maybe, or his tired eyes playing games. He'd heard tales of relics—old cultivators waxing poetic at the market about talismans that could wake a dormant core or blades that drank qi from the air. Could this be one? A key to the academies, to a life beyond the quarry? He needed it to be.

Roderic set the relic on his lap and rubbed his hands together, calluses scraping rough against each other. He'd start simple. If it was a cultivation tool, it'd respond to qi—any cultivator worth their salt could channel a trickle into an artifact. He closed his eyes, took a slow breath, and reached inward. His core flickered, a pitiful glow buried deep in his chest, sluggish and faint. He coaxed it, willing the energy to rise, to flow down his arms and into the shard. Sweat beaded on his brow. His fingers trembled. The hum didn't change.

"Come on," he growled, opening his eyes. The relic sat there, mute and mocking. He tried again, pushing harder, his breath hitching as he forced what little qi he had toward it. His core sputtered, a candle flame in a draft, and a dull ache bloomed behind his ribs. Nothing. Not a spark, not a glow. Just cold metal and his own ragged breathing.

He slammed a fist into the pallet, straw crunching under the blow. "Work, damn you!" His voice was low, a hiss he hoped Tansy wouldn't hear. She'd poke her head in, all freckles and worry, and he didn't want her seeing him like this—chasing ghosts in a scrap of junk. He glared at the relic, flipping it over again. Maybe it wasn't about qi. Maybe it was a puzzle, those etchings a code he could crack if he just thought harder.

He grabbed the charcoal stub from his shelf and a scrap of burlap he'd scrawled numbers on once—payment tallies from Tarn. Kneeling now, he laid the relic beside the cloth and rubbed the charcoal over it, pressing the fabric against the metal to catch the etchings. The lines smudged onto the burlap, faint and uneven, but they didn't look like any script he knew. Not the blocky runes of the merchant guilds, not the flowing strokes of the sect manuals he'd glimpsed. They twisted into spirals, intersected with sharp jags, like a map or a sigil gone wrong.

Roderic hunched closer, the candlelight dancing over his work. He traced the pattern with his finger, muttering under his breath. "A circle here… splits into three… no, four…" His head throbbed, the lines blurring as he squinted. He'd seen cultivators in the market activate talismans—touching them, speaking to them, even bleeding on them. Maybe that was it. He licked his thumb and smeared it across the relic, leaving a wet streak. Nothing. He pressed harder, grinding his palm into it until the edges bit his skin. Still nothing.

"Useless," he spat, shoving the burlap aside. His chest tightened, a knot of frustration he couldn't shake. He'd been a fool to hope—some weakling like him, thinking a random find could change his life. The heavens didn't hand out miracles to quarry rats. He stood, pacing the tiny room, two steps one way, two back. The relic mocked him from the pallet, its hum a taunt he couldn't ignore. He wanted to believe it was special, that it could lift him from this shack, from the shovel, from the pity in Tansy's eyes when she thought he didn't see.

He snatched it up again, gripping it tight. "Give me something," he whispered, voice raw. "Anything." He shook it, as if jostling it might wake it up. He held it to his ear, listening for a shift in the hum. He even tapped it against the shelf, a dull clink echoing in the silence. The candle flickered, nearly spent, and his shadow loomed large on the wall—a tall, fine young man reduced to begging a piece of metal.

Hours slipped by, the night deepening outside. Tansy's humming had stopped; she'd be curled on her mat by now, the fire banked to embers. Roderic's eyes burned, his hands cramped from prodding and turning the shard. He'd tried everything—qi, touch, words he half-remembered from overheard chants. "Open," he'd said. "Awaken." "Power." Nothing worked. It was dead, or he was too stupid to see what it wanted.

"Enough," he snarled, exhaustion snapping his patience. He reared back and hurled the relic across the room. It clattered into the drawer of his shelf—a shallow, warped thing that held a spare tunic and a broken comb—slamming against the wood with a thud. "Rot there, then!" He kicked the pallet, straw scattering, and sank onto it, burying his face in his hands. Disappointment gnawed at him, bitter and familiar. Another dream ground to dust, just like every fleeting hope before it.

He sat there, breath slowing, the shack's damp chill seeping into his bones. The candle sputtered, its flame a pinprick now, and he almost missed it—a soft glow, not from the wick, but from the shelf. Roderic froze, lifting his head. The drawer pulsed with light, faint at first, then brighter, a pale blue that spilled through the cracks and bathed the room in an eerie sheen. His heart lurched. The relic.

He stumbled to his feet, crossing the space in one stride, and yanked the drawer open. There it was, glowing like a captured star, the etchings alive with shimmering lines that danced across its surface. The hum was louder now, insistent, thrumming in his ears and chest. He stared, mouth dry, disbelief warring with a flicker of hope. It was something. He hadn't been wrong.

His hand trembled as he reached for it, fingers brushing the glowing metal. It was warm now, alive in a way it hadn't been before. He lifted it, the light intensifying, bathing his face in its glow. The etchings pulsed faster, spiraling inward, and the hum grew to a roar—a sound he felt in his bones. "What—" he started, but the words died as the relic shuddered in his grip.

A crack split the air, sharp as a whip, and the shard erupted. Light exploded outward, a blinding wave of force that slammed into him. Roderic flew back, his body weightless for a heartbeat before crashing into the mud wall. Pain flared—his skull, his spine—then nothing. The relic's glow swallowed the room, and his vision blurred, darkening at the edges. The last thing he saw was the shard hovering where he'd held it, pulsing like a heartbeat, before the world went black.