Morning light filters through the tall window, drawing slow patterns across the marble floor.

Lin Yu’s eyes open.

The soft rhythm of breathing beside him reminds him of Nora still asleep, her head resting on his chest. Gently, he untangles himself from her arms and rises.

He dresses in silence, the faint rustle of fabric blending with the whisper of wind beyond the window.

Then, with quiet steps, he leaves the room.

The corridors are calm at this early hour. Servants bow as he passes, but Lin Yu barely notices them.

His path leads him to the vast library built beside the central tower, where ancient tomes and scrolls of countless extraordinary paths line the walls.

He moves among them, drawing one volume after another.

Today, he studies the paths of the Way of Life and Nature.

He has no intent to follow them; he reads to understand, to find inspiration—threads he can weave into something new.

Something purely of the Law of Life.

Hours pass in still silence.

When he finally closes the last tome, an outline has already formed in his mind—vague but promising.

Yet before he completes it, his thoughts shift.

He turns toward the shelves of the Way of Death and Spirit.

Again, his hands move, drawing scrolls and ancient manuals, studying the methods by which others grasped the essence of decay, silence, and soul.

He searches not for imitation, but for contrast—to create a pure path of Death untainted by spirit power.

Another outline begins to take shape within him, dark and quiet as the shadow between breaths.

Just as he begins to refine it, footsteps approach.

A maid’s voice sounds softly at the doorway. “Your Majesty, breakfast is ready.”

Lin Yu sets down the scroll. “I’ll come.”

At the dining table, his family awaits.

Nora sits beside him, his father across, the others filling the long seats.

Between bites, his father raises a parchment. “The kingdom has sent word. They request troops for the coming campaign. They’re preparing to unify the nine islands.”

Lin Yu glances up, his expression unreadable. “Agree.”

His father nods, relief mingling with pride.

After breakfast, Lin Yu returns to his study.

A messenger awaits with a sealed file bearing the mark of his intelligence division.

He breaks the seal and scans the contents.

It is about the boy from yesterday—the one cast out from the testing office.

The boy is not talentless. He possesses both the Light and Dark elemental affinities—super affinities in fact—so powerful and absolute that they cancel one another, leaving him unable to channel either.

Only a unique, extraordinary path—crafted to balance both extremes—could allow such a person to cultivate.

Intrigued, Lin Yu takes the file and walks to the throne room.

Lin Yu finishes reading and lowers the file onto his lap.

The flicker of light from the crystal lamps moves across his face, outlining the faint curve of a smile.

The boy’s story is simple yet perfectly shaped—the kind of story this world loves to write.

A sick father is barely holding on to life.

A younger sister too small to understand hunger.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

A mother already buried.

And a boy burdened with a family’s hope, marked by extraordinary potential that everyone believes worthless.

A background crafted for tragedy—or greatness.

Lin Yu leans back in his throne, fingers tapping lightly on the armrest.

In the old days, he might have stepped in, trained the boy himself, shaped him into a weapon or successor. But now he wonders if interference would be premature.

The world itself is not blind. It births those like him for a reason.

A realm edging toward collapse would never waste a vessel strong enough to alter fate.

Perhaps this boy is the world’s response—the seed born against ruin.

And Lin Yu, ever the observer, feels curiosity stir in him.

He wants to see what the world intends.

So he begins to think about how to weave himself into its design.

The boy is not just a curiosity but an opportunity—a mirror through which Lin Yu can glimpse how the world itself balances contradictions.

His own shadow energy is born from the merging of light and dark, the harmony of two opposite principles bound by his will.

But the boy’s body holds something even rarer.

Not merely the bright and dark principles, but the deeper resonance of their extremes.

How will the world guide such a paradox?

How will opposite truths find balance without tearing the vessel apart?

Lin Yu wants to know.

He wants to see.

And to do so, he must keep the boy under his gaze.

An idea forms.

From his chest, the shadow extraordinary heart emerges—dark, pulsating, alive.

A wave of weakness ripples through him as his strength drains away, more than half of his power vanishing with it.

The heart quivers once, then dissolves into mist, sinking into a spreading pool of shadow beneath his throne.

Moments later, the shadow slithers across distance and time, crossing mountains and cities, until it finds its destination—

and slips into the boy’s shadow.

Now, wherever the boy goes, Lin Yu will see what the world plans for him.

But as the last echo of his heart fades, another thought rises—Isolde.

Two years have passed since she departed.

For six months, her letters came faithfully.

The last one was written in the Blue Whale Kingdom.

Since then—silence.

He calls his guards.

“Find her,” he orders. “Search the Blue Whale Kingdom. I want to know everything.”

When the guards leave, quiet settles again.

Lin Yu turns his focus inward.

He sets aside thoughts of the boy and of Isolde and begins to draw the first lines of a new path—

The extraordinary path of the Way of Life.

Lin Yu closes his eyes and breathes deeply.

It begins as an outline of energy and intention, a living principle he means to shape into law.

He extends his senses inward and feels the pulse of his heart, the rhythm of blood coursing through every vein.

The body’s vitality — its constant, silent power — becomes the foundation of his new extraordinary path.

The goal is evolution itself, to raise flesh and bone beyond the limits of mortality.

Even as a Tier Nine extraordinary, his physical body remains only at Tier Six.

He knows from experience how crucial the body is; power without endurance collapses upon itself.

That is why he names this new path the Life Evolution.

For Tier Zero, he crafts a meditation method to sense vitality and gather it in a single point.

Then he creates three extraordinary techniques — Power Punch, Shave, and Iron Body.

Power Punch channels vitality through muscles to unleash the body’s full might in one strike.

Shave compresses energy into bursts that distort movement and speed.

Iron Body hardens muscles and bones to an almost metallic resilience.

He doesn’t need to practice them.

The act of creation alone brings mastery.

The moment he gathers his vitality, the world trembles.

Waves of extraordinary particles surge into his body.

The Life Energy Extraordinary Heart forms within his chest — Tier One.

But the flow doesn’t stop.

It continues to rise, layer upon layer, until it stabilises at Tier Three.

It halts only because he has forged three techniques.

Without hesitation, he begins crafting the remaining four — Moon Step, Finger Gun, Storm Leg, and Paper Drawing.

Each one refines his understanding of vitality and movement.

As they take form, his vitality energy surges to its peak, pushing him to Tier Six.

From conception to mastery, only five hours pass.

The extraordinary path of Life Evolution stands complete, and yet he knows he could reach Tier Ten directly.

His comprehension of the Law of Vitality is enough.

But he will stop at Tier Nine — any further, and his mortal body would disintegrate before catching up.

He ends his cultivation and spends the rest of the day with his family, quiet and unhurried.

The next morning, he walks through the city streets under a pale sun and enters the central hospital. He conceals his identity but not his name — he becomes Dr Yu Lin.

He wants to observe life from another perspective — to see how disease reshapes the human body and to understand how to evolve it further, until even sickness finds no place within him.

While Lin Yu spends his days treating patients under the name Dr Yu Lin, his spies begin their search in the Blue Whale Kingdom.

They move quietly, following every whisper of Isolde’s name through towns and trade routes.

Months of inquiry led them to a noble line—the Francis family, one of the kingdom’s oldest extraordinary families.

But as they uncover traces of the Francis family’s secrets, their own actions draw unseen eyes.

Far beneath a ruined cathedral, in a chamber swallowed by darkness, a circle of figures kneel before a massive stone statue.

The air reeks of incense and blood. Black robes cover their faces, but the faint light from the ritual candles reflects the crimson symbols painted on their hands.

Their chant hums low, words not meant for mortal tongues.

Then the statue stirs. Its stone eyes flare with a golden light, and a calm male voice flows from its lips.

“My beloved children,” the statue says, “how can I help you?”

The man at the front raises his head slightly. “My Lord, the people of the Shadow Duke have begun asking about Isolde. Shall we reveal her location?”

The statue’s lips curl into a faint smile. “No. If you lead them too directly, the Shadow Duke may grow suspicious and stay away. Leave fragments—crumbs of truth along the path. Let him believe the discovery is his own.”

“Yes, my Lord,” the man replies, pressing his forehead to the floor.

“Goodbye, my children,” the statue says, and the golden light drains from its eyes.

Silence returns to the chamber as the false god’s presence fades, leaving only the whisper of their devotion in the dark.