Fenghuang Yu opened her eyes to a darkening sky and an unfamiliar God Sign flashing across her vision. She tried to blink it away so she could figure out what was going on. Her brain was scrambled and she could not seem to figure out where she was or how she had gotten there.

She felt gross, covered in mud, and with the taste of blood in her mouth. But no matter what she did, the Sign would not leave her vision, so she sighed in resignation and focused on it. Oddly, the God Sign was in an unfamiliar color: gold. To her knowledge, nobody saw that color.

Supplicant’s appeal for a Heavenly Tribulation has been heard by the gods.

“What the… when did I ask for a tribulation?” she spoke aloud into the night.

Now that she had read the first of the gods’ messages, the rest came and she could not stop herself from reading them.

Heavenly Tribulation has been granted.

Determination has been made. Supplicant must endure a single STRONG heavenly bolt.

Yu could barely think straight, trying to keep up with all the Signs flashing before her. Processing the information seemed to overwhelm her shaken mind and she was forced to just keep reading the gold Signs.

Heavenly Tribulation has begun. Prepare yourself, supplicant.

Supplicant has experienced outside interference with the Heavenly Tribulation.

Due to outside influence, Heavenly Tribulation lightning has increased in strength to GRAND.

Heavenly Tribulation has begun. Prepare yourself, supplicant.

The next Sign was not in gold, but in red. And not the deep red of fire, but a bright, vivid red Yu was unfamiliar with.

Corruption found in supplicant’s Sign. Sufficient energy available. Purifying…

No…

It couldn’t be. Yu could barely process what she was seeing when her vision was forced to another message, this one in another unfamiliar color: silver.

Purification complete. All reserved growth has been applied.

Supplemental energy unsupportable. Applying to meridian channels to expel excess…

Sign update complete.

Yu was truly baffled. What in the nine hells did that mean? But once again, she was forced to put thoughts aside as another message appeared before her, once again in gold.

Supplicant has survived her Heavenly Tribulation.

Congratulations supplicant, you have received a blessing of the gods.

And the final four messages appeared in silver.

For surviving a GRAND Tribulation, Sign has assigned an Honor. Effect: A single random Lightning affinity skill has been granted by the gods.

External energy absorbed. Applying…

Sign updating…

Sign update complete.

After absorbing, if not understanding, the words, Yu’s vision was free of God Signs and she could observe the world around her. Her head was still pounding but she forced herself to move. She lifted her head, and with a glance around she immediately noticed she was at the bottom of a rather large crater. It took up at least the space of the clearing – likely more, if she wasn’t mistaken.

Then Yu’s senses informed her of a bracing cold. Looking down she noticed she was completely naked except for a thick layer of mud covering every speck of her skin. She was confused as to how she had gotten there. Why couldn’t she remember?

Yu was starting to feel overwhelmed. All the confusing God Sign messages. The crater. Yu had never, never had a gap in her memory before. Had she passed out?

“What’s going on?” she asked nobody, but still she hoped for an answer from somewhere.

Not hearing one, she stood and was about to attempt to find a way out but stopped. Looking down, she realized she felt taller.

She was taller.

“What in the—”

She took a closer look at herself and her jaw dropped. Her tiny, scrawny, and bony body was no longer tiny, scrawny, or bony. Her thirteen-year-old form that had looked closer to eight or nine now resembled a girl closer to her actual age.

Her height was hard to judge as she had sunken into the waterlogged mud, but her muscular form was obvious, even though mud-covered. In some ways, it accentuated the definition of her now bulkier body. The lines between her muscles could be seen on her arms, stomach, and legs. She flexed slightly and was impressed with what she saw.

Even more shocking, though, was what she saw when she looked at the center of her chest. She scrambled to scrape away the thick mud and found the inverse pyramid gone. Running her hand over where it used to be, she felt only skin, pale and smooth like the jade of her name.

Blinking confusedly, she looked around again. Thinking back to the God Sign, she hesitantly pressed her will against the world and whispered as a question, “Sign?”

Name: Yu

Clan: Fenghuang

Clan Rank: Patriarch’s Child

Age: 13

Meridians: 0/156

Qi Type:

Granted: Ether

Blessed: Aura, Mana

Qi Affinity:

Primary: Spatial

Secondary: Lightning, Earth, Water, Wood

Cultivation Level: None

Body: 14 | Mind: 66 | Spirit: 34

Martial Forms: Tai Chi: (Initiate), Kung Fu: (Novice)

Weapon Capabilities: Jian: (Initiate), Dual Jian: (Novice), Whip: (Novice), Bow: (Novice), Staff: (Novice), Spear: (Novice)

Qi Skills:

Aura: None

Mana: None

Ether: Beast Bonding (Novice), Enchant Lightning* (Novice)

Status: None

Honors: *Tribulation Supplicant

Titles: The Corrupted, The Blessed, Tiger’s Blood

What Yu saw was so foreign to her, she couldn’t make sense of it. Not only did her Sign contain information that baffled her, but it was silver.

Yu shook her head, sending the Sign away. Speaking in a shaky voice, she again called, “Sign.” The same thing appeared before her. She tried again, with the same result. And again.

Yu whispered, “Not possible…”

Looking down at her new body and then back at the Sign again, everything started to get blurry as her eyes watered.

Had she been right? The gods hadn’t abandoned her after all?

She turned her face skyward and stared at the cloud-covered evening sky. She felt the tears that had started to form fall from her eyes.

Yu whispered toward the heavens, “Thank you.” She felt herself smile, and called even louder to the heavens. “Thank you!” And called again, louder yet.

She raised her hands above her head and screamed her thanks. It was a sound of joy and release to the Heavens and Earth that resounded throughout the crater.

Yu blinked. She realized she wasn’t even winded after letting out such full-throated screams. That fact made her want to do it again. So she did… And she could still breathe normally afterwards.

Yu broke out into roaring laughter and collapsed back onto the muddy ground with a splat. She laughed until she cried, and then laughed again.

She had no idea how long it took her, but she was finally able to control the emotions racing through her. She called for and scanned her Sign again while staring at the cloudy heavens.

“Whoa. All those Qi types and affinities.”

The gods never lied. The Sign never lied. But it could be misread or misunderstood.

Maybe she had misinterpreted something. It wasn’t like she was some sort of expert. She needed to talk to her mother.

Scanning again, Yu reflected that she had no idea whether her Body, Mind, and Spirit were good or bad, but they looked great to her. Hells, she was just happy to actually have them.

Taking a breath, she tried to be logical about things. While certainly no expert, Yu had managed to eavesdrop on many classes. Perhaps she could make sense of everything if she focused on that.

Yu remembered learning about attributes in one of the classes she had managed to sneak in on. Closing her eyes and replaying the memory in perfect clarity, Yu saw the white-bearded teacher lecture on what purpose the attributes served.

***

In his monotone and shaky voice, the old man said, “A cultivator’s attributes are representative of their physical, mental, and spiritual prowess. The body is a physical attribute that represents the overall strength, flexibility, and resilience of the body. It varies from cultivator to cultivator, but most start at between fifteen to twenty when they begin the first level of the Foundation Building Stage of cultivation.

“I’ll come back to the Mind attribute in a moment, as it is the most complex. Now, the Spirit attribute defines how much Qi a cultivator can use, how much they can process through their meridians, and how fast they can use it. Generally, most of you will be in the high teens when you start to cultivate your skin. A handful of you will be in the low to mid-twenties. Those of you with higher are at an excellent starting position because you will be able to store more Qi in your dantian, send more into your skin, and thus progress through your cultivation journey faster. It is a very straightforward attribute and will grow as you use Qi and advance in your cultivation journey.

“The Mind attribute, also known colloquially as ‘perception,’ on the other hand, is not nearly as specific or easily understandable. It represents a cultivator’s memory and ability to learn. The benefits cannot truly be quantified. What you have may vary greatly from one to another. You could start lower than ten and struggle greatly with remembering and understanding Qi flows, resulting in slow growth. Or you could be in the thirties and have a deep insight, and thus saturate your body with Qi faster. Additionally, Mind does not grow by itself, the way Spirit does. Improving it requires arduous effort and immense mental fortitude. And results are hard to gauge. As such, it is often a discounted attribute. I know most of you youngsters will ignore my advice, but don’t neglect Mind. Investing in it now can save you many years, decades, even centuries of work. Spend the time exercising your mind. Improve your memory, stretch your awareness. Over the years, it will grow, and you along with it.”

***

Yu reflected on what she had recalled. “So physically, I’m a little on the weaker side,” she mused out loud to herself. “Not a surprise, really. Spirit is pretty good. No complaints there. But Mind?”

Thinking about it, she figured maybe it made sense. It was probably representative of her eidetic memory. And she had always been able to pick things up quickly.

Moving along her God Sign, she reached her meridian count. Once she focused on it, what she saw caused her to blink and do a double take. From what she had learned using the library, meridians were broken down into twelve major with twelve minor subservient to each major. Qi flowed through the meridians, so the number of meridians a cultivator had access to equated to the amount of Qi that could be applied. The more meridian paths, the more Qi at one time.

Most cultivators could only access between twenty and seventy-five meridians. Yu’s parents had an insane number – something in the high eighties or low nineties, according to the rumors. No sane cultivator would ever openly share such a thing as it was like telling everyone how to compare their strength to yours.

But for Yu… 156 available? That made no sense. Everyone knew the stories of the famous cultivators who had over one hundred meridians. They were legends. The king of the nation was rumored to have access to between one hundred and one hundred and ten, but few believed it.

What Yu was reading made no sense. She added that to her mental list of things to speak to her mother about. She figured she must have been misunderstanding something again.

That Yu had somehow acquired Qi skills was pretty exciting as well. And that they were used through the obscure Ether Qi was even more surprising. Ether users were exceedingly rare. Oddly, Yu found that the knowledge of the skills had suddenly appeared in her mind. Well, more precisely, she felt that the knowledge was there, but she couldn’t access it. It was quite bizarre.

Yu scratched her muddy cheek, wondering why she had received those specific skills with those Qi types. She knew Aura Qi was primarily used for melee combat skills, and Mana Qi was for ranged combat skills. But what was the purpose of Ether? Yet another mystery was added to the list.

Yu was starting to be frustrated by everything she didn’t know.

The first skill on her list, Beast Bonding, was not a mystery, as she knew based on the name what it did. Her father had a beast he had bonded with, but he used Aura Qi so Yu wasn’t sure what that was about. Her understanding was too limited once again. It had never occurred to her to study bonding as she could have neither ridden nor bound a wild creature due to the risk to her health.

The other skill was Enchant Lightning. Enchanting, as she understood it, was the ability to add Qi capabilities to weapons and objects. For example, the lamps that lit her father’s palace were enchanted using Ether Qi. In her case, the skill focused on lightning enchanting. That was great for her mother. Maybe Yu could craft her something special.

Crafters were always rich and snooty, according to her uncles. Well, if Yu could actually enchant, she planned on being rich but not snooty. Okay, maybe snooty to people who deserved it – like Jing Wei.

Her eyes narrowed as she thought of him. Now that she had the ability, she would grow strong enough to pound him into the dirt like he and his cronies had done to her, at least once she started cultivating – at the moment she was barely more than a strong mortal. Well, physically at least.

That thought caused her to reflect on her situation. She was vulnerable right now. A future asset of the clan, sure, but extremely vulnerable until at least the Meridian Formation Stage, where she could wield Qi outside of her body.

Yu needed to talk to her parents in private and get their advice. Her… change must not get out, or she would almost certainly be dead. Someone would pay someone to poison her, or something similar. Or worse, they might kidnap her and force her to do whatever horrors enslaved cultivators went through.

Looking once again toward the heavens, Yu thought, The gods granted me this opportunity, and I will absolutely not squander it.

Taking a breath, she looked around. “Okay,” she said to nobody. “So, step one, get the hells out of this damn mudhole.”