Julian was convinced he was going to die.
Every rib in his chest felt like a cracked dry branch. His breath came in shallow, wheezing gasps, spraying flecks of dark blood across the shattered granite. Worst of all, the golden sword core inside his lower abdomen was flickering like a dying candle in a mountain gale.
"My foundation..." Julian choked out, tears mixing with the stone dust on his bruised cheeks. "My sword heart... shattered into dust... I am a cripple..."
For a proud genius of the Spellblade Order, losing one's cultivation was ten times worse than death. He would be cast out of the inner court. He would have to beg for copper coins in the lower markets like a common beggar.
Five feet away, Felix Vance stood watching him with mild annoyance.
Felix tilted his obsidian slate, bringing up the real-time health readout:
【Target: Julian of the Second Spire】 【HP: 64% (Dropping Slowly Due to Hyperventilation)】 【Status: Internal Bruising / Sprained Ego / Severe Dehydration】 【Inspector Note: Subject is overreacting. Mostly soft tissue damage. Needs a snack.】
Felix scratched his ear through the brim of his straw hat.
"Look at this guy," Felix muttered under his breath. "Taking sixty percent damage and acting like he got hit with a permanent account ban. If he passes out right here, the match report is going to take forty-five minutes of bureaucratic dialogue."
He really didn't want to fill out incident reports with academy administrators. That sounded like the complete opposite of slacking off.
Felix turned his head toward the edge of the pit.
"Hey, Lyra," Felix called out, waving a lazy hand. "Do you still have that lunch basket?"
Lyra Ashford stood up straight. "Yes, Senior Brother. I carry it at all times."
"Bring it over," Felix said. "Give him a piece of that leftover cabbage from the soup pot. He looks parched. A little hydration and fiber will keep him from fainting on my shoes."
Lyra froze.
Her golden eyes went wide with sheer, disbelieving awe.
*Senior Brother... wants to feed him the cabbage?!* Lyra's thoughts raced in wild circles. *The Sun-Lotus Cabbage?! The primordial celestial vegetable that grows directly beneath the radiance of his divine planetary core?! A single leaf contains enough condensed solar vitality to reforge a mortal's destiny!*
She stared at Julian's bloody, dirt-smeared face.
*Julian raised a weapon against him,* Lyra thought, her chest tightening with profound emotion. *Julian threatened to purge him from the heavens. Yet Senior Brother looks upon his insolent foe not with wrath, but with boundless, celestial pity! He does not seek retribution—he seeks to nourish the fallen! This is the true heart of a Primordial Sovereign!*
"I obey your sacred decree, Senior Brother," Lyra whispered, bowing with utmost reverence.
She stepped over the low arena wall, carrying the round wicker basket with steady, respectful hands.
She walked across the crushed sand, stopping beside Julian's crumpled body.
With slow, solemn grace, Lyra folded back the blue cotton cloth covering the basket.
Inside sat a simple white glazed ceramic bowl. Resting inside the warm, clear vegetable broth was a single boiled leaf from Felix's garden.
The moment the cloth was removed, the entire Grand Arena transformed.
*SHIIIIIIIIIIIN!*
A soft, warm golden light erupted from the bowl, casting rippling patterns of sunlight across the stone walls.
Along with the light came a fragrance so pure, so sweet, and so intoxicating that the dry arena air felt instantly fresh. It smelled like wild mountain clover, morning dew, and warm summer sunshine all rolled into one.
Up in the bleachers, ten thousand spectators suddenly stopped breathing.
"What is that scent?!" an outer court disciple cried, grabbing his nose. "My blocked meridian just opened! Just from smelling the air!"
"My old waist injury!" an elder on the northern platform gasped, dropping his cane. "The cold dampness in my spine has dissolved!"
Down in the pit, Lyra knelt beside Julian.
Julian looked up at the glowing ceramic bowl with hazy, tear-filled eyes. He couldn't speak. He could only stare at the translucent golden leaf floating in the clear broth.
"Drink, foolish boy," Lyra said softly, her voice cool and commanding. "Partake of the Sovereign's infinite benevolence. Cleanse your foolish tongue and thank the heavens for his mercy."
She lifted the bowl to Julian's cracked lips, allowing a warm spoonful of the golden broth and a shred of the boiled leaf to slip into his mouth.
The moment the leaf touched Julian's tongue, a warm explosion of pure solar essence swept through his body.
*BOOOOOOOOOOM!*
Instead of violence, it brought a sudden expansion of boundless, rejuvenating life.
Julian's eyes snapped wide.
The dark blood in his mouth was instantly vaporized by a soothing wave of warm energy. The fractured bones in his chest snapped back into place with crisp, painless clicks.
The bruised meridians throughout his limbs dilated, expanding three times their original width as pure solar vitality poured through them like golden honey.
And deep inside his dantian, his flickering Tier-6 sword core didn't just stabilize.
It drank the solar broth like parched desert soil drinking rain.
*CRACK!*
The outer silver shell of his core split open. From the center burst a brilliant, radiant golden flame.
*WHOOOOOOOOSH!*
A blinding pillar of golden light erupted straight from the top of Julian's skull, piercing the cloudless sky like a spear of morning fire.
A powerful shockwave of warm sword qi rippled across the sand, fluttering the hems of everyone's robes.
Felix's AetherDeck pinged softly with an automated agricultural event notification:
The elders in the stands jumped to their feet, knocking over their chairs in sheer frenzy.
"A breakthrough!" Grand Chancellor Alistair shrieked, clutching his beard with both hands. "He broke through on the spot! Tier Seven! The Solar Core Realm!"
"By the ancestors!" Elder Raymond wailed, his eyes bulging. "Julian was crippled three breaths ago! A single leaf of boiled greens healed his fatal wounds and shoved him straight into the realm of masters?!"
In the center of the arena, Julian stood up.
He didn't just stand up; he sprang to his feet with the agility of an eagle.
His golden lamellar armor, though still bent and dented, seemed to glow with renewed spiritual light. His skin was flushed with healthy color, his eyes burning with crystal-clear golden mana.
Julian looked down at his own hands, trembling in disbelief.
He felt stronger than he had ever felt in his entire life. The bottleneck that had trapped him for three agonizing years had simply vanished, swept away by a single spoonful of vegetable soup.
He turned toward Felix.
Felix was standing three paces away, tilting his straw hat and checking his slate.
Julian didn't hesitate for half a second.
*THUD!*
Julian dropped to his knees so hard the granite floor groaned. He pressed his forehead directly against the dusty sand right in front of Felix's frayed straw slippers.
"MASTER!" Julian wept openly, his voice echoing across the silent arena with absolute devotion. "Great Benefactor! Primordial Sovereign! This blind, arrogant dog dared to point a blade at your divine presence! Yet you responded with supreme medicine that reformed my very soul!"
Julian banged his head against the ground.
*Bang! Bang! Bang!*
"From this day forth, Julian of the Second Spire renounces his pride!" Julian shouted through tears of profound gratitude. "I am no genius! I am merely a stray hound beneath your porch! If Senior Brother Vance tells me to bark, I shall bark! If Senior Brother Vance tells me to weed the garden, I shall pull every dandelion by hand!"
Beside him, his three cronies scrambled onto their knees and began slamming their heads against the floor as well, terrified that they would be left out of the repentance.
"We thank the Sovereign for his mercy!" the cronies wailed in unison. "We are hounds! We are humble garden weeds!"
Up in the stands, absolute bedlam erupted.
Ten thousand disciples surged forward against the stone railings. People were shoving each other, climbing onto shoulders, and waving purses of gold and spirit stones.
"Sell me the cabbage!" a core disciple roared at the top of his lungs. "I'll trade my family's heirloom flying sword for one leaf!"
"One leaf?!" an inner court elder shouted, elbowing a junior disciple out of the way. "I offer fifty thousand high-grade spirit crystals for three drops of that broth! Sovereign Vance, look at me! I have eight granddaughters of peerless beauty! I will trade all of them for a half-eaten stem!"
"Cabbage! Give us the cabbage!" the crowd chanted like a crazed mob. "The Divine Sun Cabbage of Solitude Spire!"
Down on the sand, Felix stood completely frozen, staring at the roaring crowd in utter bewilderment.
He looked at the ten thousand screaming cultivators waving bags of money.
Then he looked down at Julian, who was still furiously polishing the sand with his forehead.
Then he looked at the half-empty bowl in Lyra's hands.
Felix slowly reached up and pushed his straw hat back, rubbing his temples in sheer exhaustion.
"What is wrong with these people?" Felix muttered to himself, his voice dripping with tired confusion. "It's just cabbage. It's roughage. Did none of these guys ever eat greens before? Do they all have scurvy?"
He turned to Lyra.
"Lyra," Felix said, pointing at the screaming elders. "Are vegetables really that rare in this academy? I have like twelve heads of this stuff growing behind the outhouse. The slugs were eating them last Tuesday."
Lyra smiled serenely, bowing her head.
"Senior Brother's humor is truly boundless," Lyra said softly, her golden eyes shining with adoration. "To call the supreme medicine of the heavens mere outhouse weeds... only a true master of the void could possess such profound detachment."
Felix stared at her for three seconds.
He let out a long, weary sigh and pulled his hat back down over his eyes.
"I need to go home," Felix muttered. "The local NPCs have completely lost their minds."