While Sun was busy communing with his giant rock in the creepy gorge, the martial world beyond was beginning to buzz. Elder Xiao of the Crimson Thunder Dojang, a man whose senses for Ki were legendary, hadn't forgotten the "primal, pure" signature he'd briefly detected. He'd reported it to his Sect Master, a grim, barrel-chested man named Lei Bao.
"It felt… ancient, Master," Xiao had insisted, his voice hushed. "Like something sleeping for eons had briefly opened an eye. Then it vanished, near the ill-omened Blackwood Gorge."
Lei Bao, known more for his devastating "Thunderclap Fist" than his esoteric knowledge, had initially been dismissive. But Elder Xiao was rarely wrong. Word began to spread, first as cautious whispers within the Crimson Thunder Dojang, then leaking out to their rivals.
In the ornate halls of the Whispering Willow School, known for its spies and information network as much as its graceful swordplay, Sect Mistress Liu Su, a woman whose beauty was matched only by her cunning, listened intently to her informant.
"The Jade Serpents were also flustered," the informant, a man who could melt into shadows, reported. "A vagrant. Crude, but inexplicably disarmed their prodigy, Lin Fengyi, without any visible Ki surge. He then headed towards Blackwood Gorge."
Liu Su's perfectly shaped eyebrows rose a fraction. "A vagrant who can best Lin Fengyi without Ki, and a strange energy signature in the same location? Curious. Keep an eye on the Gorge. And on this… vagrant. Find out who, or what, he is."
Even in the rugged, pragmatic Iron Peak Clan, nestled high in the ore-rich mountains, the rumors caused a stir. Clan Chief Xiong Da, a man built like a small siege engine, cared little for ethereal Ki signatures. But he cared very much about anything that might shift the delicate balance of power.
"If there's new power to be found, Iron Peak will have its share," he'd rumbled to his council. "Send scouts. Quietly."
And far away, the crimson-eyed figure in the storm-lashed mountain chamber chuckled softly as these ripples reached its ears. "The ants scurry. They sense a change in the wind, but they cannot comprehend the coming storm. Let them scrabble. Their struggles will be… illuminating."
Unbeknownst to Sun, his quiet cultivation was sending out tendrils of consequence. The world, set in its ways, its hierarchies established through generations of bloodshed and tradition, was sensitive to anomalies. And Sun, with his alien power source and utter disregard for their rules, was the biggest anomaly to appear in decades.