The wind howled across the edge of the cliff where she lay.
Dust swept across her pale skin, clinging to bruises that weren't real and cuts that had never bled. Her eyes—dim, empty, unfocused—watched nothing. She didn't need to.
Her drones had already spotted them.
They descended from the sky on shimmering swords of qi-light. Robes fluttered behind them, stamped with the emblem of a mid-tier sect: a serpent coiled around a crescent sun. Their leader, a young woman with violet hair and sharp spiritual perception, narrowed her eyes as she hovered above the collapsed girl on the rocks.
> "Is she alive?" one of the disciples asked.
> "Barely," the leader said. "But… she has no qi."
That wasn't a surprise.
Red had erased all external signs of power. Her body, though forged of god-metal, mimicked weak human flesh with perfect precision. Her breathing was shallow. Her heartbeat was slow. Her appearance screamed one thing: helpless.
> "Another orphan, maybe."
"Probably tossed away during some demonic raid."
"Or failed a bloodline test. Happens more than you'd think."
Red heard every word. She processed their tone, choice of words, and spiritual fluctuations. These weren't bad people. But they weren't kind, either.
She would be taken in, not out of compassion—but convenience.
The violet-haired leader crouched beside her, brushing a strand of white hair from Red's dirt-covered face. Their eyes met for the briefest moment.
> "You… you're not ordinary."
Red didn't blink. Didn't speak. Only let her chest rise, tremble, and fall.
The girl's fingers glowed with faint light as she placed them on Red's wrist. A diagnostic spell—a simple one.
> "No cultivation roots. No qi sense. No spirit threads. She's… empty."
> "Can we just leave her?" another disciple asked.
> "And explain why we ignored a dying mortal? No. We'll bring her back. The sect master can decide."
With a wave of her hand, a translucent gourd expanded midair and gently wrapped around Red's small body like a stasis field. The group rose again, swords humming softly as they shot into the skies.
And just like that, Red was carried into the sky—silent, still, and unnoticed.
Exactly as planned.
---
The Nine Sun Serpent Sect wasn't powerful by cultivation standards. They were mid-tier at best—large enough to rule a territory, small enough to be ignored by ancient clans. But their infrastructure was solid. Their spirit fields glowed day and night. Outer disciples trained nonstop in martial courts, while inner disciples cultivated atop cliffside peaks.
Red's disguised body was laid in a recovery ward for outer recruits.
A place for trash.
No one paid attention. She was registered as Lian Xue, age unknown, origins unknown, qi level zero. They gave her a robe two sizes too big, a bamboo mat to sleep on, and told her to wait until "someone decides what to do with you."
She didn't respond.
But her mind never stopped working.
---
Seven hours.
That's how long it took for her to map out the entire sect.
Surveillance flies entered key buildings, spiritual chambers, weapon vaults, and secret tunnels. She listened to conversations between elders, documented cultivation techniques, recorded every known disciple's fighting style—and tagged each energy signature for future analysis.
All while lying still. Silent. Harmless.
She learned that the sect wasn't united. Elders competed for inner resources. Sects formed alliances and rivalries beneath the surface. Favoritism thrived.
And those without qi?
> "Nothing but baggage," one elder said. "They eat our food and return nothing. Just let her clean the beast pens."
> "A mortal? Ha! Why is she even still breathing?"
The disciples followed their example.
By the next morning, Red's first "assignment" was delivered by a sneering boy with flame tattoos on his arms.
> "Wake up, trash. You've got beast pens to scrub. You don't need qi for that."
She sat up slowly. Her movements were perfect—just stiff enough to look real. She blinked twice. Flinched at the light. Made no sound.
He laughed.
> "Dumb and weak. Figures."
He tossed a rag at her. She caught it awkwardly and walked off, her back hunched just enough to seem broken.
But behind her eyes, she was calculating.
> "No one suspects. My metal flow has stabilized. Processing speed: 60% restored."
As she knelt beside the beast pens—where spirit tigers slept in chains and blood beasts howled at shadows—she worked.
Not just with her hands.
But with her body.
Every moment spent "scrubbing" was also training—forcing her connection with the god-metal to sharpen. Stretching invisible filaments of her own body into the stones, the chains, even the dirt.
> "If I can't cultivate qi… I'll cultivate control."
And it was working.
Bit by bit, she could feel the metal respond faster. It flowed more easily when she focused. Her strength hadn't increased much—but her precision had.
Which meant her potential tools had just expanded.
---
By the third day, she had constructed:
24 new micro-scouts disguised as insects
4 underground motion sensors made from spiritual stone shavings
A spiritual energy siphon disguised as a broom handle
And a data core hidden inside a beast collar that recorded the sect's cultivation manuals from afar
She worked while no one watched.
She listened while everyone slept.
And no one noticed the girl they called useless was already beginning to surpass them.
---
Back in her quarters—a dusty, forgotten hut near the cliff's edge—Red stared at her own hand. She flexed her fingers, then watched the metal beneath her skin flicker for a split second before fading.
> "I still can't create energy. But I can convert this metal into something usable."
She looked out the window.
Far in the distance, she saw cultivators flying under the stars, blades glowing like suns.
> "I'll get there."
Not by their rules.
Not by their path.
But by her own system.
> "Let them laugh while they can."