The floating stone hovered before Amrit's face, a silent testament to his newfound control. With a final thought, he let it drop, and it clattered softly onto the floor. The ripple of power that had emanated from his single, perfect breath had settled, leaving behind a profound, unshakable calm. He was an anchor in a sea of his own power.
Rising from the cushion, he felt a lightness in his limbs, a sense of effortless command over his own body that was still intoxicatingly new. He had spent his entire life shackled by a cursed vessel; now, that vessel was becoming a divine instrument.
As he stepped out of the cultivation chamber, the captain of the guard, who had been standing watch, flinched. The captain, a seasoned warrior at the eighth stage of Body Tempering, felt an instinctual wave of pressure from Amrit's presence alone. It wasn't an aggressive aura, but the passive, immense weight of a predator. He looked at the third prince, whose expression was as placid as a calm lake, and felt a bead of sweat trickle down his temple. The boy who left the chamber was not the same one who had entered it a few hours ago. Something fundamental had changed again.
Amrit nodded to the guard and made his way back towards his own quiet wing of the palace. His mind was already turning over his next steps. The King had given him a clear objective: dominate the Sky-Piercing Academy selections. To do that, he needed more than just a powerful foundation. He needed techniques. He needed combat skills. He needed to turn his raw power into a weapon.
His path took him past the royal infirmary, the domain of Vaidya Bhaskar. The old physician, drawn by the residual fluctuations in the palace's Prana, was standing outside, his face a mixture of awe and apprehension. He had felt the massive surge and subsequent, impossible consolidation of energy. He knew it could only have come from one person.
When he saw Amrit approaching, Vaidya Bhaskar hurried forward, his robes flapping. "Your Highness! The spiritual vein… the energy… was that you?"
Amrit gave a slight smile. "I was merely consolidating my foundation, Vaidya. I apologize if I caused any alarm."
"Consolidating?" The physician's voice was a squeak. "Your Highness, that felt less like consolidation and more like the forging of a divine artifact! The purity of that energy… I have never felt anything like it." He looked at Amrit, his eyes shining with the fervor of a scholar who had just witnessed a paradigm-shifting discovery. "Your meridians… I must examine them again! This defies all known principles of medicine and cultivation!"
Amrit paused. He had been so focused on his own progress that he had nearly forgotten the one loose thread from his previous life: the official diagnosis. His 'Shattered Jade Meridians' were a well-documented medical fact in the kingdom. His miraculous recovery was currently attributed to a near-death enlightenment—a mystical, hand-waving explanation. But a physician like Vaidya Bhaskar, a man of logic and science within his world's framework, would never be truly satisfied with that. He would seek a physical, tangible reason.
Allowing the physician to examine him was a risk. The system's work was so perfect it might appear unnatural. But refusing would breed suspicion. Amrit made a calculated decision. He needed to control the narrative, and Vaidya Bhaskar, a respected and loyal figure, could be a powerful mouthpiece if handled correctly.
"Very well, Vaidya," Amrit said calmly. "Let us put your mind at ease."
He followed the ecstatic physician into the infirmary. The room was filled with the scents of a hundred different herbs, minerals, and dried animal parts, all neatly organized in countless small drawers. Vaidya Bhaskar led him to an examination table and, with trembling hands, gestured for Amrit to sit and extend his arm.
The physician placed his fingers on Amrit's wrist, closing his eyes and sending a gentle, probing stream of his own Prana into Amrit's body. This was the standard diagnostic technique, the same one he had performed on the prince hundreds of times before.
What he felt this time sent a jolt through his entire body.
His wisp of Prana entered Amrit's meridians and was met not with the jagged, leaking, shattered glass he had known his entire career. It flowed into a channel that was wide, smooth, and possessed a structural integrity that felt more like divine jade than human flesh. The energy flowed without the slightest friction, accelerating as it moved through the perfect channel.
But that wasn't the most shocking part.
As his Prana circulated, he could feel the faint, residual traces of the system's first miracle—the [100x Crit] that had initiated the repairs. He could sense where the countless micro-fractures used to be. They were gone, seamlessly sealed, but the memory of the damage lingered like a ghost in the structure of the meridians themselves.
Vaidya Bhaskar's eyes shot open, wide with a horrifying, brilliant realization.
"They were not healed," he whispered, his voice trembling so violently he could barely form the words. He pulled his hand back as if he had touched a blazing fire. "They were… shattered. Utterly."
Amrit watched him, his expression unreadable. "What do you mean, Physician? You said yourself they were repaired."
"No! No!" The old man was shaking his head, his mind struggling to articulate the impossible concept forming within it. "I was wrong! A normal healing, even a miraculous one, would leave scars! Imperfections! Patches! Your meridians have none. It is as if they were ground into dust and then… and then reforged from the base elements! The only way to achieve this level of perfection is to completely destroy the original, flawed structure!"
He looked at Amrit, his face pale, his eyes filled with a terrifying awe. "Your Highness… your near-death enlightenment… it didn't just heal you. It gave you the power to consciously, or unconsciously, obliterate your own cursed meridians. The excruciating pain you would have felt, the certainty of death… you must have endured it all in an instant to create a flawless new vessel from the ruins. You did not just cure the curse… you shattered it with your will."
A perfect lie. A beautiful, epic, and utterly believable lie. It was far better than anything Amrit could have concocted himself. The system's work was so perfect, so beyond the scope of normal healing, that the only logical explanation was one of brutal, willing self-destruction and rebirth. It painted Amrit not as a lucky recipient of a miracle, but as a warrior with an iron will capable of tearing himself apart to be reborn stronger.
Amrit lowered his gaze, projecting a somber, reflective aura. He let the silence hang in the air, allowing the physician's own theory to solidify in his mind.
"The process…" Amrit said softly, his voice imbued with a hint of remembered pain. "…was not without its cost."
Vaidya Bhaskar bowed deeply, his body trembling with a mixture of terror and reverence. "Forgive me, Your Highness. I… I have no words. This is a feat of will that belongs in the legends of the Primordial Sages. To face one's own flawed foundation and choose not to mend it, but to annihilate it… That is the path of a true hegemon."
Amrit had his narrative. And now he had its first, most fervent believer.
"This knowledge, Vaidya," Amrit said, his tone turning serious, "is for you and me alone. The King believes it a miracle of insight. Let us allow him, and everyone else, to keep that simpler understanding. The truth is… unsettling."
"Yes, Your Highness. Of course," the physician stammered, his mind still reeling. "No one would understand. They would only fear you."
Good, Amrit thought. Let them. But let them fear my will, not a power that came from nowhere.
As Amrit left the infirmary, he felt a sense of closure. The ghost of the frail, cursed prince had been well and truly exorcised, replaced by the legend of a man who had shattered his own fate.
He returned to his chambers feeling a new sense of purpose. The consolidation of his power was complete. The narrative of his rise was now cemented. The next step was to acquire the tools for his ascension.
He called for a servant. "Prepare a bath. And then, have the Chief Steward of the Royal Archives bring me the catalogues for the Sword Pavilion and the Body Tempering Pavilion. I wish to review them tonight."
The servant, a young girl who used to avert her eyes from him out of pity, now looked at him with wide-eyed awe. She bowed hastily and scurried off to do his bidding.
That evening, soaking in a tub of hot, herb-infused water, Amrit reviewed the thick scrolls brought to him by the Chief Steward. They were lists of all the martial techniques stored in the kingdom's vaults.
The Body Tempering Pavilion contained dozens of techniques for strengthening the physical form—fist arts, shield techniques, movement skills. The Sword Pavilion contained a similar number of sword manuals, from the basic forms taught to new guards to the complex techniques reserved for the royal family.
His eyes scanned the titles: Raging Tiger Fist, Iron Wall Defense, Whispering Wind Steps, Azure Cloud Sword. They were all powerful in their own right. A genius might spend a decade mastering one.
Amrit's gaze stopped on two specific entries.
One was a movement technique from the Body Tempering Pavilion, listed as 'Incomplete.' Its name was Ghost-Flash Steps. The description noted that it was an incredibly profound technique for instantaneous movement over short distances, but the final third of the scroll was missing, lost centuries ago. No one had been able to successfully practice it for generations.
The other was a sword manual from the Sword Pavilion, also listed as 'Profoundly Difficult.' Its name was simple: One Sword. The description was cryptic. "Not a technique, but a principle. All sword arts under the heavens are but a variation of a single, perfect strike. This manual does not teach you how to swing a sword; it teaches you what a sword is. Success rate: less than one percent."
Arjun had chosen the flashy, powerful Silver Serpent's Dance. Bhim practiced the overwhelming Mountain-Cleaving Axe Art.
Amrit smiled. He would choose the broken and the impossible. For a system that thrived on fundamental concepts and could complete any action, these two 'flawed' techniques were not liabilities. They were perfect canvases.
"Tomorrow," he whispered to the steam rising from the water, "I will learn how to move. And I will learn how to draw a sword."
And with the power of the Infinite Crit System, he suspected he would learn them very, very well.