If ever a child were born with talent to rival Maryam's, it was this one.
Most people struggle for years before they can even sense traces of energy.
But from the moment the girl came into this world, she could feel the world's energy as clearly as you and I see colour. At the merest hint of her will, she could draw it into herself and manipulate it however she so chose.
It is difficult to tell how talented a very young child is without specialized tests and equipment.
But such was the extent of the girl's her talent that it was obvious even to her parents—ordinary mortals—that their child was a true genius.
They knew that if the sect caught sight of her, they would never let her go.
And so, they tried to hide her.
They prepared extensively, and when the time to go to the yearly roundup drew near, they took the girl and ran.
The man who supervised the roundup that year was more vigilant and cruel than his predecessors. Their neighbour betrayed them for a small sum of money, and the couple was caught, along with their child.
Then the couple was killed, to serve as an example. Surely, a child whose parents had risked such danger to hide from the sect would be extraordinary.
But the man who supervised the roundup declared that the couple had died in vain—their child was as talentless as could be. He had tested her, he said, and found her wanting.
He took her to a small orphanage not far from sect grounds.
The child, who was barely even three years old, did not cry at all throughout this ordeal.
She only surveyed everything around her with those cold, blue eyes of hers—as if trying to ensure that every detail was permanently engraved into her memory.
She was very young, but her mind was mature enough to know that she wanted revenge.
The female director of the orphanage offered her a way. She gave the girl a cultivation manual that she said was a secret passed down by her ancestors. The director was herself a cultivator who used a standard sect technique, but she had been forbidden from teaching it to others.
Of course, the girl was not actually talentless. Despite the technique being weak and incomplete, she learned it at a speed that would be the envy of the world.
Cultivation talent can roughly be split into three sectors: sense, gathering, and control.
Now, sense governs what energy you can detect and how well you can interpret it, gathering governs how well you can draw energy into yourself and make it a part of your cultivation, and control governs how you use the energy you already have.
This cultivation technique was peculiar. Instead of forming a standard core, it focused on creating a three-part core, each part composed of a network of energized neurons corresponding to one of the sectors of talent.
Before she began cultivating, the orphanage director decided to have the girl's soul branded so that they could watch over her and protect her—despite her skill, she was still a very young child. If she ever left the orphanage, she could get into a lot of trouble, especially since she would be cultivating without being registered to a sect.
Despite having no prior experience, scant resources and a low-grade technique, the girl reached Core Creation stage before she turned five.
The manual didn't provide techniques or methods for anyone past the early Core Creation stage.
But the girl was heaven's chosen. Instinctively, she knew how to imbue her flesh with energy and to strengthen and build up her core.
She spent much of her time experimenting by herself.
There were a couple other children in similar circumstances who were also learning to cultivate.
However, the other children her age hadn't made it past the second level of Channel Creation, and they could already be considered extremely rare talents.
Most people did not start increasing their stage before they were seven. Even including the older children, no other children in the orphanage were at Core Creation.
As such, she didn't have much to discuss with others, and due to her singular interest, was initially socially isolated. She didn't really care. She preferred the quiet, where she could focus on improving.
There was a young boy who would often insist on bringing her over to sit with him and his large group of friends when they ate. He'd always try to talk to her and was never deterred when she acted reluctant to engage.
Eventually, she began to open up to him. She'd explain her theories and he'd listen intently, even if he barely understood anything.
She even found that such an activity helped her cement her own understanding of things.
By the time she was six, she had come to understand that the technique she had been given was deeply flawed.
The focus on making a distinction between the networks that governed sectors of talent was not merely useless—it even made the core much less efficient. There truly wasn't a purpose to it.
About a year later, she finalized her idea for a technique to fix her core.
When the girl told this to the orphanage director, she was initially met with a stare of disbelief. It was difficult for adult grandmasters to create their own techniques, let alone such a young girl.
But as the girl continued to explain, the director's eyes began to widen. The child was correct on nearly every single point and hadn't erred on anything crucial. If she truly were to cultivate as she described, it was possible for her to become very strong.
The director urged her to be careful and not do something so dangerous as testing out a self-made cultivation technique.
But the girl would not be dissuaded. She was confident in her theory and knew that any minor flaws it might have would be heavily outweighed by the benefits.
The director looked stricken, and there was sorrow in her eyes. She hugged the girl tightly.
"Truly, you must be one of the most brilliant cultivators humanity has ever seen," the director said, "Autumn."