'Living furnaces,' I thought bitterly, the words turning over in my mind like poison. That's what they called them. Children, orphans, forgotten souls—used not as individuals but as tools, as resources to fuel the sect's insatiable greed for power. The sect's cultivation method was built on a twisted principle: Yin mana thrived when balanced with Yang, and the higher the quality of the Yang mana, the greater the benefits.
For most Awakened, the quality of their mana improves naturally as they grow stronger, as they cultivate their cores and accumulate experience. But the Cloud Heavens Sect didn't have the patience for that. Why wait for slow, arduous growth when you can simply take what you need?
