The world around Xiao Chen blurred, then snapped into razor-sharp focus. Energy coursed through his meridians like liquid fire, burning away years of stagnation. The jade pendant now hummed with an intense emerald light, casting strange shadows across the training ground.
Elder Xiao Zhan stumbled backward, his eyes wide with a mixture of shock and recognition. "Impossible," he whispered, "The Ancestral Flame technique... it cannot be awakening after all these generations."
Chen felt different. Stronger. The weakness that had defined his cultivational journey suddenly felt like a distant memory. Threads of peculiar energy wound through his body, each pulse bringing clarity and strength he had never imagined possible.
"What is happening to me?" Chen's voice came out stronger than ever before, resonating with an unexpected power.
A distant memory flickered in Elder Zhan's eyes - a story told to him by his own grandfather about a forgotten branch of the Xiao Clan. A lineage that possessed a unique flame technique, far more mysterious and potent than the famous Flame Mantra of Xiao Yan.
"Your bloodline," Zhan said slowly, "it carries a legacy that was thought lost. The Celestial Resonance Flame - a technique so rare that most believed it to be nothing more than a myth."
Chen's hand instinctively touched the jade pendant. Intricate symbols now danced across its surface, each marking telling a story of power and potential. He could feel something awakening within him - not just a cultivation technique, but a connection to something far greater.
Little did Chen know that his awakening would not go unnoticed. In the shadows of the Magical Beast Mountain Range, in the hidden halls of powerful sects, eyes would soon turn toward the Xiao Clan. Some would see opportunity. Others would see a threat.
His journey was just beginning.