The news of Chen's awakening spread through the Xiao Clan like wildfire. What had once been a source of ridicule - a young cultivator with seemingly no potential - was now a mystery that drew both curiosity and suspicion.
That night, Chen discovered a scroll hidden within the secret compartment of his deceased mother's chest. The parchment was ancient, its edges brittle, bearing a seal he recognized from the markings on his jade pendant. As he unrolled it, a compressed strand of Dou Qi erupted from the paper, momentarily blinding him.
When his vision cleared, the scroll revealed a fragmented map and a cryptic message:
*To the bearer of the Celestial Resonance Flame,
The path is not of strength, but of harmony.
Seek the Broken Mountain where three rivers converge,
Where the first ancestor's memory sleeps.*
Elder Zhan's warning echoed in his mind. "Your awakening will draw attention. Not all who seek you will come with good intentions."
Indeed, miles away in the deeper territories, a figure cloaked in midnight blue robes listened to a transmission from a blood-red communication crystal. A thin smile crossed his lips.
"So, the forgotten bloodline stirs," the figure murmured. "The Xiao Clan never truly loses its potential."
Back in the clan, Chen practiced his newfound technique. The Celestial Resonance Flame was unlike anything he had seen before. Where Xiao Yan's Flame Mantra consumed and transformed, his seemed to... resonate. Harmonize. Each movement felt like he was conducting an intricate symphony of energy rather than battling against it.
His meridians, once blocked and weak, now pulsed with a remarkable fluidity. The jade pendant remained his conduit, its mysterious markings seeming to guide his cultivation in ways he did not yet understand.
But power always attracted danger. And Chen's awakening was about to set in motion a sequence of events that would challenge not just the Xiao Clan, but the very foundations of the cultivation world.