Heaven Refines the Worthless Root

Born with a cracked spiritual root that bleeds qi instead of gathering it, Jin Seyi is spared execution only because his dying mother hides him in the ash pits beneath the Azure Bell Sect. For seventeen years, he survives as a furnace slave, scraping pill residue from cauldrons while disciples soar above him on swords. Then a failed refinement explodes, and in the molten wreckage Seyi hears the voice of an ancient pill emperor sealed inside a broken bronze scale.