The Demon Sealing Hex was not a technique. It was a law — a fragment of the fundamental rules that governed the universe, shaped into a usable form by the Demon Sealers of the ancient era. There were nine Hexes in total, each one capable of binding a different aspect of existence: life, death, space, time, karma, reincarnation, and three that even the legacy in Meng Hao's mind labeled only as 'unknown.'

He currently possessed the first Hex: the Hex of Binding.

'This is going to kill me,' he told the bronze mirror.

The mirror, as usual, said nothing.

Meng Hao had tried the Hex on a small rock first, following the breathing pattern the legacy had carved into his memory. The rock had shattered — not from the Hex's power, but from the backlash. His meridians had screamed as if someone had dragged a rusty nail through them. Blood had leaked from his nose and eyes. He'd spent the next two days in bed, too weak to cultivate.

But the rock had moved. For one instant, before it shattered, the rock had felt the Hex pull at its physical form, trying to compress it into a seal. The Hex worked. He just couldn't control it yet.

He practiced every night for a week, always with small targets, always at the edge of exhaustion, always bleeding by the end. A leaf. A pebble. A dead branch. His control improved fractionally each day, and the backlash diminished from 'near-fatal' to merely 'agonizing.'

By the end of the week, he could bind a fist-sized stone for a full three seconds before his concentration broke. By any reasonable cultivation standard, three seconds of binding a rock was pathetic. But Meng Hao was not measuring himself against other cultivators. He was measuring himself against the rocks, and three weeks ago, the rocks had been winning.

'Progress,' he told the mirror, wiping blood from his nose. 'You see? Progress.'