Chương 413: Chapter 412: The Scales of Cultivation

Mo Yuhang wiped the sweat from his brow as he finished stacking the last of the Resonance Crystals in the storage warehouse. The translucent gems hummed softly in their wooden crates, each one containing compressed musical energy that would power the city's harmony networks for another month. His back ached from hours of manual labor, but the three copper notes he'd earn today would buy bread for himself and his sister for another week.

"Mo Yuhang!" called Supervisor Xu from across the warehouse, his voice carrying the authoritative tone of someone who'd never had to worry about his next meal.

"Those crystals better be properly aligned, or the resonance cascade will be off-key again. The Guild Masters are already complaining about last week's disaster."

"Yes, Supervisor," Mo Yuhang replied respectfully, though internally he grimaced. The disaster Xu mentioned hadn't been his fault. The crystals had been damaged during transport, their internal harmonics already corrupted before they'd reached the warehouse. But apprentice laborers like Mo Yuhang weren't allowed to contradict their supervisors, especially not when they lacked the family connections or cultivation talent to find better work.

As he made his final adjustments to ensure the crystals were perfectly attuned to each other, Mo Yuhang couldn't help but think about the old stories his great grandfather used to tell on his death bed when Mo himself was just was a little child. Stories from the glory days, when the Great Composer himself had walked among them, when the Realm of Living Lyrics had been a true paradise of endless music and boundless creativity.

Back then, every citizen had been able to cultivate Harmonic Essence freely, drawing power directly from the world's fundamental symphony. The Great Composer, their god and creator, had designed the realm so that music and cultivation were one and the same. Farmers would sing their crops to grow, artisans would hum their crafts into perfection, and warriors would battle with weapon-songs that could shatter mountains. But that was before the Fall.

Mo Yuhang's great grandfather had been just a child during those final days, when the Great Composer had vanished without warning, leaving behind only scattered notes of his Eternal Symphony. Within days, mysterious figures in flowing robes had appeared, claiming to represent "the Sect" and announcing that the realm was now under their protection. Protection. Mo Yuhang almost laughed at the irony. The Sect's protection had come with rules, regulations, and a complete restructuring of their society.

Harmonic Essence cultivation was now regulated, with only licensed practitioners allowed to access the higher techniques. The spontaneous music-making that had once been every citizen's birthright was replaced with rigid hierarchies and controlled distributions of Resonance Crystals. But there was one aspect of the new order that the people had embraced wholeheartedly: the possibility of being chosen as a Vessel.

According to the Sect's teachings, beings of immense power would occasionally descend from the heavens to inhabit mortal forms. These divine entities needed vessels to interact with the physical world, and the inhabitants of the Realm of Living Lyrics were considered particularly suitable due to their natural attunement to spiritual harmonics. Being chosen as a Vessel was the highest honor imaginable.

It meant direct contact with godlike beings, the chance to channel powers beyond mortal comprehension, and the opportunity to serve a purpose greater than oneself. Families would spend generations preparing their children for the possibility, training them in the cultivation arts and teaching them to harmonize their souls for easier possession. Mo Yuhang had grown up with this dream like every other child in the realm. But unlike the others, he'd quickly learned that dreams required talent to become reality.

The cultivation system of their realm was built around ten distinct scales, each representing a major breakthrough in harmonic mastery. At the First Scale, cultivators learned to refine their Lung Resonators, allowing them to breathe and control ambient sound essence. They could release vocal shockwaves and project their voice over miles, while beginning to shape their Inner Voice: the spiritual echo of their true self.

The Second Scale strengthened the connection between voice and body, letting songs empower flesh, reflexes, and healing. Practitioners could use offensive harmonics to fracture stone or paralyze limbs, while beginning to form Song Threads: extensions of intent through pure tone. Third Scale cultivators formed their Resonance Core, amplifying their will through sound. They could produce sonic weapons, barriers, and constructs, while learning to bend acoustics to confuse enemies or mimic other techniques.

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. The Fourth Scale marked a major transformation, as the singer's voice awakened an affinity to a single element. They could sing fire, ice, wind, or earth into reality, forging flames from breath or summoning storms through vibrato. The element was determined by their Soul Note Affinity: the elemental pitch that resonated in their heart.

Fifth Scale practitioners mastered a second element, learning to harmonize both through song. They could combine them into steam, lava, or other compound forces, while unlocking Elemental Aria Techniques that let them compose high-speed elemental music mid-combat. Sixth Scale cultivators could wield multiple elements simultaneously, weaving them into living song-constructs.

They developed Elemental Harmony Fields: localized domains that responded to their voice, where elements could self-sustain while the user sang. The Seventh Scale was where cultivation truly became legendary. These practitioners gained the ability to fly through Solar Wings: radiant constructs of sound and light that carried them through the sky. They could channel the power of stars themselves, burning foes with starlight and calling down meteoric fragments or sun-laced beams from the heavens above.

Eighth Scale cultivators gained access to cosmic harmonics, turning gravity, space, and time into instruments. Their songs could disrupt reality itself, bending space and slowing time while creating echoes of black holes through pure sound. The Ninth Scale established what was called the Lawful Voice, every note imposing personal Sound Laws upon reality.

"No fire may harm me," they might sing, and it would become truth.

"All shall kneel at my voice," and even the proudest would find themselves compelled to obey. They could sing entire cities into stillness or raise mountains from musical notes alone. The current king of the capital city had reached this level, making him the strongest known cultivator in their realm's recorded history. The Tenth Scale was pure legend. No cultivator had ever reached this level, though ancient texts claimed such beings could sing life into existence, create entire races, or undo death itself.

Their voice would supposedly resonate across all realms simultaneously, timeless and omnipresent. As for Mo Yuhang's Harmonic Essence cultivation, it had stalled at the early Second Scale. At twenty years old, he could strengthen his body with simple songs and produce basic vocal shockwaves, but even children five years younger than him regularly demonstrated superior technique.

His resonance with the world's fundamental symphony was weak, requiring immense effort to achieve effects that came naturally to his peers.

"At best, you'll break through to Second Scale at twenty," his instructors had accurately declared when he was twelve.

"You might reach Third Scale by fifty if you're lucky. Barely suitable for manual labor." But a young Mo Yuhang had refused to accept that verdict. If he lacked natural ability, he would make up for it with knowledge and understanding. So, while other students focused purely on practical exercises, a teenage Mo Yuhang buried himself in the theoretical foundations of musical cultivation. He studied the mathematical relationships between harmonic frequencies and essence circulation.

He memorized the ancient texts that explained why certain melody patterns resonated with elemental forces. He learned the complex theory behind formation arrays that used crystallized sound to amplify and direct musical techniques. The knowledge was fascinating, but it didn't help his cultivation directly. Understanding why a technique worked and being able to perform it were entirely different matters.

Mo Yuhang could explain in perfect detail how a Fourth Scale fire cultivator created flames through specific vocal modulations, but his own attempts at such techniques invariably failed due to insufficient essence reserves and poor harmonic control. Still, his theoretical knowledge proved valuable in unexpected ways. The established tutors in the city charged premium rates that wealthy families could afford, but poorer students often couldn't access proper instruction.

These students discovered that Mo Yuhang, despite his own limited cultivation, could explain complex concepts better than many higher-level practitioners.

"I still don't understand why the Third Scale resonance formula includes that modifier for ambient spiritual density," one of his regular students had complained just last week.

"Shouldn't the core frequencies be constant regardless of environment?" Mo Yuhang had patiently explained how spiritual energy fluctuations affected harmonic propagation, drawing diagrams to show how a cultivator needed to adjust their internal resonance patterns based on external conditions. The student had finally grasped the concept, though Mo Yuhang couldn't help but feel the familiar pang of irony.

He could teach others how to break through to higher cultivation levels, but couldn't manage the breakthrough himself. Yet despite this, he never gave up. The reason for his persistence sat waiting for him at their tiny apartment in the city's lower districts.

"Brother!" Lin Xiaoxiao called out as he opened the door, her seven-year-old face lighting up with pure joy.

"Did you bring anything interesting from the warehouse today?" Mo Yuhang smiled despite his exhaustion, reaching into his pack to pull out a small, cracked Resonance Crystal that had been marked for disposal. It wasn't worth much, but it still held enough Harmonic Essence to create simple light patterns.

"Watch this, little sister," he said, holding the crystal in his palm and humming a basic activation melody. The gem responded to his spiritual energy, projecting tiny dancing notes of light that swirled around the room like musical fireflies. Xiaoxiao clapped her hands in delight, her own natural talent allowing her to harmonize with the display and add her own colorful additions. At seven years old, she already showed more musical cultivation ability than Mo Yuhang had managed in his twenty years of life.

That was both his greatest joy and his deepest fear. Xiaoxiao had the potential to rise far above their current circumstances, but only if she received proper training and resources. The kind of opportunities that required money, connections, or recognition that their orphaned family simply didn't possess. Their parents had died when Xiaoxiao was just four, caught in a Harmonic Storm when one of the city's major Resonance Networks had catastrophically failed.

Mo Yuhang had been seventeen then, legally old enough to become his sister's guardian but far too young to provide the kind of life she deserved. The state provided basic support for orphans, but "basic" meant survival rations and overcrowded dormitories. Mo Yuhang had taken every odd job he could find to rent their small apartment and give Xiaoxiao some semblance of a normal childhood, but he was fighting a losing battle against poverty and limited opportunities.

There was only one path that could truly change their circumstances: being chosen as a Vessel.