Liam's journey to the Recruiters Guild began with innocent hope, but the environment inside the caravan was suffocating. The envoy, Carl, detected the resentment in Liam's heart, a darkness that even the Dragon King's approval could not mask. Despite the boy's trembling hands and tearful pleas, the test was over. "The Guild will warn everyone. No Sect will ever awaken your core," Carl stated with a pitying sigh. Liam was cast out, his dream of cultivation crushed. However, his survival instincts, honed by years in the mountains, took over. He realized that seeking permission was a path to death. His hatred, now a physical itch, pushed him to seek the truth of his power elsewhere. He remembered the old man, Crazy Uncle, and the green pool. This realization marked the pivot point from victim to hunter, igniting a fire that would consume his passivity.

Deep within the mountain, the ritual with Crazy Uncle changed everything. The green pool was not a bath but a crucible. As Liam submerged himself, the world dissolved into a blinding white void where he was confronted by a gargantuan snake. The entity, the Ancestral Snake, spoke to him, demanding that he inherit its hatred. "Kill them all, eat their children, curse their bloodlines," the snake commanded. Liam, driven by the trauma of his family's death, agreed without hesitation. The transition back to reality was violent. His body contorted, his skin sweating a black goo, and his ears rang with a deep, ancient hiss. When he emerged, Crazy Uncle was dead, his skull caved in by Liam's fists. The old man's final words echoed in the cavern: "I wonder, young Snake, will you follow the Ancestral Beasts blindly and lose yourself as I did, or will you find the strength to be more than a pawn?" Liam had crossed a line that could never be uncrossed.

Liam's path led him to the Pale Moon Sect, a place of cultivation where he discovered he was not an ordinary boy. During the spiritual roots test, the sphere shattered, revealing not eight, but nine glowing roots. "Nine spiritual roots," the crowd murmured, "A peerless genius." This revelation shattered the Sect's internal politics and forced the Elders to fight for his attention. However, the Sect Leader intervened, placing Liam under the guidance of the Alchemy Elder, Joel. Liam learned he possessed a "poison core," requiring him to become an alchemist to survive. This was a bitter pill to swallow for a boy who wanted to fight, but he accepted it as a necessary step toward power. He mastered the circulation technique and the Seismic Palm, training relentlessly. He was no longer just a survivor; he was a cultivator, albeit a dangerous and misunderstood one.

Liam's first major test came during a Sect mission to hunt a magical beast. Guided by his superior senses, he led a team through the snow-covered tundra, deducing the location of the pack's territory. When the magical beast, a two-meter-tall black wolf, attacked, Liam did not rely on fear. He used his new martial art, Seismic Palm, to exploit the beast's vulnerability. Despite the blade shattering against its hide, Liam's iron grip and Qi-empowered fingers ripped out the creature's throat. He saved his companions and secured the kill, proving his worth. This victory was not just a task completion; it was a declaration of his dominance in the cultivation world. He had turned the tables on the magical beast, just as he had turned the tables on his own destiny.