His spirit root is dead. The sect's trash is his treasure.

Shen Lu was born with a dead root — no talent, no future, no qi. The Nine Peaks Sect keeps him alive for one reason: somebody has to sweep the ash out of the alchemy furnaces.

Then he discovers the truth about his root. It can't drink living qi — but it can drink ash: the spent dregs of burned-out spirit stones, ruined pills, and exhausted talismans that every other cultivator throws away. And it refines them into qi purer than any elder's.

While the sect's prodigies fight over fresh spirit stones, Shen Lu cultivates in secret from a mountain of garbage. But the furnace yield has been shrinking for a year. Someone is stealing from the sect — and the ash remembers what it burned.

The Ash Disciple is the first book of the Nine Peaks Saga, a cultivation progression fantasy for readers who like their underdogs stubborn, their power systems clean, and their level-ups earned.