Morning came slow and gray.

Lin Xuan was already on the path before the kitchen wing had finished its first round of bells. Master Fu had sent a folded list to Silent Peak before dawn, written in his narrow, impatient hand, with three herbs underlined twice and a final note at the bottom that said, if the Young Master intended to recover like a reckless animal, he could at least help restock what he had consumed.

Lin Xuan had taken one look at the list, decided that arguing with old pharmacists was probably a losing cultivation path, and told Lian to be ready at sunrise. He had not given her much of a reason beyond, "Master Fu has made us useful."

She walked half a step behind him now, basket on her hip, the list of materials Master Fu had asked for tucked under the cloth lining. Her breath fogged in front of her face every third step.

By the second flight of stone stairs down the mountain she had stopped speaking.

By the fifth she was breathing harder than the morning air called for.

By the seventh Lin Xuan slowed his pace without saying anything about it.

[ Your maid has not done anything more strenuous than walk across the inner courtyard in six years, Xuan. The descent is going to break her legs by the time you reach the valley floor. ]

’Lian.’

"Mm."

"How are you doing back there." 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

"Fine, Lin Xuan. I am fine."

"You are wheezing."

"I am not wheezing."

"You are wheezing."

She stopped on the next landing, planted both hands on her knees, and let out a sound that was definitively wheezing. Lin Xuan waited.

"I forgot," she managed, "that there were this many stairs. I really forgot."

"Take your time. We have all day."

She nodded against her own knees. After a count she straightened, adjusted the basket on her hip, and started down again. He kept his pace half what it had been before.

The descent took them three full hours instead of the two it should have taken. Lin Xuan did not mind. The morning was gray, the air smelled like wet pine, and for the first time in two years he was looking at something that was not the ceiling beam of his pavilion.

Qinghe Town opened up at the bottom of the valley.

Four thousand mortals, give or take. Streets of packed earth. Houses of low timber and stone. A market square open under the noon sun, full of vendors who had been calling out their wares since dawn.

Lin Xuan walked into the north entrance of the town with the formal traveling robe of the Lin clan on his shoulders, the Young Master crest at his chest, and a sword at his hip.

The recognition arrived inside ten paces.

A woman selling dried fish at the first stall stopped her call mid-sentence.

A boy carrying water from the well dropped one of his buckets.

By the time Lin Xuan was halfway across the square, the murmur had spread to every corner.

"Look. Look at the crest. That is Lin clan."

"That is the Young Master. The one who was dying."

Lin Xuan did not change his pace.

Lian, half a step behind him, kept her face composed. She had not walked beside her Young Master in public before. The lessons of how to hold herself in this kind of attention came back to her one breath at a time.

[ The valley remembers you, Xuan. ] Mira’s voice was low. [ These are the towns that send their sons to Skyedge. If the sect collapses, these are the towns that lose that door. Remember this when you think about the quest. ]

’I will remember. Maybe I could find some talent here then...’

He walked the full length of the square to the herbalist’s stall at the far corner. The herbalist was an old man, sixty or so, white in the beard, with the steady hands of a craftsman. He looked up at the approach, saw the crest, and his hands stopped on the stem of the herb he had been trimming.

He bowed deep.

"Young Master Lin. It is an honor."

"Elder. I have a list from Master Fu."

He passed the slip of paper across the counter. The old man read it, nodded once, and began pulling small drawers behind him.

"My grandson entered Skyedge three months ago, Young Master. As an outer disciple."

"What is his name."

"Tao Wei, Young Master."

Lin Xuan considered for a beat.

"I will mention him to the Outer Disciple Master when I return. No promises beyond a name on a list. But the name will be on the list."

The herbalist’s hands paused on a drawer. When he looked up his eyes were wet and his face had not changed.

"Thank you, Young Master."

The herbalist bundled the materials, refused payment three times, and accepted it on the fourth only because Lin Xuan placed the silver firmly on the counter and turned away before the old man could pick it up again.

Lian followed him out of the square with the basket heavier than it had been on arrival.

The climb back was harder than the descent.

Lian made it through the first thirty steps before she had to stop. By the second rest she was using the basket strap as a makeshift handle to pull herself up the rocks. Lin Xuan offered to carry the basket twice. She refused both times.

By the third rest, an hour above the valley floor, Mira’s voice arrived at the back of his head.

[ Xuan. There are five presences, north-northeast of the path, in the denser stretch of forest above the next bend. Spirit beasts. Rank F. A pack of Shadow Wolves hunting on the ridge. ]

’Are they coming this way?’

[ They are. Your Qi pulls Rank F spirit beasts toward you the way a lantern pulls moths. They have caught your scent and they are closing the distance. Two minutes. ]

’Lian.’

"Mm."

"Stay behind me on this next stretch. Do not move from where I put you. There is something on the path."

Her face went tight in an instant. She did not ask. She nodded once and pressed herself against the rock face where Lin Xuan pointed.

He stepped out into the path.

He drew the Plain Steel Sword, slow, and let the hilt warm in his palm.

The Shadow Wolves came through the underbrush in formation.

Five of them. Black coats, yellow eyes, the size of large hounds. Two at the front. Two on the flanks. One trailing at the back. They moved the way pack hunters moved, with the coordination of beasts that had been hunting together since they were pups.

Lin Xuan watched them spread.

He let them set their angles before he moved.

Cloud Step compressed the air around his shoulders with a soft pop he had stopped noticing a week ago. Where he had been standing, only displaced dust remained. He crossed the distance to the lead wolf in the time the beast needed to understand that the prey had moved.

Awakening Dragon opened through his arm. The pale dragon-trace ran the length of the Plain Steel, thin and alive, wrapping the blade in a single line of Qi the color of old bone. The cut came down on the lead wolf’s neck, and the beast collapsed without a sound as the trace flickered once along the steel and went out.

The second wolf lunged before its packmate had hit the ground, and Coiling Dragon answered it. The Qi on the blade twisted into three small spirals of light, wrapping the Plain Steel at chest height in continuous loops as the sword drew the redirecting circles of Form Two. The leaping wolf’s throat ran into the second loop on its way down and took the cut without ever touching the ground on its own terms.

Two down.

The two flank wolves came in at angles, simultaneously, exactly the way the pack had been trained. Lin Xuan turned his hips toward the closer one and drove Piercing Dragon forward. The Qi on the blade compressed into a single bright point at the tip, condensing like a held breath in cold air, and that point met the wolf at the shoulder before passing through to the other side of its body without slowing. The beast folded mid-jump and dropped.

He pivoted into Twin Dragon Strike before the second flank wolf could recover its angle. The form opened in his hand the way a door opened in a corridor he had walked for years, two cuts in opposite directions folded into one and a half motions. The first went horizontal through the second flank wolf. The second, born from the recovery of the first, came around higher and caught the rear wolf that had been trying to circle behind him.

Two thin parallel lines of pale Qi traced the air between the strikes, like dragon claws drawing themselves in light. The two wolves dropped within a heartbeat of each other.

Four down. One left.

The last wolf, the one trailing at the back of the formation, had stopped moving. It stood ten paces away, ears flat, eyes wide, watching the boy with the sword that had taken its pack apart in less than four seconds.

Lin Xuan felt his Qi cup go thin under his ribs. Cloud Step had eaten three percent. Awakening Dragon had taken five. Coiling Dragon had taken seven. Piercing Dragon had swallowed fifteen on its own, and Twin Dragon Strike had taken eighteen more.

He had less than half his dantian left. Enough for two more techniques if he was smart, one if he was greedy.

He looked at the last wolf.

He had not run Soaring Dragon outside the practice yard yet. Form Five. A vertical ascending strike, rising from the legs and ending pointed at the sky. He had wanted to test it on something living before the tournament, and now the numbers worked. Twenty-two percent of his cup. His reserve sat somewhere in the forties.

He set his foot.

Soaring Dragon unfolded through him, but this time the body carried itself through the form rather than waiting for him to command it. Pale Qi gathered at the base of the blade and traveled up the steel as the cut rose. A long thin line of light climbed with the sword, the shape of a dragon ascending, its head at the tip and its tail running back to his feet.

The cut came up under the last wolf’s jaw before the beast could finish deciding to flee, and the wolf came apart from chest to crown in a single rising line.

The body dropped in two pieces.

Lin Xuan stood on the path with the Plain Steel pointed at the sky and the cup at his ribs nearly empty.

He let out a slow breath.

"That is enough for today."

[ Wisely so, Xuan. (¬‿¬) Your dantian is at six percent. One more form and you would have had to walk back to Skyedge on Lian’s basket. ]

He lowered the blade. He cleaned it on the grass at the edge of the path. He sheathed it.

Lian had not moved from the rock face. She was watching him with both hands pressed against the basket and an expression he had not seen on her face before.

"Lin Xuan, that was increible..."

The system unfolded soft and gold along the edge of his vision before he had finished sheathing the sword.

═══════════════════════════════

[ NEW SYSTEM FEATURE UNLOCKED ]

═══════════════════════════════

[ Bestiary ]

[ ]

[ Track every spirit beast you defeat. Each new species adds an entry to your bestiary. Detailed entries reward. Origin Points. ]

[ ]

[ First entry: Shadow Wolf, Rank F ]

[ ▸ +50 Origin Points ]

═══════════════════════════════

’Bestiary, Mira?’

[ Passive function. Every new species you kill gets logged. Detailed entries (anatomy, weaknesses, abilities) earn extra points. Rare beasts pay much more than the Rank F. Mythic beasts pay obscene amounts. ]

’How much does a mythic beast pay.’

[ I am not telling you. You will have an anxiety attack. ]

’...Mira. Again with that.’

[ (¬‿¬) ]

He folded the panel away.

They walked the rest of the path back to Skyedge.

Lian was quiet for the first stretch. Lin Xuan let her be quiet. After a while she found her breath again and started picking up the pace.

"Lin Xuan."

"Mm."

"I have not seen anything outside Skyedge in six years. I forgot how much louder the world is."

"Did you like it."

A pause.

"I think so. I think I liked it."

"Mm."

"There is more out there than I remembered."

He looked sideways at her, at the basket she had carried up the mountain on her own, at the way she was breathing again after the last rest.

"There is a great deal more, Lian. We will see more of it."

She did not answer. She walked the rest of the way half a step behind him, with the basket on her hip, and the corners of her mouth quietly working on a small private smile.

By the time they reached the gates of Skyedge the sun had touched the western ridges. Lin Xuan handed her the basket of materials at the courtyard.

"Take these to Master Fu. And tell him his ingredients arrived late because his Young Master got distracted hunting."

Lian managed a small nod and a smaller smile.

"Yes, Lin Xuan."

She walked off toward the alchemy pavilion. Lin Xuan watched her go, and for the first time in two years he was thinking about all the places outside this compound he had not yet seen.

The thought made him want to leave again tomorrow.