Lin Xuan crossed the inner gate, took the long corridor to his rooms, and pushed the door shut behind him. The latch slid home with a small click only he could hear. Plain Steel went onto the rack by the desk. He pulled the chair out and sat.

’Mira. Show me.’

[ Already opening, Xuan. ]

The panel bloomed in front of him, and it was not the panel he was used to. The old Tier One menu had been a single column he could read at a glance. This was something else entirely. The page that unfolded across his vision was a wide, layered catalog with sub-tabs running down the side and tiles of items running across the body. Cultivation Pills. Body Refinement. Sword Manuals. Breakthrough Aids. Talismans. Spirit Tools. Curiosities. Beneath every header, dozens of items, possibly more, each with a miniature, a price, and a rating glyph he didn’t recognize yet.

He looked at it for a long beat.

The page scrolled when his attention drifted down a column, and the further down it went, the rarer the items became, and the rarer they became, the heavier the prices climbed. There was no bottom of the page within reach.

[ A bit different, isn’t it? ]

’How much is in here?’

[ A lot. The Tier Two index runs to thousands of items, and Tier Three exists past it, though I already told you not to ask about that one yet. If you sit here and browse by yourself, you’ll burn six hours before you realize you’ve blinked twice. ]

He could believe it. The Foundation pills alone showed twenty variations from where he was, and his eye kept snagging on side categories he had no business reading: a Soul Brand kit, a sealed scroll labeled Echo Manual, Restricted, a pale jade bowl described as something for a meditation room and priced higher than the rest of his three months of training combined. He dragged his focus back to the centre of the page.

’Filter it.’

[ Filter how? ]

’Cut what I don’t need. Technique manuals first. I’m not learning anything new in two weeks. Body refinement pills second. The physique is doing that for me. Talismans last. I won’t have time to bind anything properly. Strip it down to what actually moves the needle in fourteen days.’

The catalog rippled and shrank. Three quarters of the tiles dimmed and folded into the margin. What remained was still wide. Breakthrough pills. Spirit recovery aids. A short line of tactical items he didn’t recognize. A small row of curiosities he could not yet read.

He looked at the filtered version for another beat.

’Still too much.’

[ I can keep filtering. ]

’Don’t. Recommend me what to buy. You know the catalog. I don’t.’

The panel hummed in a way that almost felt like Mira squaring her shoulders.

[ I was hoping you’d say that. ]

[ Three things. Two of them go on top of each other. One sits in your inventory until we need it. Let me walk you through them. ]

’Go.’

The first tile expanded across the centre of his view.

[ Item one. Qi Refining Stage Six Breakthrough Pill, mid-high grade. ]

[ Refines the Qi you’re already carrying, levels it against the existing meridian map, and breaks the wall between Stage Five and Stage Six in a single push. The mid-high variant takes the edge off the side effects. Some bleeding from the wrists during the rupture, mild ear ringing, possible drop in body temperature. Three to six hours of meditation to consolidate. Your physique will halve the worst of it. ]

[ Cost: six thousand five hundred Origin Points. ]

’Bought.’

[ I haven’t finished. ]

’You will in a moment. Keep going.’

[ Item two. Qi Refining Stage Seven Breakthrough Pill, high grade. ]

[ Same principle. Harder break. The wall between Six and Seven is thicker than the one between Five and Six. The high grade variant compensates for that. You’ll feel this one. Heat across the Dantian. Pressure behind the eyes. A hum running the length of your spine that won’t quiet down until the consolidation finishes. ]

[ It cannot be taken before the Stage Six pill is fully consolidated. Standard window is twelve to twenty-four hours between the two. Force the window and your Dantian will crack. Six months crawling back to where you started, if you make it at all. ]

[ Cost: ten thousand Origin Points. ]

’Bought.’

[ Sixteen thousand five hundred so far. Three thousand five hundred left in budget, if you’re counting. ]

He was counting.

[ Last item, Xuan. This is the one I want you to actually look at before you say yes. ]

Her tone had shifted underneath the words. The light edge she had carried through the pills was gone. The panel’s colour drained from warm blue to a paler, harder shade.

’Show me.’

The third tile opened.

It was an image of a small thing curled on itself the way a centipede curls when it sleeps. Pale segments running the length of its back. Thin legs along the sides, more of them than he wanted to count. The head was small and blunt and turned inward toward the body. The image gave it an almost peaceful look. He understood instantly that it would not be peaceful in motion.

[ Marrow Centipede. Bound class. Tier Two restricted. ]

[ Cost: fifteen hundred Origin Points. ]

[ Listen to this part carefully. ] 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

She paused, and when her voice came back, there was no joke in it.

[ It enters a host through the nose, the ear, or the mouth. If none of those are open to it, it forces entry through whatever orifice it can find. The host does not need to be asleep, though sleeping makes the operation cleaner. Once inside, it travels to the upper spine and beds itself against the marrow, just below the base of the skull. ]

[ From that position, it carries your instructions. The host stays alive, stays functional, stays themselves on the surface. But anything you tell them to do, they do. Anything you tell them to write, they write. Anything you tell them to say, they say. They will not remember being told. They will believe the words are their own. ]

[ The centipede does not decompose. It does not run on a clock. It stays inside the host until you remove it or until the host dies. Until then, the host answers to whoever holds the binding. ]

She let the panel hold the moment before continuing.

[ The binding is to the buyer. To you. The centipede considers you its master and will obey only you. Anyone else who tries to push an order through it will be ignored. ]

[ While it isn’t deployed, it stays sealed in your inventory. You don’t need to feed it. You don’t need to handle it. It sleeps until you call for it. ]

He held the image of the small curled thing in his eyes for a beat. The tool worked. The mine was a problem the tool solved. The math did not need to be done twice.

’And the use case.’

[ Blood Fang. ]

[ When we scout the mine, we don’t only map it. We plant the centipede in the cargo who runs the operation on the ground. From that point forward, whatever Blood Fang’s high command reads about the mine, they read it through our mouth. They will think the mine is fine for as long as we want them to think it. By the time they realise it isn’t, your father is six steps further down whatever road he wants to walk. ]

[ It also won’t be the last time this is useful. There are people on the continent who would talk more freely if they didn’t know they were talking. ]

’Bought.’

[ Are you sure, Xuan? ]

’I said bought.’

[ Confirmed. ]

[ Eighteen thousand Origin Points spent. Two thousand reserved. All three items are in your inventory. The pills are yours to pull whenever you want them. The centipede stays sealed and bound to you until you call. ]

He passed his attention across the inventory tab and felt the three new weights register against his awareness like coins dropped into a pocket. Two vials. One small dark box with a frost ring around the lid. Bound. Waiting.

He pulled the Stage Six pill out first.

The vial materialised in his palm with a small displacement of air, blue wax seal intact. He set it on the desk. Then he pulled the Stage Seven and placed it beside the first. Two vials side by side, one ocean blue, one a deeper violet. The lamp threw two coloured rings onto the wood.

’We change the order.’

[ Oh? ]

’I take these first. Climb to Stage Seven before we leave for the mountains. At Stage Seven, the climbing, the boars, the Hawks, all of that becomes a different conversation than it would be at Stage Five. The materials trip gets easier. The risk drops. The time it takes drops with it.’

[ Smart. I was going to suggest the same once the panel closed. ]

He turned both vials between his fingers.

’I take them tonight. Both. The Six first. The Seven the moment the Six settles. You tell me when the window opens between them.’

[ I’ll tell you to the minute. ]

He broke the blue seal with a thumbnail and tipped the pill into his palm. Pea-sized, deep ocean blue with a fine thread of silver running through the middle. He held the second vial in his other hand, ready to crack the violet wax the instant the first dose finished its work.

His Qi was already tightening across his Dantian. Stage Five had been his ceiling for weeks. The wall between him and Six had been a real wall every time he had pushed against it. Tonight he was going to walk through it with a hammer in his hand, and walk through the second one before sunrise.

He raised the pill to his mouth.

The door opened.

He froze with the pill an inch from his lips.

Lian came into the room with a covered tray balanced in both hands and her eyes on the floor, the way she always crossed his threshold.

"Xuan."