"We're here to serve you, Sect Leader."The red-haired one spoke—in a tone that had returned to the professional register, different from the one at the carriage earlier, the way of someone who already knows her position and has grown accustomed to it. "You are the new sect leader now. It is our duty to serve you."The other two nodded. In unison, the way people do when they've agreed on something before knocking.Caelan looked at all three of them.Then let out a slow breath.As if he had just realized there was one thing that had been missed in everything he'd done today—a conversation that should have happened much earlier.Mo Xuan was dead.That should have meant one very clear thing to the three people standing at his door—that the chain keeping them on this hill no longer existed, that there was no longer anything to serve or guard or fear. But apparently, years inside a system like that taught something that didn't simply vanish just because the system itself was gone.They sti

The spiritual energy in Canglan was not the same as the spiritual energy on Earth.Caelan had known that since the first moment he set foot in this world—had felt it in the giant forest that seemed to have no end, had confirmed it when eight hours of healing that on Earth would have drained his spiritual energy to the point of needing Rex's help multiple times felt here like a burden that could simply be carried.But feeling it while moving was one thing. Feeling it in stillness was something else entirely.When Caelan's eyes closed and his full attention turned inward—into the meridians, into the dantian, into the way energy moved between the two—what he found wasn't just abundant. It was like the difference between drinking from a well and standing inside a river with no visible banks.On Earth, meditation was about gathering—drawing spiritual energy from the environment, one small current at a time, condensing it in the dantian, storing it. A slow process that required focus and ti

The first formula took one day.Half a day more to verify it—in a way no laboratory on Earth could replicate, which was introducing spiritual energy into the finished mixture and reading how its compounds interacted at a level invisible to ordinary eyes.The result was different from what he'd expected. Not worse than anything that could be made on Earth.It was better.Far better.The medicine produced didn't just relieve pain and blockages in the meridians—because the carrier compound from the dark-rooted plant worked in a way that had no equivalent on Earth, it actually helped already-opened meridians absorb spiritual energy at an efficiency higher than normal conditions. Not by forcing it—more like lubricating an existing pathway, turning what would have been a quarter flow into half, making one hour of meditation produce what would normally require two.And remarkably, the medicine had no side effects.Caelan tested it on himself before giving it to anyone else—a rule that had ex

The Tournament of 108 Small Sects was held at the Eternal Night Sect.Not without reason.Among the hundred and eight sects registered in this tournament, the Eternal Night Sect stood in a position that couldn't be argued with—the largest, the strongest, having existed long before most of the other sects had even laid their first foundation stone.Everyone believed that their representative would be the one to win this tournament.And the Eternal Night Sect was already visible from a distance still far off.Not just because of its size, but because in a world already darkened by night, this sect glowed. Large lanterns hung along the full length of its outer walls, casting a blue-violet light unlike the color of any lantern Caelan had passed in all of Canglan. Above the walls, small towers stood at every corner with guards positioned in formations that didn't look the least bit improvised.As the carriage approached the gate, its scale became clearer.In area it matched the Eternal Bla

Caelan looked at Su Ming with a blank expression.Su Ming looked back with a smile already slightly different from the introductory one—there was something at the edges of it waiting for a specific response, already preparing the next line based on assumptions about what that response would look like."What? You don't like what I said?" he asked, with a provocative tone.Caelan smiled.Small, from the corner of his mouth, not trying to be anything more than what it needed to be."Let's see what happens." His voice came out without any lift in it. "I hope you make it far."Su Ming looked at him for one second.Then laughed—shorter than the one before, the kind of laugh that comes out not because something is funny but because there's something that needs to fill the space between one sentence and the next."I hope you make it far?" His head tilted slightly. "Someone who's going to fall first is giving me advice?""It's not advice."Caelan didn't change his expression."It's a warning."