2026-02-16 07:36:53
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Chapter 646
I nodded, and we had a full, lengthy recap, which included the fact that I was going to die. The atmosphere turned dismal again, by the time I stopped speaking. However, to my surprise, Su Lin and Cao Chen did not linger on the fact I was going to die soon. Perhaps they knew I needed normalcy right now. Perhaps they needed it too. They moved the conversation to where hands could rest and tongues could loosen without shaking.“So much has changed in such a short time,” Su Lin began. He sank onto the reed mat with a soft grunt, palms flat on his knees. He stared across the courtyard toward the old plum tub and then back to me, as if mapping the distance between the world we had lived in and the one we stood in now.“You’re telling me,” Cao Chen chuckled. He settled beside Granny Lang, forearms on his thighs. “Just a year ago, I thought I’d be stuck in that town. I thought Brother Zhang wouldn’t be healed. But then, everything changed so quickly. And everything went to shit just as quick
Chapter 645
When Qiao Ying entered the room, he let out a soft gasp. His lord was surrounded by spirits—golden, soft, tiny spirits filling the room, chiming as they danced around Yuan’s head—and more and more were being added to their number. It felt like he’d stepped into a scene from heaven.A faint glow came from the spirits themselves, bright enough that the Chi lamp on the corner table had been turned down to its lowest notch. The walls were chalked with notes, lines and numbers stacked in tidy columns. A board stood to the right with half-erased diagrams of channels and flow rates, alongside scrawled reminders. Someone had drawn three small boxes next to a heading and filled each with a checkmark.On a bench under the window, trays of leaf cores lay in a neat grid, each covered with thin cloth to keep dust off. Beside them sat a stack of cups with lids. A cloth-wrapped bundle of tools, clamps and narrow tongs and measuring rods, had been pushed to one side of the worktable to make space for
Chapter 644
The leaf could source and carry, but a mortal’s body needed channels to receive and distribute. Cultivators developed meridians over time through training, pills, and guided circulation. A mortal’s—or a broken cultivator’s—body had physical vessels and nerves but no reinforced Chi channels.I could think of three ways to build meridians. First: brute-force carving using controlled Chi like a blade—fast, dangerous, sometimes effective with sturdy constitutions, too high-risk for broad use. Too much involvement from me, too, which would mean too much time taken. Second: gradual conditioning with low-dose Chi and herbs, allowing the leaf to form quasi meridians—safe, slow, not suited to wartime. Third: introduce a guiding intelligence that could enter the body and shape growth from inside—something like what I had done for Zhang.If a leaf could be a conduit, then a leaf could be the seed of a construct with a task. It would need will, not awareness. It would need enough structure to hol
Chapter 643
I looked at the tiny mound of leaves on my table, humming under my breath. Even though I’d only taken a tiny part of the sphere, they’d still amounted to this much.I grasped one of the leaves, staring at it intently. The surface felt cool and slightly textured, the veins raised just enough to catch on my skin when I shifted my grip. It was lighter than it looked, but there was a firmness to the midrib that promised it wouldn’t tear unless I forced it.The faint scent coming off it was green and clean, the same smell that clung around the Divine Tree—which, duh. Up close, the veins formed a consistent pattern—primary lines branching into secondary and tertiary lines in a way that matched flow diagrams I’d drawn for formation plates.I rolled the stem between finger and thumb, listening with my senses rather than my ears. There was a residual hum in the leaf, a quiet persistence that didn’t leak away like ordinary plant Qi.I had sorted them by grade earlier, chalking the brighter pile
Chapter 642
I had to admit that it did feel strange to hold so many leaves at once, almost immoral. Wrong, even if the leaves were sanctioned by the source.I glanced at Flee. She watched the spinning sphere with focus.“We’ll sort by thickness,” I murmured at her, already planning. “Thicker for the bombs. Medium ones for my testing. Thin for everything else.”I drew the sphere tighter. The whirling mass condensed to something the size of a barrel, then a bucket, then a fruit, smooth and firm. I felt for the point where compression would begin to damage the inner structure of the leaves and stopped there. The thrum settled into a slow pulse that matched the tree’s own cadence.I set the ball down on the soil mound. It didn’t bounce, even though it really felt like it should. That thought made me smile; what was I treating this essentially sacred artifact as? A football?It sat there and vibrated, not affected by my heretical thoughts at all, the tiny movements from the leaves keeping the layers f
Chapter 641
I looked at Flee beside me as we walked through the tunnel. Her expression was still downcast. The air smelled of wet rock and faint resin from the pitch we used to seal weak points. Far behind us, the sound of water striking stone counted slow seconds, regular and steady. My steps matched the rhythm without trying.Flee kept her hands tucked close to her stomach, her head drooping. Every few breaths she glanced at my shadow and then away again.I reached over and patted her head gently, smoothing the soft hair behind her ears and the small ridge where bone met muscle.She blinked and looked up at me.“Do you know, Flee? I’m really proud of you.”Her eyes widened. “What? What does Master mean?” The tunnel returned her words with a softer echo that faded into the trickle of water.“I mean exactly what I said. You’re the reason I am who I am. You’ve been such an influential part of my journey. You were my first and true junior sister, you know?”She opened her mouth, then closed it agai
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