2026-06-16 02:57:58
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
Chapter 26
By the time the rain finally eased, it was dark outside, and Sera had set the table for dinner with the brisk efficiency of someone who had decided, somewhere in the last hour, that the question of whether Ethan would be staying for the meal was no longer a question."You're not walking back out into that," she said, when Ethan started to make the kind of polite noise that precedes leaving. "Not at this hour, not with the ground as wet as it'll be. There's a room at the back we don't use. You can have it tonight and be on your way in the morning.""I really don't want to put you out—""You're not putting us out. The room sits empty most of the year and a bit of use won't hurt it." Sera set a plate down in front of him with the same brisk finality she'd used for everything else since he'd arrived. "Eat. You look like you haven't had a proper meal in longer than you'd admit to."Ethan ate. The food was simple — root vegetables, some kind of grain, a bit of preserved meat — but it was th
Chapter 25
The northern region turned out to be exactly as difficult as Vera had described, and after five weeks of it Ethan had reached the point where difficult had simply become the baseline against which everything else was measured.The terrain was steep and broken in ways the southern Wastes had not been, with loose stone that shifted underfoot and stretches of ground where the qi disruption was strong enough to make the air itself feel slightly wrong, a pressure behind the eyes that took getting used to. The void frequency here was, as Vera had said, less clear but more consistent — it took him the better part of two weeks to recalibrate his practice to it, and once he had, the progress was steady rather than dramatic. No new sections of the Sutra had opened. The mirror property the slip had mentioned was still, as far as he could tell, dormant.What the five weeks had also done was run down their supplies faster than either of them had planned for. The northern region had less to forage t
Chapter 24
The letter reached him through Dana at a contract briefing, handed over with a brief "came for you" and no further comment. He put it in his jacket pocket and waited until the briefing was done before stepping away to read it.It was three lines on plain paper, in handwriting he did not recognise, with no sender identification.The name Ash has been connected to a description circulating among the Free Territories' sect contacts. The match is close enough to function as a working identification rather than a general search. They do not have a confirmed location. You have perhaps two weeks before the search narrows to this area. — A friend of Seth's.He read it twice, held it over a small fire until it caught, and watched it finish burning before he moved.The timing made sense in a way he did not find comforting. Vera had told him about Greystone's sect connection four days ago. The letter suggested the search had already spread into the Free Territories' regional network before the G
Chapter 23
The new camp was six kilometres deeper into the Wastes than the first one, and the Ironpath contracts were twelve kilometres in the other direction from Redpost, which meant that on working days Ethan covered roughly eighteen kilometres before he started earning anything. He had decided this was manageable and had been proven correct, though manageable and comfortable were not the same thing and he was not confused about which one he had.He had waited two weeks before reaching out to Dana again. By that point the Academy patrol had been gone from the Redpost area for ten days according to Vera, who went into the settlement periodically to assess the environment in ways she did not fully explain and did not need to. When he did contact Dana, he said he had sorted out his personal business and was available again if the work was still there. Dana said it was. She did not ask where he had been or why, which he had come to understand as one of her more valuable qualities as an employer.
Chapter 22
Vera waited until after breakfast to begin, which Ethan appreciated because it suggested she intended to take her time rather than get through it quickly, and a conversation that was going to change how he understood everything probably warranted being properly fed first.She had him read the second section aloud again, slowly, pausing where the archaic terminology was densest so she could work through it before he continued. She did not take notes. She listened with her eyes half-closed and her tail wrapped around her feet in the composed posture that meant she was paying close attention rather than resting.When he finished, she was quiet for a moment."The section uses a term that translates roughly as the prior state," she said. "In the context of cultivation theory, this refers to the condition of spiritual energy before it takes on elemental character — before it becomes fire or water or wind. The Sutra's claim is that this prior state is not a theoretical starting point. It is
Chapter 21
The new camp was harder to live in than the first one and considerably safer, which Ethan had decided was the correct trade-off even on the days when the correct trade-off was also the uncomfortable one.The section of the Wastes Vera had led him to was six kilometres deeper than his original position, in a shallow valley where the qi discharge activity ran at roughly twice the frequency of the outer perimeter. The discharges were not dangerous if you knew where to stand and when to move, and he had learned both of those things within the first week through the straightforward method of paying close attention and making a few mistakes that were instructive rather than serious. The ambient environment was noisier and more unpredictable than he was used to, but the void frequency at the valley's base was correspondingly clearer — the erratic elemental qi that surrounded it acted almost like contrast, making the deeper layer easier to locate and hold.Vera had been right that it would no
You may also like
Healing God's Heir: Abandoned Son-in-law
Abysalyounglord38.6K viewsSupreme Ancestor
Kingfisher21.9K viewsSovereign of Chaos
Enigma Stone21.2K viewsDragon Covenant
Camellia29.5K viewsThe Discarded Husband: Lucian Vale - The sovereign Collector
Queen B103 viewsONYXSPIRE: THE DESCENT OF CLIVE COLLINS
Magetooo182 viewsThe Undying Warrior's Rewind
The Guitarist209 viewsThe Last Cursebound
Elvis Cruz150 views