The CopyCat Immortal

Chapter 13: Mission to the Hidden Dragon Valley

The Hidden Dragon Valley wasn’t a valley at all; it was a scar in the earth, a jagged ravine that looked like a dragon’s claw had tried to pull the sky down into the dirt. The air was heavy, smelling of crushed granite and ancient moss.

Ren walked three paces behind Hua Ran, adjusting the straps of his rucksack. The silence between them was like a wall of ice—literally. Hua Ran radiated a frosty aura that kept the damp valley heat at bay, but it also made the hairs on Ren’s neck stand up. To her, he wasn't a partner; he was a clerical error that walked on two legs.

"Try to keep your breath steady, Ren," Hua Ran said, not bothering to turn around. Her voice was sharp, cultured, but carrying that edge of clinical boredom common among those born to be gods. "The pressure in this part of the ravine destabilizes weaker spirit roots. If you vomit on the trail, clean it up yourself. I’m not here to mother a laborer."

"Yes, Lady Ran. Understood," Ren muttered, playing the role. "I’ll try to keep my internal organs on the inside. No promises on the dignity, though."

Hua Ran stopped, her silken boots silent on the jagged stones. She glanced back over her shoulder, her eyes like polished sapphires. "The Elders called you a sponge. A medical fluke. Personally, I think you’re just a scavenger with a very high pain threshold. Don’t get in my way when the Golems activate."

"Trust me," Ren said, a faint, cynical light in his eyes. "I’m an expert at getting hit so you don't have to."

They turned a corner where the ravine widened into a natural amphitheater of dark, porous stone. In the center, tucked into a crevice, was a cluster of glowing blue flowers: the Azure-Bloom. But between them and the herb stood the guardians.

Three Grade-3 Rock Golems.

They weren't the clumsy training dummies from the Granite Yard. These were giants made of fused basalt and rune-carved schist, standing ten feet tall with glowing amethyst eyes that scanned the perimeter with mechanical precision. Each time they shifted, the earth groaned.

"Wait here," Hua Ran commanded, her hand moving toward the hilt of her sword—a masterpiece of frosted steel. "Grade-3 guardians have a shared sensory network. If you pull their attention, they’ll crush you before I can even blink. Just stay in the shadows and look pathetic. That’s your specialty, right?"

"Born for it," Ren agreed, leaning against a cold wall.

He watched her move. Hua Ran didn’t just attack; she danced. She blurred forward, leaving a trail of snowflakes in her wake. The Frost-Step was a beauty of a technique—Tier 3, refined, and lethal. With a flick of her wrist, she unleashed the Crystal-Rain Slash, ice shards shrieking through the air like diamond needles.

THUD. THUD.

The ice shattered against the first Golem’s chest. The construct barely moved. It let out a low, vibrational roar, its basalt arm sweeping in a massive arc that pulverized a three-ton boulder like it was a dry biscuit.

"Useless," Hua Ran hissed, her ice-blue Qi flaring.

She began a complex sequence of maneuvers, whittling down the golem's defenses, but Ren wasn't watching the spectacle. He was watching the Golem's feet.

Frequency analysis: 350 cycles per second. Seismic resonance: Earth-Type, Peak-Foundation. Logic: Kinetic redirection via mineral lattice.

The Golems were using a technique far more advanced than anything Ren had encountered. Every time Hua Ran’s ice hit them, the impact was absorbed, shifted down into their feet, and dissipated into the ground. It was the Titanic Mantle—a high-level defense art that made the user functionally one with the planet's crust.

I need it, Ren thought. I need that ground-bridge.

Hua Ran was handling two of the golems with surgical grace, her blades humming, but the third Golem had spotted the "leaking vessel" by the wall. Its eyes flared violet, and it stepped toward Ren, each stride shaking the ground hard enough to loosen his teeth.

"Ren! Run, you idiot!" Hua Ran shouted, her poise finally cracking as she realized the scavenger had become a target.

Ren didn't run. He let the rucksack fall.

Core-Damper... full override, Ren commanded internally. The bronze ring on his finger sizzled against his skin, turning a dangerous shade of crimson.

The Golem raised a fist as large as a beer keg. The air in the ravine thickened, a suffocating, gravitational weight pressing Ren into the dirt. This wasn't just a punch; it was the compression of local reality.

Targeting sternum. Impact velocity: Lethal. Perfect.

"Lady Ran! Save—" Ren shouted, his voice a manufactured plea, just as the fist descended.

CRUNCH.

The Golem’s fist caught Ren squarely in the chest.

It was like being hit by a plummeting building. The force blasted Ren through the air, his body skidding twenty feet across the jagged rocks until he hit the back of the amphitheater wall with a sickening thrum. Blood sprayed from his mouth in a fine mist. His ribs didn't just break; they turned into a symphony of shattering ceramic.

"Ren!" Hua Ran screamed. She swung her blade in a desperate arc, a pillar of ice erupting between the third golem and the boy’s crumpled form.

Inside the wreckage of Ren’s torso, the Grafting was going into overdrive.

System Alert: Lethal Shock detected. Kinetic input: 12,000 Kilograms of focused pressure. Resonance: Earth-Sovereign Grade.

The Titanic Mantle was flooding his ruined meridians. It felt like his veins were being filled with hot, liquid cement. The energy tried to solidify his heart, to stop his breath forever, to turn him into a literal statue.

Ren’s vision pulsed white. Then violet. Then a deep, earthen grey.

Syncing... 30%... 70%... 95%... Mastering.

The pain reached its peak and suddenly snapped. The overwhelming weight didn't disappear; it settled. It flowed through his shattered bones and out through the palms of his hands into the stone floor of the valley.

Ren gasped, a long, ragged sound. His eyes, for a split second, turned the dull, terrifying grey of a mountain ridge before fading back to brown.

Titanic Mantle – Grade 3 – Integrated.

Hua Ran reached him first, her sword still glowing with Frost-Qi. She knelt in the dust, her sapphire eyes frantic and confused. She looked at Ren’s chest—it was a ruin of shredded hemp and bruised meat. He shouldn't have been breathing. His heart should have been pulp.

"You fool," she whispered, her voice trembling with an emotion she wasn't used to. "I told you to stay back. Your 'sponge' trait won't save you if there’s no container left."

Ren coughed, a messy, crimson splatter landing on her white silk boot. He offered a shaky, weak grin. "Think... I held a little too much this time, Senior."

He grabbed his chest, and to Hua Ran’s utter shock, the sunken indentation in his sternum began to rise with an audible pop-crack. It wasn't the refined healing of a medical pellet; it was the brute-force reconstruction of an Earth-Sovereign technique.

"How?" she asked, her voice hushed.

"Just... the Reflux," Ren wheezed, sitting up and wiping blood from his nose. "I think the Golem’s energy is still... knitting me together. Hurts like a bitch, though."

Ren looked at the Golems. They were frozen. With the Titanic Mantle absorbed into Ren’s "sponge" roots, the valley’s local seismic network had been momentarily confused. They didn't see him as an intruder anymore; they saw him as part of the mountain.

Hua Ran stood up slowly, her sword lowering. She looked at Ren, then at the Azure-Bloom. She realized the mission was finished. But the man—the boy—at her feet was a variable she could no longer categorize as "trash."

"You’re an abomination, Ren," she said, though there was no hate in her tone anymore. Just a chilling curiosity. "The Elders say you're a passive anomaly. But I’ve never seen a passive object decide to stand in front of a Grade-3 impact."

"A laborer’s got to take the opportunities when they come, Lady Ran," Ren said, using her icy-blue cloak as a temporary brace to pull himself to his feet.

He could feel the new power in his core. It was dense. Unshakeable. The Titanic Mantle wasn't just defense; it was the foundation he needed to finally blend the Fire and Wind techniques into a truly offensive weapon.

"Clean the blood off your face," Hua Ran directed, her icy composure returning as she plucked the Azure-Bloom herbs from the crevice with surgical precision. "The Sect Leader will want to hear the 'miraculous' story of your survival. I’ll let him think you just got lucky again."

"Luck is the only thing a man like me is allowed to have, Senior," Ren said, following her back toward the trail.

As they hiked out of the ravine, Ren felt Hua Ran’s eyes on him every ten minutes. The wall of ice wasn't gone, but it had cracks. For the first time, one of the sect’s high geniuses was looking at him with the suspicion that usually preceded fear.

Five techniques, Ren thought, checking his internal inventory. Fire, Wind, Lightning, Poison, Earth-Sovereign. I’m outgrowing my roots.

He gripped the bronze ring. It was cold again, its job done for the day. He had walked into the Hidden Dragon Valley as a test subject, and he was leaving as a masterpiece of theft.

"Next time," Ren whispered to himself, looking at Hua Ran's silken back. "Next time, I want to see what that ice feels like from the inside."

Hidden Dragon Valley fell silent behind them as the mists reclaimed the stones. Ren trudged forward, his steps now possessing a weight that the earth itself acknowledged. The mission was a success, but the monster the Elders had created was just beginning to realize its own teeth.

And they were very, very sharp.