Chang Lee did not sleep.
The underground lamps dimmed to their lowest cycle, casting long shadows that clung to the stone like stains, but his eyes remained open. Every time he closed them, he felt it again—that inward pressure, patient and exacting, as if the mountain itself were waiting for him to stop resisting.
The seam had not opened.
That fact weighed heavier than if it had.
He sat upright on the edge of his stone bed, the jade pendant cool now, deceptively calm. Too calm. It no longer pulled. It no longer urged.
It waited.
Across the room, Yuan Tao shifted restlessly. "If you're planning to disappear into some forbidden hole tomorrow," he muttered without opening his eyes, "at least warn me so I can complain properly."
Chang Lee let out a quiet breath. "I don't think it will wait until tomorrow."
Yuan Tao went still. He opened one eye. "That's not comforting."
Footsteps approached outside—light, deliberate. Elder Mu stopped at the threshold, not entering, as if aware that crossing it would change something.
"You felt it ease," the elder said softly.
Chang Lee nodded. "It's deciding."
"Then you must decide first," Elder Mu replied.
Chang Lee stood. His legs felt steady now, too steady, like the calm before a fall. "If I refuse it completely…"
Elder Mu did not soften the truth. "It will mark you as insufficient. And it will look elsewhere."
Chang Lee's chest tightened. "Elsewhere… meaning others."
"Yes."
Yuan Tao sat up fully now. "Meaning people who don't even know they're being tested."
Silence stretched between them.
Chang Lee thought of the surface—the humans bowing beneath banners, the dragon eye opening not in anger but interest. He thought of time slowing, cultivation thickening, patience becoming a weapon instead of a virtue.
And he thought of the word Elder Mu had used.
Variable.
"If I accept," Chang Lee said slowly, "it won't give me power."
"No," Elder Mu agreed. "It will give you burden."
Chang Lee nodded once.
"I'll go," he said. "Not because it wants me to—but because if I don't, it will choose someone unprepared."
Yuan Tao swore under his breath. "I hate how reasonable that sounds."
Elder Mu inclined his head. "Then we prepare the threshold."
Deep underground, stone shifted in response.
This time, it was not a question.
It was an opening.
............
The underground did not announce the opening.
There was no horn, no tremor strong enough to draw the settlement's attention. Just a low, continuous pressure that spread through the stone like cold through water, subtle but impossible to ignore once felt.
Chang Lee walked between Elder Mu and Han Kuo, each step measured. The corridor ahead no longer resisted them. The warning runes along the walls dimmed as they passed, not deactivating—yielding.
Yuan Tao hovered at Chang Lee's side, jaw clenched. "I'm still not convinced this isn't the worst idea we've ever had."
Chang Lee didn't look at him. "It might be."
"That's not a denial."
Mei Lin trailed behind, fingers tracing faint symbols in the air as she monitored the shifting formations. Her voice was tight. "The underground is reallocating pressure. Entire sections are locking down."
Elder Mu's staff struck the stone once. "Then it's begun."
They reached the seam.
It was no longer invisible.
A narrow vertical line of pale light divided the stone, thin as a blade, deep as a well. Cold air flowed out steadily, carrying a scent Chang Lee couldn't place—metal, dust, and something like old rain.
The jade pendant lifted slightly against his chest, tugging toward the opening.
Han Kuo shifted his stance. "Once you step through, we can't follow."
"I know," Chang Lee said.
Yuan Tao turned sharply. "That was not part of the agreement."
Elder Mu met his gaze. "If he goes farther than the threshold, the passage will seal. Permanently."
Yuan Tao's hands curled into fists. "Then why let him go at all?"
"Because it's already decided," Elder Mu said quietly. "We are only choosing how much control we lose."
The seam widened by a fraction.
Pressure slammed into Chang Lee's chest—not crushing, but precise, pinning his breath mid-inhale. His vision dimmed at the edges as the seed within him flared painfully, stretched thin like a thread drawn too tight.
Endure.
The meaning pressed into him again.
Chang Lee stepped forward.
Yuan Tao grabbed his sleeve. "Lee—look at me."
Chang Lee did.
For a heartbeat, the pressure eased.
Yuan Tao's voice cracked. "Don't disappear."
Chang Lee swallowed. "I'll come back."
Neither of them believed it.
Behind them, deeper in the underground, alarms began to ring—not loud, but layered, cascading through sealed halls. Mei Lin's eyes widened.
"Elder," she whispered, "something else just activated."
Elder Mu turned sharply.
The mountain leaned inward.
And the seam opened wide enough for one person to fall through.
.................................
Chang Lee did not step.
The ground vanished.
The moment the seam widened, gravity seemed to forget its direction. Stone dropped away beneath his feet, and the pressure that had pinned his breath suddenly reversed—pulling instead of pushing, dragging him inward as if the mountain had decided to inhale him whole.
"Lee!"
Yuan Tao's shout tore through the corridor just as Chang Lee fell.
The seam snapped wider for a heartbeat—long enough for Elder Mu to see what lay beyond—and then the world folded.
Darkness swallowed Chang Lee.
Not absence.
Depth.
He tumbled through cold air that scraped at his skin, the jade pendant burning hot as the fragile seed inside him screamed under the strain. His thoughts scattered, fragments spinning loose—training halls, fire, stone, a dragon's eye opening in the sky—
Then—
Impact.
He slammed onto stone hard enough to knock the air from his lungs. Pain flared through his ribs, sharp and grounding. He lay there gasping, fingers clawing instinctively at the surface beneath him.
The stone was warm.
Breathing.
Chang Lee froze.
Slowly, he lifted his head.
He was not in a chamber.
He was inside a vast, sloping cavity, its walls layered with rib-like stone formations that curved inward and outward in a rhythm too organic to be natural. Faint lines of dull light pulsed along the walls, synchronized with the subtle rise and fall beneath his palms.
Above him, the seam had sealed completely.
No light.
No sound from the underground.
Only the deep, measured pulse of the mountain itself.
Chang Lee pushed himself upright, chest tight, every instinct screaming that he had crossed something irreversible. The pressure here was different—not heavy, not crushing.
Evaluating.
He took one careful step forward.
The pulse changed.
A sound followed—not a voice, not stone grinding—but a resonance that vibrated directly through his bones.
Not ancient.
Awake.
The jade pendant flared violently, heat searing into his chest as a presence unfurled ahead of him—vast, restrained, aware in a way that made his thoughts feel unbearably small.
Chang Lee's knees buckled.
In the darkness, something shifted its attention fully onto him.
And from far above, beyond layers of stone and soil, a second presence stirred in answer— as if two watchers had finally realized they were looking at the same point.