Lin Ye quickly discovered that he couldn't train.
Not in the traditional sense.
The back courtyard He Lian had brought him to—a discreet space covered by concealment seals and neutral registration tablets—was perfect for any ordinary cultivator. Solid ground. Stable qi flow. Even a faint spiritual concentration designed not to draw attention.
For Lin Ye, however, it was like trying to swim inside a painting.
He sat cross-legged, took a deep breath, and tried to do what any low-level cultivator would do: guide the qi, circulate it, strengthen the meridians.
Nothing happened.
The qi went in… and went out.
It didn't settle.
It didn't respond.
It was as if his body refused to remain in a fixed state long enough to refine anything.
"Again," he muttered.
He tried once more, forcing it a little harder this time. The result was immediate and unpleasant: sudden dizziness and a sharp stab behind his eyes, like something warning him that insisting down this path was a bad idea.
He Lian, seated a few meters away, watched him without interrupting. A closed notebook rested on her knees, but she wasn't writing. She was just watching.
"It doesn't work," Lin Ye said after a while, without opening his eyes. "Normal cultivation… just slips right off me."
"I expected that," she replied. "Since you crossed the Major Drift Point, your existence stopped being stable in the classical sense."
Lin Ye opened one eye.
"That sounds like a polite way of saying I'm broken."
"No," He Lian corrected. "Broken implies something should work and doesn't. In your case… it was never meant to work that way."
Lin Ye sighed and let himself fall back onto the ground.
"Great. Then tell me, Archivist," he said with tired sarcasm, "how is someone who can't stay still long enough to cultivate supposed to improve?"
He Lian hesitated for a moment.
"By improving at the only thing the world hasn't managed to take from you," she said at last. "Transition."
Lin Ye propped himself up slightly.
"Go on."
She opened the notebook for the first time. The pages didn't contain conventional text, but incomplete diagrams, arrows that didn't quite connect, and margin notes that looked more like questions than answers.
"In the ancient records of the West," she explained, "there are references to existences similar to yours. Rare, incomplete, almost always erased before they could leave enough of a trace."
"Almost always?" Lin Ye repeated.
"Yes," she nodded. "There were exceptions."
That caught his attention.
"And what did they do?"
He Lian pointed to a series of symbols repeated across several pages.
"They didn't cultivate energy," she said. "They cultivated events."
Lin Ye blinked.
"That sounds not dangerous at all," he said. "Not even a little."
"It isn't," she replied. "It's worse."
She leaned forward slightly.
"Every time you survive something that should kill you…
Every time you use a Threshold technique without collapsing…
Every time you force the world to accept you in an intermediate state…
That is progress for you."
Lin Ye fell silent.
The fragmented clock vibrated softly, almost approvingly.
"So…" he said slowly. "I don't level up by sitting down and meditating."
"No," He Lian confirmed. "You level up when the world fails to deny you."
Lin Ye let out a short laugh.
"Perfect. My cultivation method is basically 'don't die.'"
"Summed up, yes."
He sat up fully, resting his elbows on his knees.
"And how do I know if I'm progressing?" he asked. "I don't have a glowing core or an old master praising me."
He Lian closed the notebook and looked straight at him.
"Because the margin grows," she said. "The space between 'it happens' and 'it doesn't happen' becomes a little wider."
As if to confirm her words, the Fragmented Threshold Sutra unfolded again in Lin Ye's awareness, this time with more clarity than before.
No numbers appeared.
A sensation did.
A different weight. As if, when standing, the ground yielded just a little less beneath his feet. As if the world no longer tried to expel him immediately.
"Status updated: Unstable Threshold (Recognized)."
"Operational margin increased."
Lin Ye swallowed.
"Is that… good?"
"It's enormous," He Lian replied. "It means that, for the first time, the world recognizes you as something it has to manage—not just eliminate."
"What an honor," he muttered. "Promoted from critical error to administrative problem."
He didn't have time to joke further.
The air in the courtyard changed.
Not violently. It was subtle—like when someone enters a room without making a sound, but you still notice. The concealment tablets vibrated faintly, not breaking, but adapting.
He Lian stood up instantly.
"Someone crossed the perimeter," she said quietly. "They didn't force their way in."
"That sounds worse than forcing it," Lin Ye commented, carefully getting to his feet.
A figure appeared on the far side of the courtyard, as if he had always been there and had only now decided to be seen.
He was a broad-shouldered, powerfully built man with a relaxed posture, dressed in simple clothes stained with dust. He wore no visible emblems. His aura was clear, direct… and brutally honest. High early-stage Spiritual Dominion, brushing against mid-stage.
He didn't hide his power.
"So you're the one," the man said, scratching his chin. "I thought you'd be more… impressive."
Lin Ye tilted his head, assessing him.
"And I thought you'd come with a more polite introduction," he replied. "I guess we're both disappointed."
The man let out a deep laugh.
"My name's Bao Renkun," he said. "I work for whoever pays best."
He Lian frowned.
"This place is under archive protection," she warned. "If you cause trouble here—"
"I'm not here to cause trouble," Bao Renkun cut in. "I'm here to solve one."
His eyes settled on Lin Ye.
"They say you're hard to catch," he continued. "I don't catch. I crush."
The qi around him condensed, forming a direct, unsubtle pressure. The ground creaked beneath his feet.
Lin Ye felt the impact immediately—not as a complex technique, but like a wall advancing toward him.
"He Lian," he said quietly, "is this one of the elegant types or the simple ones?"
"Simple," she replied. "And that makes him dangerous for you right now."
Lin Ye swallowed and flexed his fingers.
The Eye of the Threshold activated slowly, probing the surroundings. There were possible transitions—but few. The margin was still narrow.
"Perfect," he muttered. "Just when I'm learning to walk… they put a wall in front of me."
Bao Renkun took a step forward.
The courtyard shook.
"Come on," he said with a crooked smile. "Let's see how long your margin lasts when you're really hit."
The pressure descended like a slab.