For the next ten days, Seven Profound Martial House changed.
The changes did not come with thunder or drums. They slipped in with morning mist and evening wind, hidden between the beats of a training drum, buried in the hush between one breath and the next.
What came openly were the whispers.
Rumors in the Martial House
"Have you heard? That guest instructor's methods are too extreme…"
"It's not just 'extreme'. I heard someone abolished their own cultivation under him. Abolished. What kind of sane teacher does that?"
"His breathing patterns are wrong. My uncle in the Puppet Faction says it's similar to certain demonic manuals—twisting meridians in strange ways."
"You better be careful. What if you reach Pulse Condensation only to realize your foundation is ruined? At that time, there will be no medicine to cure regret."
Voices slithered through corridors and tea rooms, wound around pillars and drifted through courtyards. They mixed with ordinary chatter—ranking matches, missions, who broke through, who failed.
Elders heard them.
Some frowned.
Some nodded grimly, already suspicious of outside "geniuses" meddling with their disciples.
And far above, in a quiet study filled with neat stacks of jade slips and the faint scent of old ink, the rumors finally reached Sun Sifan.
He listened without interrupting, fingers tapping lightly on the desk as the reporting disciple spoke of "abolished meridians", "dangerous breathing", and "demonic circulation patterns".
When the report ended, the elder's face was unreadable.
He waved the disciple away.
Once the door closed and silence fell, Sun Sifan sat there for a moment, eyes closed, listening to the echo of those words.
"Abolished cultivation… demonic breathing…" he murmured.
Then he stood.
Without summoning attendants or inviting other elders, he walked alone toward the training fields.
If someone dared to stir the Seven Profound Martial House this much, then he would see it with his own eyes.
...
The training platforms were filled, even though evening was creeping in.
Sun Sifan stepped up onto a viewing terrace and stopped.
What he saw made the rumors feel… small.
On one platform, Ling Sen stood alone, sword in hand.
In the past, his Ashura Intent had always burst outward like a bloody storm—crude, overwhelming pressure that made weaker disciples pale and choke just by standing near him.
Now, that slaughter field no longer raged in all directions.
It burned close to his skin—condensed into a thin, dark-red layer clinging to his blade and body like a ghostly battlefield armor. When he moved, it moved with him, quiet and restrained.
He drew a slow breath.
He cut.
There was no roar. No flashy light.
His sword traveled in a simple line. At the far edge of the platform, dozens of feet away, stone split with a sharp crack. A single hair-thin line appeared, clean as if drawn by a ruler.
A Human Hall disciple who had thought himself safely "out of range" stiffened, cold sweat pouring down his back.
"...That strike just now—"
"Senior Brother Ling's aura… it's quieter," someone whispered hoarsely. "But it feels even scarier than before."
Ling Sen did not bother to answer. His eyes were colder than the steel in his hand.
On another field, Ta Ku's axe fell.
The ground shook.
This platform had been specially reinforced by formation masters; even so, each of his strikes left deep craters in the stone. The force no longer sprayed wildly outward like an overflowing basin. It sank straight down through his frame and into the earth, as if a mountain had chosen to fall in a single direction.
Ta Ku's movements, once thick and a little clumsy, had become brutally smooth. Each swing followed the precise path of breath and blood—heel to waist, waist to shoulder, shoulder to wrist—force traveling through him like a wave that refused to break early.
Every completed motion carved another invisible mark into his bones.
Sun Sifan moved his eyes again.
Murong Zi's spear shone in the setting light.
She sparred with three Earth Hall disciples at once. Gone were many of her earlier, flowery feints—those fancy forms meant to impress spectators more than kill enemies. Her spear now drew arcs that were deceptively simple.
Thrust. Sweep. Stab.
But each time the spearhead moved, force traveled cleanly from ground to tip, as if the earth itself had chosen to lend her strength.
Three elites combined their power and blocked one of her thrusts.
All three felt their arms go numb.
By the tenth exchange they were already being forced back, boots grinding tracks into the stone.
"Senior Sister Murong… what kind of spear is this…?" one of them gasped, jaw tight from the pain in his wrists.
"She chose that painful new path, didn't she?" someone in the watching crowd whispered, remembering the day Murong Zi grit her teeth and let Ren tear apart parts of her flawed foundation to rebuild it with the Primal Chaos Meridian Canon.
"Of course she did," another disciple said quietly. "She's Murong Zi."
...
On a quieter platform, Qin Xingxuan practiced alone.
Her sword did not blaze with shocking light; there were no waves of sword qi tearing up the sky.
Each cut was short, efficient, precise.
Her true essence flowed along the patterns of Primal Chaos and Heaven-Opening Origin, tempering her muscles and bones with every motion. To ordinary eyes it looked almost plain. To an experienced elder, her body was re-aligning with every stroke, skeleton and meridians settling into a better, more harmonious structure.
The more she moved, the more comfortable she became.
At times, a thin glimmer of sword intent flickered along her blade—so faint most couldn't see it, a whisper before true Martial Intent.
Sun Sifan narrowed his eyes.
"...She's building something deep," he thought.
On another platform, Bai Jingyun faced a Heavenly Abode senior in a friendly spar.
Her Heaven-Opening Origin circulation ran quietly beneath her skin, true essence spiraling along Ren's re-drawn meridians like water being forced through refining mills.
Each time she met her opponent's sword, her blade didn't merely clash.
It absorbed.
It redirected.
It returned.
Her opponent—an elite at a higher realm—found his attacks growing sluggish as every collision fed weakness back into his own stance. It was as if his flaws had been outlined in red ink.
After dozens of exchanges, his wrist ached fiercely. His meridians throbbed from repeated impacts of that tightly compressed true essence.
He finally stepped back, laughing bitterly.
"I admit defeat," he said, cupping his fists.
Bai Jingyun bowed lightly, expression calm, only the rise and fall of her chest betraying how hard she had been pushing.
Beyond these prodigies, more subtle changes rippled.
Disciples who had chosen the Heaven-Opening Origin Art alone felt their comprehension sharpen. Manuals that had once seemed obscure now opened to them like books they'd been reading for years. Their true essence reserves deepened; they recovered faster after exhausting themselves. Some began to faintly sense the flow of heaven and earth origin energy in the air, like a new color they could finally see.
Those who walked the combined path of Primal Chaos Meridian Canon and Heaven-Opening Origin progressed slower in realm, but faster in strength. Their bodies hardened day by day. Old injuries they'd carried like invisible shackles began to ease as their meridians were gently reshaped. Their stances grew steadier, their strikes heavier. Each completed "perfect motion" etched a mark into their bones, a tiny Dao Fruit of movement waiting to bloom later.
Sun Sifan did not leave after seeing one platform. He stayed until night fully fell and torches were lit, watching rotation after rotation, noting every detail, committing every voice to memory.
Reports piled up on his desk.
Breakthrough rate in Human Hall: up again. Forty percent in three weeks.
Earth Hall bottlenecks at peak Altering Muscle: loosening at nearly twice the usual pace.
Heavenly Abode cultivation deviation incidents: down another thirty percent.
Each report was written in the dry language of administration—numbers, percentages, summarized cases.
But elders did not work with numbers alone.
They heard the new sounds echoing through the Martial House.
The thunder of Ta Ku's axe collapsing reinforced stone.
The sharp hiss of Murong Zi's spear tearing the air so cleanly that it left disciples breathless.
The soft but relentless whisper of Qin Xingxuan's sword cutting hair-thin lines into training pillars.
The heavy, ink-thick pressure of Bai Jingyun's true essence grinding down seniors who had always been above her.
Within half a month, the disciples practicing Ren Ming's arts had become walking answers to any rumor.
"How can it be demonic if their foundations are cleaner than before?"
"Look at Ling Sen. If his Ashura Intent had gone out of control, half the field would be screaming on the ground. Instead… it's sharper, but completely under his control."
"Murong Zi shattered a practice puppet with one thrust. She wasn't at that level before."
"I saw Bai Jingyun push back a senior today. A senior."
Disciples who had hesitated began gnawing their lips in regret.
"Do you think… it's too late to join?" an Earth Hall youth whispered as Ta Ku's axe split a reinforced pillar down the middle.
His friend swallowed. "You think you can handle that pain?"
The first boy stared at the crater Ta Ku had just made.
"...Maybe," he said, voice trembling—but his eyes burning.
The rumors Ouyang Dihua and Zhang Guanyu had so carefully planted did spread. They stuck to walls and corners. They seeped into ears.
But each one died quickly, strangled by reality.
It was hard to convince someone that a man was destroying foundations when every day, those trained by him walked past with clearer eyes and stronger steps.
...
Ren Ming moved through all of this like water flowing downhill.
He did not waste a breath searching for the source of the rumors.
He didn't need to.
With a single glance at the way Zhang Guanyu watched Murong Zi or Bai Jingyun, he could guess where the whispering started. The man's jealousy was thick enough to taste.
"A rat's going to squeak," Ren thought once, amusement flickering at the edge of his calm gaze. "That's just nature."
He didn't give a damn.
He did not slow his pace.
Mornings were still lectures—long stretches on basic circulation, on how to breathe properly, on why "perfect motion" mattered more than flashy techniques. His tone stayed casual and clear; his explanations cut straight into the heart of a concept the way his fingers cut into meridian knots.
Afternoons were small-group training.
He walked among platforms, hands behind his back, correcting a stance here, a breath there. A tap on a shoulder. A light knock against a knee. His manner was relaxed, but there was steel under it. When he said, "Again," no one argued.
Evenings…
Evenings were dangerous in another way.
...
On one such evening, the training grounds were finally empty. The sun bled red along the horizon, turning the clouds into smoldering embers. Array nodes in the stone pulsed softly like hidden stars beneath the Martial House.
Ren walked along a stone path with Murong Zi, Bai Jingyun, and Qin Xingxuan beside him.
Murong Zi spoke with her usual lively energy, spear resting across her shoulders as she walked.
"…and then Ta Ku tripped over his own feet," she said, gesturing so hard she nearly smacked a passing lantern. "But instead of falling, he just smashed the ground with his axe and used the rebound to stand back up. The other guy looked like he wanted to cough blood right there."
Ren laughed, low and warm.
"Adaptable," he said. "I like it."
Murong Zi's grin brightened, chest swelling with pride.
Qin Xingxuan's lips curved just a fraction, like frost melting at the edges of a winter pond.
Bai Jingyun walked in silence, but her eyes slid toward him, cool gaze evaluating, weighing.
"Guest Instructor," she said at last, voice calm but carrying a faint warning, "you don't worry that giving us so much will draw… trouble?"
Ren looked at her, his gaze warm and steady.
"In this world," he said, "walking the Dao without drawing trouble is harder than cultivating. If you're afraid of ripples, don't throw stones."
Murong Zi snorted.
"Then we'll just learn to swim," she said.
Ren smiled wider.
"That's the spirit."
They reached a quiet corner of the Martial House, a small garden tucked between pavilions. Lantern light flickered against leaves and stone; a small pond held the warped reflection of the three women beside him.
Ren stopped beneath a tree.
"Murong Zi," he said.
She straightened instinctively, spear snapping down to her side.
"Yes?"
He stepped closer, eyes sweeping over her stance from foot to shoulder.
"Today's spear form," he said. "You forced the last thrust. Your heart rushed ahead, but your body lagged. Don't let eagerness trip you."
His hand rose. He tapped her forehead lightly with one knuckle.
"But that kind of courage," he added, voice softening, "is why you suit Primal Chaos. It likes people who dare to break themselves and start over."
Murong Zi's cheeks reddened instantly.
"Y-you can't praise me like that all of a sudden," she sputtered, hands waving. "My heart'll start racing."
Ren's smile curved up, easy and a little teasing.
"That's fine," he said. "As long as your feet remember where to stand."
Murong Zi made an incoherent sound and spun away, muttering under her breath, her ears bright red.
He turned to Qin Xingxuan.
"And you," he said, his tone gentler. "You're the opposite. Your feet always know where to stand. Sometimes your heart lags behind."
Qin Xingxuan met his eyes directly.
"Is that… bad?" she asked.
"No," Ren replied. "It's safe. But cultivation isn't safety. Once in a while, you're allowed to want something and step forward without weighing every consequence."
He stepped closer. His hand settled briefly on her shoulder, his touch steady, not pressing.
"When you do that," he said quietly, "Primal Chaos will answer strongly. It likes steady people who choose a direction and walk it."
Her fingers curled slightly at her sides.
She lowered her eyes, then raised them again.
"…I'll remember," she murmured.
Then he turned to Bai Jingyun.
She stood slightly apart, posture impeccable, sword at her side, lantern light drawing faint gold along her lashes.
"Bai Jingyun," he said, voice softening further.
She looked back at him, eyes cool, but no longer as distant as when they first met.
"Yes, Guest Instructor?"
He shook his head.
"Just call me Ren," he said casually. "We're already sharing meridian patterns and life-and-death roads. 'Guest Instructor' sounds stiff."
For someone who'd faced battlefield slaughter essence without blinking, Bai Jingyun looked… briefly at a loss.
Her lips parted, then closed, then parted again.
"…Ren," she said at last.
His name tasted unfamiliar on her tongue—too intimate, too direct for the world she'd grown up in—but something about it felt… freeing.
He smiled, satisfied.
"Better," he said. "Your Heaven-Opening circulation is clean. If you keep this pace, you'll touch a higher realm sooner than you think. When that happens, certain chains on your life will loosen."
Her eyes darkened.
She knew exactly what he meant—the engagement contract hanging over her like a blade since childhood. Zhang Guanyu's shadow that refused to leave her path.
"For now," Ren continued, gaze steady on hers, "you don't need to carry everything alone. If someone tries to use status to cage you…"
He shrugged lightly.
"Try leaning on me once."
He didn't raise his voice or puff out his chest. He said it as simply as stating that water was wet and fire burned.
Bai Jingyun's heart clenched tight.
She looked away, lashes trembling.
"…That would cause trouble," she said softly.
Ren chuckled.
"I like trouble," he replied. "Keeps life interesting."
Murong Zi groaned dramatically.
"See?" she complained to Qin Xingxuan in a stage whisper. "He talks like this and then expects people not to fall for him. It's completely unreasonable."
Qin Xingxuan coughed lightly, expression composed, only the faintest color touching her ears.
Ren just laughed.
"Go rest," he said, waving them off. "Tomorrow, we continue."
They bowed in their own ways.
Murong Zi with a half-salute, grin bright.
Qin Xingxuan with a precise, graceful cupping of fists.
Bai Jingyun with a slight, elegant nod—as if nothing had changed, even though the way she'd spoken his name lingered between them.
They walked away, backs straight, steps firm.
Ren watched them go, hands sliding back into his sleeves, his smile lingering.
...
High above that garden, in a different courtyard, Zhang Guanyu stood by a window and watched the same scene from afar.
Murong Zi's easy grin.
Qin Xingxuan's quiet gaze.
Bai Jingyun standing just a touch closer than before.
Ren's relaxed posture as if the entire Martial House were a place he was merely passing through—completely unconcerned with politics, contracts, or the deep currents roiling beneath the surface.
A subordinate finished his report beside him, head bowed.
"Rumors have spread as instructed," the man said. "Some elders are cautious. A few disciples hesitated to join Guest Instructor Ren's new paths."
Zhang Guanyu's jaw tightened.
"And now?" he asked.
The subordinate swallowed.
"Now… those who joined are already showing results," he admitted. "The others… are beginning to regret. Among them are some of the names we have been observing. Murong Zi, Qin Xingxuan, Ta Ku, Ling Sen, Bai Jingyun…"
Zhang Guanyu's fingers dug into the wooden frame of the window until his knuckles turned white.
"Enough," he said coldly. "Leave."
The man fled, half-bowing, half-stumbling in his haste.
Zhang Guanyu stood alone, eyes locked on the tiny figures in the garden below.
Ren Ming laughed at something Murong Zi said, his aura completely unbothered by anything outside that small pool of lantern light.
"Handled," Zhang Guanyu repeated under his breath, remembering Ouyang Dihua's confident smile when he spoke of "guiding" the situation.
Handled?
He thought of Ouyang Dihua walking in as an envoy, of Acacia Faction's methods—the honeyed words, the soft power of dual cultivation, the invisible knives hidden behind silk sleeves.
He thought of Murong Zi and Qin Xingxuan saying another man's name.
Slowly, he forced his grip to relax. It left faint grooves in the wood.
"Enjoy your days, Ren Ming," he murmured, eyes cold.
"The higher you lift them…"
His gaze sharpened, a cold gleam cutting through the darkness.
"…the more interesting it will be to watch when the heavens press down."
He did not plan to rush.
He would let Ren raise these people, polish them, make them shine.
Then he would invite down a storm no random "guest instructor" could block.
...
In the weeks that followed, the world seemed to breathe in rhythm with Ren Ming.
Day by day, the Seven Profound Martial House changed.
Night by night, another world with devil wings and Sacred Gears watched him with soft eyes and wicked smiles.
He walked between the two as easily as crossing a courtyard, his Heaven turning behind his pupils like a slow, twelve-layered wheel.
In the quiet hours before dawn, Ren stood alone on the Martial House's rear cliff, hands folded behind his back.
Below, training fields and platforms lay under a blanket of darkness, only the faint glow of array nodes pulsing like submerged stars.
Above, the Martial House grand formation gathered heaven and earth origin energy into a hazy river that flowed over the compound. The early morning origin energy was cool and sharp, each breath like drinking from a cold mountain spring.
Ren's eyes were half-lidded.
Inside him, the Heaven he had forged—his personal inner cosmos—turned slowly.
One star pulsed with Martial World's heavy, metallic laws—saber and spear, blood and battlefield.
Another star hung further away, glittering with strange magic circles and dragon gods, Sacred Gears humming like alien Dao lines.
A third star coiled with slaughter.
A fourth with quiet, inexorable suppression.
He let them spin around one another, gravity weaving between worlds.
Then his figure blurred and vanished.
In the next heartbeat he was gone from the cliff, presence slipping through a road only he could see—one carved from Biblical God's old seals, Infinity's borderless nature, Great Red's dreams, and Trihexa's irreversible destruction.
He spent a few "hours" in that other world, teasing, guiding, and quietly holding his girls there—sharing tea in the Occult Research Club's room, stealing kisses in quiet corridors, feeling the warmth of devils, angels, foxes, Fiends, and Goddess.
Time under his Heaven bent.
When he stepped back out onto the cliff above Seven Profound Martial House, the morning sky had only just begun to lighten.
"Good," Ren murmured, stretching lazily. "Everyone's still asleep."
He paused.
"Except…"
His gaze turned.
Far in the distance, a spear light flashed once at the edge of dawn.
Murong Zi.
Near the Heavenly Abode courtyard, a thin, almost invisible strand of sword intent flickered before disappearing into the morning mist.
Bai Jingyun.
Down in the Human Hall fields, two faint, stubborn threads of Fire Intent smoldered in the haze like buried coals.
Na Yi.
Na Shui.
Ren's smile deepened.
"Not bad," he said softly. "You're all moving."
...
By this point, the changes were impossible to ignore.
At first, elders had been able to pretend it was just numbers. Just reports.
But numbers were abstract.
The sound wasn't.
The thunder of Ta Ku's strikes vibrated up through the stone foundations of nearby pavilions.
The whistle of Murong Zi's spear made even seasoned instructors unconsciously straighten their backs.
The whisper of Qin Xingxuan's sword carved hair-thin lines into practice pillars, each scratch a promise of future sharpness.
The low, steady rhythm of Heaven-Opening Origin and Primal Chaos circulation synced dozens of meridians into a shared beat.
Even the simple breathing of Human Hall disciples had changed—a deeper, more grounded sound, like waves following a new tide.
...
On one of the central platforms, Ling Sen stood amid a shattered ring of stone.
He wore plain Heavenly Abode robes. His hair was bound back, his expression carved in cold stone as always.
Around him, the blurred silhouettes of opponents Earth Hall and Heavenly Abode elites who had volunteered (or been "volunteered") to test him—staggered back, faces pale.
Ling Sen exhaled once.
His Ashura battlefield rose.
It did not spread.
Under Ren's hand, the killing intent he had tempered in the Asura battlefield no longer poured out like a flood, drowning everyone in suffocating pressure.
Heaven-Opening Origin Art had twisted his meridians into tighter, spiral paths. Every breath drew in origin energy and folded it into his battlefield, compacting that murderous aura more and more.
Where once Ling Sen's presence had felt like a vast, bloody plain, now it was a blade.
It clung to his body, thin, dark, restrained.
"Again," Ling Sen said.
His true essence flowed.
Ashura Intent oozed along the new channels Ren had carved, every eddy of killing intent neatly caught and refined.
He stepped.
His speed wasn't as explosively flashy as Zhang Guanyu's famous swiftness, but there was no wasted movement. Each step cut distance with terrifying efficiency.
His sword drew a single, understated line through the air.
Stone several zhang away split with a dry, crisp sound.
The Human Hall disciple who had barely dodged that invisible edge stiffened, cold sweat soaking his back.
Ling Sen's cultivation settled firmly at the peak of Bone Forging. Yet with his Ashura field compressed through Ren Ming's Heaven-Opening Origin Art, his combat strength now stepped steadily into territory where even late-stage Pulse Condensation experts would hesitate to face him head-on.
At the edge of the platform, Ren stood with hands clasped behind his back, eyes half-lidded in thought. The early light picked out the lazy curve of his smile; it did nothing to soften the authority in his gaze.
"You're starting to use the gates properly," Ren said. "Don't rush Pulse Condensation. When your Ashura field can condense to a single point without leaking, the breakthrough will come on its own."
Ling Sen cupped his fists.
"Yes."
His voice remained cold.
But deep in his eyes, something like a small flame flickered.
....
Ta Ku's training field looked like a battlefield after a siege.
The reinforced stone—built by Puppet Faction array masters to withstand Heavenly Abode elites—had sunk in multiple places, forming pits and rings where his axe had fallen again and again.
Ta Ku stood bare-armed in the middle of the largest crater, chest heaving, sweat running in thick lines down his torso. The massive black axe rested across his shoulders like it belonged there.
Every swing he had taken during the past hour had followed the patterns of Primal Chaos Meridian Canon overlaid with Heaven-Opening Origin. From the coiling of his toes to the twist of his waist and the drop of his shoulders, each motion formed a complete circulation.
Every time he completed one perfect circuit, Primal Chaos left another mark in his bones.
"Again," Ren called from the edge of the pit.
Ta Ku grinned, breath still rough but eyes bright.
"Yes!"
He stomped down.
The ground trembled.
The axe rose—not with crude force, but with heavy, terrifying smoothness. It felt less like a weapon and more like a piece of the mountain itself lifting to answer him.
When it fell, the sound wasn't a simple crash.
It was a dull, resonant boom that vibrated in the chest.
The stone floor sank another half foot. Dust sprayed outward in a ring, stopped only by the glowing lines of a formation at the edge of the pit.
Watching Heavenly Abode disciples swallowed hard.
"He's already at Altering Muscle," one whispered. "But that… that's not Altering Muscle power."
"It feels like he's engraving the path of his axe into the world," another muttered, throat dry. "If he keeps going, even Pulse Condensation experts will be a head shorter if they're careless."
Ta Ku straightened slowly, shoulders rising and falling, grin stretching wider.
"Master Ren!" he called up, voice hoarse but joyous. "It's like swinging a mountain. But the mountain listens to me."
Ren laughed.
"Good," he said. "That means your body's starting to remember the path of force. Keep carving it in. When your bones finish imprinting the first layer, your axe won't just fall heavier—it'll carry your martial intent with it."
"Martial intent, huh…" Ta Ku scratched his head, still grinning. "I'll smash my way there."
"That," Ren replied mildly, "is one way."
...
Murong Zi's progress was the most obvious.
Before dawn, she trained alone on windswept stone outcroppings beyond the Martial House walls. After lectures, she threw herself into Primal Chaos drills until her arms trembled and her legs refused to move. At night, when other Heavenly Abode disciples had long since returned to their courtyards, her spear still flickered under the stars.
Her cultivation now sat at mid Altering Muscles, but her combat strength stepped neatly into the realm of Pulse Condensation. Common Altering Muscles martial artists would be crushed by that spear.
"What Primal Chaos likes," Ren had told her once, watching her collapse on the ground in a sweaty heap, "isn't flashy techniques. It likes honest work. Every time you finish one complete motion with correct breathing, it leaves a mark."
"A mark?" she had panted.
"In your bones," he'd said. "In your marrow. When you reach higher realms, those marks will burst out together. Then even if somebody hands you a random spear, your body will know what to do better than most manuals."
Murong Zi had grinned then, eyes blazing.
"Good," she'd said. "I like that path."
Now, in the central arena, she faced three Early Bone Forging Heavenly Abode disciples at once.
Her spear no longer danced in complicated patterns. It moved simply, almost crudely.
But every thrust and sweep made the stone ring.
Each time the spear connected with a weapon or a shield, the impact traveled from her heel through her body and into the tip with frightening purity. Sparks flew; her opponents' arms went numb again and again.
By the tenth exchange, the three were already being driven back, feet slipping, guard ragged.
"Senior Sister Murong… how are you doing this at just mid Altering Muscles…?" one gasped, teeth clenched.
She only smiled, spear held steady, eyes bright with battle joy.
...
Qin Xingxuan's road was quieter.
Her cultivation did not leap in sudden, dramatic jumps. It rose the way a river wore down mountains—slowly, relentlessly.
Mid Altering Muscles.
Late.
Peak.
Where others rushed to claw up realms, she walked at a measured pace, never skipping a single detail.
Every inch of meridian that Primal Chaos and Heaven-Opening rebuilt in her, every perfect motion etched in muscle and bone, was polished again and again. She was not chasing a spectacular explosion.
She was building something that would not crack.
Most Heavenly Abode disciples still saw her as the distant fairy: astonishing talent, flawless bearing, a future pillar of Seven Profound Valleys.
They did not see the thin strand of sword intent that had begun to coil around her blade, or the way her heart trembled just once before settling each time she chose to step forward instead of retreat.
Ren saw it.
He rarely corrected her.
Once in a while he would stand at the edge of her field and speak a single sentence.
"Your waist is one breath slow."
"Don't let the sword return lazily. The end of a motion has to be as clean as the start."
"Don't be too afraid of advancing. When you want to step, step."
Each sentence sank into her dantian like a stone dropped into still water.
Ripples spread. Her sword grew no flashier, but its sharpness thickened, its presence more and more difficult to ignore.
"She's close," Ren thought whenever he saw that almost-invisible strand of intent. "The day her heart moves once, the sword will follow."
...
Bai Jingyun walked a different road.
She did not take Primal Chaos into her meridians. She chose to keep to her original sword cultivation, weaving Heaven-Opening Origin into it like a second skeleton laid over her first.
Her cultivation rose steadily into early Bone Forging. Her true essence turned thick as ink, spiraling deeper with every breath the modified meridians allowed her to draw.
Heaven-Opening's spiral channels let her drink more origin energy, then compress it again and again, grinding out impurities as if she were using the Martial House's best refining arrays inside her own body.
On the practice platform, she faced elites at mid to late Bone Forging with her sword at a calm guard, expression as composed as if she were listening to a lecture.
"Senior Brother," she said politely to a Late Bone Forging Heavenly Abode disciple one afternoon. "Please be careful."
He smiled indulgently.
Then her sword moved.
A simple, horizontal slash.
The true essence riding that blade did not flare with dazzling light. It didn't roar. It simply cut.
When it met his guard, the impact felt like someone had dropped a mountain on his wrist.
His arm trembled. His meridians recoiled.
After three such exchanges, he found himself at the platform's edge, chest heaving, his meridians throbbing from the grinding pressure of that compressed true essence.
"Enough," he gasped, stepping back, cold sweat beading on his brow. "Junior Sister Bai… your sword… your true essence is far too heavy."
Bai Jingyun drew back her blade and cupped her fists.
"Senior Brother is too polite," she said.
Inside, her heart was pounding faster.
That weight… she knew exactly what it meant.
On the platform's edge, she stole a glance sideways.
Ren stood with his usual casual posture, hands behind his back, smile faint but real.
Their gazes met for an instant.
Her lashes trembled.
Then she turned away, schooling her expression back into calm.
But the warmth in her eyes did not fade.
...
Na Yi and Na Shui's progress was no longer merely "improvement".
It was transformation.
Once, the witches from the Southern Wilderness had been chained in filthy cages, their bodies twisted by poison and cruel rituals, their foundations narrow and warped to hold shamanic fire that burned more like curses than law.
Ren had broken those chains.
He'd rewritten their bodies with the modified Chaotic Virtues Combat Meridians and Heretical God Force, then planted an Azure True Dragon Infinity Seed in each of their dantians.
Now, in a valley field reserved for them, the two sisters moved in synchronicity.
Na Yi's movements were clean and controlled, eyes sharp, back straight.
Na Shui's were looser, more expressive, her emotions close to the surface, but her footing rock-steady in a way it had never been in those cages.
Red-gold Fire Martial Intent flowed between them in the shape of twin rune-wheels. Within that field, every flame they summoned—true essence fire, blood vitality heat, even the spark of will that lit their techniques—was compressed and purified, forced to burn at a higher order.
They were at mid Bone Forging now, their combat power stepping neatly into the territory of peak Houtian martial artists.
Na Yi thrust out a palm.
A small crimson flame sprang forth—no longer the chaotic shaman fires of old, but ordered Fire Law at the first level of comprehension, compressed into a tight wisp.
Na Shui followed half a breath later, her own flame spiraling around Na Yi's like a twin dragon.
Their Martial Intent rune-wheels interlocked.
The two flames merged, compressed by that shared intent until they burned white at the core.
They struck a practice boulder.
The stone did not crack.
It split cleanly in half with a sharp report, the cut faces smooth as mirrors.
Na Shui stared, eyes wide.
"We… did that?" she whispered.
Na Yi's lips curved faintly.
"We did," she said. Then, softer, "We and him."
Ren leaned against a nearby tree, watching them with arms crossed, expression relaxed.
When Na Yi finally caught sight of him, her usual composure cracked for just a heartbeat. Her steps faltered; the flame in her palm flickered out.
Na Shui yelped as heat licked too close to her sleeve.
"Careful," Ren called, laughing. "I like you both too much to stand here while you set yourselves on fire."
Na Shui's face flushed crimson.
"Y-you were watching the whole time?" she stammered.
"Of course," Ren replied easily. "Who else am I going to watch?"
Na Yi snorted, looking away, but the tips of her ears had gone pink.
Later, when the training field emptied and night settled over Seven Profound Martial House, the three of them sat under the old pine in Ren's courtyard.
The spirit spring reflected the moon like a patient eye. The air smelled of pine resin and sandalwood.
Na Shui curled against his side, head pillowed on his shoulder.
Na Yi leaned a little farther away on the other side of the low table, but her bare toes brushed his under the wood, a quiet point of contact she pretended not to notice.
"You're pushing yourselves too hard," Ren murmured.
One hand absently stroked Na Shui's hair. The other brushed light circles along Na Yi's ankle, his touch unhurried, warm.
Na Shui puffed out her cheeks.
"Says the man who never rests," she muttered.
Ren smiled.
"I rest," he said. "Right now, for example."
Na Yi rolled her eyes, but there was no real heat in it.
"Cultivating like this…" she said softly, gaze drifting to the stars. "If someone had told me when I was chained that I'd willingly break my own meridians and rebuild them, I'd have called them crazy."
"You did call me crazy," Ren reminded her.
Na Yi's lips curved.
"I was wrong," she admitted.
Ren looked at her, expression softening in a way few enemies would ever see.
"Thank you for walking with me anyway," he said.
Her gaze slipped away, then returned.
"You make it… easy to follow you," she said quietly. "That is dangerous."
"Dangerous for who?" he asked, amused.
Na Yi held his eyes.
"For anyone who tries to take you from us," she replied.
Na Shui's fingers tightened instinctively in his shirt.
Ren laughed under his breath.
He shifted, drawing both sisters closer, his aura wrapping around them like a warm blanket.