CHAPTER 19 — Purpose of the Seven Days
Riven left the training grounds without lingering.
Behind him, voices rose again. Conversations resumed. Laughter returned in fragments. The city absorbed the announcement as it absorbed everything else—quickly, indifferently, and without ceremony.
Recruitment was important only to those who believed they could survive it.
Seven days.
The number surfaced again as he walked.
Seven days was not enough time to become strong. Anyone who thought otherwise was either desperate or ignorant.
But it was enough time to stop being careless.
That distinction mattered.
Riven adjusted the strap of his pack and let the city's flow guide him. He neither hurried nor delayed. His steps fell into rhythm with the people around him—traders returning from markets, guards changing shifts, laborers carrying the fatigue of honest work.
At his side, unseen, the shadow moved.
It did not cling to him like a tethered thing. It did not lag behind like an afterthought. Instead, it threaded itself through existing darkness—stretching thin beneath awnings, compressing into the angles between stone and timber, dissolving where light fractured into uneven fragments.
Where Riven walked openly, it hid. Where he slowed, it waited. Where crowds thickened, it vanished entirely.
No commands passed between them.
The bond had never been about control.
By the time dusk settled fully, Riven secured lodging in a narrow, aging building near the western quarter. The place smelled faintly of oil and old wood. The walls were thin enough that voices carried through them without effort.
Perfect.
He closed the door, secured the latch, and set his pack down.
Only then did he sit.
Only then did the weight of the coming days settle into place.
Seven days.
Not time to grow—only time to remove mistakes.
He closed his eyes.
___
The inheritance did not rush to meet him.
That, more than anything, reassured him.
Riven steadied his breathing first. He let the noise of the city blur into something distant, indistinct. Only when his thoughts stopped circling anticipation did he turn inward—not forcefully, not eagerly.
He opened a door he now understood how to find.
The library revealed itself.
Not as spectacle. Not as revelation.
It existed as it always had—vast, silent, immaculately ordered. Shelves extended beyond perception, yet nothing pressed outward. Knowledge remained contained, patient, waiting not for use, but for intention.
Riven did not browse.
He imposed boundaries.
No techniques that altered aura structure. No bloodline-aligned methods. No Crescent-linked disciplines. No arts that relied on sudden power spikes or unstable advancement.
He would not become noticeable.
The inheritance responded—not by offering more, but by narrowing.
Entire sections dimmed. Pathways folded inward. What remained felt… appropriate.
Manageable.
This was how it was meant to be used—without hunger, without urgency.
___
The first discipline he selected was a level 3 high level breathing technique.
Not a cultivation breakthrough. Not an acceleration method.
A layered circulation technique designed to strengthen the body incrementally. It reinforced bone density over time, improved muscular endurance, and stabilized internal recovery without drawing attention.
Progress measured in weeks. Results invisible to casual observation.
Riven practiced it immediately.
Slow. Controlled. Precise.
Each breath felt unremarkable. No heat. No surge. Only a gradual sense of internal alignment, as if parts of him that had never quite agreed were finally learning to cooperate.
Good.
The second selection followed after careful thought.
Movement—but not combat.
Class three - Mid tier.
A footwork discipline focused on balance under shifting pressure. It emphasized weight transfer, center control, and stability during sudden directional changes. No flashy steps. No explosive techniques.
Just efficiency.
He practiced it in the narrow space of his room, memorizing angles and transitions until the floor's unevenness became familiar rather than obstructive.
The third choice took longest.
Perception.
Class three - high level
Not spiritual sensing. Not energy awareness.
Intent recognition.
The ability to notice the micro-moments before action—tiny posture shifts, breathing irregularities, the way space itself seemed to tighten when someone committed to motion.
It was subtle. Passive. Difficult to detect even while active.
Perfect.
Riven withdrew from the library with only those three things.
The shelves remained vast. Untouched. Patient.
Aetherion had not left temptation behind.
He had left restraint.
___
The days that followed settled into routine.
Riven woke before sunrise. He trained when the city was quiet, when distractions were minimal and observation unlikely. Breathing came first, slow and exacting. Movement followed, repeated until fatigue forced adaptation rather than collapse.
His muscles ached constantly.
Progress arrived grudgingly.
There were moments—especially during the third and fourth days—when frustration surfaced. When the library loomed at the edge of his awareness, vast and unused. It would have been easy to take more. To justify it. To accelerate what felt painfully slow.
He did not.
Instead, he trained again.
The shadow creature did not interfere.
It watched.
Riven felt it as a faint distortion at the edge of awareness—like pressure where light should have been.
At first, it mirrored his movements imperfectly. When he shifted weight, it lagged by a fraction. When he halted, it overshot. When he focused inward, it wavered at the edge of cohesion.
Riven corrected nothing.
He adapted.
Gradually, the shadow learned—not copying him, but compensating. Where his balance wavered, it shifted. Where his perception narrowed, it expanded. It began positioning itself instinctively, without instruction.
Not assisting. Not protecting.
Synchronizing.
By the fifth day, Riven noticed something subtle.
When he slowed his breathing, the shadow compressed. When he sharpened his focus, it stilled. When he relaxed, it dispersed naturally.
Not bound.
Aligned.
___
On the sixth day, Riven left the city briefly.
Not to train. To observe.
He walked the outskirts, watching how guards rotated patrols. How merchants reacted to unfamiliar faces. How cultivators carried themselves when they believed no one important was watching.
Intent recognition sharpened quietly.
He returned before dusk, unremarkable and unseen.
By the sixth night, even frustration had gone quiet.
That night, he slept deeply.
___
On the seventh day, Riven stood in his room as morning light filtered through warped shutters.
His body was sore. His breathing steady. His movements efficient.
He was not stronger in any obvious way.
His aura remained muted. His cultivation unchanged. His presence forgettable.
The library remained vast. The Crescent remained sealed. The shadow remained quiet.
Seven days had passed.
He was still ordinary.
And for the first time since leaving the Hidden Domain, that felt intentional.
Tomorrow, the world would test him.
Today, he had learned how not to announce himself to it.
___
Chapter End