Three days.
Wang Ben woke before dawn, his body already adjusting to the rhythm of war preparations. The compound hummed with activity even at this hour, disciples moving through the pre-dawn darkness with purpose and quiet urgency.
He dressed quickly and made his way to the training grounds. Dao Zhen was already there, of course. The heir's dedication to early morning practice bordered on obsessive, though Wang Ben suspected it had less to do with discipline and more to do with avoiding the political conversations that filled the daylight hours.
"You're late." Dao Zhen tossed him a practice sword without looking. "Three minutes."
"I'll try to disappoint you less tomorrow."
"Don't make promises you can't keep." But there was no real edge to the words. Over the past three days, something had shifted between them. Not friendship, not yet. But the antagonism had faded into something more productive.
They began without preamble, falling into the pattern they'd developed. Dao Zhen would demonstrate a technique, explain its principles, then attack with variations until Wang Ben either adapted or went down.
Today it was footwork. The Flowing Water Stance he'd been learning, refined further into something more aggressive.
"You're still thinking too much," Dao Zhen said after the third exchange sent Wang Ben sprawling. "Your body knows the movement. Your mind is getting in the way."
"My mind is the only advantage I have."
"In strategy, yes. In combat?" Dao Zhen shook his head. "Combat happens faster than thought. You need to train until the techniques live in your muscles, not your head."
Wang Ben pushed himself up, ignoring the fresh bruise forming on his shoulder. "How long did that take you?"
"Years. Decades, if you count the foundation work." Dao Zhen's lips curved slightly. "You don't have decades. So we'll do it the hard way."
The hard way, it turned out, involved repetition. Endless repetition. The same footwork pattern, over and over, until Wang Ben's legs burned and his lungs ached and his mind finally stopped trying to direct every movement.
And then, somewhere around the fiftieth repetition, something clicked.
He moved without thinking. His body flowed through the stance transition, pivoting at exactly the right moment, creating the angle he needed to slip past Dao Zhen's guard.
His palm strike landed on the heir's chest.
They both froze.
"That..." Dao Zhen touched the spot where Wang Ben had hit him. The contact had been light, more tap than strike, but it had landed. Against a mid-stage qi condensation cultivator. "That shouldn't have worked."
"Did it?"
"Barely. If I'd been trying to kill you instead of teach you, you'd be dead three times over." But Dao Zhen was studying him with that sharp, hunting expression again. "Still. You touched me. No body refinement cultivator should be able to touch me."
Wang Ben didn't have an answer. The movement had come from somewhere deeper than conscious thought. Fragments of dream-knowledge, perhaps. Or instincts he couldn't explain, buried so deep they felt older than he was.
[OBSERVATION: Muscle memory integration progressing]
[Analysis: Formal technique combining with archived combat patterns]
[Note: Subject Dao Zhen provides optimal instruction for accelerated development]
[Recommendation: Continue training relationship]
"Again," Dao Zhen said. "Show me it wasn't luck."
An hour later, Wang Ben limped toward the administrative building.
The sparring had continued until his body simply couldn't maintain the pace. Dao Zhen had been relentless, testing whether that single successful moment could be repeated. It couldn't, not consistently. But there had been flashes. Moments where Wang Ben's body moved with a fluidity that his cultivation level shouldn't allow.
"You look terrible."
He turned to find his mother standing near the garden entrance, a basket of herbs in her arms. Li Mei's expression was the same blend of worry and pragmatism that had defined her for as long as he could remember.
"Training with Dao Zhen," he explained.
"I've noticed." She fell into step beside him, her pace slow enough to accommodate his limp. "Every morning for the past three days. The compound is talking."
"Let them talk."
"They're not just talking about your training." Li Mei's voice was careful. "They're talking about what it means. The heir of the Dao Clan personally instructing a fifteen-year-old body refinement cultivator. Some see it as alliance-building. Others see it as... something else."
Wang Ben glanced at his mother. "What do you see?"
She was quiet for a moment. When she spoke, her voice was soft.
"I see my son becoming someone I don't entirely recognize. Someone who speaks at war councils. Who advises Grand Elders. Who trains with heirs and impresses cultivators twice his age." She paused. "I'm proud of you, Ben. But I'm also afraid."
"Of the war?"
"Of everything." Li Mei shifted the basket in her arms. "Your father is consumed by his work. Your brother is too young to understand what's coming. And you..." She shook her head. "You carry yourself like you're preparing for something much larger than a clan conflict."
The observation cut closer to truth than Wang Ben was comfortable with. He thought about the vague warnings the System had shown him, threats beyond this war that he couldn't fully understand, knowledge that felt too heavy for a fifteen-year-old's shoulders.
"I'm just doing what I can," he said finally.
"I know." Li Mei reached out and touched his arm, a rare display of physical affection. "Just remember that you're still my son. Whatever else you become, that doesn't change."
She turned down a side path before he could respond, leaving him standing in the morning light with words he couldn't quite form.
The war council met at midday.
Wang Ben took his now-familiar seat at the end of the table, acutely aware that he was still the youngest person in the room by nearly half a century. But no one questioned his presence anymore. His contributions had earned that much.
"Intelligence update," Grand Elder Wang Feng began without preamble. "Our counterintelligence operation continues to yield results. The Xue Clan has adjusted their defensive positions twice based on information we allowed to leak through Wang Rui. They believe our main assault will target their western supply routes."
"And our actual target?" Patriarch Wang Tiexin's voice was dry as autumn leaves.
"Their eastern compound. The one they've been using to store resources from their Crimson Bastion benefactors." Wang Feng's scarred face showed grim satisfaction. "They've left it lightly defended, believing we don't know it exists."
"The mercenaries?" This from Elder Wang Qing, his ink-stained fingers tapping against the table.
"Confirmed arrival in four days. One day after the grace period ends." Wang Feng glanced at the Dao Clan representatives seated across the table. Grand Elder Dao Lingwei's expression remained impassive, but her posture suggested approval of the intelligence work.
"Which gives us exactly one day between the grace period ending and their reinforcement arriving," Dao Zhen observed. "One day to strike before the numbers turn against us."
"Precisely." Patriarch Wang Tiexin nodded slowly. "The first day of open conflict will be decisive. If we can cripple their eastern holdings before the mercenaries arrive, we change the entire shape of the war."
The discussion continued for another hour, detailing patrol assignments, evacuation routes for non-combatants, supply stockpiles, and a dozen other logistical concerns that would determine whether families lived or died.
Wang Ben listened, occasionally offering observations when his pattern-recognition caught something others missed. But his attention kept drifting to the larger picture.
Three days until war. One day to strike. Mercenaries arriving to tip the balance.
And beyond all of that, the Entity threat that no one else knew about. The cultivation paradox that meant every breakthrough brought universal destruction closer. The impossible weight of knowledge he couldn't share.
"Wang Ben." Grand Elder Wang Feng's voice cut through his thoughts. "You'll be assigned to the observation team during the initial assault. Your analysis capabilities are too valuable to risk in direct combat, but we need your eyes on the battlefield."
"Understood."
"And your father will be stationed in the medical compound. His alchemy skills will be essential for treating the wounded." Wang Feng paused. "I trust you understand the implication."
Wang Ben understood perfectly. His father would be kept safe, away from the fighting. Whether that was because of his value as an alchemist or because Wang Feng still felt guilt over not protecting him from the Xue Clan's sabotage, he couldn't say.
Both, probably.
The family dinner that evening was quiet.
Li Mei had prepared more food than necessary, as if extra portions could somehow ward off the violence that was coming. Wang Tian ate methodically, his mind clearly elsewhere. Wang Chen babbled happily in his mother's arms, too young to understand why everyone around him was so tense.
"Three days," Li Mei said finally, breaking the silence. "And then everything changes."
"Not everything." Wang Tian set down his chopsticks. For a moment, Wang Ben saw something in his father's eyes that hadn't been there a week ago. Not just worry, but steel. The quiet confidence of a man who had something to fight for again. "The family stays together. That doesn't change."
"You'll be in the medical compound. Ben will be with the observation team." Li Mei's voice was steady, but her hands weren't. "I'll be here with Chen, waiting to see if either of you comes home."
"We'll come home." Wang Ben heard himself speak before he'd fully decided to. "Both of us."
His mother looked at him with those tired, worried eyes. "You can't promise that."
"No. But I can promise that we'll try." He glanced at his father, then back to his mother. "That's all any of us can do. Try."
The silence stretched. Then Wang Tian reached across the table and gripped his wife's hand.
"He's right. We do what we can, and we trust each other to survive." His voice was rough but steady. "This family has endured worse than a clan war. We'll endure this too."
Li Mei's jaw tightened, but she nodded. Whatever she was feeling, she kept it behind her eyes where only those who knew her best could see it.
Wang Ben returned to his food, but his appetite had faded. The weight of the coming days pressed down on him like physical force.
He found Zhao Yu in the forge district after dinner, helping his father with a final rush of equipment repairs.
"Three days." Zhao Yu wiped sweat from his forehead with a soot-stained rag. "Feels strange, doesn't it? Counting down to war like it's a festival."
"Not much like a festival."
"No." His friend set down the blade he'd been sharpening and leaned against the workbench. "Father's been teaching me emergency combat techniques. Things he learned in his mercenary days, before he settled down and became respectable." Zhao Yu's smile was thin. "Dirty tricks, mostly. Ways to survive when you're outmatched."
"Good. Survival is what matters."
"You sound like you've done this before." Zhao Yu studied his face. "Like you know how to prepare for something this big."
Wang Ben thought about his dreams. The fragmentary visions of wars that seemed to span centuries. Battlefields he'd never seen, cultivators with power beyond comprehension, an endless cycle of conflict that felt somehow personal. He didn't know where these images came from. Only that they'd been haunting his sleep for as long as he could remember.
"I've read a lot of history," he said. "Wars follow patterns. Preparation helps."
"Maybe." Zhao Yu was quiet for a moment. Then, unexpectedly, he laughed. "Remember when the biggest thing we had to worry about was whether the street vendors would have those spiced meat skewers we liked?"
"That was two months ago."
"Feels like years." Zhao Yu's laughter faded into something more melancholy. "Everything's changed so fast. You especially."
"Have I?"
"You know you have." His friend's eyes were serious now. "You walk different. Talk different. See things nobody else sees." He shook his head. "I'm not complaining. Whatever happened to you after the wolves, it's probably why we're all still alive. But I miss the old Wang Ben sometimes. The one who was just... normal."
Wang Ben didn't know how to respond. The old Wang Ben, the one Zhao Yu remembered, felt like a stranger now. Whatever had changed in him that night with the wolves, whatever strange dreams had planted seeds of knowledge he couldn't explain, had made him into something else entirely.
"I'm still your friend," he said finally. "That hasn't changed."
"I know." Zhao Yu punched his shoulder, lighter than usual. "Just... try not to change so much that I can't recognize you. Okay?"
"I'll try."
Night fell over the compound like a shroud.
Wang Ben sat in his courtyard, letting the darkness settle around him. Three days until war. Less than a week until mercenaries arrived. And somewhere beyond the city walls, the Xue Clan was preparing their own strategies, their own attacks, their own plans to destroy everything his family had built.
The tea appeared beside him without sound.
[ALERT: Subject Shen Ruoxi detected]
[Threat assessment: EXTREME]
[Note: Subject absent for six days. Return suggests specific interest in current developments]
"You're getting better at that," he said, not looking up. "I didn't hear you at all this time."
"You weren't supposed to." Shen Ruoxi materialized on the bench across from him, her presence settling over him like winter air, cold enough to raise the hair on his arms. "I've been watching the city. The preparations on both sides."
"And?"
"The Xue Clan has made a mistake." Her voice held something that might have been amusement. "They've positioned their core formation cultivator near their western defenses. Expecting your main assault there."
"Our counterintelligence worked."
"Better than you know." Shen Ruoxi's eyes gleamed in the darkness. "But there's something else. Something neither clan has accounted for."
Wang Ben felt a chill that had nothing to do with the night air. "What?"
"The mercenaries arriving in four days aren't the only external force interested in this conflict." She leaned forward slightly, her presence intensifying. "I've sensed others. Moving through the region. Watching."
"Who?"
"I don't know yet. And that's what concerns me." She rose from the bench in a single fluid motion, something like anticipation flickering across her features. "Watch yourself, little cultivator. This war may be more complicated than anyone realizes. How delightful."
Then she was gone, leaving only the tea and a deepening sense of unease.
Wang Ben sat in the darkness for a long time, thinking about unknown watchers and wars within wars and the weight of everything he couldn't control.
[STATUS UPDATE]
[Body Tempering Pill absorption: 54.2%]
[Physical enhancement: +92% baseline]
[Projected advancement to Stage 9: 2-3 weeks]
[Note: External threat assessment requires additional data]
[Recommendation: Maintain situational awareness]
Three days until war.
And something else was coming.
Wang Ben looked up at the stars, but they offered no answers. Just the same cold light they'd shown for millennia, indifferent to the struggles of those who lived beneath them.
He turned and went inside, leaving the night to keep its secrets.
END OF CHAPTER 37