Five days after the Frostcore treatment, Zhao Yu came to visit.
Wang Ben sensed his friend's approach before the knock came, the familiar spiritual signature announcing itself through walls and doors. Zhao Yu's qi had grown more stable since the war, the wildness of trauma slowly settling into something steadier. Still wounded, but healing.
"You look terrible," Wang Ben said as he opened the door.
Zhao Yu grinned, though the expression didn't quite reach his eyes. "You should see the other guy."
He walked with a slight limp, favoring his left leg where a demonic cultivator's technique had torn through muscle and meridian alike. The clan physicians said he'd recover fully, but recovery took time. Everything took time.
"Come in. I'll make tea."
They settled in Wang Ben's quarters, two young men who'd grown old in the space of a few months. The tea was nothing special, just leaves and hot water, but the ritual of preparation filled the silence comfortably.
"How are you really?" Wang Ben asked, handing his friend a cup.
Zhao Yu was quiet for a moment, staring at the steam rising from his tea.
"I keep seeing them," he said finally. "The ones I killed. The ones who almost killed me. I close my eyes and they're there. Waiting."
"Does it help to talk about it?"
"No." Zhao Yu laughed, the sound rough and tired. "Not even a little. But you're the only person I can say it to without them looking at me like I'm broken."
Wang Ben understood that. The weight of taking lives, even enemy lives, didn't settle easily. The clan elders called it the warrior's burden, treated it as a mark of honor. But honor didn't quiet the memories at night.
"I don't have answers," Wang Ben said. "I don't know how to make it stop. But I'm here."
"That's enough." Zhao Yu sipped his tea, some of the tension leaving his shoulders. "That's more than enough."
They sat together as morning stretched toward noon, talking about nothing and everything. Old memories from their patrol days. Speculation about the clan's future. Zhao Yu's sister, who'd been making steady progress in her cultivation training. Small things, ordinary things, the kind of conversation that had seemed impossible during the war's urgency.
"You're different," Zhao Yu observed eventually. "Since your breakthrough."
"So everyone keeps telling me."
"No, I mean..." Zhao Yu paused, searching for words. "You're more yourself. Before, you always seemed like you were holding something back. Now it's like the pieces fit together."
Wang Ben considered that. The System's knowledge, the ancient fragments of memory, his own fifteen years of ordinary life: they'd always pulled in different directions. But since the qi condensation breakthrough, since he'd begun to sense qi directly instead of relying entirely on the System's analysis...
Something had shifted. Integrated.
"Maybe they do," he said.
Zhao Yu nodded, seeming to understand without explanation. "Good. You deserve that."
The minor clan meeting was held in the southern hall, a smaller space than the main assembly chamber. Perhaps thirty cultivators attended, a mix of inner and outer disciples, with Elder Wang Shoushan presiding.
Wang Ben stood near the back, uncertain of his place.
This was his first formal meeting since crossing into qi condensation. The threshold that separated body refinement cultivators from true practitioners had always defined clan hierarchy. Before, he'd been an outer disciple, tolerated rather than welcomed. Now...
Now the other cultivators kept glancing at him, trying not to be obvious about it. The boy who'd killed a rank two spirit beast. The disciple whose tactical insights had helped win a clan war. The fifteen-year-old who'd broken through to qi condensation faster than anyone in recent memory.
He wasn't sure which reputation bothered him more.
"The Dao Clan matter," Elder Wang Shoushan said, drawing attention back to the meeting's business. "As you all know, they've entered a vassalage arrangement with us. Fifty years of mutual obligation."
Murmurs rippled through the gathered cultivators. The Dao Clan had been independent for centuries. Their submission to Wang Clan, even a voluntary submission born of gratitude for the Shen siblings' intervention, was unprecedented.
"What does that mean for us practically?" someone asked.
"Resources sharing. Mutual defense. Trade advantages." The elder's expression was carefully neutral. "And complications. The Huo Clan is watching carefully. Powers beyond the city have taken notice. Our sudden rise will attract attention, not all of it welcome."
Wang Ben listened as the discussion continued. Political maneuvering, alliance implications, the subtle dance of power that governed life among cultivation clans. Before the war, he'd barely understood any of it. Now he recognized the patterns, the calculations, the careful positioning that would shape the years ahead.
The Wang Clan had won. But winning brought its own problems.
After the formal business concluded, Elder Wang Shoushan caught his eye across the room. A slight nod, acknowledgment of a shared understanding that neither would voice aloud. Wang Ben returned the gesture.
Some debts couldn't be spoken of. Some allies existed only in silence.
Evening found Wang Ben in the family's main room, sharing tea with his mother while his father worked late in the workshop.
Li Mei had put Wang Chen to bed an hour ago, and the quiet that followed was comfortable in a way that reminded Wang Ben of childhood. Before the dreams had become strange. Before the weight of hidden knowledge had settled on his shoulders.
"You've been different since your breakthrough," Li Mei said, setting down her tea. "More settled in some ways. More distant in others."
"I'm not distant."
"Ben'er." She smiled, patient and knowing. "I've been your mother for fifteen years. I know when you're carrying something you don't want to share."
Wang Ben looked at his mother. Qi condensation stage three, though she rarely discussed her cultivation. Stagnant, the System had noted. Something blocking her advancement that he couldn't yet understand.
"The dreams," he said finally. "You asked about them, back before the war."
"I remember."
"They're different now. Less... vivid. I used to see things I couldn't explain. Stars that didn't belong in our sky. Darkness that moved with purpose. Now it's more like..." He searched for words. "Echoes. Impressions. Like I'm remembering something that happened to someone else."
Li Mei was quiet for a long moment. Something flickered in her eyes, an emotion he couldn't quite name.
"Your grandfather had dreams like that," she said. "Before he disappeared. He said they came with burdens. Responsibilities he couldn't explain to anyone."
"I remember. You mentioned that, years ago."
"I never told you everything." Li Mei's hands tightened around her tea cup. "He used to say that some people are born with pieces of something larger inside them. That the dreams were those pieces trying to fit together."
Wang Ben felt a chill that had nothing to do with the evening air. "Do you think the dreams had something to do with what happened to him? During the beast tide?"
"I've wondered." Li Mei's voice was steady, but her eyes held old grief. "Five years, and I still don't know if he's alive or dead. But I know this: whatever burdens he carried, he carried them alone. He thought he was protecting us by not sharing." She met his eyes directly. "Don't make that mistake, Ben'er. Whatever you're carrying, whatever those dreams mean... you're still my son. Nothing changes that. Nothing ever could."
The words settled in his chest like warmth on a cold night.
"Thank you, Mother."
"Don't thank me. Just come home safe. Always come home safe." She reached across the table and took his hand, her grip stronger than her gentle manner suggested. "That's all I've ever wanted."
Wang Ben thought about the favors owed to ancient cultivators. The enemies who had escaped. The greater darkness lurking in places no one else could see.
"I'll try," he said.
It was the only promise he could honestly make.
The roof of the family home had become Wang Ben's place for thinking.
He sat there now, legs dangling over the edge, watching stars emerge in the deepening sky. The compound spread below him, reduced to patterns of lamplight and shadow. The city beyond, a constellation of its own. And above, the infinite depths of a cosmos that held mysteries he was only beginning to comprehend.
The System offered its observations without prompting, cold text scrolling through his awareness.
[ENVIRONMENTAL ASSESSMENT: Clear conditions. No immediate threats detected within sensing range.]
[HOST STATUS: Stable. Mild fatigue. Recommend rest within four hours.]
[NOTATION: Extended contemplation detected. Psychological processing of recent events.]
Wang Ben didn't respond. The System would understand his silence, or it wouldn't. Either way, he needed this time to think.
The debts.
Three favors owed to Shen Wuyan. The ancient nascent soul cultivator who had intervened in the war, who had watched Wang Ben with eyes that saw far too much, who had spoken of owing when the balance should have been entirely the other way.
The first favor will be called soon. Prepare yourself.
Wang Ben didn't know what that would mean. The Phantom Gate operated on scales he couldn't yet perceive. Whatever Wuyan wanted from him, it wouldn't be simple.
Thirty-one clan members dead. Their names carved in stone at the memorial grove, their lives ended in a war that Wang Ben had helped orchestrate. Oh, the strategists and elders would say they'd done what was necessary. That the casualties were acceptable, given the alternatives.
Acceptable to whom?
His mother's cultivation, stagnant and unexplained. Something was blocking her advancement, something the clan physicians couldn't identify or treat. Wang Tian knew more than he said about it. Wang Ben could see the worry in his father's eyes whenever the subject arose.
And beyond all of that, the greater threats.
The beast tide's true cause remained unknown. Something had driven the spirit beasts from the deep forest, something terrible enough to unite predator and prey in desperate flight. The demon cultivators who'd allied with the Xue Clan had hinted at darker forces moving in the world. And the dreams, fragments of memories from lives not his own, spoke of cosmic horror on scales that dwarfed mortal concerns entirely.
[QUERY: Does host require assistance with threat prioritization?]
"No," Wang Ben said aloud. "Not tonight."
[ACKNOWLEDGED. Passive monitoring continues.]
He smiled slightly at the System's attempt at... what? Helpfulness? Concern? The ancient intelligence that lived in his soul was becoming something more than pure analysis. Not human, but not purely mechanical anymore either.
Another change he wasn't sure how to feel about.
The night deepened around him. Stars wheeled overhead in their eternal patterns. The compound settled into sleep, cultivators and mortals alike surrendering to rest.
Wang Ben stayed on the roof, thinking.
He was fifteen years old. Qi condensation stage one. His meridians held capacity far beyond their natural limits, a gift of the Frostcore treatment that would pay dividends for centuries. The System had reached 1.8% functionality, unlocking capabilities he hadn't begun to fully explore.
It wasn't enough. It would never be enough.
But it was a foundation. Something to build on.
The war had ended. The immediate threats had passed. And ahead of him stretched a path that only he could walk, step by careful step, toward whatever future waited.
Wang Ben took a deep breath, held it, released it slowly.
Then he rose and made his way back inside.
His quarters were quiet, the single lamp casting warm light across familiar walls.
Wang Ben settled into his meditation position, the simple posture he'd assumed thousands of times since childhood. Qi flowed through his meridians in lazy patterns, responding to his will with an ease that still felt miraculous. A month ago, he'd been body refinement peak. Now he could sense the spiritual energy in the air around him, could draw it into himself, could circulate it through channels that had been enhanced beyond all natural limits.
Progress. Real, tangible progress.
The cultivation manuals he'd studied spoke of the journey from body refinement to qi condensation as a crossing. A threshold between what was mortal and what was more. Standing on the other side of that threshold, Wang Ben understood why.
Everything felt different. The world was larger, more complex, more alive. Dangers that had once seemed overwhelming now seemed merely daunting. And the possibilities...
The possibilities stretched toward horizons he couldn't yet imagine.
His father was reaching for foundation establishment. His mother needed treatment that required resources they didn't yet possess. The clan was stronger but vulnerable, its new status attracting attention from powers they couldn't easily oppose.
And somewhere out there, Shen Wuyan was waiting to call in the first of three favors.
Wang Ben closed his eyes and let his qi circulation stabilize.
He couldn't solve everything tonight. He couldn't plan for every contingency or prepare for every threat. Some burdens had to be carried over time, step by step, breath by breath.
But he could be ready.
He could train. He could grow. He could build the strength he'd need for whatever came next.
The path ahead was long. The debts were real. The darkness waited at the edges of everything he could perceive.
And for the first time since the war ended, Wang Ben felt ready to walk forward.
One step at a time.
END OF CHAPTER 55
END OF ARC TWO: RISING FLAMES