Three weeks after Wang Ben's meeting at The Quiet Cup, the day arrived.
The ancestral hall of the Wang Clan compound had been prepared since before dawn. Spirit stone lanterns cast steady light across the formation circles etched into the stone floor, their glow neither flickering nor wavering. The breakthrough array that generations of Wang cultivators had used waited at the chamber's center, its interlocking patterns humming with contained power.
Wang Ben stood near the entrance with his mother, watching his father make his final preparations. Wang Chen slept in Li Mei's arms, blissfully unaware of what was about to unfold. The baby's soft breathing was the only sound in the chamber besides the faint resonance of the formation.
Wang Tian knelt at the array's center, his eyes closed, his cultivation aura drawn inward until he seemed almost like a mortal. Sixty-three years old. Late-stage qi condensation. Nine years of stagnation finally behind him.
Today, he would either advance to foundation establishment or die trying.
"He's ready." Li Mei's voice was barely a whisper. Her hands were steady on Wang Chen, but Wang Ben could see the tension in her shoulders, the careful control that kept her expression calm.
[OBSERVATION: Subject Wang Tian cultivation signature stabilizing]
[Analysis: Optimal conditions for breakthrough attempt]
[Note: Foundation Establishment success rate for cultivators at this preparation level: approximately 70%]
Seventy percent. Wang Ben felt the number settle in his chest like a stone. Three out of ten cultivators who reached this point still failed. Still died, their cultivation foundations collapsing, their bodies unable to withstand the transition.
And that was without considering the heart demon tribulation.
"Ben'er." His father's voice was calm, almost peaceful. Wang Tian opened his eyes and looked at his son. "Whatever happens, I want you to know that I'm proud of you. Everything you've done, everything you've become... it's more than I could have hoped for."
"Father, you don't need to..."
"Yes. I do." Wang Tian's smile was gentle. "Because I'm about to face every doubt I've ever had about myself. And before I do, I want you to hear the truth. You didn't save this family despite my failures. You saved it because of what I taught you. Because of who you are." He glanced at Li Mei, and something soft passed between them. "We raised you well. Both of us. Whatever the cultivation world thinks of my nine years of stagnation, it gave me time with my family. And I wouldn't trade that for anything."
Li Mei's composure cracked, just slightly. A brightness in her eyes that she blinked away.
"Come back to us," she said. "That's all I ask."
Wang Tian nodded once, then closed his eyes and began.
The formation activated with a pulse of light that filled the chamber.
Wang Ben watched as his father's cultivation aura began to shift, the familiar signature of late-stage qi condensation pressing outward, reaching toward something beyond. The breakthrough formation's circles spun slowly, channeling energy from the spirit stones embedded in the walls, creating a stabilized environment where the transition could occur.
[PROCESS INITIATED: Foundation Establishment Breakthrough]
[Current Phase: Qi Saturation]
[Subject's internal energy reaching critical threshold]
Wang Tian's breathing slowed until it seemed to stop entirely. His body became perfectly still, a statue of flesh and bone suspended in the formation's glow. The spiritual pressure in the room built gradually, layer upon layer, until Wang Ben could feel it pressing against his own qi condensation cultivation like water rising around him.
Then, without warning, everything changed.
The pressure vanished. Wang Tian's aura didn't collapse so much as turn inward, folding in on itself until it disappeared entirely. His father's body remained motionless, but something fundamental had shifted. He was no longer present in the room, not in any way that mattered.
The heart demon tribulation had begun.
[OBSERVATION: Subject has entered tribulation state]
[Physical functions suspended]
[Duration: Unknown. Tribulation length varies by individual psychological profile.]
Wang Ben could do nothing but wait. Watch. Hope.
His father was facing his demons alone.
Darkness.
Wang Tian floated in nothing, surrounded by absence so complete that even the concept of direction lost meaning. No up, no down, no forward or back. Just the void, and the steady rhythm of a heartbeat he could no longer feel.
This is wrong, he thought. I should be advancing. Building my foundation. Why is there nothing?
The answer came in the form of a voice he knew better than any other.
His own.
"Because you have nothing to build on."
Wang Tian turned, though the motion meant nothing in this place. And there, standing in the darkness as if it were solid ground, was himself.
Not a mirror image. Something else. The same face, the same body, but twisted somehow. Eyes that held nine years of failure. Shoulders bent under the weight of every disappointment. A man who had watched his cultivation stagnate while others rose, who had felt his spirit fire dim until it was barely more than ember, who had wondered every single day if he deserved what had happened to him.
"You know what you are," the figure said. "What you've always been."
"A cultivator who was sabotaged." Wang Tian kept his voice steady. "The snake venom was planted by enemies. My stagnation wasn't my fault."
"Wasn't it?" The figure's smile was bitter, knowing. "The poison only worked because you were weak. A stronger cultivator would have noticed. Would have purged it before it took hold. But you were too focused on your little pills, your minor achievements, your family." The word dripped with contempt. "You let yourself become vulnerable."
"I was protecting what mattered."
"You were hiding." The figure stepped closer, and Wang Tian felt the weight of those words pressing against him like physical force. "Hiding behind your wife and your work and your ordinary life because you were afraid. Afraid of what real advancement would demand. Afraid of leaving your comfortable little existence behind."
The darkness around them shifted. Images began to form, memories given shape and substance.
Wang Tian saw himself at thirty-five, newly advanced to mid-stage qi condensation, full of promise and potential. Saw himself at forty-two, still mid-stage while his peers climbed higher. At forty-eight, late-stage at last, but already slowing. At fifty-four, the poison beginning its work, his cultivation stalling while everyone whispered behind his back.
"Look at them," the figure said. "Look at what they thought of you."
The images showed faces. Fellow cultivators who had once respected him. Elders who had once seen potential. All of them turning away, their expressions ranging from pity to contempt. Wang Tian the failed alchemist. Wang Tian who couldn't advance. Wang Tian who would never amount to anything.
"They were right," the figure continued. "Nine years, and what did you accomplish? Your clan nearly destroyed. Your family threatened. Your son forced to become something he should never have had to be, just to survive the consequences of your weakness."
"My son became strong because I raised him well."
"Your son became strong despite you." The figure's voice rose, filling the darkness. "He carried burdens you should have shouldered. Made decisions you should have made. And while he was bleeding and fighting and sacrificing, you were lying in bed, too broken to even stand."
The memory struck like a physical blow. Wang Tian saw himself in those final days before his restoration, barely conscious, his cultivation in ruins, while his sixteen-year-old son planned strategies to save them all. While Li Mei held the family together with nothing but determination. While everything he should have protected hung by a thread.
"You failed them," the figure said. "Admit it."
Wang Tian felt the truth of those words pressing down on him. The shame he had carried for nine years, magnified and concentrated until it threatened to crush him entirely.
But beneath the shame, something else stirred.
"I failed," he said quietly. "Yes."
The figure smiled, satisfied. "Then you understand. You have no foundation to build on. No worth. No..."
"I failed," Wang Tian repeated, "because I was poisoned by enemies who feared what I might become. Not because I was weak. Not because I made poor choices. Because someone decided I was a threat and tried to destroy me."
"That's just an excuse."
"No. It's the truth." Wang Tian straightened, and for the first time since the tribulation began, he felt solid ground beneath his feet. "I spent nine years believing I had failed. Believing I deserved what happened. But I didn't fail. I survived. I kept my family together. I raised a son who could face challenges I never imagined, not despite my weakness, but because of what I taught him during those nine years."
The figure's expression flickered. Uncertainty, where before there had been only contempt.
"The stagnation taught me patience," Wang Tian continued. "Humility. Observation. I learned to see what others missed because I had time to look. I learned to value what mattered because I couldn't take it for granted. And when the restoration came, I was ready. Not broken. Not diminished. Ready."
"You're lying to yourself."
"Am I?" Wang Tian took a step forward, and the darkness retreated. "My son didn't save this family despite me. He saved it because of who I helped him become. My wife didn't hold us together despite my failure. She held us together because we built something worth protecting, together, during all those years when advancement didn't matter."
The figure's form began to waver, edges blurring.
"Strength isn't just cultivation," Wang Tian said. "It's what you do with the time you're given. How you treat the people who depend on you. What you build that lasts beyond your own advancement." He smiled, and it felt like the first genuine smile in years. "I built a family. I raised a son. I loved a woman who deserved better and somehow kept her anyway. That's not failure. That's the foundation I've been building all along."
The figure screamed, a sound of pure rage and denial, and then it shattered.
The darkness exploded into light.
Wang Ben saw it happen.
One moment, his father knelt motionless in the formation's center, suspended between life and advancement. The next, a pulse of energy erupted from Wang Tian's body, a wave of spiritual pressure that made the formation circles blaze white-hot.
The cultivation signature transformed. Wang Ben felt it through his own qi condensation senses, the familiar pattern of late-stage qi condensation reshaping itself into something fundamentally different. The energy didn't just increase. It changed nature entirely, becoming denser, more refined, more real.
Foundation establishment.
[BREAKTHROUGH CONFIRMED]
[Subject has advanced to Foundation Establishment Stage 1]
[Cultivation base stabilizing. Lifespan extension approximately 400-500 years.]
Wang Tian opened his eyes, and they held a clarity that hadn't been there before. The weariness that had clung to him for a decade, the subtle uncertainty that had shadowed even his restored confidence, was gone. In its place was something solid. Unshakeable.
"Father." Wang Ben's voice came out rough.
Wang Tian rose from the formation's center, his movements fluid in a way they hadn't been for years. The spiritual pressure that surrounded him was controlled, restrained, but unmistakably powerful. A realm beyond anything he had achieved before.
Li Mei crossed the chamber before Wang Ben could move, Wang Chen still cradled in one arm as she pulled her husband into an embrace. The baby stirred but didn't wake, somehow sensing that whatever had changed was good.
"You came back," she whispered.
"I never left." Wang Tian held her carefully, mindful of the child between them. "I was just... remembering what I was fighting for."
Wang Ben hung back, giving his parents the moment they needed. The System continued its clinical observations in the back of his awareness, cataloging the changes in his father's cultivation signature, analyzing the implications of the advancement. But Wang Ben wasn't focused on data.
He was thinking about what his father had just accomplished.
The heart demon tribulation. The confrontation with every doubt, every fear, every shame that had accumulated over a lifetime. Wang Tian had faced it alone, in the darkness of his own mind, with no external help and no guarantee of survival.
And he had won.
Evening found the Wang family gathered in their quarters, the formality of the ancestral hall replaced by the warmth of home.
Wang Tian sat in his usual chair, but something about his posture was different. Not arrogant, not proud in the overbearing way that some advanced cultivators displayed. Just... settled. Certain. Like a man who finally knew exactly who he was.
"The clan elders will want to celebrate," Li Mei said, preparing tea with practiced motions. "A foundation establishment cultivator in the direct line. It's been forty years since the last one."
"Let them celebrate." Wang Tian accepted the cup she offered. "I've waited long enough for this. A few days of ceremony won't hurt."
Wang Ben watched his parents interact, noting the subtle changes in their dynamic. His mother moved with the same quiet efficiency she always had, but there was something lighter in her expression. Relief, certainly. Pride. But also something else, something Wang Ben couldn't quite identify.
"You're quieter than usual, Ben'er." His father's voice drew his attention. "What's on your mind?"
"I was thinking about what you said before the breakthrough. About the nine years."
"Ah." Wang Tian set down his tea. "The nine years. I spent a long time hating them. Believing they had robbed me of something I deserved. But in there..." He paused, gathering his thoughts. "I realized they gave me something more valuable than advancement. They gave me perspective. Time to see what truly mattered."
"And now that you've advanced?"
"Now I have both." Wang Tian smiled. "The perspective of those years, and the strength to protect what I learned to value. It's a better foundation than raw power could ever provide."
Wang Ben nodded slowly. The words resonated with something deeper, something connected to his own impossible situation. The knowledge he carried. The debts he owed. The challenges ahead that no amount of pure cultivation could solve.
His father had faced his demons alone and won through understanding, not force.
But Ruoxi's demons wouldn't be metaphorical. They would be real. Waiting in the void between dimensions, hungry for souls that ventured too close.
Understanding alone wouldn't be enough to defeat them.
Li Mei settled beside her husband, Wang Chen drowsing in her lap. The scene was peaceful, domestic, everything Wang Ben had fought to protect. But watching his mother, he noticed something he hadn't seen before. A flicker of something in her eyes when she looked at Wang Tian. Not unhappiness. Not resentment.
Longing.
She was happy for her husband. Genuinely, deeply happy. But she was also aware, in a way she hadn't shown before, of the distance between them. Wang Tian had advanced. Wang Ben was advancing. And Li Mei remained where she had been for years, her cultivation stagnant, her potential locked away behind barriers no one understood.
The moment passed. Li Mei's expression smoothed into contentment, and she leaned against her husband's shoulder as Wang Chen made soft sounds in his sleep.
Wang Ben looked away, his heart heavy with a new understanding.
Some demons could be defeated with self-knowledge and acceptance. Others required protection from the outside.
And some, perhaps, required both.
Later, alone in his quarters, Wang Ben sat in meditation posture and let the day's events settle into his thoughts.
His father had succeeded. Foundation establishment, achieved. The heart demon tribulation, overcome. The Wang family was stronger now than it had been in decades, with a foundation establishment cultivator to anchor their position in the clan hierarchy.
But the victory had also shown Wang Ben something important.
The tribulation his father faced was internal. Psychological. A confrontation with his own doubts and fears, shaped by his own mind into something that could be understood and overcome. The formation array in the ancestral hall had done nothing to help with that battle. It had only stabilized his body while his consciousness fought alone.
Ruoxi's breakthrough would be different.
The Youming entities weren't manifestations of her psychology. They were external predators, waiting in the space between reality and void, ready to devour any soul that ventured into their territory. No amount of self-knowledge would protect against a Hundun's chaos distortion or a Taotie's consuming hunger.
She needed the Sanctuary Array. She needed protection that worked on an entirely different principle.
And Wang Ben had less than two months left to design it.
He closed his eyes, letting his qi circulate in steady patterns while his mind turned to the problem ahead. The conversation with his father three weeks ago had given him a foundation of formation theory. The System's knowledge filled in gaps that no living cultivator could have addressed. But bridging the two, creating something that would work in practice...
That was the challenge that remained.
Tomorrow, he would return to his research. Begin the process of translating impossible knowledge into practical design. Find a way to present ancient wisdom as fresh insight.
But tonight, he allowed himself a moment of quiet celebration.
His father had faced his demons and won.
One victory down. Many more to come.
END OF CHAPTER 60