Wang Ben woke to silence and the weight of exhaustion that sleep had only partially lifted.
The wayfarers' pavilion was empty save for his father, who sat by the cold hearth cleaning his sword with the meditative focus of someone who had found comfort in routine. Gray morning light filtered through the shutters, carrying the promise of another winter day on the mountain road.
"How long?" Wang Ben asked, his voice still rough.
"Through the night." Wang Tian sheathed his blade and rose. "You needed it. Your body was running on willpower alone by the time we stopped."
Wang Ben pushed himself upright, cataloguing his condition through the System's assessment function.
[STATUS UPDATE: Operator Wang Ben]
[Qi reserves: 47% (recovering)]
[Physical condition: Fatigue residue, muscle strain from extended stillness]
[Mental state: Alert, functional]
[Note: Full recovery estimated at 2-3 days rest. Current pace sustainable but not optimal.]
Forty-seven percent. Better than the twelve percent he had been running on when the array finally powered down, but nowhere near full capacity. The long vigil had cost him more than he had realized.
"We should continue," Wang Ben said. "The longer we stay in Shen territory..."
"The longer Shen Wuyan has to find us alone." Wang Tian's voice was calm, but his eyes held understanding. "I noticed the way he watched you during the breakthrough. And after."
"He has questions."
"Questions you can't answer truthfully."
Wang Ben didn't respond. The silence said enough.
They descended through mountain mist for most of the morning, following paths that wound through ancient forest and past formations so old their purposes had been forgotten. The Shen family had maintained these mountains for centuries, and every stone seemed to carry the weight of that history.
Wang Ben kept his spiritual senses extended as far as his qi condensation cultivation would allow, searching for the presence that had been watching them since they left the sanctuary. Wuyan was out there somewhere. The ancient cultivator had made no effort to hide his interest, and Wang Ben doubted that interest would fade just because the first favor was complete.
[ENVIRONMENTAL SCAN: Mountain descent path]
[Detected presences: 2 (Wang Ben, Wang Tian)]
[Anomalous readings: None within detection range]
[Note: Shen Wuyan's cultivation significantly exceeds detection capability. Absence of readings does not confirm absence of observer.]
The System's reminder was unnecessary but accurate. At nascent soul cultivation, Wuyan could watch them from a kilometer away without Wang Ben sensing anything at all. The ancient cultivator's absence from detection meant nothing.
"He'll approach when he's ready," Wang Tian said, as if reading his thoughts. "Men like Wuyan don't rush. They wait until the moment serves them best."
"You've known cultivators like him before."
"I've known enough to recognize the type." Wang Tian's expression was thoughtful. "They measure everything. Every word, every reaction, every possibility. Your array impressed him, Ben'er. But your improvisation against the corruptor... that's what caught his real attention."
The Identity Affirmation Protocol. Wang Ben had designed it in heartbeats, pulling together principles from fragmentary records to counter a threat he had no preparation for. It had worked. Ruoxi had survived.
And Wuyan had watched every moment.
"I told him I extrapolated from existing principles."
"Did he believe you?"
"No."
Wang Tian nodded slowly. "Then he'll want a better explanation. The question is whether he'll demand one, or whether he'll let the mystery simmer while he observes you further."
Neither option was comfortable. Wang Ben continued walking.
The clearing appeared as if by design.
One moment they were moving through dense forest, the next they emerged into an open space that shouldn't have existed at this altitude. Ancient stones formed a rough circle at its center, weathered by centuries but still carrying traces of formation work that predated anything Wang Ben had studied.
Shen Wuyan stood among the stones, waiting.
He wore simple traveling robes, his cultivation signature still completely suppressed, his expression carrying the patient amusement of someone who had known they would arrive at exactly this moment. Behind him, the mountain peaks rose into clouds, and the morning mist swirled around his feet like something alive.
"Wang Ben." His voice was warm, almost friendly. "I hope I haven't interrupted your journey."
[ALERT: Subject Shen Wuyan has initiated contact]
[Environment assessment: Isolated clearing, no witnesses, no obvious escape routes]
[Cultivation differential: Extreme - direct confrontation not advisable]
[Recommendation: Engage cautiously. Provide minimal information while maintaining rapport.]
"Elder Shen." Wang Ben kept his voice steady. "We were expecting you."
"Were you?" Wuyan smiled. "I suppose I wasn't particularly subtle about my interest. Your father is perceptive."
Wang Tian had stopped at the clearing's edge, his hand resting casually on his sword hilt. The gesture was meaningless against a nascent soul cultivator, but some instincts couldn't be suppressed.
"I have questions," Wuyan continued. "Nothing urgent. Nothing that requires immediate answers. But questions nonetheless."
"About the array."
"About you." The ancient cultivator began walking among the stones, his movements unhurried. "The array was remarkable. Innovative. It incorporated principles that I've seen only in texts that predate the current cultivation era. But the array was designed in advance, with time to plan and prepare."
He paused, turning to face Wang Ben directly.
"What you did when the corruptor appeared was different. You adapted in heartbeats. Created countermeasures against an entity type your array wasn't designed to handle. And you did it successfully, under pressure that would have broken most formation masters I've known."
"I got lucky."
"You keep saying that." Wuyan's smile didn't reach his eyes. "But luck doesn't explain the underlying knowledge. Luck doesn't give you the principles to extrapolate from. Luck doesn't let you understand what that thing was and how it attacks."
Wang Ben felt the weight of the ancient cultivator's attention like physical pressure. At his side, he sensed his father tensing, preparing for an intervention that would be useless if Wuyan decided to press.
"What do you want to know?"
"Everything." Wuyan spread his hands, a gesture that might have been theatrical in someone less dangerous. "But I'll settle for understanding where your knowledge comes from. Not the knowledge itself, you understand. I can accept that you have access to information most cultivators don't. What I can't accept is not knowing how a seventeen-year-old from a frontier clan acquired it."
[QUERY: Appropriate response to direct investigation]
[Analysis: Subject is probing for source of impossible knowledge]
[Available cover options: Inherited texts, chance discovery, unnamed teacher, intuitive derivation]
[Risk assessment: All options have significant weaknesses. Subject's experience makes deception difficult.]
[Recommendation: Acknowledge inability to fully explain while emphasizing practical value]
Wang Ben considered the System's suggestions and found them inadequate. Wuyan wasn't looking for a plausible explanation. He was looking for the truth, and anything less would only deepen his suspicion.
"I have a gift," Wang Ben said finally. "For understanding patterns in formation work. Seeing connections that others miss."
"A gift."
"I know how it sounds. But I can't explain it better than that. Sometimes I look at a problem and the solution is just... there. As if someone showed it to me, except no one did."
It was closer to the truth than anything else he could say. The System was exactly that, a voice that showed him answers he shouldn't know. He couldn't explain its origin because he didn't fully understand it himself.
Wuyan studied him for a long moment, his ancient eyes weighing every word.
"An intuitive gift for formation work. One that allows you to design protections against entities that most cultivators deny exist, and to improvise countermeasures against threats you've never encountered."
"Yes."
"And this gift simply... appeared? Without training, without a master, without any source you can identify?"
"I've trained. I've studied. But the core understanding..." Wang Ben shook his head. "I can't explain where it comes from. I've tried. It just is."
The silence stretched.
Wuyan circled the ancient stones, his footsteps making no sound against the weathered surface. The mist continued to swirl, and somewhere in the distance, a bird called through the winter morning.
"There are stories," the ancient cultivator said finally. "Old ones, from before the current era. Stories about cultivators who possessed knowledge they shouldn't have. Who understood things that took others centuries to learn, as if the information had been placed directly in their minds."
Wang Ben felt ice settle in his stomach. "What kind of stories?"
"The kind that end badly, usually." Wuyan's voice was light, conversational. "The cultivators with impossible knowledge tended to attract attention. Some from forces that wanted to use them. Others from forces that wanted to eliminate them." He paused. "Most of those stories are considered myths now. Legends from a time when the world worked differently than it does today."
"I'm not a legend."
"No. You're a seventeen-year-old formation prodigy who happens to have knowledge that shouldn't exist." Wuyan turned to face him again. "The question is whether you're the source of that knowledge, or merely its vessel."
[ALERT: Subject appears to be testing a specific hypothesis]
[Analysis: Wuyan may suspect external knowledge source - possession, inheritance, or similar mechanism]
[Risk assessment: Confirmation of external source would increase interest significantly]
[Recommendation: Deflect without direct denial]
"I don't understand the distinction," Wang Ben said carefully.
"Most prodigies excel because they're exceptional. They learn faster, think more clearly, see patterns more easily than their peers. But their knowledge still comes from somewhere, study, observation, experimentation. What they know is built from foundations they can identify."
Wuyan stepped closer, and Wang Ben forced himself not to retreat.
"You're different. The knowledge you demonstrated during the breakthrough doesn't connect to any foundation I can identify. It doesn't build from texts I know or principles I can trace. It simply exists, complete and functional, as if it was always there."
"Maybe I'm just good at hiding my sources."
"Maybe." Wuyan smiled, and something in that expression made Wang Ben's skin crawl. "Or maybe the sources don't exist in any form I would recognize. Maybe your gift, as you call it, isn't intuition at all. Maybe something gave you the knowledge, and you don't even know what it is."
Wang Ben held the ancient cultivator's gaze and said nothing.
Wang Tian moved.
Not aggressively, just a shift in position that brought him closer to his son. The gesture was protective, pointless against Wuyan's cultivation, but it broke the tension nonetheless.
"My son has answered your questions as best he can," Wang Tian said. His voice was steady, carrying the authority of a father who had faced worse odds and survived. "He doesn't know where his knowledge comes from. Neither do we. But he's used it to save your sister's life, and I think that should count for something."
Wuyan's attention shifted to Wang Tian, and Wang Ben saw something flicker in those ancient eyes. Assessment, certainly. But also something that might have been respect.
"It does count for something. Which is why I'm asking questions instead of taking more direct action." The ancient cultivator's voice softened slightly. "I don't threaten children, Wang Tian. Whatever you might think of me, I haven't survived three thousand years by making enemies of people who might be useful."
"Then what do you want from him?"
"Answers he can't give me." Wuyan shrugged, a gesture that seemed almost human. "Or perhaps answers he won't give me. The distinction doesn't particularly matter at this point."
He began walking again, circling the clearing with the patient rhythm of someone who had all the time in the world.
"Here is what I know. Wang Ben possesses knowledge about these entities that exceeds anything in modern cultivation archives. He designed an array that successfully protected a mortal shedding cultivator through nascent soul breakthrough, something that hasn't been achieved in centuries. And when his design proved insufficient against one entity type, he improvised a solution that worked."
Wuyan stopped, turning to face them both.
"Whatever the source of that knowledge, it's real. It works. And that makes Wang Ben one of the most valuable formation masters alive, despite being barely old enough to qualify for a cultivation sect's outer disciple program."
[ASSESSMENT: Subject appears to be transitioning from interrogation to negotiation]
[Observed indicators: Emphasis on value, acknowledgment of capability, reduced hostility]
[Hypothesis: Wuyan may be positioning for future arrangement rather than immediate acquisition of information]
[Recommendation: Listen carefully. Do not commit to anything.]
"What are you proposing?" Wang Ben asked.
"Nothing yet." Wuyan's smile returned, warmer now but no less calculating. "Two favors remain on your ledger, Wang Ben. When I decide what those favors will be, your knowledge will certainly influence my choice. But I'm not in any hurry to collect."
"Why not?"
"Because mysteries are valuable. And you, little formation master, are the most interesting mystery I've encountered in centuries." He began walking toward the clearing's edge, his figure already starting to blur into the mist. "Continue your journey home. Rest. Recover your strength. The second favor will come when it comes, and not before."
He paused at the edge of the forest, looking back over his shoulder.
"Oh, and Wang Ben? Whatever gave you your knowledge, whether it's intuition or gift or something else entirely... I suggest you learn to use it carefully. There are others who might be less patient with mysteries than I am."
Then he was gone, his presence fading into the mountain's embrace as if he had never been there at all.
Wang Ben stood in the clearing for a long time after Wuyan left.
The mist continued to swirl around the ancient stones, and the morning light grew brighter as the sun climbed above the peaks. Somewhere nearby, his father was speaking, asking questions that Wang Ben heard but couldn't quite process.
[ENCOUNTER ANALYSIS: Shen Wuyan interrogation]
[Outcome: Inconclusive - subject did not extract primary information]
[Risk assessment: Elevated - subject's interest confirmed and ongoing]
[Threat level: Uncertain - subject expressed intent to observe rather than act]
[Note: Subject mentioned "others who might be less patient." This may indicate awareness of additional parties interested in anomalous knowledge sources.]
The System's assessment was accurate but unsatisfying. Wuyan hadn't gotten the answers he wanted, but he hadn't stopped looking either. The ancient cultivator would continue watching, continue probing, continue waiting for Wang Ben to reveal something useful.
And there were others, apparently. Forces that might be interested in someone who possessed knowledge they shouldn't have. Forces that might be less willing to let mysteries remain mysterious.
"Ben'er." Wang Tian's hand on his shoulder, grounding him in the present. "Are you all right?"
"I don't know." Wang Ben turned to face his father. "He didn't believe me."
"I know."
"He's going to keep investigating. Keep watching. And if he figures out what the System actually is..."
He caught himself, but the word had already slipped out. Wang Tian's expression shifted, understanding dawning in his eyes.
"The System," his father repeated carefully. "Is that what you call it?"
Wang Ben closed his eyes. The exhaustion was back, settling into his bones with renewed weight. He had spent two years hiding the System's existence, and now, in one careless moment of fatigue...
"Yes." The word came out tired, defeated. "It's... a voice. Or something like a voice. It analyzes things, provides information, suggests solutions. I don't know where it came from. I don't know what it is. But it's real, and it's the reason I know things I shouldn't."
The silence that followed was different from Wuyan's calculated pauses. This was the silence of a father processing something his son had hidden for years.
"How long?" Wang Tian asked finally.
"Since I was fifteen. Since the wolf attack on the outer patrol."
"Two years." His father's voice was quiet. "You've carried this alone for two years."
"I didn't know how to explain it. Didn't know if you'd believe me. And the more I used it, the more impossible it became to reveal without raising questions I couldn't answer."
Wang Tian was quiet for a long moment. Then he pulled Wang Ben into an embrace, the kind of hug that fathers gave when words weren't enough.
"You're my son," Wang Tian said. "Whatever this System is, whatever gave it to you, you're still my son. And I'm not going to let some ancient cultivator's curiosity put you in danger."
Wang Ben felt something in his chest loosen, a knot of tension he hadn't known he was carrying. Two years of secrecy, and now at least one person knew. At least one person he trusted.
It wasn't safety. Wuyan was still out there, still watching, still curious about mysteries he couldn't solve.
But it was something.
They continued their descent in changed silence.
Not the comfortable quiet of before, but something heavier, more thoughtful. Wang Tian asked questions occasionally, careful probes about what the System could do and couldn't do, what Wang Ben had learned and how he had used it. Wang Ben answered as honestly as he could, though some aspects of the System's function remained mysterious even to him.
"It's growing," Wang Ben explained as they stopped at a mountain spring to refill their waterskins. "When I first woke up, it was barely functional. Now it can analyze threats, assess formations, provide tactical suggestions. But it's still incomplete. Still developing."
"And you don't know what it's developing toward?"
"No." Wang Ben watched water flow over ancient stones. "The records it accesses, the knowledge it provides... they're fragments of something larger. I've been piecing them together for two years, but I still don't understand the whole picture."
"The Chen Database." Wang Tian tested the phrase. "You've mentioned it in your explanations. Is that part of this System?"
"It's where most of the knowledge comes from. Records from someone, or something, that understood cultivation in ways that modern practitioners have forgotten." Wang Ben hesitated. "I think... I think the System is trying to teach me. To prepare me for something. But I don't know what."
Wang Tian absorbed this in silence. Then: "Wuyan suspects something similar. That your knowledge comes from an external source, not from intuition or study."
"He suspects. He doesn't know for certain."
"And you'd like to keep it that way."
"I'd like to survive long enough to understand what I'm carrying." Wang Ben met his father's eyes. "The System has saved our lives multiple times. It helped me stabilize your cultivation when you were dying. It designed the array that protected Ruoxi. Whatever it is, it's not evil. But I don't think the world is ready to know it exists."
"The world rarely is ready for things that change what it believes." Wang Tian shouldered his pack and began walking again. "We'll keep your secret, Ben'er. For as long as we can."
The mountain road opened to lower slopes as the day progressed, and by evening they had left the Shen family's territory entirely. The fog lifted, revealing a landscape of forests and valleys that stretched toward the distant haze of human settlement.
Wang Ben paused at a ridge overlooking the descent, cataloguing what had happened and what it meant.
[STATUS SUMMARY: Post-interrogation assessment]
[Wuyan encounter: Survived without revealing System directly]
[Wang Tian disclosure: Complete - father now aware of System existence]
[Current threat level: Elevated but manageable]
[Outstanding obligations: 2 favors owed to Shen Wuyan]
[Recommended action: Continue home. Recover. Prepare for future developments.]
Two favors still owed. An ancient cultivator who suspected something extraordinary. A father who now knew the truth and had chosen to stand with him anyway.
The landscape before Wang Ben was vast and unfamiliar, full of dangers he couldn't predict and challenges he couldn't anticipate. But he wasn't facing it alone anymore.
"Ready?" Wang Tian asked.
Wang Ben looked at his father, at the man who had nearly died of qi stagnation and had fought back to foundation establishment, at the father who had just learned his son carried an impossible secret and had responded with embrace instead of fear.
"Ready," he said.
They began the long walk home.
END OF CHAPTER 85