Birds chirped in the clear sky, and a warm wind tousled Lyn's hair. A few people in line whispered, their eyes darting to his worn miner's clothes before flicking away. Lyn paid them no mind. Beauty was superficial. Comfort was a tool. Both were irrelevant to him.
People came and left the dark granite building. Their faces were scrolls of unvarnished result: some walked out solemn, shoulders bowed by a new weight. Others looked carved from anger. A few seemed hollowed out by sadness. None looked joyful.
"Ryn?"
An Elder's voice, dry as old parchment, cut through the murmur. The man had hair the color of ash and a long white beard, and he wore the same white and gold uniform as the soldiers atop the fortress. Authority was woven into the very fabric.
Lyn's train of thought snapped. It was his turn.
I waited a good thirty minutes. Hopefully this goes fast.
The Elder opened the heavy door wider and gestured with a flick of his hand to enter.
Lyn obeyed. No words were spoken.
The inside of the building was a labyrinth of purpose. They walked down plain stone corridors, took sharp turns past closed doors marked with obscure symbols, their footsteps the only sound. The air was cool and still, smelling of damp rock and something faintly metallic, like charged ozone.
After several minutes, the Elder stopped before a blank wall. Without ceremony, he stretched his left hand out. A Shard Gate shimmered open, and from it, he withdrew a shard.
It was an unremarkable thing, a piece of glass, impossible to identify by sight alone. The Elder channeled a thread of Essence into it.
The wall in front of them dissolved. Not a door opening, but the stone itself becoming insubstantial, swirling away like mist to reveal a steep, well-lit staircase leading deep underground.
The Elder gestured again.
They walked down for a good five minutes before they stood before another door. The elder pulled a key from his robes and opened it. In front of them was now a big room, engraved with over ten different formations glowing faintly in various colors. It looked mesmerizing. The formations ran from the granite walls and ceilings to the three square, altar-like devices in the middle of the room.
All buildings had formations, usually for utilities. But depending on their purpose and design, they could also be for defense, concealment, and much more.
This room alone had ten different formations. Formations could be hidden in walls and not be seen, they typically looked like very thin, glowing lines. However, hiding them was more expensive when building the structure. Here, every line was exposed, a testament to the room's importance and the sheer power flowing through it.
The Elder finally spoke, his voice dry and filled with a deep, institutional fatigue.
"Child, go to the left altar and place your hand upon it. Wait until the formations reach your hands. Once you see all ten colors upon your skin and hear the sound of a ringing bell, remove your hand. Then move to the one in the middle and repeat the process. Then do the same for the one on the right."
Lyn nodded
Lyn nodded. Three altars?
The Elder stood with his hands clasped behind his back. Above his head, a Shard Gate shimmered open, and another featureless piece of glass appeared. His face was impassive, but his eyes held a distant focus, as if he were mentally recording observations onto an unseen ledger.
Lyn placed his hand on the left altar and waited. Thin threads of colored light, crawled from the engraved lines on the floor up the side of the stone and onto his skin. They carried a deep, resonant vibration that traveled up his bones. When the tenth color, a shade of profound violet had settled like a tattoo across his knuckles, a clear, single chime resonated through the chamber, seeming to come from the stone itself. He removed his hand.
The Elder gave a slight, approving nod.
Lyn moved to the central altar and repeated the process. The colors flowed faster this time, the vibration sharper, more probing. The bell chimed again, perhaps a half-tone higher. As Lyn withdrew his hand, he caught the Elder's reaction from the corner of his eye: the man's eyebrows lifted a fraction, a crack in his professional detachment. Shock, quickly suppressed. He said nothing.
Lyn stepped to the rightmost altar. He placed his hand down for the third and final time. The process was swift now, the colors flashing across his skin in a rapid, almost impatient sequence. The final chime was softer, more like a sigh of completion.
He removed his hand and stood back, waiting.
The Elder told him to wait a few minutes in the room. Without another word, he opened a Shard Gate once more. Another shard appeared in his palm. He activated it, and with a soft shush of displaced air, a simple wooden door materialized in the smooth granite wall behind him. The Elder stepped through it and was gone, the door dissolving back into seamless stone a moment later, leaving Lyn alone in the humming, color-veined chamber.
from what I can guess and based on his facial expression, one of the altairs inspected my truth carvings, did it detect the star?
His mind raced, a cold spike of alarm shooting through his practiced calm. This was dangerous. He did not know what the star was. Was it a blessing, a curse, or a mistake Heaven wanted to erase? What if they saw it as an abomination, a corruption to be purged on the spot?
He glanced at the silent, glowing formations surrounding him. He was deep underground, sealed in a room built to analyze souls. Escape was impossible.
A strange, heavy acceptance settled over him, cold and quiet. Sometimes, you don't have a choice. Sometimes, the only move left is to stand still and face the consequences of your secrets. He took a slow breath, letting the panic drain away, leaving only a sharp, watchful readiness. He would wait, and he would see what their measurement had truly seen.
A few awkward minutes passed in the humming silence before a door reappeared in the wall. The Elder stepped through and gestured for Lyn to follow him back up.
As they climbed the long staircase, the Elder spoke, his tone notably more respectful, tinged with disbelief. "Sea Depth: B. Truth Carvings: 640. And somehow... your Purity is ranked SS. This is simply ridiculous."
"How so?" Lyn asked, keeping his voice carefully neutral.
"Kid, do you even know what I just said?"
"I'll be honest, Elder. I'm a commoner. I don't know much."
The elder sighed, the sound echoing in the stairwell, and began to explain as they walked.
"Sea Depth is your spiritual fuel tank, determined at birth. Ranks from F to SS. You were born with an B depth a pretty good reservoir, a good advantage in a fight. When you advance in rank, your Sea grows as a percentage of this innate base. You will always have a larger capacity than most.
"Sea Purity is the quality of that Sea, earned through cultivation. Ranks from F, which is turbulent and leaky, to SS a crystalline and perfectly controlled. You... have SS. Mortal peak. It means every drop of Essence you use is flawless, with zero waste or backlash.
"Truth Carvings are your understanding of your Path. You have 640. Their power is gated by your Purity. For most, low purity strangles their Carvings' strength. For you..."
The Elder shook his head, a sound of pure bewilderment escaping him.
inwardly he thought
now if he also has SS essence regeneration now that would be hmph, that is a seperate test its for later either way..
"With SS Purity, your 640 Carvings would perform with the effectiveness of someone else's ten times that number. You are a precision instrument. 640 Carvings at SS Purity means a 64x multiplier to any of your mortal fragments."
He sighed, the weight of the comparison evident. "Most students have B or D Purity at best. Meaning if they had the same 640 Carvings, they'd only be able to wield a fraction of that power, perhaps a 20x or 40x boost at most. You, with a foundation like this, at Rank 3... it's unheard of."
He paused on a step, looking back at Lyn. "Depth is your endurance. Purity is your control. A genius with SS Depth and F Purity is a walking disaster. A cultivator with C Depth and SS Purity is a master of economy, maximizing every spark. You... are an anomaly. You have the tank of a future powerhouse and the control of a consummate master. At Rank 3."
He continued climbing, his voice dropping. "To put your Carvings in perspective: to advance from your current rank, rank 3 Stage 1 to Stage 2, you need 800. To Stage 3, you need 1,200. To reach Rank 4, you need 1,700. You are not far from your first major blockade. And with your foundation... you will face it from a position of obscene stability."
Lyn listened, absorbing the cold, clinical facts. The numbers meant less to him than the Elder's tone. He wasn't being condemned. He was being... recalculated. The star had remained hidden, but his natural foundation had shocked them anyway.
So, he thought, the fear of exposure giving way to a new, more complex tension. I am not a ghost to be discarded. I am a specimen to be watched. It was a different kind of danger, but a danger all the same.
Nobody spoke. The elder sighed here and there, a soft sound of residual disbelief. Once they got outside, he opened a Shard Gate once more. A plain granite door appeared in the air. He walked through it, Lyn following, and it vanished behind them. They moved through a series of quiet administrative corridors before the elder stopped at one of the many identical desks.
He pulled a slate and a small, folded uniform from a drawer and handed them to Lyn. The uniform was a white robe, but with a single, thin stripe of golden and orange thread sewn along the collar.
"Your class is 'Lightflame,' " he said, his voice flat, the brief flash of respect now buried under routine.
"I will update the storage shard you received with a map to the building. That was all. Now move along."
Lyn took the items, his fingers brushing the cool surface of the slate, his updated ledger stone and the coarse fabric of the robe. He bowed slightly, a motion of acknowledgment and turned to leave.
As he walked back into the bustling yard, the noise and movement felt different. Before, he had been an anonymous speck. Now, he carried a classification. Lightflame. He had a number, 640 Carvings and a grade that didn't make sense 'SS' Purity.
He found a relatively quiet corner against a sun-warmed stone wall and activated the storage shard he received a few hours ago by that one disciple. A map unfolded in his mind's eye, highlighting a path to a building on the western edge of the training grounds. He glanced at the slate. The characters glowed softly:
RYN | CLASS: LIGHTFLAME
MERIT POINTS: 98
SEA: B DEPTH | SS PURITY
TRUTH: 640 (LIGHT PATH)
NEXT MANDATORY TRIAL: 29 DAYS.
FIRST LECTURE: DAWN, HALL 7
a storage shard? it seems it is also quasi an information shard. Wonder what it's exact name is..
He put intent and he map changed so it show him his quarters he followed the map
Sea depth B Purity SS, he said I have 640 Truth carvings.. interesting a few hours ago I had 630. I can guess this is another anomaly of the star, first it lets me activate Heavenly shards from inside my vessel realm, additionally grants me SS purity and also from the seems of it lets me consume foreign truth? there is no other way to explain it.
He put his intent into the map, and it changed to show him his quarters. He followed the guide.
Sea depth B, Purity SS. He said I have 640 Truth Carvings… interesting. A few hours ago I had 630. I can guess this is another anomaly of the star. First, it lets me activate Heavenly Shards from inside my Vessel Realm. Second, it grants me SS Purity. And third, from the looks of it, it lets me consume foreign truth? There's no other way to explain it.
He scratched his head while walking.
Soon he saw many buildings made out of dark wood. It was very quiet, a complete difference from the center of the training grounds.
He continued to follow the map. After walking for a few minutes, he arrived at his destination. He put intent in his mind, and from the Storage Shard, a key appeared and materialized instantly in his hands.
Others would have to bring the shard out and then activate it, he thought, somewhat happy about it but more worried. If one were to show his boss how fast he could work, the boss might expect him to always be this efficient.
He opened the door. Nothing special. It had two rooms, excluding the WC and other utilities, and smelled of dust. The very first room seemed to be the living room. The Ashen Sect was often minimalistic. The room had one table and one chair in the middle.
Sigh. What more do I need?
He went to see the other room, a simple bed. The other spaces were for the WC and for showering.
This could be considered a luxury. Most people had one room.
I guess this is most likely all financed by the sect itself, but why? Just how important is this place? From what I know, there aren't any resource points in the Restless Mountains. There is a legend around it, but so what?
Classes were not mandatory. He chose to rest for today. It was already late.
In one day, he had registered, passed an unfathomable test, refined a storage (quasi) information shard, and a uniform, was evaluated, and been assigned quarters.
Tomorrow was the day it truly began.