If the Vane Estate were a corporate office, Jett was currently enjoying the most awkward promotion in history. He had gone from "Employee Most Likely to be Used as a Human Shield" to "CEO's Personal Assistant Who No One Trusts."
As Jett walked toward the cultivation training grounds, he could feel the weight of a hundred stares. They weren't the usual looks of casual disgust he had grown accustomed to over the last few days. These were different. They were narrow-eyed, calculating, and vaguely annoyed, the kind of look you give a cockroach that survives a nuclear blast.
Status: Despised Son-in-Law
Jett thought, the blue PR-C interface flickering lazily in his peripheral vision.
"He's still walking," a passing servant whispered, clutching a basket of spirit-silk. "I heard the Widow's Breath turns your insides into jelly. How is he standing upright?"
"Spite," Jett muttered under his breath. "You should try it, Mavis. Great for the complexion."
The servant squeaked and scurried away. Jett sighed. Being "interesting" was significantly more exhausting than being invisible.
He reached the edge of the training grounds, a massive obsidian plaza etched with glowing silver runes designed to absorb excess Prana. At the center stood Sera.
She was a whirlwind of white silk and jagged frost. Every movement was a masterpiece of lethal geometry. She struck out with a palm strike, and the air itself seemed to crystallize, shattering into a thousand diamond-like shards that pulverized a training dummy made of reinforced ironwood.
To any other observer, she looked like a goddess of war. To Jett, equipped with the PR-C's HUD, she looked like a glass sculpture in a wind tunnel.
[Host: Sera Vane]
[Condition: Critical Cultivation Instability]
[Detected: Micro-fractures in Aether channels (Core Level)]
[Time to Critical Failure: 6 Months]
[Compatibility: 87%]
Jett leaned against a pillar, crossing his arms. He watched the way her shoulder hitched a fraction of a millimeter too high. He saw the microscopic tremor in her fingers when she drew back for a second strike. Her form was "too perfect", a rigid, desperate control intended to keep her internal energy from leaking out like water from a cracked dam.
"You're staring, Jett. It's unbecoming."
The voice came from behind him. Jett didn't need the system to tell him it was Revas. The smell of expensive hair oil and unearned confidence was a dead giveaway.
"I'm observing, Revas. There's a difference," Jett replied, not turning around. "One is an appreciation for art. The other is what you do in the communal baths. Please tell me you've washed your sleeve; poison is so dirty."
Revas stiffened, his face darkening. "You think because you survived a lucky fluke, you have a seat at the table? You are a parasite, Voland. Sera is a Fourth Tier prodigy, and you are... well, you're a scribe now. Try not to get an ink stain on your soul."
"I'll do my best. Though I hear ink is easier to remove than the stench of failure," Jett quipped.
He turned his gaze back to Sera. She had stopped. She was standing perfectly still, her back to them, her chest rising and falling in a rhythm that was far too measured to be natural.
She's hurting, Jett realized. The PR-C pulsed in his chest, a low, sympathetic thrum that made his own ribs ache. It wasn't just a biological reaction; it was the resonance. The system was practically screaming at him to intervene, like a mechanic watching a luxury sports car redline toward an engine explosion.
Without a word to Revas, Jett turned and headed toward the lower library. He had a new job to start, but he also had a wife to keep from turning into a human popsicle.
The lower library was a sprawling labyrinth of damp stone and forgotten knowledge. It was the kind of place where books went to die, or at least to develop a very sophisticated layer of mold. As the new "correspondence organizer," Jett had been given a key that opened more than just the mailroom.
He spent hours navigating the stacks, his Analytical Mind skill working overtime.
[New Skill Active: Analytical Mind]
[Processing: Meridian Theory and Forced Advancement Complications...]
He pulled a heavy, leather-bound tome from a shelf near the back.
A Study in Core Degeneration. "Let's see," Jett whispered, flipping through pages that smelled like a basement. "Meridians as glass tubes... Aetheric pressure... forced breakthrough... ah, here we go. Aetheric Meridian Therapy."
His eyes scanned the text. It spoke of a healing method where a partner with a compatible essence could act as an external "anchor," absorbing the volatile energy and refining it before feeding it back into the sufferer.
"Dual Cultivation," Jett muttered, a smirk playing on his lips. "Of course. Because in this world, the answer to 'I'm dying' is always 'Have you tried a very intimate massage?'"
He was interrupted by the sound of the library doors creaking open. Heavy, purposeful footsteps echoed through the silence. Jett quickly slid the book on Dual Cultivation behind a stack of tax records for the year 1204.
He looked up just as Lyra Vane stepped into the light of the floating lanterns.
She didn't look like a mother-in-law. She looked like a predator that had decided to stop eating for a moment to see if its prey had anything interesting to say.
"Steward Grevin told me you've spent four hours in the archives," Lyra said, her voice cool and echoing. "Most men in your position would be using their new freedom to steal wine or sleep. Why are you buried in dust, Jett?"
Jett stood up, brushing a cobweb off his sleeve. "I've always found dust to be a better conversationalist than the people, Matriarch. It's less judgmental and much better at keeping secrets."
Lyra stepped closer, her narrowed eyes scanning the desk. "You've been looking into Meridian Theory. Why? A man with no Prana flow has no use for such things."
Jett felt the PR-C pulse. It was a warning, but also an opportunity. He couldn't play the fool forever; he needed to be a useful fool.
"I saw Sera training today," Jett said, his voice losing its sarcastic edge. "She's very impressive. But I'm a man who deals in numbers and patterns, Matriarch. And the pattern of her Aether is... flickering. Like a candle about to burn out."
The air in the library suddenly turned freezing. Lyra's presence expanded, a crushing weight that made Jett's lungs feel small.
"You would speak of my daughter's weakness?" she hissed.
"I'm speaking of her survival," Jett countered, standing his ground. "The Canton Festival is in seven months. If she continues this 'perfect' performance, she won't make it to the opening ceremony. You know it. I know it. Even the mold on these books probably suspects it."
The pressure vanished as quickly as it had appeared. Lyra stared at him, her expression unreadable. For a long moment, the only sound was the crackle of the lanterns.
"You are a strange creature, Jett Voland," Lyra said softly. "A 'useless' son-in-law who survives poison and sees through the masks of a Fourth Tier. Perhaps you are more than a political lubricant."
She reached into her sleeve and produced a jade-encrusted scroll.
"Since you are so fond of patterns, analyze this. It is the guest list for the Council's private reception. Every name on it is a threat. She tossed it onto the table. "You report to my private study tomorrow at the eighth bell. Do not be late."
As she turned to leave, Jett let out a breath he didn't know he was holding.
"By the way," he called out. "I found a book on Aetheric Meridian Therapy. Very interesting stuff. Bit scandalous in the footnotes, but the theory is sound."
Lyra paused at the door, her back to him. "Research is one thing, Jett. Application is another. Sera does not take well to 'therapy' from those she considers beneath her."
"Good thing I'm moving up in the world, then," Jett muttered to the empty room.
He looked back at the tax records, pulling the hidden cultivation book out. He had seven months to save his wife, a mother-in-law who could vaporize him with a thought, and a system that wanted him to start a harem to stay alive.
"Right," Jett said, checking the blue light in his eyes. "Time to go find a robe that doesn't smell like shit.
As he closed the library door, the PR-C flashed a final notification.
[Objective Updated: Stabilize Sera Vane]