No one asked for a report.
The provisionals who returned were herded through the gate at dusk, bloodied, limping, hollow-eyed. An outer disciple stood by a stone table, marking names with a brush that never paused.
Three checks.
Nine strokes through ink.
Efficient.
"Turn in," the disciple said without looking up.
Relics. Cores. Tokens.
Shen Yuan placed the cracked wooden token on the table.
The disciple glanced at it.
Paused.
Then slid it aside without comment.
"Go," he said.
No praise.
No questions.
No comfort.
The mountain swallowed them again.
That night, a new jade slip appeared at Shen Yuan's bed.
Resource Adjustment Notice
Survival Contribution Recognized
Monthly Allocation Updated:
– Spirit Grain × 6
– Bone-Tempering Paste × 2
– Access to Training Grounds (Extended Night Hours)
– Conditional Entry: Ruin Archives (Outer Level)
Six grains.
Double.
A laugh almost escaped Shen Yuan's throat.
Nine lives equaled three grains.
Arithmetic.
He folded the slip carefully.
The Ruin Archives lay beneath the academy's western flank—a cavernous hall lined with stone tablets, broken murals, and shelves of damaged inheritance fragments deemed "incomplete."
Useless to geniuses.
Dangerous to everyone else.
A hunched old man guarded the entrance, asleep with eyes open.
Shen Yuan bowed.
The man did not move.
He stepped inside.
The air smelled of dust, blood, and something metallic.
He moved slowly, reading plaques etched with warnings:
"Do Not Repair."
"Do Not Complete."
"Fragments Lie."
At the far end, he felt it.
A pressure.
Not from the shard.
From the mural fragment embedded in the wall.
This one was different—etched with layered scenes: mountains within mountains, doors behind doors, worlds folded inward like nesting shells.
A Matryoshka world.
His breath caught.
The shard vibrated violently, almost angrily.
Recognition without permission.
Shen Yuan did not touch it.
He stood.
Watched.
Listened.
And noticed something no one else would.
The mural was incomplete on purpose.
One line had been scraped away—not destroyed, but removed cleanly.
A keyhole.
Shen Yuan stepped back.
He did not need the technique.
He needed to know why it was locked.
A cough echoed.
The old man was suddenly beside him.
"Most die touching," the old man rasped. "Few die looking too long."
Shen Yuan bowed again. "Senior."
The old man peered at him. "You survived Fragment Seventeen."
"Yes."
"You didn't take the mural."
"No."
The old man grinned, revealing too many teeth. "Good. That one eats arrogance."
He leaned closer. "You felt it, didn't you? The layers."
Shen Yuan hesitated—then nodded.
The old man chuckled. "Then remember this."
He tapped his temple.
"Power is not stacked. It is nested. Break one shell wrong, and everything inside rots."
He shuffled away.
That night, Shen Yuan cultivated with two grains.
Not three.
He stored the rest.
Patience.
Inside him, the shard recorded something new.
Not a path.
A principle.
Far above the academy, clouds shifted unnaturally.