Morning arrived without announcement.
Light spread gently across the Immortal Courtyard, touching pale stone and drifting cloud alike. The sun did not rise from beyond the peaks—it simply appeared, as though Heaven had decided that illumination was appropriate.
Lin Yuan stood beneath the eaves, hands resting loosely at his sides.
Below him, clouds flowed like a silent river. They did not churn. They did not rush. They moved with the confidence of something that knew it would never be interrupted.
For a long moment, he did nothing but watch.
No system messages interrupted his thoughts.
No pressure pressed against his mind.
No sense of urgency followed him here.
Heaven felt… complete.
Eventually, he turned and left the courtyard.
The real world was louder.
Not unpleasant—just busy. People moved with purpose, voices overlapped, time pulled everything forward whether one wished it or not. Lin Yuan walked among them quietly, unnoticed, a passerby like any other.
He ate when he was hungry.
He rested when he was tired.
He observed without judgment.
At some point, without ceremony, he returned.
There was no flash of light, no ritual circle, no threshold to cross. One step carried him out of the world of constant motion—and the next placed him beneath open sky and drifting cloud once more.
The Immortal Courtyard received him without reaction.
Heaven did not welcome.
It did not need to.
Record Peak rose in the distance, its terraces wrapped in slow-moving mist.
Lin Yuan walked its lower paths, hands clasped behind his back. Lines of light drifted past him—records forming and dissolving like thoughts half-remembered.
A failed breakthrough.
A moment of doubt.
A lifetime spent circling a bottleneck that never broke.
He did not stop them.
He did not reach out.
This was not the time to seek answers.
He was not lacking strength.
He was lacking understanding.
And understanding, he had learned, could not be forced.
After a while, he turned away.
Cultivation came easily.
Qi gathered as naturally as breath, circulating without obstruction. The Heaven of Resting Peaks offered no resistance, no impurity, no turbulence. Power responded the instant he reached for it.
Yet still—
Nothing changed.
His cultivation stabilized.
It refined.
It deepened.
Lin Yuan opened his eyes slowly.
There was no frustration in him—only a quiet acceptance.
He was no longer capped.
But Heaven did not push its Lord forward.
It waited.
That night, as clouds drifted lower and the stars shifted almost imperceptibly, Lin Yuan paused.
Something tugged at his perception.
Not danger.
Not warning.
More like… weight settling into place.
Far away. Beyond the peaks. Beyond where he could go.
He did not search for it.
If Heaven wished him to know, it would tell him.
At the edge of the courtyard, a presence formed.
Qingshi stood silently, pale robes unmoving despite the breeze. His gaze rested on the same distant direction Lin Yuan had sensed earlier.
He did not speak.
He did not announce anything.
After a moment, the weight eased—like a door closing somewhere far beyond sight.
Qingshi turned and departed without a sound.
Lin Yuan sat beneath open sky.
Clouds continued their endless flow.
The peaks remained unmoved.
Heaven breathed.
Somewhere beyond the boundaries he could not cross, time continued its work.
And here—
He waited.
End of Chapter 25