The room was not spacious. It was not practical. But Gen had no choice. He could not move outside until he was ready. He wasn't training any particular skill, not the God Asylum or the End of the World Finger. He was training a *feeling*.
He couldn't explain how, but his Qi was behaving differently. It wasn't just circulating from his core outwards. It was moving in a slow, upward spiral, gathering in his chest and the space between his hands as if drawn by a new gravity. The thoughts of Lorel's absence, of his own loneliness, had not broken him. Instead, they had hollowed out a new space within him, a quiet void, and something else was beginning to grow there.
He sat on the worn floor, his back straight. He waved his hands apart, then clapped them together softly. He pulled a stream of Qi from his core, forming it into a simple beam of light between his palms. He held it, feeling its vibration. Then, with a gentle push of will, he separated the beam.
It did not split into two identical lights. One half condensed, brightening into a pure, radiant white. The other half deepened, darkening into an abyssal black. They did not repel each other. They orbited the space between his palms, a miniature, shimmering diagram of yin and yang.
Gen, still only half-conscious of the significance, continued. He moved the orbiting lights through the air of the dim room, tracing slow, patient arcs. He wasn't forcing them. He was *feeling* the space between them—the tension of their opposition, the balance of their dance.
The little boy returned from his expedition and pushed the door open. He saw Gen seated in the middle of the room, his hands moving through empty air, his eyes closed. The boy's excitement to report bubbled up. "Hey, I found—"
Gen gave no sign he'd heard. His entire being was focused on the silent, luminous interplay before him.
The boy frowned, closed the door, and flopped onto the bed to wait. An hour passed. Then another. The grey light from the window faded into full night, and Gen still had not moved, his hands weaving the same invisible pattern. The boy grew bored, then worried. He ate some hard bread from his pocket, watched some more, and eventually fell into a fitful sleep, only to wake and see Gen in the exact same position. Had he gone mad? Or into some cultivator's trance that could kill him?
For two full days and nights, Gen did not eat, drink, or sleep. He simply moved the feeling through the void.
Finally, on the second night, his hands stilled. They came together in a final, soft clap.
A soundless ripple of force pulsed through the room. It didn't shake the walls; it vibrated the *air*, making the dust on the floor jump and settle. The little boy, half-asleep, jolted upright.
Gen opened his eyes. They looked clearer, sharper, as if washed clean.
The boy rubbed his face. "What… what have you been doing all this time?"
"Training," Gen said, his voice rough from disuse. "I got carried away. It was a… special feeling."
He bailed his fist, not in anger, but in focus. He spread his Qi inward, following the new pathways that had been etched during his silent vigil. He could feel it. A new gate, once sealed, was now open. Not in his chest or his abdomen, but higher, a point of sharp, dividing clarity at the crown of his head.
**The Crown Acupoint.**
The Wheel of **Fendow**—Separation—was now his.
The boy placed his hands on his knees, observing with wide-eyed curiosity. "Does that mean you have gotten even stronger? That's good news, right?"
"A new Wheel requires time to master and understand," Gen said, a flicker of his old, focused energy returning to his voice. "But yes. Now, only **Heidow** and **Xuedow** remain."
Only two left. He could use **Jingdao**, **Shidow**, **Zhidow**, and now **Fendow**. After he learned the final two, he would have caught up to his father's known level. Only then would he be able to face Zeph.
Yet, learning **Xuedow**—Mastery—was the hardest of all. It had no Acupoint to guide you. Most cultivators who learned the first five Wheels hit an eternal blockage there, never synthesizing them into true unity. What they had all mistakenly called the "Immortal Wheel" in the past was a misunderstanding. Gen knew now it couldn't be just about immortality. **Xuedow** had to represent something else, a principle deeper than eternal life. What it was, he didn't know. He was still infinitely far from it, and yet, having opened the gate to Separation, he felt closer than ever.
The boy broke into his thoughts. "I found Birdie. But I will not tell you anything until we save them."
Gen nodded. "I would not lie about such a thing." He stood, his movements fluid, the stiffness of days of stillness gone. "Follow me."
The boy grabbed a dark, hooded robe of his own, his eyes sparkling. "Are we going on an undercover mission? I can't wait!"
Gen turned to him, kneeling to adjust the boy's ill-fitting robe and pull the hood lower over his eager face. "If I die," Gen said, his voice low and serious, "you will probably die with me. So you will be silent. You will observe. We gather information and return. That is all."
The boy nodded, making an exaggerated sealing motion over his lips.
They waited until the deepest hours of the night, when the town of Hu was a tapestry of shadows and silence. Then they moved.
Two shadows flitted between the close-set houses. Gen moved with a new economy of motion, each step precise, leaving no trace in the slush. The boy, to his credit, was surprisingly light and quiet, mimicking Gen's movements.
Soon, they noticed them: pairs of cultivators in those violent black robes, patrolling the narrow lanes. Not just guarding their base, but actively watching the town.
Gen's frown deepened in the darkness. He glanced left and right, assessing. Then, he acted. He picked the boy up, slinging him onto his back with ease. Before the boy could yelp, Gen pushed off with a whisper of **Shidow**, manipulating the air to muffle their sound and warp the light around them just enough to blend with the night. He landed silently on a steep, tiled roof.
Below, the two patrolling Bliss Palace cultivators passed directly underneath, never looking up, their conversation a low murmur about quotas and "prime stock."
Gen and his small passenger kept moving, leaping from roof to roof. It wasn't hard to find their target. One building at the town's edge pulsed with concentrated auras—dozens of them, some bright with malice, others dim with fear.
Thanks to Gen's now-honed senses, they found a side entrance, a delivery door left slightly ajar by a careless guard stepping out for air. They slipped inside, merging with the deep shadows of a storage corridor.
They pressed against a wall as a lone Bliss Palace cultivator walked past, yawning, his focus elsewhere. The little boy, clinging to Gen's hand, vibrated with tension. He wanted to trip the man, to do *something*. Gen's grip tightened to the point of pain, a silent command.
The boy looked up. Gen's eyes in the gloom were dark, hard, and utterly focused. This was not a game.
The cultivator paused, feeling a draft. He turned, peering back down the corridor.
Gen didn't move. He exhaled slowly, and with a subtle application of the **Fendow** principle he had just opened, he *separated* their presence from the ambient Qi of the building, creating a pocket of passive nothingness around them.
The cultivator saw only an empty, dark hallway. He shrugged, turned, and walked away.
Only when his footsteps faded did Gen move, pulling the boy deeper into the labyrinthine building. They moved like ghosts, following the thickening scent of fear and the muffled sounds of crying. Deeper and deeper, until they reached a heavy wooden door reinforced with crude metal bands.
From the gap beneath it, a sliver of lantern light bled out, and with it, the sound of voices—one smug and commanding, the other trembling with forced bravery.
Gen put a finger to his lips. He and the boy knelt, becoming two more shadows in the dark. He didn't need to peer through the keyhole. He closed his eyes, extending the barest thread of his consciousness, using **Shidow** to carry sound.
Now, hidden in the darkness, they could hear and see everything happening in the room beyond.