“Why are we going to the Inner Pavilion, Senior Sister?”

They walked down from Stream Peak, steam curling from a lunch box like morning mist, and Shuiqin Lin asked softly like a sparrow under the eaves. “Isn’t the Inner Pavilion where all the sect’s manuals are kept?”

“Exactly because all the manuals are there, that’s where we’re going.” Nana Toki’s voice was calm, a pebble dropping into a still pond.

In the original plot, the heroine’s rise in the Cloudpeak Sect flowed like a tide, tied to the Great Elder of the Inner Pavilion. In that elder’s care lay a scroll that let a water-root cultivator cut through the marsh of slow early training. According to that flow of fate, the original host was supposed to enter the Inner Pavilion after the sect tournament, fish out a tailor-made manual, and start her cheat-run like a wind at her back.

Nana had thought she had no chance to snap the heroine’s golden finger, a blade hidden in silk. But the winds shifted. The sect tournament got delayed. The heroine shut herself away. A heaven-sent gap opened like blue sky after rain.

“But only disciples who’ve reached Foundation Establishment can enter the Inner Pavilion.” Following behind, Shuiqin Lin scratched her head like a puzzled kitten, then her eyes lit up like starlight on water. “Don’t tell me you’ve already formed your Foundation, Senior Sister?”

“Mhm. I, uh, tripped and formed Foundation.” Nana said it like a leaf falling by accident onto a stream.

She’d thought her rank wasn’t enough to step into the Pavilion. Now time, terrain, and people aligned like three stars on a winter night. Even Heaven seemed to tip the board for Nana Toki.

Shuiqin Lin: “...”

Listen to that. Is that even human talk? What do you mean you “accidentally” formed Foundation? Those words jabbed like sleet for someone stuck at the fifth layer of Qi Refining.

“Oh, right. Here, this is for you. You’ll need it when you reach Foundation.” Nana flicked her sleeve like a crisp breeze and, from a hidden space, produced the remaining vial of paste, pressing it into Shuiqin Lin’s hands.

“This is...” Shuiqin took the pill vial, cracked it open, and a faint medicinal scent rose like warm smoke.

“It’s Foundation-Forming Paste. At the tenth layer of Qi Refining, it adds a thirty percent chance to break through, like a rope thrown across a ravine.”

“So precious?” The moment she heard the effect, Shuiqin’s hands burned like holding hot coals. She shoved the vial back, flustered as a startled deer. “Senior Sister, you should keep it. It’s too valuable.”

Nana: “...” Why was this girl so stubborn? I’m already at Foundation. What would I keep it for, to suck on like mint lozenges in the wind?

“Just take it.” Nana stuffed the vial into Shuiqin’s arms like tucking a fledgling under a wing. “If you can’t keep up with me later, that’ll be a headache.”

She said it lightly, like clouds over a hill. In truth, she worried about leaving for missions, leaving her master alone like a lamp in a draft. The Cloudpeak Sect was safe as stone, yet the world always kept a few loose pebbles.

Better to mend the roof before the rain.

“Senior Sister...” Emotion surged like a spring under ice. Holding the lunch box in one hand and the vial in the other, Shuiqin Lin almost cried, her heart warm as sunlit tea. Senior Sister thought this much about her. She couldn’t let her down.

“I won’t let you down!” Shuiqin gripped the vial, solemn as an oath carved into bamboo.

Nana: “...” Looking at Shuiqin’s small face set like a little mountain, worship in her eyes bright as dawn, Nana ran out of words. She reached out and gave a gentle headpat, like smoothing fur the right way. “Mm... yeah. Do your best.”

After a few bends on stone paths, breeze carrying pine like green smoke, they reached the Inner Pavilion of the Cloudpeak Sect.

The Inner Pavilion was founded by the sect’s Great Elder, a deep sea of manuals gathered from the sect’s first spring to the present winter. Its weight matched the treasure vault, a twin peak under the same sky.

To spur cultivation like rain on seedlings, the sect allowed those who’d reached Foundation Establishment to enter once each year. Each disciple had one chance, no more. One month inside, no longer. One manual chosen, no greed.

To keep manuals from scattering like dandelion fluff, anything learned in there could only be shared among sect disciples. Any breach meant your cultivation cut off like a stream dammed, and expulsion like a leaf cast from the tree. That iron rule had held since the Pavilion’s first stone.

This time, Nana’s target lay deep inside like a pearl in a shell—the heroine’s golden finger, the Azure Sea Tide Technique.

“Shouldn’t we talk to Master before going in?” At the threshold, Nana lifted a foot to step across, but Shuiqin Lin caught her sleeve like a fishhook catching silk. “I think we should wait for Master to return. Then you can pick a manual that truly suits you, like a key to a lock.”

Master was learned like an old pine. Surely she’d find the right path.

“...” Their master, Shrine Water, had water-wood roots, green and clear. Nana had a fire root, red and fierce. What good was that for matching sparks? Besides, she wasn’t here for the Cloudpeak Sect’s usual manuals anyway. No need to consult Shrine Water for a trip that wasn’t about the sect’s pickled recipes.

Nana freed her sleeve like teasing a thread from a loom, smoothed the crease like calming ripples, and stood at the door. “I’ve got my plan for the Inner Pavilion,” she said, steady as a lantern in a night breeze. “No need to trouble Master.”

“But, Senior Sister—” Don’t rush the river, Shuiqin wanted to say. She looked up, and Nana’s shadow had already slipped inside like a swallow into the rafters.

Shuiqin Lin stood alone with a lunch box, lost as a stray cloud. Disciples passed by like a small stream of bodies. They threw curious looks at the girl stuck at the fifth layer of Qi Refining, hovering outside the Pavilion like a chick at the nest edge.

“Name, cultivation, master, expected return. Fill everything out.” The moment Nana entered, a voice rose from a shadowed corner like a bell under moss.

An old man sat by a wooden table, skin bronze like old bell metal, tall as a pine, with a thin goatee like a single frost-thread. His lids drooped like heavy shutters, and after speaking, he seemed to sleep like a stone.

Nana’s heart tightened like a bowstring. No wonder the Great Elder guarded this place like a mountain. She hadn’t sensed a soul sitting there at all.

That old man in the corner looked past seventy winters. He spoke without weight in his tone, yet pressure rolled off him like thunder beyond distant clouds.

Not someone to poke, a rock with iron under it.

Nana stepped up, picked up the brush like lifting a reed, and bent to write each stroke as careful as carving on bamboo. She filled the booklet with her details, one by one.

She retreated two steps, bowed like a willow in wind, and asked, “Reporting to Elder. The disciple has registered.”

“...”

Silence fell like snow.

Nana held the bow a moment longer, then she straightened, brisk as a snap. She turned and headed deeper into the Pavilion like a fish slipping upstream.

Hmph. Ignore me and I’ll ignore you. I paid my respects. Even if you’re the Great Elder, what more can you do?

At that same moment, after Nana’s steps faded like a wick’s hiss, the old man’s eyelids lifted a sliver, a falcon’s glance flicking to the booklet. A faint doubt crossed his face like a cloud’s shadow.

A fire-root child walking toward water manuals. Wrong stream?

...

Elsewhere, Nana Toki moved through rows of shelves like trees in a winter grove. She found the water manuals’ library like a hidden cove. Her purpose glimmered there.

“Azure Sea Tide Technique... that’s the one.” She drew the book from the shelf, tide-blue cover cool as lakewater in her hand. She sat on the floor, casual as a cat in sunlight, and turned the pages.

It was the heroine’s golden finger. Yet the more Nana read, the smaller the net seemed. The technique served a narrow shore. It helped newly awakened roots cross the first river into Qi Refining, firming basics like tamping earth. Or it warmed tendons and strengthened the body like slow sun.

For cultivation, it was smoke you couldn’t grasp.

This is the heroine’s golden finger?!

Nana flipped through it twice, front to back, like sifting sand for gold, and found no sparkle.

If she hadn’t watched the world’s plot, she’d have thought her System had tricked her again, like a fox swapping baskets.

System: “...” This System gets shot even while lying flat.

Mm...

No wonder it was the heroine’s exclusive golden finger. Even she couldn’t see its depths, like a well with a moon at the bottom.

Forget it. I’ll keep it first. I’ll take it out and let my cheap master study it at leisure, like steeping tea slow.

She wandered a bit more, feet quiet as falling petals, and drifted over to the fire manuals’ library where her own root burned bright.

Then the shelves flared with names like sparks in dry grass. Burning Flame Formula. Flowing Fire Sword. Starfire Finger. Techniques glittered, flashy as fireworks over a lake.

Nana skimmed them, quick as a swallow. Their practical use was broad, sturdy as good boots. Internal arts and external techniques, both could reach grand completion like a full moon.

But each demanded time like a long winter, slow and unhurried.

Nana had no wish to bury months for a few manuals she’d never even heard of, like trading a river for a puddle.

“Hm? What’s this? Fusion Flame Art?” A plain, old book sat beside the others like a rock among jewels.

“With fire as the guide, fuse myriad flames, forge the immortal body.” The line sang high and cold, like a blade flashing under sun.

Sounded lofty, like thunder above the peaks.

She flipped a few pages, casual as flicking ash, and her brows arched. This one was odd.

Other fire techniques focused on refining qi first, fire second. Nourish the root with qi, and your realm rose like a sapling growing trunk.

But the Fusion Flame Art flipped the river. It focused on refining flame first, qi second. It treated the spiritual root like a weapon, tempering it again and again like steel in a forge, to fortify the flesh.

Nana clicked her tongue, amused like a magpie. It had the scent of demonic arts, dark and hot.

“Guess I’ll train it.” She grinned, a spark dancing under her tongue.

System: “The host herself calls it a demonic art, and still trains it?!” The System’s circuits buzzed like startled bees.

It’s because it’s a demonic art that it’s fun.

System: “...”

There was still a whole month. No need to rush out like rain before the clouds. Yiling Shen’s seclusion would take a month to mend her health, like slow dew on withered grass.

She could hole up here, learn what she could like gleaning in a field. Even if she couldn’t master it, she’d copy the gist and practice at home by lamplight.

If it worked, she might even waltz into the sect tournament and smack the heroine fair and square, like thunder across a clear sky.

Whichever way, it was profit.

System: “...”