“Name, cultivation, lineage, time of exit—write each down, neat as carvings on wet stone.”

Bowing like a willow in a breeze, Yiling Shen took the brush by the stone table and filled the form in swift strokes.

“Go in.”

The Grand Elder leaned on a rattan chair like old bamboo in snow and lifted a hand, waving her through like parting reeds.

“Thank you, Grand Elder.”

She cupped her fists, then strode inward like a river arrowing into a canyon’s dark.

After straying into Demonfall Cliff last time, a chill like deep water stayed in her heart before her steps.

She knew slow drifting wouldn’t do, like a pond refusing the tide, so she pushed on with the bite of winter in her resolve.

To carve a sky with the weakest water root of this era, she’d pay ten times the sweat, like bailing a sea with bare hands.

Yiling Shen had a secret, held close like a warm ember under frost.

Yes, a secret about Demonfall Cliff, where shadows pooled like ink in a well.

She told no one that, in its depths, she met an old man caged like a hawk with clipped wings.

She didn’t know his name, only that anyone sealed in that abyss was likely a storm wearing a smile.

They made a trade, fair as a scale that weighs tears and steel.

He’d teach her how to rush past the early slowness of a water root, like riding a flood instead of wading a creek.

In return, when she reached Nascent Soul, she’d come back and break the seals, like cracking ice to free a river.

She knew freeing him could be a calamity, like loosing wildfire in dry grass, yet her heart didn’t flinch.

She only needed strength, cold and clear as moonlit water, to cut her own channel.

She even believed that, upon reaching Nascent Soul, she could suppress him again, like a mountain pinning a serpent.

So Yiling Shen agreed, the word leaving her lips like a blade leaving its sheath.

The old man admired her talent like a crane noticing a young falcon, and took her as a registered disciple in shadow.

He even helped her condense a Golden Core, a pearl conjured like frost on a winter leaf.

Finally, he told her to seek a manual in the Cloudpeak Sect’s Inner Pavilion, named the Azure Sea Tide Technique, hidden like a shell in sand.

Then pair it with a water-type beast’s Golden Core, and the slow stream would surge like spring snowmelt.

Yes—Yiling Shen had a Golden Core, gleaming like a moon behind clouds.

She was only at Foundation Establishment, yet he forced the Core into being, like molding thunder into a seed.

That Core wasn’t a true Golden Core, only a vessel, a lantern that lights only when the wick is turned.

It appeared only when she ran the method, like a fish flickering up through dark water.

Otherwise, unless you looked very closely, even a top-tier expert couldn’t see a Core in her dantian, like mist hiding a ridge.

It had no special edge, only one duty, storing excess Spirit Energy like a cistern under rain.

When she reached the Golden Core Stage, it would feed the true Core, like compost turning to spring soil.

“That old monster’s no common reed,” she muttered, walking deeper into the Inner Pavilion where dust lay like sleepy snow.

Heat tightened her fist as she felt the false Core spin, a hidden moon tugging at her tides.

He said as much, yet she felt he hid more, like a fisherman smiling with a net behind his back.

That false Core wasn’t only a vessel, and the thought prickled like sand in a boot.

She only wanted to find the Azure Sea Tide Technique, to train fast and shed the false moon like a snakeskin.

“Azure Sea Tide Technique… where are you hiding?” she whispered, voice light as mist over a lake.

She spent nearly an afternoon turning the Inner Pavilion over, shelf to shelf, like a tide combing pebbles.

Still no trace of the technique, not even a salt-scent to follow.

Was the old monster lying, his promise a mirage like heat on a distant road?

She held a manual called Blue Surge Break and frowned like clouds gathering over a ridge.

She’d heard of the Azure Sea Tide Technique, not a famed art, easy to find like a crab in a shallow pool.

She’d searched high and low, yet it slipped away like an eel, and doubt coiled around her thoughts.

Had someone taken it, plucked like a quiet plum from a low branch?

Impossible, she thought, brows easing like wind smoothing ripples.

Who’d waste their one entry into the Inner Pavilion on a water-root method that did nothing for them, unless they were a moron?

She shook her head, setting that thought aside like a stone on a trail.

She had to ask, like a traveler tapping a hermit’s door at dusk.

The Grand Elder at the door had guarded these halls for ages, like pine standing through a hundred snows.

He should know where that manual slept, tucked like a pearl in kelp.

So she turned back and walked to the entrance, feet steady as a metronome in rain.

She opened her mouth to ask about the Azure Sea Tide Technique, yet the old pine spoke first.

“What is it?” His voice drifted like a dry leaf across wood.

He sat before a wooden table, leafing a thin booklet, eyes lowered like winter skies.

“Grand Elder, forgive my boldness,” she said, bowing like grass before wind, fear cool as dew on her spine.

“I wish to ask about a cultivation manual,” her words careful as stepping stones in a stream.

“Speak.” He barely lifted his eyelids, then let them fall like shutters against sun.

“…”

“Grand Elder, is there a technique in the Pavilion called the Azure Sea Tide Technique?” she asked, voice steady as a taut bowstring.

“Azure Sea Tide Technique?” His dry fingers stilled, a cricket falling silent in straw.

He slowly looked up, gaze like a lantern turning toward a lone traveler. “Why do you want it?”

“To cultivate it,” she replied, letting the truth fall like a pebble into a still pool.

From his reaction, she knew the manual existed, tucked like a secret grotto behind reeds.

She just didn’t know why she couldn’t find it, like a trail swallowed by fog.

“…”

“You’re late.” He studied her spiritual root again and again, eyes a whetted knife, then looked back down.

“Not long ago, someone took that manual,” he said, voice flat as a frozen pond.

Taken? The word struck like a dropped icicle, and her willow brows knit.

She hadn’t thought someone would reach for that script, like a bird choosing a quiet branch over a fruit-laden bough.

“May I ask who took it?” She cupped her fists again, her expression twisted like wind in tall grass.

Coincidence, or another water-root cultivator scenting the same tide?

“The Inner Pavilion doesn’t reveal which disciple took which manual,” he said, gaze flashing like steel in dawn.

“Didn’t Yunlan teach you the rules here?” His words cracked like thunder on a mountain face.

Her blood and Spirit Energy surged like waves against cliffs, breath snagging like a kite in a gust.

For a heartbeat, she felt she could be crushed like an ant under a thumb of iron.

Yunlan was her master, the Sect Master herself, a name that rolled like distant thunder over the Cloudpeak Sect.

Only the Grand Elder dared speak it so plainly, like a bell rung in a quiet shrine.

“Since you’re Yunlan’s last disciple, I’ll overlook this once,” he said, voice dropping like snow after a storm.

“If you break the rules again, hm—see to yourself,” he finished, turning back to the booklet like a monk to scripture.

“…”

She drew breath in heavy pulls, like a bellows feeding a forge, and smoothed her Spirit Energy like a hand on silk.

Yiling Shen bit her lip, clenched her fists, and turned back into the pavilion’s depths like a diver aiming for black water.

…

“Achoo!”

At the same time, on Stream Peak, Nana Toki sneezed out of nowhere, a spark popping from a hearth.

“Ugh… that moron muttering about me again?” she grumbled, rubbing her nose like a cat swiping at a tickle.

Shuiqin Lin handed her a handkerchief, soft as spring cotton, and Nana dabbed gently.

“Senior Sister, the weather’s cooling like shade creeping up a wall,” Shuiqin said, filling her cup with tea like pouring amber rain. “Want more layers?”

Ever since Nana Toki came back from the Inner Pavilion, she’d lounged like a rich miss basking under a veranda, doing nothing but breathing easy.

“…”

Add clothes, huh? A fire-root cultivator catching a cold would be like a stove freezing in midsummer.

If she caught one, ghosts might as well catch sunlight.

Besides, cultivators almost never catch colds, like cranes ignoring mud on their feet.

Nana doubted her junior even remembered they were cultivators, and her smile bent like a reed hiding laughter.

“But did Senior Sister pick any powerful techniques this time?” Shuiqin poured herself tea, sitting shoulder to shoulder like sparrows on a rail.

Her eyes were bright pools staring at Nana, brimming with curiosity like a brook in spring.

Mm, Senior Sister’s Spirit Energy was thicker than a month ago, like broth turned rich over a slow fire.

As expected, Senior Sister’s the best, she thought, heart flowering like peach blossoms.

So good… when will I be as strong as her, she wondered, a wish flickering like a lantern in dusk.

“…”

Nana could read those thoughts on her face, clear as ink on paper waving in wind.

“Well… I just picked a few at random,” she said, turning her gaze aside like a swallow dodging a branch. “Nothing amazing.”

After all, telling her she chose a water-root technique with a fire root would be like tossing oil into a quiet pan.

“Picked at random… that’s not good, Senior Sister,” Shuiqin said, her face sinking like a cloud losing light.

“You’re the most gifted among the young disciples, yet you’re so casual, like tossing pearls into a basin.”

“I should’ve stopped you from going to the Inner Pavilion,” she sighed, breath fluttering like a silk ribbon.

“Maybe we should ask Master to find you some good techniques,” she added, concern warm as a shawl. “Master cares about you.”

“…”

Please no, Nana thought, wincing like a cat shown a bath, not eager for weird methods that smelled like old pickles.

“Speaking of Master, when’s she coming back?” Nana asked, popping a grape like a ember-sweet berry and watching the valley like a hawk.

It was just a beast subjugation at Demonfall Cliff, like sweeping leaves off a path, yet it’d been a month, and even the Shrine Water hadn’t come.

She set a flag in her heart like a prayer flag to the wind and hoped it wouldn’t snap.

Please don’t be missing limbs, she thought dryly, or later you won’t be able to guard my breakthroughs, like a wall with holes in rain.

System: “…”

Host, you sound like a ghost whispering curses, the voice sighed like a draft under a door.

“A few days ago, disciples under the Fifth Elder said the Demonfall campaign ended,” Shuiqin said, worry pooling like rain in a bowl.

“They should be returning now, but this return’s too long, like a shadow that won’t lift at noon.”

Demonfall Cliff wasn’t far from the Cloudpeak Sect, the round trip three days, like a crane’s flight across two lakes.

But it’s been almost a week with no word, she thought, a chill like morning mist coiling in her chest.

Maybe something really happened, and her hands tightened on her cup like frost clasping a leaf.