Mana ran thick enough to see, like liquid smoke in a windless room. It bowed to the array, then streamed into Spring Tide’s body like a river finding its bed. He felt it plain as thunder in the bones; his flesh was crossing a threshold.

Yet the bigger change rose in his spirit, like dawn overtaking night. As the Phantom God fully unlocked, his spirit power condensed, and under the outline of his soul, starlight glimmered like frost on black water.

Time’s power stirred at his urging and circled his body like a quiet halo. Far off in the corner, Ninexiao clicked his tongue, tsk-tsk, eyes bright as flint.

Every cultivator’s release after stepping into the higher tiers is its own path, like branches from the same trunk. Their ways of grasping their power differ, yet some roots run common like shared springs.

Ninexiao watched Spring Tide’s soul-state with a hunter’s stillness. In sheer body and spirit strength, Spring Tide already sat at the Seventh Rank, like a peak breaking the cloudline.

But the Phantom God kept pouring out time power, a steady tide against a silent shore. There was no sign of a rampage, yet the soul slipped into something subtle, like mist over a deep ravine.

Staring at that soul-state felt like staring into the long river of time, a horizon that never blinked. Ninexiao snapped his mind back like a hand from fire, alarm thudding through him as his spirit power drained fast, sand in an hourglass.

No wonder it’s time power, he thought, the words cold as iron. He skimmed back through a lifetime’s instincts like pages in a worn book, then checked the room’s magic circuits again, each line tight as harp-strings, and finally let out a slow breath.

Meanwhile, Spring Tide rode the current of his change with a ripple of awe, then let his awareness sink into the Phantom God like a diver into a moonlit pool. Bloodline knowledge unlocked with a click, and his grasp on time deepened, a blade honed on stone.

He gathered his awareness, and the scene opened: a starry sky spread above and within, lanterns hung in a limitless night. He could feel it clearly; this firmament lay inside his own soul like a sea inside a shell.

Wonder rose first, sweet and strange, and he whispered, “An awareness-body within the soul… this feels uncanny,” the words drifting like breath in winter.

If Ninexiao had seen him fold his awareness inward like this, he would’ve been shocked, a thunderclap in a clear sky.

Spring Tide shook his head to steady the ripples, then looked out over the sky that had no shore. He could sense the outer contour of his soul like the rim of a bowl, yet his awareness could not touch the sky’s edge, a horizon always three steps away.

“The long river of time… truly unfathomable,” he murmured, voice a reed in the current.

His gaze wandered, then caught on a single bright star, a beacon in a drifting host. All the other stars moved like shoals in a slow tide; this one stood fixed, nailed in place like a pin in jade.

From that bright star, he felt a familiar breath, warm as an old fire. He focused, and his awareness flickered, a candle guttering once.

In the room’s corner, Ninexiao’s face changed like a cloud crossing the moon. The star-river over Spring Tide’s soul suddenly began to flow fast, rising from below like a tide on a spring moon, and his whole soul-body wavered like a flame in draft.

Mana that had been slowing reared back like a horse and surged again, pouring into the body and then into the soul’s star-river like streams into a gorge.

“A time-power rampage?” Ninexiao stepped in with a heartbeat like a drum, then halted; the time power had leapt, the soul had wobbled, yet there was no wild break, only a deepening, like ice thickening over black water.

What leaked from Spring Tide’s body carried a denser taste, a deeper weave—rule-force, heavy as law carved in stone.

“Rules…” Ninexiao’s pupils tightened like knots as he felt the weight of it, disbelief hitting like cold rain.

“What in the world is this…” The time rule-force pushed past the Seventh Rank like a river over a sill, then even beyond the Eighth, a crest higher than his old maps allowed.

And still it climbed, a flame fed by hidden oil. It was his first time watching a god-ability user ascend, and he stood there unsure, hands empty as a monk’s bowl, grateful at least there was no rampage.

“Is this some special effect of a god-ability user?” The thought landed like a pebble in a pond.

The time rule-force rose to a new terrace, broke a boundary like ice under a heel, then cut off clean, a blade sheathed in a breath.

It vanished as if it had never been, silence falling like fresh snow. Ninexiao didn’t see it, but with that world-still moment, another thing went out—the awareness-body within Spring Tide’s soul, snuffed like a lamp.

At the same time, far off in Eastern Sea City, in the Eastern District Sanctuary HQ, Ming Xi lay on a sofa like a cat in sunlight, then opened his eyes and looked toward the Imperial Capital, gaze a spear through haze.

“Divine power… that’s the Capital’s direction, isn’t it?” His voice was a low bell.

Rule-force that strong brushed the threshold of godhood, a storm at the edge of heaven. Only a demigod beyond the Ninth Rank could strike so high, a hawk above the clouds.

That instant spike tugged at his curiosity like a hook; he sat up and stirred his own ability, a current through a coil.

Moments later, Ming Xi lifted his head with a start, surprise bright as lightning. “So fast… one of the Four Poles shows, and already reaches the end of the rope.”

In Aileaf’s lab, both Aileaf and Cerqin blinked from a shared daze, as if they had seen four cold stars and one suddenly lit like a beacon. They stared at each other, confusion hanging between them like mist.

“What was that…” Cerqin’s voice was a soft ripple.

“Four Pole Stars?” Aileaf’s murmur fell out on its own, then her brows drew together like two blades. The moment she saw that scene, the old prophetic term surfaced like a fish breaking water.

“What?” Cerqin asked, the word a dropped pebble.

“I… don’t know what it means,” Aileaf said, then paused, frowning deeper. “Wait—how do I know you saw what I saw, as if the thought was a shared thread?”

“Huh?” Cerqin froze, then replayed it, and found the same echo, a bridge between minds without a word built. The more he thought, the more he felt, without asking, that Silver Luan also knew what they’d seen, as if a web tied the three.

Such an eerie feeling crawled like ivy, yet neither caught it at first bite.

“By the way, Aileaf, you said Silver Luan went out to the Silver Dragon clan’s manor in the Capital,” Cerqin asked, anxiety a thrum in his chest. “When did he leave? He should be back soon, right?”

He wanted to use a comm-stone, but their current soul-state made it clumsy, like trying to grip water. Earlier, when they stopped Silver Luan from going out, things turned urgent, and he left before handing Cerqin his comm-stone, the thread snapping mid-knot.

They didn’t find him in the room, so Cerqin came to Aileaf’s lab for a lifeline, hoping she had a way to reach the other two, a lantern in fog.

“Mm, let me ask…” Aileaf said, already fishing out a comm-stone, smooth and cool as river jade. She fed it mana, and the stone woke like an eye.

She too had seen the vision and wore the same dazed glaze, but she had noticed the shared-thought ripple earlier, a mirrored lake catching the same moon.

The stone linked with a soft pulse, and Silver Luan’s voice came through, clear as a bell. “Aileaf?”

“Silver Luan, just now—” Her words tumbled like beads.

“Those images, right?” His reply cut gently, quick as a knife.

“So you saw them too.” Aileaf lifted her head and met Cerqin’s soul-shaped gaze, two sparks in the same glass.

“An elder of our clan was with me,” Silver Luan said, his voice steady as a steel wire. “He said that when I saw those images, a strand of very strong time rule-force flashed from me, like lightning through a tree.”

“Time rule-force?” Aileaf’s surprise rang like a struck chord.

“Yeah. So I suspect it’s tied to Spring Tide,” Silver Luan said, the name falling like a stone into deep water.

“But why would time power surge in us…” Aileaf frowned, doubt drifting like smoke. Spring Tide was advancing to the Seventh Rank, and no one knew what that awakening looked like, a sealed book unread.

Maybe it was coincidence, a leaf crossing a stream. Maybe it echoed when Cerqin and Spring Tide time-traveled together and caught memories from ahead, a mirror reflecting another mirror.

Either way, all three felt the same tug; this wasn’t simple, the air thick as storm heat.

“When will you be back?” Aileaf asked, voice a taut string.

“I’ll stay here for the night, then head back tomorrow,” Silver Luan said, the plan laid like a straight road.

“Alright.” Aileaf glanced at Cerqin, thought a beat, then spoke again, words like a door just opening. “By the way, Cerqin’s consciousness has awakened, though right now—”

The comm-stone’s glow went dark in a blink, the link cutting off like a snipped thread. Aileaf scratched her small head, sheepish as a child.

“I wasn’t finished yet…” she muttered, the complaint a puff of steam in winter air.