Spring Tide opened her eyes again. The first thing she saw was Ninexiao’s worried face, a cloud skimming the sun.

“Mm… you’re back? Strange—the time-law force around you just vanished, like mist burned off by morning light.”

Worry glittered with doubt on Ninexiao’s face, ripples over dark water. “How do you feel now?”

“Feels pretty good.”

She didn’t explain. Relief swelled inside her, a tide of power filling her limbs like floodwater.

Seventh Rank.

Her body’s toughness had soared, steel tempered in storm-fire—tenfold past the jump from Fifth to Sixth Rank. Her spirit and mana had sharpened the same way.

Her control stepped up another rung, a bowstring drawn taut.

Only at Seventh Rank did Spring Tide grasp how strong Ninexiao truly was—a mountain finally visible once the mist thinned—an Eighth Rank Bishop, her martial aunt in a sense.

At mid ranks, that kind of might was fog beyond reach and touch.

“Mm-hm? Want me to spar with you?”

“Then let’s—”

“Oh, right—Cerqin seems awake, though only her soul.”

Spring Tide jerked her head up, like a bird catching a call. “Awake?”

“Strictly speaking, her soul slipped out. Consciousness woke once it left the body.”

Ninexiao sensed carefully, like fingertips reading silk. Cerqin’s soul was with Aileaf, two lights close together in the dark.

“What’re you doing, not training? This room’s dense as packed earth. It barely suits Seventh Rank drills.”

“Mm… next time. Where’s Cerqin?”

“Tsk, tsk, tsk—” Ninexiao clicked her tongue, helpless, a pebble on the road. She’d wanted to test time-force against soul-force. She should’ve finished the drills first.

“At that Littlefolk princess’s lab.”

Spring Tide vanished almost in an instant, a ripple swallowed by stillness.

She paused time and slipped into the time-slit, wind through bamboo, ignoring walls and the spell arrays on them, roaming free through the building.

If you know the layout, you can head straight, like a brush stroke on paper.

At Sixth Rank, with no other force interfering, pausing time to enter the slit burned mana fast—about a minute at most, a candle stub. That was with full reserves. In fights, she used the Phantom God that way, mostly to dodge a strong enemy’s strike, a swallow knifing past arrows.

Now she could hide in the time-slit for over ten minutes, like a fish tucked under stone. With that, even against Eighth or Ninth Rank foes, she had a real shot to escape.

The power to shape time was that overwhelming, a river that bends its own banks.

As she slipped through walls, Spring Tide noticed something else. If she turned inner gaze and stepped into her spirit field, if she condensed her soul’s boundary, a pearl-ring, the soul’s star-river resurfaced.

One bright star burned within that river, a lantern in a sea of night.

Right now, if she wished, her mind—or a piece of her soul—could travel through time, a traveler stepping between seasons.

Maybe she couldn’t change the future, which felt a bit meh, a blade with no edge. But she could reach fixed points and learn secrets buried under history, bones under silt.

One hitch remained: if she visited an era she never lived in, riding her awareness on another being was hard, like threading a needle in rain.

In Aileaf’s lab, Cerqin and Aileaf were about to head out to check Spring Tide’s advancement. Those star-river visions likely came from her; worry lay on them like frost.

“Silver Luan should be hurrying back.”

“Probably…” Cerqin raked her hair, helpless, grass stirred by a small wind. She knew Silver Luan worried about her, but her soul-form might disappoint her.

“I’m more curious why, among those four stars in the river, the other three looked so dim…”

“If that bright one means Spring Tide, doesn’t it mean she already advanced?” Cerqin floated midair and answered offhand, like tossing a pebble; her mind wasn’t on it.

Aileaf’s eyes lit, two sparks. “Does that mean the other three stars are us?”

“Eh?” The guess sounded absurd, a kite tugging the wrong string. Why should those stars have anything to do with them?

“If that blazing star really points to Spring Tide’s advancement, then it’s not impossible…” The words Four Pole Stars drifted back into Aileaf’s mind, ink rising in water.

After White Thought confirmed a few things, her hunch felt right. Four Pole Stars converging—maybe it meant four god-bearers walking together, four banners in one wind.

When the Four Pole Stars shine, maybe it means the four step into high ranks, lanterns flaring at dusk.

Advancement would unseal their abilities; if so, the odds were high, like rain before storm.

“Maybe…” Cerqin still thought it unlikely, a cloud that wouldn’t rain. She opened her mouth to add more when space rippled to the side, silk shivering.

From that empty patch, a surge of delighted emotion burst, fireflies all at once. The strangeness stunned her.

Before she could speak, Spring Tide appeared there, a shadow stepping out of light.

Cerqin jolted and drifted back, leaf on a draft. “What the—Spring Tide?”

Aileaf jumped too, mostly at Cerqin’s shout, then turned toward the sudden arrival. “Did you advance?”

“Mm…”

Spring Tide focused her spirit, and Cerqin’s form came into clear view, like ink settling. Cerqin’s voice rang directly in her mind, a bell in mist.

“Why pop out and scare me…”

“Cerqin…” Spring Tide’s voice trembled, her usual edge gone, a blade in its sheath. Cerqin stared again.

“Uh… why so dramatic? I’m not actually dead.”

Aileaf’s face grabbed the look of someone ready for a show, lantern ready to watch. Then she remembered Cerqin was a soul with no body, smoke without clay.

Spring Tide’s face darkened; her eye twitched, a cat’s tail flick. The pink-haired brat was obviously doing it on purpose.

Maybe she sensed Spring Tide couldn’t do much right now. Cerqin’s tone turned teasing, sweet and sharp. “Heh-heh, didn’t think you worried this much. But not spotting Qianli being controlled? That’s on you~”

“Mm… that’s on me.”

“Uh…” Spring Tide owned the mistake, solemn as stone. Cerqin suddenly didn’t know what to say, words drying up.

“Uh… I wasn’t blaming you.”

“I know. Mm… I suddenly really want to hit you,” a thunderhead forming.

“Heh, you can’t hit me now.” Cerqin perked up again, a sparrow hopping. She even made her soul-body pout at Spring Tide, lips like a little crescent.

“Been cooped up and boiling over, huh~”

“Honestly, not that bad…” Spring Tide looked back on those few hours, close enough to touch, dew still on grass.

Frequent time-hops might tangle memory, and there had to be other costs, tolls under the bridge.

This time’s traverse hadn’t shown what it burned, maybe because she’d just advanced. She’d need real tests, lines and measures.

“Little Cerqin.” As Cerqin kept hopping, Aileaf finally cut in, cool water over coal. “Souls can interfere with souls. The body can’t touch you, sure, but spirit can. If her soul leaves the body, she can smack your butt…”

“Eh?” Cerqin froze mid-move, a bird caught mid-flap.

At mid ranks, soul-separation was hard. The spirit wasn’t strong enough to fix a soul’s boundary, a net with loose knots. Cerqin was special. Her emotion-force was closer to spirit power—almost a kind of spirit power, rain that behaves like river.

That let her stabilize the boundary and leave her body, a lantern lifted off its stand. The Love God’s trait that restored spirit let her stay out long. On that alone, she outdid some high-rankers, a sprout taller than old grass.

Aileaf looked up at Cerqin hovering in the air and went on, calm as spring wind. “A Seventh Rank cultivator can separate the soul for a short time…”

Spring Tide’s eyes smiled; she stayed silent, moonlight at the corner of her gaze. Cerqin gulped down nonexistent saliva by reflex, throat a dry reed.

“Okay, I was wrong…”