Ryu murmured, "I don't know if I could even save this many people if in the next trial devastation came."
Ryu watched the group closely as hours passed.
The central chamber had grown quieter, filled now with murmured conversations, slow footsteps, and the quiet hum of cultivation. Bodies still ached. Scars still bled. But the atmosphere had shifted.
Acceptance.
They were thirteen now, just shy of the twenty-point array etched across the hall. Ryu watched the formation still glowing gently, as if aware of their presence. A sliver of heat pulsed beneath the obelisk, patient… expectant.
From the left-most entrance, another group emerged. Ten cultivators in total. Their pace was uneven, steps limping, some leaning heavily on others. Blood was dry on torn robes. Qi flickered weakly around their frames. And among them, three were clearly maimed. Two without left arms. One missing his forearm from the elbow down, hastily wrapped in blood-stained cloth.
Three of the others looked untouched.
Warren moved to meet them.
But Ronan stepped forward first.
He narrowed his eyes at the tattered robes, then gave a slow nod of recognition. "People of the White Heaven and White Earth Sects," he said with formal respect, "I am Ronan of the Ice-Lily Sect. Welcome to the inner hall."
Ryu raised a brow at the deference in his tone. Ronan wasn't one to bow his head easily.
But then came the answer.
"Good evening, Ronan," said the man at the centre of the newly arrived group. His voice rang clearly, crisp and confident, each syllable landing like polished steel. "I see your party looks surprisingly large. Did your master give you permission to drag in all the riffraff?"
Ryu's eyes narrowed.
The speaker was tall, effortlessly composed. His long brown hair flowed freely over white-gold robes marked with the cloud-split sigil of the White Heaven Sect. He couldn't have been older than twenty-four. But his presence was sharp. Regal. And his cultivation… Ryu didn't even need to probe.
Ascension Stage Eight. And holding it effortlessly.
Ronan flinched ever so slightly at the tone.
The man continued. "My master told me this palace may hold the inheritance of the Sovereign of the Sixth Realm. A grand claim, I know, but I trust his wisdom. After all, he trained under the sovereign himself."
His words fell with the weight of lineage.
Ryu stepped back beside Veris and whispered, "Who is he?"
Veris' expression tightened. "That's Baihu. The White Tiger. Personal disciple of the White Heaven Sect's Master… who's without a doubt in the Transcendence Stage."
Ryu gave a low whistle. "Well, that explains Ronan's face."
He wasn't wrong.
Ronan held his stance, but his jaw was clenched. His shoulders had drawn a fraction tighter.
Baihu moved closer, eyeing the obelisk at the centre of the formation with mild disinterest, as though waiting for someone else to explain it to him.
"I assume you've all been standing around long enough to figure something out?" he asked.
Ronan inclined his head. "We believe the obelisk functions through a twenty-point formation. It draws power not from gemstones or cores, but from living cultivators, through Qi."
Baihu scoffed. "And you've only filled thirteen of the points?" His gaze swept across both groups. "Convenient. Now that we've arrived, that brings us to twenty-three."
"Twenty, exactly," Warren corrected. "Some of yours are injured."
"They'll stand," Baihu said flatly. "They need to be of some use."
His arrogance was unshaken. Yet even still, he approached the formation, scanning the etched lines like a strategist reviewing a battlefield.
Ronan stepped forward again. "Before you rush in, understand this, this isn't just a key. It's a filter. The last trial cost seven lives. One of them was Ascension Stage Two. This formation isn't here to look pretty."
Baihu tilted his head. "And what, you think I can't pass through this array?"
"That's not what I said," Ronan replied evenly. "But this room doesn't care about ego. It'll only work if we support each other."
Baihu looked like he might offer another jab. Then paused. A flicker of something, caution, or perhaps calculation, crossed his features. He stepped back with a flourish of his sleeve.
"Very well. Explain your plan."
Ronan nodded slowly. "The array pulses in a rhythm. We believe it scans cultivators as they release Qi into the leyline points. The balance of power matters. If it senses chaos or imbalance, it might reject us. That's why we think only those at Elemental Stage Five and above should be used. And we must work in harmony."
"And if someone doesn't output enough?" Baihu asked.
"We wait until it stabilizes," Ronan said. "And we test it carefully, before anyone commits fully."
Baihu gave a soft snort. "Interesting. For a ruin, it's surprisingly polite."
No one laughed.
Ryu watched quietly, noting how even beneath the mockery, Baihu's eyes remained sharp, watching everyone. Judging. Measuring.
He wasn't reckless.
He was dangerous.
And maybe a little too confident.
"We should wait for the next pulse," Lira said softly. "It's due soon."
Warren nodded. "Then we prepare."
Twenty cultivators stepped forward to take their positions along the carved ring of the formation. Of the twenty-three survivors, three stood aside. One had lost an arm in the previous trial. Another, from the Fire-Cloud Sect, had sustained internal damage. The third, a young girl barely older than Himari, stood beside Warren, her cultivation barely at Stage One of the Elemental Realm. She didn't speak, but the exhaustion in her eyes said enough.
The rest fanned out across the formation's twenty leyline sockets. Stronger cultivators were intentionally placed between weaker ones, hoping to balance the output, though whether it would work was another matter entirely.
As the obelisk pulsed again, a deep, resonant hum rippled across the floor. The cultivators responded in unison, each one pushing their Qi into the array at the level of Stage One Elemental.
The energy flowed.
The lines of the array shimmered faintly. A low resonance filled the room.
Then, nothing.
The light faded, the sound vanished.
"Not enough Qi," Ryu said plainly, withdrawing his energy.
Ronan nodded in agreement, surveying the room. "We'll try Rank Two next pulse. Keep your pacing tight. Don't overextend."
The group rested. Thirty minutes passed in near silence, the chamber holding its breath.
Then the pulse returned.
This time, twenty cultivators focused, drew deeper, and pushed Rank Two Elemental Qi into the formation.
The array glowed brighter.
A sharp hum echoed.
But the obelisk remained dormant.
And yet…
Ryu's hand pulsed, his mark flaring for the briefest second, a warmth spreading through his chest as if something unseen had awakened.
He inhaled slowly, then turned toward the others. "I think… I understand what's wrong. We're releasing the Qi during the pulse. But the obelisk doesn't want a surge, it wants a constant stream. One that bridges from pulse to pulse. Continuity."
The room turned toward him.
"You want us to hold the output?" one cultivator asked, panic rising in his voice. "For over thirty minutes? I can barely manage a Rank One stream that long."
"You won't need to," Ryu replied. "If someone next to you can push Rank Three, it might balance out. Think of it like tethered flow. Steady energy through the entire cycle. Not perfect power, just harmony."
Warren and Ronan looked at each other and nodded. "He's right," Warren said. "It matches the way the array ripples. I saw it too."
Yan raised her hand. "Let's move into position. We start on the next pulse."
The formation settled again.
The pulse came.
Twenty cultivators focused. The hum returned. This time, energy didn't spike. It flowed. Carried from socket to socket, ring to ring.
For the first twenty minutes, everything held.
But at thirty-two minutes, the two weakest cultivators flanking Ryu began to falter. Their Qi threads wavered, the lines beneath them dimming.
Ryu's eyes narrowed.
Without hesitation, he reached out, not with his hand, but with space.
A soft ripple cracked the air behind him.
A small rift opened.
Gasps followed.
Instead of breaking formation, Ryu funnelled his own Qi through the void slit, directing it into both failing sockets at once. The control was surgical, his energy bending across space, filling the gaps with pinpoint precision.
Even Baihu's jaw tensed as he watched.
That level of precision, balancing two separate flows at once through a spatial rift, was something even masters in the Transcendence Stage could rarely do.
And Ryu was still only supposed to be Stage Two Ascension.
Yet here he stood, expression calm, hand steady, energy unwavering.
The chamber brightened.
The pulse crested.
And then the obelisk flared.
Brilliant light burst outward from its peak, and with a heavy groan of stone, the centre of the formation dropped. The floor beneath the obelisk split apart like petals of a stone lotus, revealing a wide circular stairwell descending deep beneath the palace.
Everyone froze.
Then slowly, awe spread across the faces of the gathered cultivators.
It had worked.
More than that, Ryu's guidance, and his impossible spatial Qi mastery, had made it possible.
"He… he really did it," Akari whispered.
Veris turned to Himari. "I've only read about techniques like that in old records."
Yan approached Ryu as he lowered his hands. "That thing you did with the rift… are you alright?"
Ryu's breath was even. His tone steady. "I'm fine. But I've never held that much control before… not for that long."
Warren stepped closer, giving a short, respectful nod. "If there were doubts before, I think you just proved them all wrong."
Even Baihu, arms crossed at the back, said nothing.
But his gaze lingered on Ryu for a long time.
They had opened the path to the next trial.
But beneath the palace, buried in its forgotten foundation, was a chamber none of them were ready for.
And the real inheritance had yet to begin.
Everyone took a moment to breathe.
Those in the Elemental Stage looked pale and drained, their Qi reserves spent from maintaining the array for so long. Some collapsed to one knee, others lay flat against the cold stone, panting. But among Ryu's group, those who had cultivated higher, there was less strain. Yan's expression was calm, her breathing steady. Lira sat cross-legged with her eyes closed, calmly circulating her Qi. Ryu exhaled through his nose and rose to his feet.
Their seven regrouped near the newly revealed staircase. Qi pulsed softly around Ryu and Yan as they released gentle waves of energy, bolstering their team. The others felt it immediately, a faint surge, like a second wind.
Down below, Baihu was already moving.
He didn't look back. Didn't ask who could keep up or who had the strength to descend. His steps were steady, deliberate. Regal. He was here for the inheritance of a Sovereign, and he didn't intend to share it.
The stone staircase spiralled deep into the earth. Cool air flowed upward from the depths, tinged with an ancient, metallic scent. After several minutes, Ryu, Yan, and Lira followed. Their footfalls were quiet, but the space seemed to listen.
The lower chamber was smaller than the previous one, circular in design, the walls etched with runes that pulsed faintly with spatial energy. The light was dim, but even in the gloom, one thing stood out.
The array.
It was different.
Eight positions formed a perfect ring around a compact obelisk. Unlike the one above, this structure was shorter and broader, its sloping pyramid shape condensed, each face engraved top to bottom in densely packed runes. Qi pulsed from it like a heartbeat.
Ryu stepped forward. The moment his eyes landed on the floor's pattern, something clicked. The threads of the Dao stirred within him. He could feel it, the ripple of space folding inwards.
He crouched low, fingertips brushing the edge of one of the eight formation points. "It's a space array," he said under his breath.
Yan leaned closer. "You're sure?"
Ryu nodded. "Absolutely. Whoever stands in those positions and injects Qi… they'll be sent somewhere."
"Together?" Lira asked.
Ryu hesitated. "I don't know. It could split us up. Or send us into the same place from different entry points. Either way… it's a teleportation gate."