Day 3 of Exponential Growth
The third mark joined the others on the stone wall—three sharp lines, carved with the same wrapped shard of broken pedestal. Lin Xun stared at them in silence. A tally of time. Of growth. Of danger.
He was no longer the same person who had stumbled into this ruin two nights ago.
His limbs were heavier now. Not in a burdensome way—but with a kind of dormant strength. When he flexed his fingers, his knuckles cracked like small stones grinding together. His grip could probably crush bone without trying.
He'd tested it earlier.
There had been a chunk of collapsed ceiling in the corner—nothing large, just a chunk of old stone about the size of a melon. Lin Xun had picked it up out of boredom, turning it over in his palm like a worry stone. Then, just for curiosity, he squeezed.
The rock didn't resist. It crumbled.
No force, no effort. It had cracked under his fingers like an overripe fruit, dry dust spilling between his fingers.
He didn't know whether to be impressed or afraid.
This was no gradual progression. No Body Forging disciple improved this quickly—not even core sect geniuses with elder guidance. This was a leap. A chasm crossed in a single bound.
It didn't make sense.
But Lin Xun had stopped expecting sense.
Instead, he observed. Tracked. Logged.
He studied the changes in his body as a scholar would study a foreign script.
His eyesight had sharpened again today. He noticed the subtle flaking in the stone near the ceiling—bits of white embedded in the granite that weren't there before. He could even make out the faded edges of the ancient wall carvings now, as if his vision was learning to see through the age.
But it was the sound that truly changed.
He could hear things.
Faint vibrations in the floor, like distant echoes carried from somewhere far above. Sometimes it sounded like wind. Other times… like footsteps. Heavy ones.
He hadn't left the ruin. He didn't dare. But he'd begun mapping the chamber more thoroughly. There were no runes for detection, no formations to guide him—but there was logic, architecture. And one constant: everything in this room was designed for concealment.
Even the hidden door he found yesterday.
He hadn't opened it yet.
But every time he sat to meditate, he could feel it. As if some part of his body had begun attuning to the space, responding to its shape and pressure. That hollow segment of wall didn't just look different—it sounded different.
And last night, when he was on the edge of sleep, he swore he heard a faint clicking behind it.
Mechanisms?
Or… something alive?
Lin Xun wasn't ready to find out.
Instead, he focused on his internal changes.
His dantian had begun forming more clearly now. It was no longer just warmth. It pulsed now—a slow, methodical throb beneath his navel, in rhythm with his heartbeat. It was subtle, not the roaring qi seas described in fantasy manuals, but something real. Measurable.
He wasn't supposed to feel this yet. He hadn't cultivated a single breathing technique. He hadn't gathered qi from the environment. And yet…
Each breath filled him with more clarity.
Each moment of stillness made the pressure grow stronger.
This morning, he discovered something else.
While meditating, he'd reached a moment of stillness so complete that time seemed to blur. His thoughts stilled. His breath slowed. And then he felt… resistance.
It wasn't physical. It was inside him. Like a membrane of thick fog just past the dantian. He pushed gently against it—and it pushed back.
Then, for a single heartbeat, it cracked.
A rush of heat had flooded his body, sharper than before. It hadn't lasted long. But it left him gasping.
It wasn't pain. It was more like…
Acceleration.
And now, hours later, his body still hummed from the aftershock.
He'd experienced something similar in one of the outer sect logs—a damaged scroll written by a rogue cultivator. The scroll had described a breakthrough event as "tearing open the inner veil." Most disciples dismissed the scroll as nonsense because it lacked a formal cultivation framework.
But Lin Xun remembered it.
He remembered everything.
He read more like that scroll than any of the sect's official manuals.
The more he thought about it, the more it made sense.
He wasn't walking a path someone else laid.
He was carving one of his own.
Lin Xun stood and paced the room slowly. His balance had shifted too. His footsteps landed softer, more precisely. He could feel the shifting weight in his bones—like his very structure was changing to accommodate the power swelling inside him.
He took a stance. One of the most basic martial stances taught to outer disciples—Tiger's Posture. Legs bent, one palm raised, body coiled.
It was a form designed for stability.
But when Lin Xun shifted into it now, he noticed something strange.
He felt... constrained.
As if the stance no longer fit him.
The weight in his hips felt wrong. The hand position inefficient.
He adjusted. Tweaked. Moved his foot an inch wider, lowered his elbow slightly, rotated the wrist.
The result was instantaneous.
The pressure in his chest leveled out. His breathing synchronized with the stance. The energy in his limbs stopped surging outward and instead—flowed.
It was the first time he felt like he wasn't containing the power—but channeling it.
Even without technique, this was a kind of cultivation. Raw. Instinctive. A body's natural response to pressure.
"Maybe that's what this is," he murmured aloud. "A cultivation method without a method."
He returned to the pedestal.
Not much remained—just the shattered stone base and fragments of what might have once been a statue or relic. But there was one piece that caught his eye today: a shard with a faint groove running along its surface. Not decorative. Functional.
Like something once slotted into it.
He tilted his head, examining it from different angles.
It could've held a tablet. Or a core. Or even a small formation disc.
But it was long gone.
Still, he made a mental note of it. The presence of a pedestal meant this room had once been a sacred space. A shrine. A seal.
Or a cell.
Whatever had once stood here had long been removed… or escaped.
The thought disturbed him more than he liked to admit.
And that door in the wall?
He was beginning to think it hadn't been meant to be opened from the outside.
Lin Xun sat again in the corner, wrapping his robe tighter. The temperature had dropped subtly, or maybe it only felt that way because his senses were more attuned now.
He took out his last steamed bun and split it in half. His hunger was growing quicker now. The rations wouldn't last another two days, even if he rationed aggressively.
I'll need to go topside soon.
A supply run.
Risky. But necessary.
The sect wouldn't expect him to survive out here for long. They might already think he fled into the wilds—or perished in one of the old ravines.
But Lin Xun wasn't ready to resurface yet.
Not until he could guarantee he wouldn't be taken.
He would go at night. Quiet. Covered. He'd memorized the guard rotation near the storehouses back when he volunteered for delivery duty. He knew where the blind spots were.
And once he returned…
He'd open the hidden door.
Not blindly.
He'd set precautions.
Use stone markers. Trap strings. Maybe even leave a warning behind, just in case the worst happened.
Because Lin Xun had a feeling.
That what waited beyond that hollow wall…
Was the real reason this ruin had been sealed