"There is a path in blood, too..."
Lin Shisan crouched before the rock wall etched with shallow marks, quietly repeating the Mountain Guardian's words.
He looked at his fingertips. An extremely thin layer of gray-black powder clung to their pads.
After a moment's hesitation, he gently rubbed the powder into his palm.
The instant the powder touched his skin, a searing heat shot up from his palm, spreading along his meridians straight toward the dark golden mark on his chest. He grunted and abruptly clenched his fist. When the heat touched the edge of the mark, it rebounded and receded along his meridians. The gray-black powder remaining on his fingertips vanished with it.
"Your blood is opening the door for you."
The Mountain Guardian's voice came from above.
At some point, she had appeared on the jutting ice cliff above his head.
"Opening the door?"
"The door has always been there. Five hundred years ago, that person said the way to open it was carved into the blood. Your blood is trying to push that door open, but it still lacks a catalyst."
Lin Shisan stood and brushed the snow from his knees. "What catalyst?"
"How much do you remember of the star chart you just saw?"
He froze for a moment. The complete star chart on the ceiling of the altar cavern rose unbidden in his mind. Every star's position was as clear as an engraving, and even the lines connecting them were exact. He had copied it, drawing it on beastskin with melted snow.
"I remember every star," Lin Shisan said.
"What that star chart marks isn't stars in the sky, but underground spirit vein intersections. This mountain beneath your feet is one of them. There are nine others. To open this mountain's seal, lighting up this one