At the foot of the mountain
The outline of the Heavenly Wolf Mountain Range grew clearer as they drew closer.
After three days on the road, the fields on either side of the official road gradually gave way to rolling hills, which rose into the silhouettes of a continuous mountain range. A thin layer of frost covered the road, crunching underfoot. Yu Jin's stamina had improved considerably since they left the city. Though he still had to rest after every stretch of walking, he no longer needed Long Tian to support him. His steps grew steadier and his breathing deeper, as though the cold mountain air had brought him to life.
On the evening of the third day, the two finally saw the old wooden sign for Soul Hunting Town. It leaned more sharply than it had three years ago, and wind and rain had worn away half the characters for "Soul Hunting Town." But the low sheds at the town entrance were still there, with strings of dried beast hides and herbs hanging beneath their eaves, swaying gently in the evening breeze.
Long Tian led Yu Jin into an old inn at the western end of town. The landlady was dozing behind the stove, but she looked up and recognized him. "Oh? Aren't you the little boy Mr. Wang brought here to stay back then?" She looked Long Tian over, then glanced at the gaunt child behind him. Without asking further questions, she gave them a room facing away from the street and brought over the half pot of hot soup left in the kitchen.
The two ate dry flatbread with the hot soup, and for the first time, Yu Jin finished his entire piece. He set his bowl on the table, leaned back in his chair, and let out a soft breath. Outside the window, the sky went completely dark, and Soul Hunting Town sank into the deep night. Only the occasional bark came from the direction of the town entrance, echoing through the valley for a moment before quiet returned.
"Tomorrow we'll head into the mountains and look for a place to stay." Long Tian gathered the bowls and stacked them. "There are plenty of abandoned hunters' stone huts on the outskirts of the range. We'll find one sheltered from the wind and settle in first. I need to see for myself how much your Martial Soul has recovered."
Yu Jin nodded, took the gray stone pendant from around his neck, and set it on the table. The runes on its surface glimmered with fine, dim light under the oil lamp. He studied it for a moment and said quietly, "These past few days on the road, I've been trying to release my Martial Soul while walking. The two of them have grown steadier and steadier in my dantian. They're coiled so tightly together that I can hardly tell where one ends and the other begins."
"Tomorrow, after we enter the mountains, find an open spot and activate it with all your strength. I'll stand guard for you."
Early the next morning, the two entered the mountains with dry rations and waterskins tucked away. In winter, the Heavenly Wolf Mountain Range was a more withered yellow than Long Tian remembered. Fallen leaves lay in a thick layer, rustling underfoot. Now and then, a squirrel or a hare darted through the bushes, stirring a flurry of rustling. Following his memory, Long Tian found an old stone hut on a shaded slope. Half its roof had collapsed, but its four walls were reasonably intact. A few repairs with dead branches and dry grass would make it habitable. A relatively level clearing lay in front of the hut, surrounded on three sides by pine trees that kept it well hidden.
Long Tian put their belongings down inside the hut, while Yu Jin stood in the clearing and loosened his wrists and shoulders. The early winter wind blew down his collar, and he hunched his neck before closing his eyes.
The first strand of golden-black light that seeped from his palm was brighter than ever before. The outlines of two little dragons spiraled and crossed over one another in his hand, pressed so tightly together that they looked like two braided ropes slowly loosening and drawing together again. Once Yu Jin had fully released them, he thrust both palms outward. The golden-black light left his hands and hovered a foot in front of him, spinning on its own, swelling, and transforming into a two-colored little dragon about a foot long! Half its body was brilliant gold and the other half ink-black, as if an invisible line had split it from head to tail and then joined it back together. A soft, lustrous sheen the color of chaos flowed along the edges of its scales. It swam two circles through the air before shrinking back into Yu Jin's palm, where it curled up quietly like a young beast returning to its nest.
Yu Jin looked down at the little dragon in his palm. His breathing was a little quick, but his breath remained steady. After withdrawing his Martial Soul, he looked up at Long Tian, and the embers deep in his eyes finally blazed into a bright flame.
Long Tian stood a few steps away and watched the whole process. He walked over, crouched in front of Yu Jin, and held out his right hand. Golden and black light surfaced in his palm at the same time, and four Soul Rings turned slowly beneath his feet. He released the presence of the Origin Return Pearl to envelop the halo in his palm. A gray-white film of chaotic light covered the golden-black radiance, making his whole hand look as though it were cradling a soft, lustrous clump of the first snow. Then he turned his hand over and held it out to Yu Jin, the halo facing upward.
Yu Jin hesitated for a moment, then held out his own right hand, palm up, and gently touched its edge to Long Tian's. The two presences mingled once more, this time more smoothly and naturally than they had in the courtyard of the gray gate. Yu Jin's golden-black light flowed through the point of contact into Long Tian's meridians, while Long Tian's gray-white halo seeped along the opposite path into Yu Jin's dantian. Both sensed the structure inside the other's body at the same time. Long Tian's dantian contained four neatly arranged Soul Rings and a growing Origin Return Pearl. Yu Jin's dantian had no Soul Rings, only a solid golden-black core, which was extending fine threads of Soul Power outward at a speed almost imperceptible to the naked eye, like roots spreading underground before a seed sprouted.
Long Tian was the first to withdraw his presence, and Yu Jin followed. Each pulled back his hand, and they sat silently for a while on a pile of dry grass in front of the stone hut. Winter sunlight filtered through the pine branches and fell on their shoulders, warm but faint.
"There are no Soul Rings in your dantian," Long Tian said at last. "When you activated your Martial Soul just now, you used pure power of origin."
Yu Jin looked down at his palm. "I've never hunted a Soul Beast. Back when I was in the darkroom, they wouldn't let me go out Soul Hunting. They were afraid I'd run away. So my Martial Soul has always remained in its original state, with no Soul Rings attached."
"But the power of what you just did was no less than a full-strength release from someone with three rings."
Yu Jin thought for a moment, then opened his palm again, and the golden-black light reappeared. He stared at it for a while and said softly, "Maybe it's because the two of them fused on their own. I don't have any divisions like 'first ring, second ring.' They're one. Once they became one, their origin grew more substantial than when they were separate."
Long Tian nodded. He recalled the process of tempering the Origin Return Pearl and the Chaos Halo. What he was doing, in fact, was also "bringing what had been separated back together." The difference was that Yu Jin had been born as Return to One, while he had refined his way back to unity afterward. The two were at opposite ends of the same path, approaching the same midpoint from different directions.
"Once your Soul Power has completely stabilized," Long Tian said, "I'll accompany you to hunt your first Soul Beast. You don't need Soul Rings to divide your stages. You need them to strengthen your origin. If a Soul Ring from a Soul Beast whose light and darkness share the same origin were attached directly to your core, you should be able to absorb it faster than an ordinary Soul Master."
Yu Jin did not respond immediately. He drew his hand back and closed it, and the light dispersed. His gaze fell on the shifting light and shadow where melting snow and dead trees intermingled along the distant ridgeline. After a long silence, he said, "I never thought I could make it this far. When I was in the darkroom, all I thought about each day was how to get through it without letting them discover I was suppressing my Martial Soul. The day you carried me out, your back was warm."
Long Tian turned his head and glanced at him. Yu Jin did not look at him, facing the distant mountain silhouettes instead, a faint curve at the corner of his mouth. The embers in his eyes had changed from ashes into flickering tips of flame. Though frail, they were indeed still burning.
Long Tian stood and brushed the bits of grass and dirt from his clothes. "We'll start practicing together tomorrow. You haven't finished recovering yet, so I'll give you a simplified version of part of the tempering method to practice. Once you're done, we'll merge our Qi again."
Yu Jin stood too, patted the dirt from his backside, and followed Long Tian into the stone hut. The two, one tall and one short, crossed the clearing between the pines, dry leaves rustling beneath their feet. The afternoon sun cast the shadows of pine branches on the hut's earthen walls. Wind blew in from beyond the ridge, carrying the damp scent of a distant stream and stirring the clump of dry grass in front of the door. The grass tips nodded gently in the breeze.