Convergence
Days in the forest keeper's stone cottage passed as quietly as a dead leaf floating on a mountain stream, drifting slowly along with the current.
The repaired roof kept the wind and snow outside, and the fire burned from morning to night, staining the inner faces of the stone walls a warm charcoal gray. Long Tian marked out a training area in the clearing before the cottage, placing small stones at several points on the ground. Every morning and evening, the two took their positions and began tempering themselves separately. During their breaks, they sat side by side and joined their Qi, allowing the circuit between their dantians to cycle on its own in the stillness.
In the first week, the second ring of markings around Yu Jin's core grew from a spider-silk thread to the width of a little finger, its color shifting from translucent gray to a pale blend of gold and black. When he tried to activate it as a Soul Ring, the little golden-black dragon swam faster still, leaving a two-colored afterimage in the air as it circled, like the stroke of an ink brush dragged across rice paper. After watching twice, Long Tian had Yu Jin release the afterimage at a rock on the mountainside. The golden-black streak struck the rock face and burst into a fan-shaped pattern of interlaced scorch marks and frost, shaving a thin layer of stone dust from its surface.
"That's the power of two rings." Long Tian walked over and touched the scorch and frost marks, his fingertips gliding lightly over the stone dust that had been steamed by heat and then flash-frozen.
Yu Jin crouched beneath the rock face, looking at the marks he had made, the light in his eyes shining steadily. He drew his hand back and pressed it to his chest, feeling the pulse of the core in his dantian through his clothes. "The second ring is nearly twice as powerful as the first," he said softly, "and there's no gap when they're combined. One ring follows the next as naturally as flowing water."
"Because your origin doesn't need a Soul Ring to draw on its power." Long Tian went to the stream and washed the stone dust from his hands, then looked back at him. "Soul Rings are only tools for amplifying it. You already have the source."
By the end of the second week, the two were spending longer and longer joining their Qi. At first, they each withdrew after the time it took to drink a cup of tea; now they could keep the cycle going for nearly half an hour before slowly drawing back. During those sessions, Yu Jin's Power of Origin had imbued Long Tian's Origin Return Pearl, making it warmer and more lustrous. Golden crackle patterns covered nearly its entire surface, and the pearl itself had grown almost two sizes larger than when it first formed. The halo it cast as it turned could now cover the entire dantian. Yu Jin's core, meanwhile, had absorbed the pattern structures of Long Tian's four Soul Rings. Beyond its second outer ring of markings, the outline of a third had faintly emerged, as pale as mist on a winter morning, but undeniably there.
One night, after ending his cultivation, Long Tian stood alone for a while in the clearing outside. Stars were sparse in the late-winter sky, and the mountain wind poured through the gap, cold and sharp as a knife. He closed his eyes and felt the state of his dantian. His fourth Soul Ring had reached the very limit of completion, its inner-wall markings spreading to the outermost layer. The Origin Return Pearl rotated slowly above it, like a gray-white moon suspended over the array of Soul Rings. He could feel the limit for his fifth ring drawing near, a new space opening deep within his dantian, waiting for something to fill it. The sensation was clearer than before any of his previous breakthroughs, and it had come sooner too, like spring winds turning over the surface of thawed earth, with roots already spread throughout the soil beneath.
He opened his eyes and went back inside. Yu Jin was waiting for him, wrapped in a quilt and leaning against the wall. When he saw him enter, he shifted aside to make room. After Long Tian sat down, he told him what he had felt about approaching the fifth-ring limit. Yu Jin thought for a moment after hearing him out. "If you're going to break through, you'll have to find a fifth Soul Beast. The middle section of the mountain range is only half a day's walk from here. The Soul Beasts there are considerably older than the ones on the outskirts. For a fifth ring, you should need one at least six hundred years old."
"We'll go have a look tomorrow." Long Tian reached into the hearth and added a piece of charcoal. Flames leaped up, lighting the outline of his profile; his jawline was much firmer than when he had first left the city. He was already past eleven, and his face was shedding its childish roundness and beginning to show a youth's sharper angles, the lines of his brow and cheekbones distinct in the firelight.
The next day, the two followed a hunter's trail into the middle section of the mountain range for about half a day's walk. The forest grew denser, and the trees older. Ancient pines so broad they took two or three people to encircle stood everywhere, with thick moss and lichen growing between their roots. Long Tian spread Shadow Vision through the forest, sensing the Soul Power fluctuations around them. After more than an hour, he suddenly stopped and raised a hand to signal Yu Jin to halt.
Ahead, a gray-blue beast about two feet long lay on a fallen dead tree trunk. It resembled a marten, but had sturdier limbs and a bushy tail, with a long stripe of alternating black and white running along its spine. It was gnawing on a piece of rotten wood. Faint fragments of Soul Power seeped from the wood's broken end, and it scraped them into its mouth with its front paws.
"A Shadowtail Marten. They live in burrows in the middle section of the mountains and feed on the residual Soul Power contained in rotten wood." Long Tian lowered his voice. "That stripe on its back has both light and dark attributes. It should be close to seven hundred years old. It's very alert. I'll use shadow to cut off its escape first; you circle around from the side."
Yu Jin nodded and silently circled toward the right side of the dead tree. His steps made almost no sound on the moss, like a cat padding across soft ground. Long Tian stayed where he was and activated Shadow Dragon Power. Dark mist spread soundlessly along the ground toward the base of the fallen trunk. The Shadowtail Marten suddenly stopped gnawing, its bushy tail standing on end-it had sensed something.
But its escape route was already sealed by shadow. As it turned to burrow deep among the roots, it stumbled, and dark strands of mist coiled around its hind legs. Yu Jin struck from the right at the same time, golden-black light forming a two-colored band that slashed toward its flank. The Shadowtail Marten let out a hoarse shriek and struggled to break free of the shadow's restraint. Long Tian activated the Origin Return Pearl, channeling its gray-white halo into the shadow. The restraint tightened sharply, pinning the beast firmly in place. Yu Jin's golden-black band of light struck precisely into a vulnerable spot on its flank. The Shadowtail Marten's body convulsed violently twice, then went limp. The long black-and-white stripe on its back lit up one last time before fading.
A black-and-white Soul Ring rose, full with the power of its years, its light and dark aspects evenly balanced. Long Tian sat cross-legged, reached out, and pressed his hand to the Soul Ring, drawing it into his body. When the fifth surge of power poured into his dantian, the Origin Return Pearl suddenly spun faster. Its gray-white halo wrapped around the entire new Soul Ring and carried it to the bottom of the array. The four old rings lit up at once and connected to the new one, the markings on their inner walls extending of their own accord to mesh with its newly formed patterns. The whole process went far more smoothly than the previous times; the Origin Return Pearl shortened the time needed for the four old rings and the new one to adjust to each other by more than half. In less than an hour from start to finish, a fifth black-and-white Mixed-Color Soul Ring rose beneath Long Tian's feet, lining up neatly with the four above it, their halos joining into one.
He opened his eyes, stood up, and stretched his limbs. The fullness of Soul Power brought by the fifth Soul Ring surged through his meridians. The Origin Return Pearl turned more slowly than before, but with greater force. The golden crackle patterns on its surface had spread to the very edges, and the entire pearl gave off a restrained gray-white luster.
Yu Jin had crouched beside him and waited throughout. Now he stood and brushed the dirt from his knees, his gaze settling on the five neatly arranged Mixed-Color Soul Rings beneath Long Tian's feet. Their halos joined together like a miniature rainbow, black and white alternating as they slowly revolved from bottom to top. At the very top, the Origin Return Pearl's light shone out from his dantian through his skin, gathering into an extremely faint gray-white spot on his chest.
"Five rings," Yu Jin said.
Long Tian withdrew his Soul Rings, and the Origin Return Pearl's light also vanished into his body. He looked down at his hands. The gray-white halo between the lines of his palms was thicker than before, like a pair of invisible, thin gloves covering his skin. He clenched his fists, then relaxed them, feeling the fifth ring's power slowly settle in his meridians.
"It's time to go back." He drew his gaze from his palms and looked up at the daylight filtering through the gaps in the trees. "Now that I have five rings, I'll need some time to let them stabilize. During that time, you can keep hunting for your second Soul Beast and formally solidify your second ring too. We can both keep working at it until Meng Changyuan's batch of live-subject tests yields results."
Yu Jin nodded, and the two walked back side by side through the pine forest along the way they had come. Afternoon sunlight poured through the branches onto the lichen and moss, painting the pine needles' shadows in fine, close-set stripes. The mountain wind pushed them onward from behind, carrying a faint warmth, as though winter had finally come to an end.
It was still light when they returned to the stone cottage. Long Tian crouched by the stream and scooped up water to wash his face. His reflection broke apart in the ripples and gathered again. He watched his wavering outline on the water-the sharpness of youth between his brows was becoming more distinct, and the line of his jaw grew firmer by the day. He shook the droplets from his face and stood, then retrieved a new note from a crack at the outer corner of the cottage wall, where Shen Mo had tucked it the day before last. He unfolded it and read it through.
The note contained only two lines: "The equipment on the third underground level of the Iron Guard camp is in place. The first batch of live subjects will be brought in at the end of this month. Time is short. If you two need his help, go to the old hunter's outpost on the North Peak and seek out a man there. Show him the Seventh Squad token. He can be trusted."
Long Tian folded the note and put it away, then looked up toward the North Peak. Its ridgeline stood far higher than the stone cottage, its outline sharp as a blade in the gathering dusk.
Yu Jin came to his side and followed his gaze toward the North Peak. He did not ask what the note said, only crouched beside him and reached out to stir the stream. Water splashed up and wet his cuff, but he paid it no mind. He looked down at the reflection scattered by the ripples, a settled, tranquil expression on his face. The two crouched by the stream without speaking, listening to the rush of water over the stones and the occasional birdcall from the distant forest. The setting sun stretched their shadows long, breaking them across the stream into a shimmering expanse of pale gold.