Watching the match
On the day of the final, Long Tian went to the Central Square.
He didn't sign up for the spectator seats, nor did he sit in any of the academy's areas. He stood on the second-floor terrace of a low building on the west side of the square. The position wasn't high, but the view covered the entire diagonal of the arena. Yu Jin squatted on the low railing of the terrace, holding a blade of grass he had picked up from the roadside in his hand, tugging at the corner of his mouth without biting it.
The final match was between the Shrek Academy and Spirit Hall Academy. The eight participants stood in two rows at opposite ends of the stone platform. As the referee read the rules in the middle, Long Tian's gaze swept over the Shrek row, lingering on one person. That person stood near the front of the line, not particularly tall or imposing, with a relaxed posture and hands hanging naturally at his sides, looking much like his teammates. But when his gaze fell on his opponent on the other side of the platform, it carried an extremely stable temperature—not cold, not hot, but a continuous gaze that required no constant adjustment.
That guy named Tang San.
The referee's voice fell. The match began.
Long Tian didn't use his Soul Power to probe the details of the battle. He simply watched, like someone waiting in the Entanglement zone for the water level to rise before taking action—unhurried, just observing. He noticed that the amplitude and rhythm of Tang San's Blue Silver Grass as it rose from the ground were different from ordinary control-type Soul Master —with the first wave of Entanglement, he had already anticipated three possible responses from his opponent, and each vine changed its angle twice before even touching its target. He saw that while dodging attacks, Tang San maintained a consistent distance from his teammates, the adjustment of this distance synchronized with the frequency of his opponent's attacks, like a gear slowly spinning without load. He saw that when the match reached its midpoint and Shrek was on the defensive, Tang San's right palm briefly changed its grip, the Soul Power flowing in his palm changing texture in that instant—then he changed it back, never actually using it in that match.
Long Tian witnessed that brief shift in posture. Its nature was similar to when his own Origin Return Pearl switched operating modes; both were spaces reserved by something within his body as it transitioned from one state to another. He memorized the posture but made no judgment.
Shrek won the match. Cheers erupted from the stands, like a flood overflowing the edge of the stone platform. Long Tian saw Tang San, surrounded by his teammates, glance sideways towards the low building to the west. Across half the square, that gaze crossed the edge of the crowd and flags, meeting Long Tian's in the grey-gold air. The meeting was brief, like two clouds brushing past each other at a high enough altitude, each seeing the other's color and outline but neither stopping.
Long Tian stepped down from the terrace. Yu Jin jumped down from the low railing, and the two walked back along the west alley. The cheers from the main street continued behind them, like a lingering tide leaving a persistent buzz on the beach, and a faint echo could still be heard two streets away.
It was already dark when they returned to the old house in the east of the city. Long Tian squatted down by the well in the courtyard and washed his hands. The water droplets dripped onto the cracked brick surface and were quickly absorbed, leaving only a dark, damp stain. Yu Jin sat under the pomegranate tree, took the wilted grass stem from the corner of his mouth and placed it on his knees.
"Did you see him?" Yu Jin asked.
"I saw it."
"I'm not like you."
Long Tian stood up and shook off the remaining water droplets on his hands. "Hmm. His foundation is in the control system, mine is in the fusion system. Our paths are different."
He went back inside and sat down at the table, mentally reviewing the nautical chart again. The dotted line started about three hundred miles west of Spirit City in the middle of the continent—if he combined the direction of that path with the orientation of the continent, from that starting point to the blank sea area at the edge of the chart, passing through the East Sea Islands and that arc-shaped turning point, the extended line at the end should point in a southeast-southeast direction, towards a body of water he had never seen marked on the chart before.
He closed his eyes and leaned back in his chair. The Origin Return Pearl circulated at a normal speed in the middle of his chest, its pulse maintaining a fixed phase difference with the new core's. In the courtyard outside, Yu Jin squatted under the pomegranate tree, the faint light of the dark gray pearl shining through the fabric of his collar, like a dimly lit nightlight. The cheers in the distance had completely subsided, and the entire Spirit City was enveloped in the unique weary tranquility after the final night. Occasionally, the sound of late-returning footsteps could be heard on the street, fading away like the last ebb of the tide leaving a damp mark on the beach before slowly receding.
Long Tian sat in the darkness with his eyes open, feeling the Dragon Shadow within his body still pulsating slightly. When he closed his eyes, it adjusted the angle of its wing membranes, like a flag that had been hanging in the wind for a long time finding the most energy-efficient posture as the wind speed changed, maintaining a rhythm in harmony with the surrounding environment.