Moonlight Stabilization Ring

"Moonlight Stabilization Ring."

Deep in the alley, Lu Yuan repeated the name. His charcoal pencil spun once between his fingers, its tip hovering over the rough paper.

Bai Zhi stood opposite him, her pale dress almost blending into the dim evening light. She held several thick booklets in her arms, and the string of dark brown seeds around her wrist was barely visible in the gathering dusk.

"I thought you'd come here." Lu Yuan closed his notebook. "It's quiet here."

Bai Zhi didn't deny it. She carefully set the booklets on a flat stone nearby, her movements as gentle as if she were laying down fragile antiques. Then she turned around. Her gaze was no longer meek and evasive as it had been in class; it was focused, even a little sharp.

"That notebook was left by my great-grandmother," she said softly, every word clear. "It's the only one our family has left."

Lu Yuan said nothing and waited.

"Our family has gathered medicinal herbs for generations, and our Martial Soul is the Moonlight Orchid," Bai Zhi continued, her fingers unconsciously rubbing the seeds on her wrist. "It's a support-type Martial Soul, suited to healing. In the eyes of combat soul masters, it's not much use."

She paused.

"But my great-grandmother discovered that the Moonlight Orchid's Soul Power has a unique property-'gentle nourishment.' It doesn't simply heal. It can also soothe turbulent energy and calm violent fluctuations in Soul Power."

A flicker passed through Lu Yuan's eyes.

Bai Zhi drew a thin, thread-bound booklet from her arms. Its pages were yellowed, their corners worn, and the cover was threaded with fine hemp cord. She opened it with great care.

Lu Yuan leaned closer to look.

The delicate small characters were written in faded ink. Beside them was a simple diagram of an orchid-shaped Martial Soul, surrounded by wavy lines.

One page bore the title: "Moonlight Ring Method."

Below it was a detailed description of how to release Soul Power at a specific frequency, forming a ring-shaped field of fluctuations to envelop a medicine cauldron and keep the energy inside stable.

"...Soul Power spreads like moonlight, gentle yet not weak, flowing without end. Once the ring is formed, all within the cauldron settles of its own accord; even fierce flames cannot stir it into turmoil..."

Lu Yuan stared at the words.

The principle is right.

It wasn't a simple release of Soul Power, but the construction of a sustained energy field capable of regulating itself. In function, it was highly consistent with the feedback node he had envisioned-using a secondary circuit to monitor and correct fluctuations in the primary circuit in real time.

The difference was that the Moonlight Ring used the properties of a Martial Soul, while he relied on pure structural design.

"Look here." Bai Zhi tapped a diagram on another page.

This drawing was more detailed, showing the internal structure of the "ring." Several main streams of Soul Power intertwined into a net, and the nodes were labeled in small characters: "Moistening Points."

Lu Yuan stared at the nodes' positions, their number, and the way they were connected.

They were more than seventy percent similar to the rough improvement sketch he had casually drawn in the corner of his notebook the day before.

A coincidence this close isn't a coincidence.

"Your great-grandmother..." He looked up. "Did she write down anything else? About this ring-did she say whether it could be used for anything besides stabilizing medicine cauldrons?"

Bai Zhi shook her head.

"A lot of pages are missing from the notebook." Her voice grew quiet. "Our family fell on hard times later. No one studied these things seriously anymore. Father said no one recognizes these old methods now, so there's no use learning them."

The dusk deepened.

The light in the alley faded, and the writing on the pages gradually blurred. Bai Zhi closed the booklet and held it against her chest.

"When I heard you talk about feedback nodes yesterday, I thought of this." She looked at Lu Yuan. "But I don't understand Soul Tools. I can't make sense of those circuits and arrays. All I know is that the 'stabilization' and 'counteracting' you mentioned are... very similar to what my great-grandmother wrote."

Lu Yuan was silent for a few seconds.

"Could I borrow it?" he asked. "I'll read it right here. I won't take it away. You can watch me."

Bai Zhi's fingers tightened.

She looked at him for a while, the last rays of sunset resting on her eyelashes. Then she slowly handed him the booklet.

Lu Yuan took it. The pages were thin, dry and fragile to the touch. He opened it and began reading from the first page, word by word, sentence by sentence.

Bai Zhi sat down on the stone beside him and waited quietly.

Only the rustle of turning pages remained in the alley.

Lu Yuan read slowly. In places where the ink had run or the paper was damaged, making the words illegible, he stopped and worked through what they might have been in his head. Where descriptions were too subjective, he tried converting them into terms of energy theory.

The more he read, the brighter the flame in his heart burned.

This isn't a coincidence.

Two explorers from different fields have each felt their way to the edge of the same door along their separate paths.

Night fell completely.

The academy bell rang in the distance. At last, Lu Yuan closed the booklet, let out a long breath, and handed it back to Bai Zhi.

"Thank you," he said.

Bai Zhi took it and put it away carefully. "Did you understand it?"

"Part of it." Lu Yuan stood and loosened his stiff shoulders. "The method your great-grandmother used essentially took advantage of the Moonlight Orchid's 'gentle nourishment' property. That property makes its Soul Power especially sensitive to external energy disturbances, while also giving it a strong ability to adapt. That's how she was able to construct a self-regulating stabilization field."

He paused.

"A feedback node in a Soul Tool uses metal circuits and crystals to simulate that function. It monitors fluctuations in the primary circuit, and as soon as it detects an abnormality, it uses a secondary circuit to output reverse fluctuations to counteract it."

Bai Zhi's eyes lit up.

"So... they're the same?"

"The principles are related." Lu Yuan nodded. "It's just that one relies on an innate Martial Soul ability, and the other on artificial design. Your family's method is more... more elegant. It makes direct use of a natural property."

He didn't say "more advanced." But Bai Zhi understood.

She lowered her head, her fingers reaching for the seed bracelet again. After a long while, she said softly, "I always thought the Moonlight Orchid should have other uses besides healing. But no one told me where to start looking."

"Now you have somewhere to start," Lu Yuan said.

Bai Zhi raised her head.

Moonlight slipped through a gap between the high walls and fell on her face. Something was changing in her eyes, like water finally beginning to surge beneath a sheet of ice.

"Can I... can I do anything?" she asked, a rare eagerness in her voice. "I don't understand Soul Tools. But if it has to do with stabilizing Soul Power and regulating energy, maybe..."

Lu Yuan looked at her.

He thought of Mo Chen, the exiled Soul Engineer who had ideas but lacked a systematic theoretical foundation. And Bai Zhi, standing before him, had inherited generations of ancient practical experience, yet was trapped by the prejudice that "support types are useless."

If I could bring the two sides together...

"It'll take time," he said. "First, I need to work through the method in your great-grandmother's notebook again using Soul Tool theory and verify whether it's feasible. In the meantime, if you're willing, you can help me record data on your Soul Power fluctuations when you use the Moonlight Ring. The more detailed, the better."

Bai Zhi nodded at once.

"I can."

The words came out with iron certainty.

Lu Yuan pulled a charcoal pencil and a blank sheet of paper from his cloth bag and quickly drew a table by moonlight.

"Record these: how long you use the ring each time, the intensity of your Soul Power output, how long the ring remains stable, how effectively it resists outside interference..." He handed her the paper. "Any trouble with that?"

Bai Zhi took it and looked it over carefully.

"No," she said. "There are a few Moonlight Orchids growing in my family's backyard. I can practice whenever I want."

Lu Yuan nodded.

Things had gone more smoothly than expected. He had thought it would take longer to earn her trust, but Bai Zhi was evidently eager to find a new path for her family's inheritance too.

The two quietly discussed a few more details. Lu Yuan did most of the asking: what it felt like to use the Moonlight Ring, its pattern of Soul Power consumption, how it reacted to different kinds of energy disturbances...

Bai Zhi answered earnestly, occasionally pausing to think and find the right words.

Before they knew it, another half hour had passed.

The bell rang again in the distance, this time the final warning before curfew.

Bai Zhi stood and brushed the dust from her skirt.

"I should go home," she said.

Lu Yuan stood as well. "All right."

Bai Zhi picked up the thick booklets and turned to leave. After two steps, she stopped.

With her back to Lu Yuan, she spoke in a voice so low it almost melted into the night.

"Lu Yuan."

"Yes?"

"Be careful of Teacher Sun." She didn't turn around. "He's close to the proprietor of the Hundred Refinements Pavilion in the city. What you said in class might reach the ears of some people who don't like 'changes.'"

With that, she quickened her pace and disappeared at the end of the alley.

Lu Yuan stood where he was.

The Hundred Refinements Pavilion.

He remembered the name. It was the largest Soul Tool materials shop in Nuoding City, and it also repaired finished products and took custom orders. Its proprietor's surname was Jin, and he was said to have some murky connections with the Spirit Hall Technical Department.

The wind passed through the alley, carrying the chill of night dew.

He put away his notebook and slipped the charcoal pencil back into his cloth bag. His movements were as steady as ever, but his thoughts had already gone around several times.

Teacher Sun. The Hundred Refinements Pavilion. People who don't like changes.

Mo Chen's warning still rang clearly in his ears.

He walked out of the alley and glanced up at the night sky. Half the moon was hidden by clouds, its light dim and indistinct.

Some things had already begun to change.