The platform was quiet now.
The flames had vanished. The runes had dimmed. Li Yun was carried away by Sect medics under orders not to speak—not yet. The duel had ended with no formal condemnation, but every elder watching had seen it:
Luo Feng didn't just win.
He made their suppression array irrelevant.
That scared them more than his victory.
By the time Luo Feng returned to Dawnmist Peak with his disciples, the sun had already set. Fog clung to the treetops, turning the path home into a ghost trail. But for once, he didn't feel watched.
Not by the Sect.
Not by spies.
Not by cowards in crimson robes.
Still, as they approached the clearing near the hut, Luo Feng paused. His body tensed—not from threat, but from something deeper. A tug in the air. A vibration beneath the ground.
Ding! Unusual resonance detected.Your technique "Void Trace – Ascending Lotus Step" has stirred latent spatial harmonics in the region.An unknown reaction has been triggered below the Celestial Dawn Sect's foundations.
Luo Feng narrowed his eyes.
"Spatial harmonics" was a polite way of saying: something down there woke up when I moved.
Inside the hut, Bai Xueyin quietly began unpacking their supplies. She was less tense than usual, though her eyes were distant—calculating.
A-Yan, on the other hand, buzzed with excitement.
"I can't believe how you moved, Master! You were just—" she darted left, "and then bam!—and then you vanished and poof! reappeared inside the fire!"
Luo Feng sat at the table and poured tea, his hand slightly trembling from spiritual backlash. He hadn't shown it earlier, but the Void Trace technique came with a cost.
Compressed movements. Suppressed meridians. Reentry instability.
His internal organs still felt like they'd been rearranged by a blacksmith.
"Don't get cocky," he said to A-Yan, offering her a cup. "You saw a clean version. What you didn't see was the blood in my mouth when I landed."
"You coughed blood?!"
"Quietly."
"That's still blood!"
Bai looked up. "It was risky. But effective."
"Like most of my life choices," Luo Feng muttered.
She hesitated, then said, "We're targets now. Publicly."
Luo Feng nodded.
"Then we need to grow faster," Bai continued. "Before they try again."
He smiled. "I was hoping one of you would say it before I did."
That night, while the girls slept, Luo Feng sat on the rooftop with a single candle lit beside him.
The stars were hidden behind cloud banks, and the trees whispered as if warning each other.
He meditated with his senses stretched deep—deeper than he ever had before.
And below… he felt it.
A ripple.
A crack.
And something that watched back.
Far beneath the Celestial Dawn Sect—beneath the oldest catacombs and spiritual wells—was a sealed cavern wrapped in iron chains inscribed with ancient runes.
This was forbidden space.
Not out of tradition.
But out of necessity.
Inside, a crystal monolith pulsed weakly. Dim. Inert for centuries.
Until now.
The moment Luo Feng stepped through fire with Void Trace, the air shifted.
The seals groaned.
The crystal pulsed.
A memory stirred.
Within the monolith, in layers of time-suspended energy, a voice echoed—fragmented but clinging to form.
…Mentor…? Is it… again…?
A second pulse.
Faster.
Firmer.
The chains shook.
The runes sparked.
Meanwhile, in the Inner Sect, Elder Mo stood in front of a projection orb, watching the replay of the duel.
He replayed the moment Luo Feng vanished into fire a dozen times—slowing it frame by frame.
"He should've been torn apart," he growled. "He should've collapsed."
A junior elder entered the room, bowing low.
"Report," Mo barked.
"The platform formation responded to a layered resonance. We believe Luo Feng's footwork… overlapped with multiple spatial layers simultaneously."
"Which means?"
"Which means… it wasn't a technique."
Mo looked up sharply. "Explain."
"It was a birth. He didn't use something known. He created it."
The elder's face twisted.
"That's impossible."
"Apparently not."
Mo turned away, hands clasped behind his back.
"…Then he's worse than we thought."
He moved toward a locked cabinet and pulled out a jade talisman etched in green and black—a death warrant.
"Send a message to the Silent Needle Hall," he said. "Tell them I have a target. And if they want their debt cleared…"
He turned.
"…they'd best succeed."
Back on Dawnmist Peak, Luo Feng opened his eyes.
He didn't know what he'd awakened below the Sect—but it hadn't attacked.
It had listened.
He could feel it still echoing.
Somehow… his movement had unlocked something. Not just in the system. Not just in himself. But in this world.
Was this what the system meant by "legacy functions"?
Ding! Legacy Signature Detected: "First Step Into the Rift."Memory Key Fragment unlocked.The Host has begun a new path. Celestial Legacy Chain [1/??] activated.
A soft hum entered his ear.
Do you wish to view the memory fragment?
"…Yes."
The world spun.
He blinked—
—and saw a desert beneath three suns.
A man in white stood at the center of it, surrounded by kneeling disciples. His voice rang with clarity, calm but endless in its depth.
"You do not walk to escape danger," the man said. "You walk to surpass it."
The disciples bowed. Then they rose.
And they stepped—not with legs, not with qi—but through the world.
And vanished.
The man turned slightly. He looked right at Luo Feng—despite being a memory.
"You've taken the first step," he said. "Now learn why the heavens once feared a mentor."
The vision shattered.
Luo Feng gasped, grabbing the edge of the roof to keep from falling.
He was drenched in sweat.
But smiling.
That had not been a normal vision. That was a true imprint—a sliver of something ancient, buried by time and betrayal.
Ding! Celestial Mentor Legacy Chain — First Stage Complete.System Upgrade in Progress…Host may now access "Legacy Wellspring" once per week — a place between realms to train or store memories.New Passive Acquired: "First Path Echo" – movement techniques leave afterimages that disrupt predictive counters.
At dawn, Bai found him still sitting on the rooftop.
"You didn't sleep."
"I was busy breaking reality," he said casually.
She blinked. "Should I be concerned?"
"Very."