Night passed slowly on Dawnmist Peak.
Yiran slept beneath a woven blanket inside the meditation chamber, her breath steady for the first time in four millennia. Yet the faint runes floating around her body betrayed the truth—her qi was unstable, constantly shifting between serenity and surge, like a river dammed too long now struggling to find its path again.
Luo Feng sat just outside, in the training courtyard, the moonlight painting silver lines across his robes. Bai Xueyin practiced silent frost steps a few paces away, her every motion tracing icy petals into the stone.
Kaelen returned from her patrol and knelt beside him.
"She slept through the night," Kaelen said. "But the formations are reacting. She's not just a sealed disciple. She's a remnant of something larger."
"I know," Luo Feng murmured. "That girl is the last echo of the original Mentor System. A living memory."
Kaelen nodded. "If the Sect finds out she remembers even a fraction of it..."
"They'll come for her," he said.
"And for you."
He didn't answer.
He didn't need to.
The next morning arrived gently. A soft fog rolled across the trees like a blanket trying to tuck in the forest one last time.
Tianya helped Yiran walk around the perimeter of the courtyard. The older girl's steps were light but unsure, as if gravity still remembered she didn't belong to this era.
A-Yan offered her a warm pastry and a cocky grin. "You're basically a time ghost. But you're one of us now."
Yiran blinked at the food, then took a small bite. Her expression didn't change—but she ate all of it.
Small victories.
Ding! System Notification: Mentor Legacy Sync progressing.Qin Yiran Affinity: 52%Group morale: SteadyUnlock Progress – Mentor System v0.3 Functions: 33%
New passive perk unlocked: "Echo Bloom" – The presence of bonded legacy disciples increases the rate of qi attunement for others training nearby.
Bonus effect: Increased chance of attracting rare constitution cultivators within 200 km radius.
Luo Feng's brow furrowed slightly.
"Rare constitution cultivators?"
He looked to the sky.
"This system is setting me up for something."
Meanwhile—two valleys away, in the outer ruins of the Whispering Pine Range…
A young man staggered through the underbrush, barefoot, bleeding, and half-conscious.
His robes, once the white of an Inner Sect disciple, were stained with soot and dried blood. One sleeve had been torn off entirely, revealing a line of spiritual tattoos running up his right arm—each one crossed out with deep burns.
The mark of an exile.
He clutched a flute in one hand, cracked at the mouthpiece, and muttered something under his breath between shallow breaths.
"I didn't… mean to call the storm…"
The wind didn't answer.
But the trees leaned forward.
They listened.
Far above, in the central peak of Celestial Dawn, Elder Mo stood at the edge of a tall tower, watching clouds churn below him. A crimson talisman hovered nearby, spinning in slow, deliberate rotations.
"The legacy echo has stabilized," said Elder Ji, stepping beside him. "The girl Yiran… she's woken."
Mo didn't look away. "Then the old system is breathing again."
"Luo Feng won't give her up."
Mo smiled faintly. "He won't have to. She'll come to us on her own."
Ji frowned. "You think she'll betray him?"
"No," Mo said, eyes gleaming. "But she won't remember why she shouldn't trust us."
Back at Dawnmist Peak, Luo Feng and his disciples gathered near the outer boundary to expand their ward array. With each new disciple, the system enhanced his teaching grounds—but it also made them brighter to anyone scanning the sect.
Kaelen stepped beside him.
"The spiritual pressure's increasing around us. Dozens of sects are likely monitoring the peaks by now."
"They'll come," Luo Feng said. "They always do."
"But who's next?"
A-Yan perked up nearby. "Maybe a nice girl who doesn't try to stab us in our sleep?"
Tianya raised an eyebrow. "You're saying I did try?"
"You thought about it."
"I still do."
Yiran, sitting cross-legged nearby, whispered, "The next one isn't a girl."
Everyone turned.
Luo Feng stepped toward her slowly. "What do you mean?"
Yiran's eyes were distant.
"I saw him… in a dream. Black wind. Marked arms. A flute that sings curses."
She blinked, returning to herself.
"He's running."
Ding! Mentor System Alert: Constitution-Class Cultivator DetectedIdentity: Unknown Male – "Hollow-Echo Physique" (Rare)Traits: Sound-based cultivation, residual soul-bond trauma, exile-grade branding.Status: Spirit-sick. Affinity with Host: Potentially high.Location: Whispering Pine Ruins – Southwest.
Luo Feng straightened.
"Get the cart ready," he said.
Kaelen frowned. "We're not using teleportation?"
"No," he said. "If the system flagged him as soul-sick, he might destabilize in a warp. We go slow."
Bai Xueyin stepped forward. "What if it's a trap?"
Luo Feng gave a tired smile.
"Then we do what we always do."
Tianya twirled a knife between her fingers.
"Break the trap and recruit the bait?"
"Exactly."
They left by dusk.
Yiran remained behind under Kaelen's watch, still too unstable to leave the peak.
But as she watched the others disappear down the winding road, she placed her hand on the old training post near the courtyard—and whispered something.
"Come back with him," she said. "He matters."
The wind rustled.
And something far away heard her.