Two days passed without incident.
The Han Family’s bounty board remained posted in the market square, but no one in Cloudmist City had come forward with information about the Lu Family’s cultivation activities, mostly because there was nothing to report.
The Lu Family was, by every public measure, exactly as weak and irrelevant as it had always been.
Lu Chen made sure of that.
He spent his mornings in the practice yard going through the Cloudmist Spirit Circulation Art with the same slow, deliberate forms that had earned him years of mockery.
To any observer, he was a crippled young master struggling to cycle qi through congenitally narrow meridians.
To the System, he was running a sophisticated dual-layer cultivation cycle that used the garbage-tier technique as a camouflage shell while the real work happened underneath.
[Dual-layer cultivation active.]
[Surface layer: Cloudmist Spirit Circulation Art (public display).]
[Deep layer: Chaos Origin Pearl filtration cycle (concealed).]
[Qi Gathering Stage 1 consolidation: 89% complete.]
[Stage 2 breakthrough threshold: Approaching.]
The Cloudmist Spirit Circulation Art was a mortal-grade technique that cycled spiritual qi through the twelve primary meridians in a simple loop.
It was inefficient, slow, and limited to extracting roughly 3% of the ambient qi in any given environment.
But Lu Chen had spent three years practicing it in the underground passage, where the qi density was ten times the surface level, and somewhere around the ten-thousandth repetition, he had discovered something that the technique’s original creator had never intended.
The circulation loop had a flaw.
The qi entered through the Lung Meridian, cycled through the Heart and Liver channels, and exited through the Kidney Meridian in a closed circuit that wasted nearly half its energy at the transition points.
Lu Chen had found a way to reverse the flow at the Liver channel junction, creating a secondary loop that captured the wasted energy and fed it back into the primary cycle.
It was a small modification.
It doubled the technique’s efficiency.
And it was something that no Body Tempering cultivator in Cloudmist City had the meridian control to replicate.
[Modified Cloudmist Spirit Circulation Art: Efficiency increased to 6.8%.]
[Classification: Low-grade Qi Gathering technique (improved).]
[Note: Further optimization possible at higher realm.]
Lu Chen completed his morning forms and lowered his arms.
The practice yard was empty except for Lu Qinghe, who was hammering a wooden training post in the far corner with enough force to splinter the grain.
His cousin’s Qi Gathering Stage 4 cultivation made him the strongest junior in the Lu Family, and he trained with the desperate intensity of someone who knew that strength was the only currency the clan had left.
Lu Chen watched him for a moment.
Then he sat down cross-legged on the packed earth and closed his eyes.
The breakthrough came quietly.
No dramatic surge of energy.
No cracking of the earth or howling of the wind.
Just a soft, internal click as the consolidated Qi Gathering energy in his dantian compressed past the Stage 1 threshold and settled into the denser, more refined configuration of Stage 2.
[Breakthrough achieved.]
[Qi Gathering Stage 1 → Stage 2.]
[Dantian capacity: +15%.]
[Meridian flow rate: +22%.]
[Family Luck Points: +5.]
[Current total: 155/100 base.]
Lu Chen opened his eyes and immediately checked the Cloudmist Jade Pendant.
The suppression field held.
His public aura remained locked at Body Tempering Stage 3, flat and unremarkable, invisible to any casual scan.
He stood, brushed the dust from his robes, and walked toward the front gate.
He needed herbs.
The Lu Family’s medicine stores were nearly depleted after the Han Family’s economic blockade, and Elder Lu Mu’s monthly supply from the Bai Family only covered Lu Yuan’s chronic qi deficiency treatment.
There was nothing left for cultivation supplements.
Lu Chen stepped out into the mist-shrouded street and turned toward the market district.
The three Mistveil observers from two days ago were still in the city.
He could feel them at the edges of his perception faint, patient, professional.
They had rotated positions since yesterday, shifting from the rooftops to the merchant stalls, but their surveillance pattern had not changed.
They were watching the Lu Family compound.
They were watching the market.
And at least one of them was watching him right now.
Lu Chen kept his head down and his pace casual.
He was a weak young master buying herbs.
Nothing more.
The market’s only spirit herb stall was run by a weathered old merchant named Zhou, who had supplied the Lu Family on credit for as long as Lu Chen could remember.
Zhou’s stall was a ramshackle wooden cart piled high with bundles of dried spirit grass, low-grade qi-gathering flowers, and the occasional rare root that he sourced from the Spiritual Forest to the north.
Lu Chen approached the cart and stopped.
The stall was empty.
Not closed.
Empty.
The wooden shelves that had held Zhou’s inventory yesterday were bare, stripped down to the grain, and a hand-painted sign hung from the cart’s awning in fresh red ink.
SOLD ALL STOCK ACQUIRED BY HAN FAMILY TRADING HOUSE.
Lu Chen stared at the sign.
[Alert: Economic escalation detected.]
[Han Family has purchased 100% of Cloudmist City’s spirit herb supply.]
[Remaining local sources: None.]
[Impact assessment: Lu Family cultivation resources will reach critical depletion within 14 days.]
Looking for old Zhou?
The voice came from behind him.
Lu Chen turned.
Bai Ruyue stood at the edge of the market lane with a basket of fresh herbs on her arm, her pale blue robes damp with morning mist.
Her Foundation Establishment Stage 2 aura was carefully restrained, but Lu Chen’s Qi Gathering senses could feel the density of her qi pressing against the pendant’s suppression field like fingers testing a locked door.
He sold out to the Han Family yesterday evening, Bai Ruyue said, her expression tight with disapproval.
Every bundle.
Every root.
Every last qi-gathering flower.
I see that, Lu Chen said.
Bai Ruyue studied his face.
Her eyes narrowed slightly, and that same puzzled frown from four days ago creased her forehead.
Lu Chen.
Yes?
Your vitality is different again.
Lu Chen kept his expression mild.
Different how?
Healthier.
Your skin tone is better.
Your breathing is deeper.
Your eyes are clearer.
She stepped closer and lowered her voice.
Whatever you’re doing, it’s working.
And it’s working faster than any Body Tempering Stage 3 cultivator has a right to.
The Cloudmist Jade Pendant pulsed against Lu Chen’s chest.
Bai Ruyue’s medical senses were sharp enough to pick up the physiological changes that the pendant’s aura suppression could not fully mask.
The breakthrough to Qi Gathering had improved his blood circulation, his cellular regeneration, and his meridian density, and those physical changes were visible to anyone with alchemical training.
I’ve been sleeping better, Lu Chen said with a small smile.
Bai Ruyue did not smile back.
She reached into her basket and pulled out a bundle of fresh spirit grass, pressing it into his hands before he could refuse.
Take this.
It’s from my family’s private garden, not the market.
Ruyue
The Han Family can buy every herb stall in Cloudmist City.
Her dark eyes were fierce and unyielding.
They can’t buy my garden.
She turned and walked away before he could argue, her pale blue robes disappearing into the mist.
Lu Chen stood alone in the empty market lane with a bundle of spirit grass in his hands and the weight of an escalating economic war settling onto his shoulders.
The Han Family had cut off the Lu Clan’s herb supply.
In fourteen days, Elder Lu Mu’s medicine would run out.
In thirty days, Lu Yuan’s qi deficiency treatment would stop.
And when Lu Yuan’s treatment stopped, the fragile stability that held the Lu Family together would begin to crack.
Lu Chen tucked the spirit grass into his sleeve and turned toward home.
The Mistveil observer on the rooftop across the street watched him go.
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