Lu Chen spent two days in the second underground level before returning to the surface.
The Pre-War inheritance fragment on the jade tablet had been a cultivation scripture written in the same angular, layered script as the carvings on the cavern walls.
The System could not translate it.
But the Chaos Origin Pearl could.
When Lu Chen pressed his palm against the tablet, the Pearl absorbed the scripture’s energy directly and integrated it into his Foundation Establishment cycle without requiring conscious comprehension.
The result was a cultivation method that was simultaneously simpler and more profound than anything he had practiced before.
Instead of cycling qi through his meridians in a fixed loop, the new method allowed his Chaos-grade foundation to absorb ambient energy passively, filtering and refining it through the Pearl’s internal structure without any active effort on his part.
He was cultivating while he slept.
He was cultivating while he walked.
He was cultivating while he ate breakfast.
**[Foundation Establishment Stage 1 consolidation: 73% complete.]**
**[Passive cultivation rate: 4.2x previous active cycling speed.]**
**[Note: Chaos-grade foundation enables continuous multi-attribute energy absorption.]**
Lu Chen emerged from the underground passage on the morning of the third day, sealed the floorboard entrance behind him, and walked into the practice yard to find Zhao Ning waiting for him.
She was hitting the wooden training post with her bare fists.
The post was cracked down the middle.
Her knuckles were not.
“You’ve been gone for three days,” she said without turning around.
“Where?”
“Underground,” Lu Chen said.
Zhao Ning stopped hitting the post and turned to face him.
Her flat, assessing gaze swept over his body with the blunt directness of someone who had never learned to be subtle.
She frowned.
“Stand still,” she said.
Lu Chen stood still.
Zhao Ning crossed the practice yard in two strides and grabbed his forearm with her right hand.
Her grip was iron.
The Zhao Family’s Iron Body Scripture gave her physical strength that exceeded most Foundation Establishment cultivators despite her Qi Gathering Stage 3 realm, and her fingers could crush river stones without effort.
She squeezed his forearm.
Her frown deepened.
She squeezed harder.
Her eyes widened.
“What the hell are you made of?” she muttered.
Lu Chen kept his expression mild.
“Flesh and bone.”
“No.”
Zhao Ning released his arm and stared at her own hand as if it had betrayed her.
“I just tried to compress your radial bone and it felt like grabbing a steel beam wrapped in silk.”
“Your muscle density is wrong.”
“Your skin is too hard.”
“Your qi feels…”
She trailed off, her brow furrowed in genuine confusion.
Lu Chen felt the Cloudmist Jade Pendant pulse against his chest.
The suppression field was holding his aura at Body Tempering Stage 3, but Zhao Ning was not sensing his aura.
She was sensing his physical body.
The Foundation Establishment breakthrough had restructured his cellular density, his bone composition, and his meridian walls, and those physical changes were impossible to mask with an aura suppression artifact.
His body was denser than a Qi Gathering cultivator’s body had any right to be.
Zhao Ning was a body cultivator.
She noticed things that other people missed.
“I’ve been eating Bai Ruyue’s tonics,” Lu Chen said with a small smile.
Zhao Ning snorted.
“I’ve eaten Bai Ruyue’s tonics.
They don’t turn your bones into metal.”
She studied him for a long moment, her dark eyes sharp and suspicious.
Then she shrugged.
“Whatever.
As long as you can fight, I don’t care how you got strong.”
She turned back to the training post and shattered it with a single punch.
Splinters rained across the practice yard.
“The Crimson River deadline is in four days,” she said over her shoulder.
“My scouts report twelve foreign cultivators approaching from the southeast.”
“They’ll be here by the end of the week.”
Lu Chen’s smile faded.
“I know.”
“Can we handle twelve Foundation Establishment soldiers?”
Lu Chen considered the question honestly.
Zhao Ning was Qi Gathering Stage 3 with body cultivation that punched above her realm.
Lu Qinghe was Qi Gathering Stage 4.
Mo Lin was Qi Gathering Stage 3 with no combat training.
Lu Chen was Foundation Establishment Stage 1 with a Chaos-grade foundation, the Hundred-Beast Body Tempering technique, the Nine-Step Cloudshadow Movement, and a growing arsenal of formation arrays.
Against twelve Crimson River soldiers at Qi Gathering Stage 6 to Foundation Establishment Stage 3, the odds were not good.
But they were not impossible.
“We can handle them,” Lu Chen said.
Zhao Ning glanced at him.
“You sound very sure for a cripple.”
“I’m not a cripple.”
The words came out quieter than he intended, and for a moment the mask slipped and Zhao Ning saw something in his dark, calm eyes that made her take a half-step backward.
Then the mask returned.
Lu Chen smiled his small, quiet smile.
“Get your people ready,” he said.
“The real fight is coming.”
He walked past her and toward the front gate.
Behind him, Zhao Ning stared at his retreating back and flexed her hand — the hand that had tried to crush his forearm and failed.
Her palm was bruised.
The Crimson River delegation arrived at dawn on the fifth day.
Lu Chen was standing on the Lu compound’s front steps when the sound of hooves echoed through the mist-shrouded streets.
Six mounted soldiers in crimson-and-black armor rode through the city gate, their fire-attribute qi flaring like torches in the fog.
At their head rode a man in silk robes the color of dried blood, his Foundation Establishment Stage 6 aura pressing against the morning air with the casual arrogance of someone who had never been told no.
Huo Zheng.
The Crimson River envoy.
He reined his horse to a stop in front of the Lu Family compound and looked down at Lu Chen with an expression of mild distaste.
“You are the Lu Family’s young master?” he asked.
“I am.”
Huo Zheng smiled.
It was not a pleasant smile.
“Then you will want to hear what I have to say.”
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