Lu Chen did not sleep.
He lay in his narrow bed staring at the ceiling beams until the first gray light of dawn crept through the window shutters.
The presence on the rooftop had not followed him home.
His crude divine sense had swept the compound walls twice on his return and found nothing, but that meant very little when the observer was at least two full realms above him.
A Foundation Establishment cultivator could mask their aura from a Body Tempering junior without even trying.
Lu Chen sat up and pressed his palms against his knees.
His body felt different this morning.
The breakthrough to Body Tempering Stage 6 had settled into his muscles overnight, and the coiled density in his meridians was harder to suppress than it had been yesterday.
He could feel his own qi pressing against the surface of his skin, eager to leak out.
That was a problem.
If Han Yuze or any of the Han Family’s informants got close enough to sense his aura, the three-year facade would shatter in an instant.
Lu Chen reached beneath his robe and pulled out the Cloudmist Jade Pendant.
It was a small, unremarkable disc of pale green stone on a frayed leather cord, the only heirloom his father had given him on his tenth birthday.
Lu Yuan had told him to wear it at all times.
Never take it off, his father had said, and for once the calm mask in his eyes had cracked enough to show something that looked like fear.
Even when you bathe.
Even when you sleep.
Promise me.
Lu Chen had promised.
He had worn the pendant every day for six years without understanding why.
This morning, for the first time, the pendant was warm.
He held it between his thumb and forefinger and felt a faint vibration humming through the stone, rhythmic and steady, like a second heartbeat.
The jade surface glowed with a soft green luminescence that pulsed in time with his own qi circulation.
[Anomaly detected: Heirloom artifact activating.]
[Scanning Cloudmist Jade Pendant.]
[Grade: Indeterminate.
Origin: Restricted.
Function: Aura suppression and karmic concealment.]
[Current status: Active.
Suppressing host’s true cultivation signature by 3 minor stages.]
[Note: Without this artifact, host’s Body Tempering Stage 6 aura would be fully visible to any cultivator at Qi Gathering or above.]
Lu Chen’s breath caught.
The pendant was the reason his concealment had worked for three years.
It wasn’t just his own careful control that kept his true realm hidden — the jade was actively masking his aura, compressing his spiritual signature down to the Body Tempering Stage 3 level that the city believed.
He stared at the small green disc with new eyes.
Who had made this?
Where had Lu Yuan gotten it?
A Foundation Establishment family on the frontier of the Blackstone Kingdom should not possess an artifact that could fool cultivators two full realms above them.
[Restricted data.
Query denied.]
The System’s refusal was immediate and absolute.
Lu Chen sighed.
He was beginning to learn that the System had walls of its own.
He tucked the pendant back beneath his robe and felt the warmth settle against his chest like a small, steady flame.
The glow faded.
The suppression reasserted itself.
To any external scan, he was once again the crippled young master at Body Tempering Stage 3.
[Task reward distributed: +10 Family Luck Points.]
[Reason: Artifact resonance discovery.]
[Current Family Luck: 115/100 base.]
[Luck tier: Modest Fortune.]
Lu Chen filed the number away.
One hundred and fifteen points.
He still didn’t know what the points could buy or what would happen if they dropped, but the upward trend was encouraging.
He stood, dressed in his patched robes, and stepped out into the morning courtyard.
The Lu Family compound was quiet.
The main hall was empty, the kitchen cold, the training yard swept but unused.
Elder Lu Wei’s treasury office was locked.
Elder Lu Han’s law hall was dark.
The only sign of life was Elder Lu Mu, who sat in the medicine room doorway grinding herbs with a mortar and pestle, his thin face creased in concentration.
Morning, Elder Mu, Lu Chen said.
The old man glanced up and nodded.
Your qi feels stable today, Lu Mu said, and there was something in his tone that Lu Chen could never quite read.
More stable than usual.
I slept well, Lu Chen lied.
Lu Mu’s eyes lingered on him for a moment too long, then returned to the herbs.
Good.
Stability is important.
Lu Chen walked past the medicine room and toward the back of the compound, where the old storage sheds leaned against the outer wall.
He needed to clear his head.
The events of the last twelve hours the System awakening, the moonlight breakthrough, the watcher on the rooftop, the pendant’s true function were stacking up faster than he could process.
He knelt beside the nearest shed and pressed his palm against the ground, letting his newly expanded senses drift downward through the soil.
It was a habit he had developed over the years, a way to practice qi control without drawing attention.
But this morning, his senses went deeper than they ever had before.
Body Tempering Stage 6 perception pushed past the topsoil, past the clay layer, past the bedrock.
And found something hollow.
Lu Chen’s eyes widened.
Beneath the storage shed, roughly fifteen meters underground, there was a void.
Not a natural cave.
A constructed space.
His qi brushed against the edges of it and recoiled from something ancient and impossibly dense, a residual energy signature that made his dantian ache with recognition.
[Underground anomaly detected.]
[Location: 14.7 meters below host position.]
[Structure: Artificial.
Pre-War architectural signature.]
[Energy density: 10x surface ambient.]
[Access point detected: Sealed entrance beneath Lu Family main hall.]
[Map fragment added to System vault.]
Lu Chen pulled his hand back from the ground as if it had burned him.
An underground structure beneath the Lu Family compound.
Pre-War.
That meant it predated the current Eastern Continent dynasties by thousands of years.
And the access point was directly beneath the main hall, the one building in the compound that Lu Yuan had forbidden him from entering after dark.
Lu Chen looked up at the main hall’s closed doors.
His father’s study was on the second floor.
The hall itself was always empty during the day, used only for clan meetings that happened once a month at most.
What was underneath it?
And why had the System just handed him a map to get there?
[New vault item: Underground Passage Map Fragment (Partial).]
[Completion requirement: Host must physically locate the sealed entrance.]
[Warning: Ancestral energy signatures detected.
Proceed with caution.]
The morning mist rolled over the compound walls and settled around Lu Chen’s ankles like cold water.
Somewhere inside the main hall, a floorboard creaked.
Lu Chen stood very still.
The creak came again, rhythmic and deliberate, as if someone were walking across the hall’s wooden floor.
But the hall was supposed to be empty.
Lu Chen’s gaze locked on the main hall doors.
The pendant beneath his robe pulsed once, sharp and urgent, like a warning.
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