The first circulation cycle faded gradually.
Dhiraj stayed seated beside the damaged formation pillar for a long time afterward because standing up sounded unpleasant.
Weak traces of qi still moved through his meridians in thin uneven currents.
He could feel them if he concentrated carefully enough, although the sensation remained faint and inconsistent.
Not strength.
More like awareness.
The reactor chamber around him still looked half-dead.
Broken pillars stretched upward into darkness while old conduits pulsed weakly beneath the floor.
Somewhere deeper underground, metal groaned softly every few minutes.
Dust kept drifting from cracks in the ceiling and settling across his sleeves.
But now he could feel the ruin.
Cold spiritual energy leaked through damaged pathways hidden inside the walls.
Most of it never completed proper circulation.
The flows scattered through broken formations or vanished into unstable reactor systems before stabilizing.
Waste everywhere.
The entire complex reminded him of old industrial infrastructure back on Earth.
Systems still technically functioning despite catastrophic maintenance failure.
Dhiraj rubbed his face tiredly.
The successful circulation cycle had exhausted him far more than expected.
His chest meridian still burned from the earlier failures, and the weak qi inside his body became unstable whenever he focused on it too hard.
So this was cultivation.
Not soaring through the sky.
Not instant power.
Mostly pain, apparently.
“…host condition remains fragile,” ASTRA stated.
Dhiraj opened his eyes again.
Her projection stood nearby beneath flickering blue light from the reactor pillar.
Parts of her outline distorted occasionally before stabilizing again.
One side of her shoulder dissolved into static for half a second.
“Fragile feels generous right now.”
“…host body exhibits severe nutritional deficiencies and chronic muscular degradation.”
“See, that sounds worse.”
“…statement accuracy remains unaffected by emotional preference.”
He laughed once through his nose.
At least the strange machine intelligence stayed consistent.
Dhiraj pushed himself upright carefully and immediately regretted it.
His legs trembled hard enough that he had to catch himself against the formation pillar.
The dizziness passed after several seconds, although his vision still felt slightly delayed whenever he turned too quickly.
The circulation cycle had not restored his strength at all.
If anything, he felt more aware of how weak he actually was.
Above him, the reactor chamber groaned again.
A distant vibration rolled through the underground structure several moments later.
Tiny stones bounced once across the floor beside his boots.
The ruin remained unstable.
And somewhere above, sect cultivators were still searching through the collapsed complex.
Dhiraj’s expression tightened slightly.
He needed to leave eventually.
Maybe not immediately.
His condition was still terrible, and wandering blindly through ancient ruins sounded like an efficient way to die.
Still, staying here forever obviously was not an option either.
If cultivators reached this chamber and found him standing beside activated reactor systems—
No point finishing that thought.
Nothing about that conversation would go well.
He looked around the massive chamber again while walking slowly between the towering reactor structures.
Part of him still struggled to accept any of this as real.
Ancient civilizations building reactors larger than cities.
Cultivation merged directly into technological systems.
Floating worlds.
The fragmented inheritance memories still lingered in his head like broken dreams he could not organize properly.
Sometimes random images surfaced without warning.
Endless stars.
Metallic structures orbiting something enormous.
A woman standing inside a chamber full of blue light.
Then the memory vanished again before he could understand it.
Right now none of that mattered anyway.
At the moment he remained an injured miner trapped underground with barely enough cultivation to complete one circulation cycle without collapsing afterward.
Perspective mattered.
The chamber felt different now as he moved through it.
Not visually.
Structurally.
The weak qi circulating inside his body reacted subtly whenever he passed damaged formations or active conduits.
Tiny pressure shifts brushed against his meridians like changes in temperature.
Some areas felt colder.
“…host spiritual sensitivity increasing,” ASTRA observed.
“So I’m actually sensing things now.”
“…negative.
Host was sensing environmental fluctuations previously.
Current perception accuracy has improved.”
“Right.
That sounds less impressive.”
Dhiraj stopped beside one of the reactor pillars.
The black metallic surface pulsed faintly beneath drifting blue lines.
Earlier the structure had felt impossible to understand.
Now he sensed a pattern beneath it.
Flow.
The entire chamber operated on principles disturbingly similar to cultivation itself.
Energy intake.
Refinement.
Distribution.
Stabilization.
The reactor systems resembled giant artificial meridians stretching through the buried complex.
Dhiraj frowned slightly.
Or maybe human meridians resembled reactors.
That thought bothered him more than expected.
Before he could continue, ASTRA spoke again.
“…warning.”
Dhiraj straightened immediately despite the soreness in his back.
“What happened?”
The projection flickered.
“…multiple spiritual signatures detected within upper ruin sectors.”
Cultivators.
Still searching.
Dhiraj instinctively lowered his breathing.
“Can they detect me?”
“…current probability remains low.”
“Current probability is not comforting wording.”
“…host spiritual fluctuations remain extremely weak.”
“…thanks.”
He continued deeper into the complex while ASTRA monitored movement above.
Several times distant impacts echoed through the ruins overhead followed by vibrations beneath the floor.
Excavation attempts perhaps.
Or fighting between sect groups.
Probably both.
Nobody would abandon ruins like this willingly.
Especially after discovering functioning artifacts already.
Dhiraj eventually passed another damaged corridor lined with collapsed humanoid constructs.
The machines leaned against the walls beneath thick dust and corrosion.
Some lacked limbs.
Others appeared partially melted together.
One construct still emitted weak blue light through cracks in its chestplate.
Dhiraj immediately gave that one extra distance.
He had already activated enough ancient systems accidentally for one lifetime.
The corridor narrowed farther ahead into what looked like some kind of maintenance passage.
Exposed conduits ran openly along the walls beside damaged formation arrays.
Pale sparks flickered across broken surfaces every so often before vanishing again.
The underground complex never became fully quiet.
There was always noise somewhere.
Grinding metal.
Distant pulses.
The low hum of unstable systems still trying to function after centuries underground.
At one point Dhiraj noticed one of his sleeves had torn near the wrist.
He did not remember when that happened.
ASTRA interrupted his thoughts again.
“…recommendation.”
Dhiraj kept walking.
“What now?”
“…host should continue limited circulation while moving.”
He blinked.
“That sounds difficult.”
“…continuous low-intensity circulation improves meridian adaptation probability.”
Dhiraj considered it while stepping over fractured metal debris.
Honestly, the logic made sense.
Maybe the body worked similarly.
He inhaled carefully.
The weak qi inside his body stirred immediately.
Slowly.
Do not force it.
Dhiraj guided the circulation through the modified pathway around the damaged chest meridian.
The flow remained clumsy and uneven.
Several times the qi nearly destabilized completely before he regained control.
Sweat gathered slowly along the back of his neck despite the cold air.
Still— it worked.
Barely, but working counted.
The process demanded far more concentration than he expected.
Every breath affected the flow slightly.
Emotional fluctuations disrupted synchronization too.
Even irritation made the circulation wobble.
No wonder cultivators spent years meditating in caves.
Human beings were unstable systems.
The farther he walked, the colder the underground complex became.
Frost covered sections of exposed metal now, and pale white light pulsed from several damaged formation nodes embedded into the walls.
Different systems maybe.
Or another reactor layer.
Dhiraj eventually reached a fractured observation platform overlooking a massive lower chamber.
He stopped automatically.
Below him stretched another section of the buried complex.
Huge circular structures filled the darkness beneath suspended metallic rings and broken formation arrays.
Bridges connected distant platforms while enormous crystal pillars rose upward through drifting mist.
Most systems remained dark.
A few still glowed faintly through the ruin.
Parts of the ceiling had collapsed long ago.
Entire reactor systems hung twisted across the chamber below while fractured conduits leaked weak streams of blue light into the fog.
And somehow— parts of it still functioned.
Weakly.
Persistently.
Like embers refusing to disappear completely.
Dhiraj stood there quietly for a while.
The scale felt difficult to process.
How large had the original Ascendancy civilization been?
How powerful?
This place beneath Graystone Mountain was only one ruin buried under some miserable mining settlement at the edge of nowhere.
What else still existed in this world?
The thought settled uncomfortably inside his chest.
Then the qi circulating through his meridians reacted strangely.
Dhiraj frowned immediately.
Not pain.
Resonance.
He turned slowly.
The sensation came from deeper underground somewhere beyond the lower chamber.
Faint pulses brushed against his spiritual senses beneath the reactor background fluctuations.
There.
A separate rhythm.
Different from the main systems.
ASTRA flickered beside him.
“…anomalous energy signature detected.”
“Another reactor?”
“…analysis incomplete.”
The pulse came again.
Stronger this time.
Nearby walls illuminated briefly with flowing blue symbols before dimming once more.
Then Dhiraj noticed something odd.
One section of the corridor wall beside the observation platform contained less dust than the surrounding stone.
Not clean.
Just cleaner.
As if the surface had shifted before.
Recently.
Or at least recently compared to the rest of the ruin.
Dhiraj stepped closer carefully.
The weak qi inside his body reacted immediately.
The hidden resonance beyond the wall strengthened.
His heartbeat slowed slightly.
Another chamber.
Hidden somewhere deeper inside the ruin.