The bundle fell open on a stone black as ink, the size of a fist.
Luo Fanchen studied it. So this was the indestructible oddity the chief had spoken of.
"An Origin Stone?"
Beside him, Bai Yingyue's face registered real surprise — she plainly recognized the thing on sight.
Before Luo Fanchen could ask, the six-petaled azure lotus dropped fast and fastened its base against the strange stone.
"WHOOSH!"
The lotus bloomed with soft light, and a fragrance that washed the heart clean spread on the air.
As the stone's ink-black color drained away at speed, ribbon after ribbon of dense spiritual qi poured up into the lotus.
Pontiff, Holy Maiden, and Luo Fanchen all watched with widening eyes.
And then the astonishing part began.
The lotus had always held six petals. Now, fed by the qi, new petals were budding in the gaps between the six.
A seventh.
An eighth.
By the ninth, the growth visibly slowed — the black on the stone's surface had thinned nearly to nothing.
Bai Yingyue breathed:
"Incredible. Martial souls are supposed to be FIXED things — but little Senior Brother's lotus is genuinely GROWING, like a living plant."
"That's the TENTH petal!!"
"Crack."
The stone beneath the lotus faded to gray, then bone-white — and split apart where it lay.
"Whoosh—"
Luo Fanchen beckoned. The lotus shrank swiftly and settled spinning in his palm.
The original six petals were the same sky-azure as ever, brimming with life.
The four newborn petals, though — their azure was threaded with a faint red, and a low heat breathed off them.
"They look SO special — do they do anything new?!" Yingyue crowded in like a curious child, big mascara-ad eyes fluttering.
"Let me try."
He drove power into the lotus. The six azure petals cast their healing light as always. The four new petals gave no response at all.
"Strange. I can't command the new four," he said, hesitating.
"How could that be?" Yingyue frowned, equally lost.
Di Weiyang, who had watched all of it, spoke. "Those four new petals plainly hold a power different from the first six."
"Perhaps they are not fully formed — and so cannot yet be commanded."
Yingyue's eyes flashed. "Teacher, you mean — the first six petals are the healing ability, and these four are something ELSE?"
"And they must finish growing before they can be used?"
Di Weiyang inclined her head. "Perhaps. It is only your teacher's conjecture."
Yingyue marveled aloud: "Little Senior Brother, your two souls are each weirder than the other. Neither one walks ANY known road. Too special by half."
Luo Fanchen turned it over thoughtfully. He could indeed feel it, faintly — an INCOMPLETENESS about the lotus even now.
Six petals had unlocked healing. Would it take six MORE to unlock whatever came next?
Yes. Very possibly exactly that.
The System's own description had said it: the Azure Lotus was damaged, and needed restoring.
In which case — grow two more petals, and the theory proved itself.
And the key was the kind of stone that had set the lotus stirring.
He looked down. The once-indestructible black stone now lay as ordinary crumbled gravel.
Squeezed dry, obviously.
He looked up. "Junior Sister — you recognized this stone?"
She nodded, and for once didn't tease it out, answering patiently. "It's called an Origin Stone — concentrated essence of heaven-and-earth spiritual qi. It can directly advance a soul master's cultivation."
"Where can I get them in QUANTITY?"
He pressed the point. The little loach's diet of blood and rings was manageable — but the lotus clearly needed Origin Stones in bulk to advance.
"QUANTITY?"
Yingyue's lovely eyes rolled ceiling-ward with a little huff. "Forget quantity — when even one or two surface at the great auction houses, the bidding turns to bloodsport."
"What? No way." Luo Fanchen was genuinely startled.
The Holy Maiden gave him a flat look. "You didn't think these things lay around like iron ore, did you?"
"To this day no one has worked out how they form or where they come from. And any soul master lucky enough to land one absorbs it on the spot — nobody leaves treasure for the next fellow."
"Do you know how much cultivation that one stone just now would have given an ordinary soul master?"
He shook his head.
"Twenty-five LEVELS of soul power, minimum," she said. "And not cheap apprentice-tier levels either."
"That much?"
Luo Fanchen went rigid — then felt his wallet ache in advance. This lotus was a spendthrift disaster. Nothing like the little loach, who ate whatever was put in front of him.
Equally without conscience, though, the pair of them. Drank all that down and didn't leave Papa one sip.
"Little Senior Brother — is your village chief blind to treasure, or just impossibly generous? Imagine giving THIS away." Yingyue shook her head in wonder.
Luo Fanchen's whole body stilled. Something moved in his chest.
He wasn't naive enough to credit blindness. If the old man truly couldn't tell what he had — why hoard it for thirty full years, give it to no one... and then give it to HIM?
Maybe the chief had never heard the words "Origin Stone." But a stone no blade or axe could scratch? Any spine with a brain attached knew what THAT rarity meant.
And he'd handed it over anyway. A parting gift. Free.
Luo Fanchen lifted his gaze to the far distance and let it rest there.
This debt of kindness would not be forgotten — could not be. He, Luo Fanchen, repaid every grudge... and every grace.
When the chance came, he'd also ask the old man where exactly he'd picked the thing up.
What he didn't know was why the chief had truly parted with it. One: plain fondness for the boy. Two: old Lu Ren had no sons and no daughters — and for years this young man had seen an old man aging alone, and quietly hunted for him, and helped him plant.
Hearts are flesh, not stone. The old man had never once weighed talent or return on his gift. He simply hoped the boy would fly — higher and higher and higher.
Luo Fanchen picked the wrapping cloth up off the ground. He didn't throw it away.
Yingyue tilted her head. "Little Senior Brother, the Origin Stone's all used up — what are you keeping that ratty cloth for?"
He shook his head, folding the cloth neat and square.
"The stone had a price. The feeling behind it doesn't."
Bai Yingyue's body gave a tiny tremor. She stared at her handsome little Senior Brother, blank — discovering that this man, up close, was far more magnetic than she'd ever guessed.
That face. That talent. And a heart that held on to kindness like this. When THIS one left the mountain... exactly how many women were going to be ruined over him?
Her heart skipped — inexplicably, undeniably.
Di Weiyang's flawless glacial face never changed — but deep in those phoenix eyes flashed a light of frank approval.
She spoke. "Fanchen. Before the sun sets today: defeat a five-hundred-year soul beast."
Luo Fanchen's mighty frame shuddered.
WHAT?
Wasn't this curriculum accelerating a LITTLE hard?
The four-hundred-year Diamond Mantis had nearly put him in the ground. Five hundred years... this was just bullying the class fat kid at this point.
"Pfft."
Catching his hesitation, Bai Yingyue laughed behind her hand:
"And here I thought the second Teacher finished talking you'd grab a blade and go combing the mountain for one. So you're NOT a berserker after all~"
He shot her a flat look. What exactly gave you the impression I was a berserker?
Your brother here is HARD, not HAREBRAINED.
Obvious suicide missions are respectfully declined.
Di Weiyang said coolly, "Enough, Yingyue. Stop teasing your senior brother — teach him the true way of fighting with a martial soul."
"The true way of fighting with a martial soul?" Luo Fanchen echoed — and open, hungry curiosity spread across his face.