Chapter 9 - The Price of Defiance
I wanted to go back immediately.
Mira stopped me.
"If you return now, all three of us die."
"The system says Jace gets executed."
"Your system also sent you into a pit with a three-percent survival rate."
Fair.
We hid in a cave downstream.
Sable slept around a warm stone while I cultivated for the first time in my life.
Defiant Breath had widened my damaged meridians instead of healing them.
That should have crippled me.
Instead, the cracks acted like extra channels.
Qi moved through me faster than normal.
Painfully faster.
[Body Tempering 1 → 2]
Then 2 → 3.
Mira stared.
"How long have you been cultivating?"
"About four hours."
"I hate you."
She showed me the proper Iron Lotus breathing pattern.
The system immediately rejected it.
[Technique incompatible with Ash Root.]
[Would you like to burn it?]
"Burn it?"
I selected yes.
The technique vanished from the screen.
In its place appeared:
[ASHEN REVERSAL METHOD — Unique]
[Convert failed cultivation into permanent resistance.]
I laughed.
Mira did not.
"Kai."
The cave entrance had gone dark.
A man stood there in gray robes.
No sect emblem.
No visible weapon.
He held my empty spirit-root jar.
"You were supposed to be harvested quietly," he said.
Then he smiled.
May you like
"Elder Veyr will be disappointed that you woke up first."
