The Path That Would Not Stay Still

It was already late at night, but Sea City had not yet fallen completely quiet.

From the direction of the Sea Region, the sound of waves arrived in slow intervals. The wind carried moisture and a faint taste of salt, making the lanterns beneath the eaves of the courtyard sway gently.

On the stone table before Hao Nhien and Lang Tuyet lay the two pieces of metal they had just brought back from the Heavenly Spirit Merchant Association’s Sea City branch.

One was the old token Hao Nhien had purchased at the harbor market.

The other was the very item Chu Thanh had once risked his life protecting on the road to Sea City.

Both were gray-black.

Both carried patterns that had faded with age.

At first glance, neither looked particularly different from the ancient objects occasionally recovered from the bottom of the sea.

But once they were placed side by side, Hao Nhien and Lang Tuyet discovered something unusual.

Some of the engraved lines on the two pieces could continue into one another when arranged at certain angles.

At first, Lang Tuyet assumed they had merely been made through similar methods.

But after changing their positions several times, she realized the patterns were not simply alike.

They seemed to belong to a larger structure.

Only the rest had either been lost or worn away by time.

Hao Nhien rotated the token, following the direction in which several engraved lines extended.

Then he brought it toward a recessed edge on the second piece of metal.

A faint sound came from the table.

The two objects suddenly pulled toward one another.

Lang Tuyet immediately withdrew her hand.

Hao Nhien also stopped interfering.

They allowed the pieces to adjust themselves.

Within several breaths, the two fragments locked together, forming something that resembled an incomplete command plaque.

The faded patterns across their surfaces began to glow.

There was no burst of spiritual pressure.

No powerful spiritual force spread outward.

The light simply traveled along the engraved lines, linking them one after another into a more complex structure.

Then eight small points of light appeared in the air above the table.

Lang Tuyet observed them for a long moment.

“Looks like your three thousand spirit stones were not completely wasted.”

Hao Nhien studied the floating lights.

“At least we’ve confirmed these two objects are connected.”

“Connected to what is another question.”

Lang Tuyet extended her spiritual sense.

She found no ordinary formation structure.

No sign of a spiritual artifact circulating power.

The eight lights did not emit any obvious spiritual energy.

Even under closer inspection, they felt more like images being projected from somewhere within the metal plaque itself.

Seven points were grouped relatively close together.

Their positions formed an uneven pattern.

The eighth point was far away.

Its glow was weaker.

And it was slowly moving.

At first, Hao Nhien assumed the movement came from unstable energy.

But after watching for a while, he realized the distance between the eighth point and the other seven was steadily decreasing.

It did not move in a straight line.

Sometimes it shifted to one side.

Sometimes it nearly stopped.

But after every change, its position ended slightly closer to the larger pattern ahead.

“It looks like it’s searching for a position,” Hao Nhien said.

Lang Tuyet nodded.

“Or waiting for some condition to be completed.”

Neither of them tried to force the object with True Qi.

In Hao Nhien’s current condition, he could not circulate much power anyway.

And Lang Tuyet had no intention of recklessly interfering with something even the merchant association’s appraisers had failed to understand.

Instead, she placed a simple isolation formation around the stone table, preventing any abnormal fluctuations from affecting the rest of the courtyard.

Then the two of them continued to wait.

Time passed slowly.

Lang Tuyet replaced the tea twice.

Hao Nhien occasionally used his spiritual sense to examine the changing patterns below the lights.

Near midnight, the eighth point finally approached the empty position in the structure.

Lang Tuyet leaned forward slightly.

“It should be almost complete.”

Hao Nhien did not answer.

His eyes remained fixed on the air above the table.

The final point moved a little farther.

Then stopped.

At that instant, all eight points trembled together.

The two metal fragments rose from the table and floated in the air.

Lines of light extended from their surface toward the eight points above, forming a structure unlike anything Hao Nhien had ever seen.

Lang Tuyet immediately stood.

She had taken less than half a step when the scene before Hao Nhien suddenly changed.

The distance between them seemed to stretch.

They had been standing less than two steps apart.

Yet in Hao Nhien’s perception, Lang Tuyet rapidly receded, as though hundreds of zhang of space had suddenly appeared between them.

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He reached toward her.

But by the time his hand rose, the person before him was already gone.

The courtyard still existed for one final instant.

The lanterns were still swaying beneath the eaves.

Then everything blurred.

Hao Nhien felt an invisible force envelop his soul.

He immediately stabilized his consciousness.

But he sensed no direct impact against his physical body.

When his vision became clear again, the surroundings had completely changed.

Beneath his feet stretched a broad expanse of land.

Sand and stone covered the ground, broken by narrow channels of water.

In the distance, a low stone platform stood behind a faint veil of light.

The distance looked to be several hundred zhang.

There was no obvious road leading toward it.

Wind crossed the landscape in irregular currents.

Sometimes it swept close to the ground.

Sometimes it rose high before suddenly changing direction.

Bands of sand followed the currents, scattering and gathering in constantly shifting positions.

From a crack in the rock on the right, water continuously spilled downward.

The flow split into smaller streams before joining again in lower ground.

Loose stone lay across the slopes.

Occasionally, wind or water caused the fragments to shift.

Hao Nhien stood still and observed.

At first, nothing seemed especially strange.

Then he extended his spiritual sense.

Immediately, he realized this place was anything but simple.

The spiritual energy of heaven and earth moved in distinct currents.

It was not evenly dispersed like in an ordinary environment.

Some currents skimmed across the ground.

Others pressed downward from above.

Several slowly rose from cracks in the stone.

They constantly intersected.

Their strength and direction changed from one place to another over time.

A current that appeared powerful could weaken almost immediately after meeting another.

Meanwhile, areas that initially seemed completely calm might suddenly develop tremendous pressure only a few breaths later.

Hao Nhien tried using spiritual sense to identify a relatively stable route.

The result made him frown.

The distance to the stone platform seemed unchanged.

But the constant fluctuations distorted his perception.

Sometimes he thought the ground ahead was empty.

A closer look revealed two currents crossing there.

Hao Nhien withdrew part of his spiritual sense.

He shifted his attention to what he could see with his eyes and feel close to his body.

He still could not circulate True Qi normally.

His physical strength had increased greatly after the Golden Core tribulation, but recklessly confronting unfamiliar forces was not wise.

Hao Nhien began walking toward the stone platform.

The first several steps were relatively easy.

A crosswind pressed against him, forcing him to lean.

Then sand rose from the ground and obscured his vision.

He lowered his center of gravity, waited for the sand to pass, then continued.

After several dozen zhang, a current of spiritual force suddenly swept across him.

Hao Nhien immediately sensed the faint strand of True Qi fluctuating near his dantian react.

It was far too weak to complete a circulation cycle.

Yet when the external force passed over him, the current’s direction shifted slightly.

Hao Nhien stopped at once.

The change in his meridians lasted only a moment before disappearing.

But it was enough to make him more cautious.

The currents here did not appear to be actively attacking him.

At least, he sensed no clear intent behind them.

They simply followed their own patterns.

Anything entering their range would naturally be affected.

Hao Nhien looked toward the ground ahead.

Then changed direction.

This time, he did not attempt to cross the area where the spiritual pressure was strongest.

Instead, he followed lower ground where several large stones blocked part of the wind.

He advanced slowly.

At first, the method worked well.

A single wind current was not enough to trouble him.

Loose stones rolling from the slope could be avoided by watching their direction.

When water crossed the ground, he simply stepped onto higher positions.

But the farther he went, the less separate those elements became.

A stream that had been flowing steadily through a rock channel suddenly changed direction when a powerful gust pressed down.

The new flow loosened the surrounding sand.

That movement, in turn, pulled several small stones from the edge of the slope.

Hao Nhien was about to step forward when he realized the ground in front of him was no longer stable.

He stopped in time.

A large section of sand immediately slid away.

A deep crack in the rock appeared beneath it.

If he had continued along the route he had chosen, he might have fallen directly into it.

Hao Nhien watched for a while.

Then circled to the left.

Not long afterward, he reached a large rocky outcrop blocking the way.

Wind from the left pressed continuously toward it.

A current of water on the right flowed into lower ground.

Between the two forces, sand swirled in a small rotating vortex.

Hao Nhien tried to identify an opening.

But the opening kept changing.

Sometimes the wind weakened while the water rose.

When the water receded, sand immediately swept across the ground, obscuring the place where he might have stepped.

Hao Nhien did not rush.

He watched the nearest changes carefully.

In particular, he paid attention to the moment when the strong wind began lifting away from the ground.

After several repetitions, he noticed something.

Just before the water surged, there was always a very brief interval when the pressure from both sides decreased.

The opening did not last long.

But it was enough for a person to cross if they moved at the right moment.

Hao Nhien waited through another cycle.

The instant the wind on the left began to rise, he stepped forward.

His foot crossed the sand.

He leaned aside to avoid the water that had begun spilling down.

By the time the vortex formed again behind him, he had already passed the rocky outcrop.

Hao Nhien looked back once.

Then continued forward.

He did not know whether the pattern he had just observed was permanent.

Perhaps it merely repeated for a short period.

But one thing had become clear.

He did not necessarily need to oppose every force directly.

That did not mean waiting would solve everything.

Some distance later, the ground suddenly shook.

A large slab of stone rolled from the slope ahead.

Its path was almost directly toward him.

At the same moment, the wind on the right changed direction.

A surge of water crossed the lower ground.

The number of safe places to stand rapidly shrank.

Hao Nhien immediately stepped aside.

But another current of spiritual force appeared behind him.

He stopped.

The stone was still rolling toward him.

With his current physical strength, he could smash it directly.

But doing so would certainly create a shockwave.

He had no idea how the surrounding currents might respond to such a disturbance.

As long as there were alternatives, Hao Nhien did not want to test it.

He looked toward the wind.

Then toward the damp ground beneath the rolling stone.

Water had just crossed the slope.

It had eroded the earth around the edge, subtly changing the stone’s trajectory.

Hao Nhien moved right.

But only a short distance.

The next wind current was already pressing from that direction.

The slab rolled past him only several feet away.

Immediately afterward, a powerful current of spiritual force struck the exact place it had passed.

Sand and rock exploded upward.

Hao Nhien lowered his body and allowed most of the force to sweep over him.

Only when everything settled did he slowly straighten again.

The farther he went, the more he noticed small signs appearing before the surrounding forces changed.

Before wind lifted sand, the lightest dust particles already began to shift.

Before water changed direction, bubbles at the edge of the channel behaved differently.

A stone about to roll always revealed some change in the soil supporting it.

None of those signs were particularly difficult to observe.

But in battle, Hao Nhien had usually relied upon spiritual sense and his own strength to resolve danger more quickly.

He rarely needed to notice details this carefully.

He suddenly remembered the old man beneath U Minh Mountain telling him about bringing water through rocky land.

The old man had said that even a great current could not simply destroy every obstacle in its way.

Some places required a change in direction.

Some required waiting for the water to rise.

And anyone who wanted to guide water somewhere had to understand the terrain before digging the channel.

Now, standing amid constantly intersecting currents, Hao Nhien finally had the chance to experience something similar directly.

He still wanted to reach the stone platform.

The difference was that the road would not allow him to decide every step in advance.

Hao Nhien continued.

The distance to the stone platform gradually decreased.

The spiritual fluctuations around him grew denser.

At times, he had to remain still for nearly a quarter of an hour simply to observe the changes ahead.

At other times, when a favorable opening appeared, he crossed dozens of steps in succession without serious difficulty.

The real challenge appeared when he approached the central region.

The ground there was relatively flat.

There were fewer large rocks.

But the currents of spiritual force intersected far more chaotically.

The instant Hao Nhien entered, pressure struck from three directions almost at once.

One current pressed horizontally from the left.

Another rose from beneath his feet.

A third suddenly descended from ahead.

Sand was compressed against the ground.

Water from the rock channels burst upward.

His clothes snapped violently beneath the pressure.

Hao Nhien immediately lost balance.

Instinctively, he tried to circulate True Qi to stabilize his center of gravity.

But the power emerging from his Golden Core met resistance the moment it entered the familiar meridian route.

A tight sensation appeared in his lower abdomen.

Hao Nhien immediately stopped forcing it.

Instead, he twisted his waist.

He shifted his center of gravity onto his supporting leg.

Then he followed part of the pressure from the current on the left rather than resisting it head-on.

At that moment, something unexpected happened inside his body.

The strand of True Qi fluctuating near his dantian suddenly deviated from the usual route.

It entered a secondary meridian branch he rarely used intentionally.

A faint warmth crossed his waist.

For one brief instant, the movement of his muscles became smoother.

That tiny change helped him complete the adjustment before the next wave of pressure descended.

Hao Nhien regained his balance.

But when he tried to sense the strand again, it had already dispersed.

He stood still.

Surprise appeared in his eyes.

This was not the first time True Qi had deviated from the conventional circulation routes.

During the days he had spent observing his meridians at U Minh Mountain, something similar had happened several times.

But those earlier changes had always been too weak for him to determine whether they served any real purpose.

This time, under external pressure, a strand of True Qi had passed through a secondary meridian.

And it had clearly assisted his body’s adjustment.

Hao Nhien did not attempt to reproduce it immediately.

He only returned his attention to the shifting currents ahead.

Then he continued using physical strength and changes in balance to advance.

After several more changes of direction, he finally crossed the region where the spiritual currents intersected most densely.

The stone platform was directly ahead.

Hao Nhien stepped toward it.

Then placed one foot on the first stone step.