Chapter 142: SHAPE AND CHANGE

CHAPTER

142

SHAPE AND CHANGE

Jieyuan

—∞—

Jieyuan stared blankly at the metal surface of the door in front of him. It was darkened, the handle gone.

The woman’s frenzied words still rang in his ears.

Listen to me. You must… You must… You must…

“Must what?” he murmured. His heart was still hammering against his ribcage, beating rapidly.

What did she see in me to set her off like that? How come I’m suddenly back in the hall?

He turned away from the door and scanned the area; sure enough, it was pretty much empty. There were only a couple of other cultivators there (Anren and Daojue weren’t around), barely more than a handful. Very little time had passed since the start of the challenge phase. So it wasn’t like he’d run out of time or anything like that.

The woman had been about to tell him something. Something important, clearly. Important enough to deeply rattle a violetsoul. And considering how he’d been thrown out of the Heavenly Room before she’d gotten a chance to tell him what it was?

Clearly, someone (or maybe something) didn’t want him knowing about it. He couldn’t think of that many things that had the power to take him out of the room.

The Plunderer? If Jieyuan was right about who he was, the man could definitely pull off something like that. The Sword Tower’s ego probably had the same power over the place. The Sword Tower’s Heavens seemed to have a great deal of influence, too, so they might also be capable of it.

It had to be one of those three, and none of them seemed like good news. It also only served to reinforce the importance of whatever the woman had been about to tell him, if it was a big enough deal that one of those three had kicked him out of the room to keep him from finding out.

Jieyuan leaned back against the door. He crossed his arms, a frown on his face. He didn’t consider himself someone particularly curious; for the most part, if something didn’t directly concern him, he was content to let it lie. But this clearly had to do with him, and he was awfully interested in finding out just what it was.

Fate. The woman had said she wanted to know more about his connection to Fate. She’d then looked at him with her golden eyes, and she’d done something. Used a bloodskill, unless he was off the mark. One related to divination, most likely. And she’d seen something in him. Or maybe about him.

He recalled her words. A vessel, she’d said. Vessel. And considering she’d been inspecting his connection to Fate? Only one thing came to mind.

The Fatebloom Heart.

Jieyuan closed his eyes, sent his focus inward, focused on his heartbeat and on his bond with Huaxin. Their connection was still too faint; he couldn’t get anything from it. Just what happened just now, buddy? Just what did she see?

Assuming it was the Fatebloom Heart that had her reacting like that—what did that mean for him? What did it change? Was he supposed to believe the Fatebloom Heart was dangerous, then? Dangerous to him?

That wouldn’t come as too much of a surprise; he barely knew anything about it. He did know, though, that it had saved his life more times than he could count. He wasn’t keen on getting rid of it; he didn’t even know how he might be able to get rid of it, anyway.

Still frowning, he opened his eyes. It wasn’t guaranteed that the problem was the Fatebloom Heart, either. He could think of two other things that were off about him: his memories of his life as Amyas, and the darker color of his soul.

They didn’t have nearly as much to do with Fate as the Fatebloom Heart, and the “vessel” description didn’t fit them as well, but there was a chance that they were what the woman had seen instead. Or maybe it was something else altogether, something he didn’t know about. Jieyuan sure didn’t like the sound of that.

He turned the problem over and over, inspecting it from every angle. He concluded that there was nothing he could do about it. If the woman had managed to get the rest of her sentence out, that might have been a different business—she’d clearly been about to tell him what he had to do—but that wasn’t the case.

All he could do was keep his guard up. And maybe be careful about others using divination on him.

Golden. His heart settled heavily in his chest. Jieyuan sighed. Like he didn’t have enough things to worry about already.

—∞—

Jieyuan glared at the rainbow-colored sphere floating in front of him. The hues kept shifting, one shade bleeding into another, a bottled storm of clashing hues.

REFINING, his mysterious seventh sense told him. Taunted him, almost. As if he didn’t already know his fate.

He was back in the void of the Heavenly Selection. The Sword Tower’s Heavenly Vault, a sea of silver stars, hung high above him, impossibly far but also incomprehensibly close.

There were no more spheres in front of him. Just the one. Refining. He’d hoped that some other Concept might have chosen him for the third selection (Fire? Pain? Authority? Come on!), but no such luck.

He’d already waited a while, but it was just like in the second selection: no more spheres came down. His hand had been dealt, and now he had to make do with it.

He sighed and shook his head as a wry smile slipped onto his face. This didn’t change anything; he’d already decided he wouldn’t be dying. There was nothing to it except to rise to the challenge.

He reached forward and touched the Refining sphere.

It flowed inside him, and he reappeared in the Heavenly Hall.

Anren and Daojue were next to him. Everyone else seemed to be around, too. A little under a hundred in all (about twenty hadn’t passed the second stage’s challenge). They all seemed to be getting their bearings still; Jieyuan wondered how exactly the passage of time worked during the Heavenly Selection.

The Sword Tower’s ego appeared again, told them to get started, and then disappeared. People began making for the doors.

“How did it go?” Anren asked from his side. “You don’t look so bad. Does that mean—”

Jieyuan glanced at her, quirked an eyebrow. “How do you think?”

Her face fell. She winced. “Refining?”

“Refining,” Jieyuan confirmed. Seeing Anren’s heavy look, he couldn’t help but chuckle. He wondered how much worse she’d react if she knew that if he died here, it would be for real. “There’s nothing to it. It is what it is. Tough luck. On the topic, though—you wouldn’t happen to know something about what Refining’s pursuit and challenge phases are like, would you?”

“Hmmm.” She seemed to consider it for a moment, but then shook her head. “Sorry. Nothing comes to mind. I mostly read through my sect’s Absolute Sword Trial records on the combat-oriented Concepts. I’m not a refiner, either.”

Jieyuan shrugged. He hadn’t been counting on it. “Guess I’ll just have to figure something out. What Concept did you pick, anyway?”

“Momentum,” she said.

Vibration. Edge. Momentum. Those were some interesting Concepts Anren was getting.

He glanced at Daojue, who’d been silently watching them. “What about you?”

“Nullification.”

That gave Jieyuan a pause, but then he remembered Daojue’s realmskill, Spectral Zenith Nullification. It’d been a while since he’d last seen Daojue use it; it was very situational to begin with (it required direct contact, only worked on things in the same realm, and cost a lot of chroma), and they had had a much easier time in the Dome after reuniting with Meiyao.

Anren looked interested. “Nullification? How come?”

Daojue turned to her. Jieyuan was expecting him to tell her about his realmskill. But it didn’t happen. Daojue said not a word. Just stared at her, silent. That seemed to surprise Anren, if the way she blinked at Daojue was any indication. Daojue not answering should have been the norm, but where she was concerned, it was the exception.

Jieyuan felt rather surprised, himself. Puzzled, too. Why would Daojue keep quiet about that, of all things? Anren was under the impression he was at least a Bluesoul; it was expected of him to have realmskills. Several of them, really. So the issue shouldn’t be that he had a realmskill; it was the realmskill in particular that was the problem.

Daojue shot Jieyuan a look. A meaningful one: it had very little in the way of expression, but on Daojue’s statue-perfect face, a little looked like a lot, and Jieyuan was well-versed in puzzling out his expressions. And the message Daojue was conveying was clear enough: keep quiet.

All right. Daojue really didn’t want Anren to know about Spectral Zenith Nullification. But, again, why?

“Hmmm.” Anren looked between him and Daojue, crossing her arms. “Well, well. I see how it is.”

Just as Jieyuan was starting to worry she’d make a big deal out of it, she smiled. It wasn’t one of her beaming grins, more of a soft turn to her lips, but earnest all the same.

“Don’t worry about it.” She waved her hand dismissively. “I won’t pry. We’ve all got our secrets. The Absolute knows I’ve got plenty of them myself.”

Daojue, eyes back on her, didn’t say anything. But his gaze softened some, the way it only did when he was looking at Anren. Jieyuan doubted Daojue was even aware of it.

“Well,” Jieyuan said, taking advantage of the lull in the conversation, “let’s get on with this.”

He turned toward his door, eyed his warped, faint reflection in the smooth, light gray pane of steel.

He set his doubts about Spectral Zenith Nullification aside for the moment. He could look into that later. He had other priorities right now. The sooner he got started with the pursuit phase, the sooner he’d learn just how rotten a hand he’d been dealt. And the more time he’d have to figure out some way out of it.

More than ever, he had little time to waste.

—∞—

Stepping through the doorway, Jieyuan hung, suspended, in a featureless void for a heartbeat.

Another beat, and his surroundings came to life. The black of the void became green and brown and a slew of other colors.

Long, thick grass covered the earthy ground. Thick, towering trees stood tall all around. Between the trees sat shrubs, flowers, and plants of every hue: a rainbow in plant form.

Raw, burning instinct had Jieyuan drawing the Shifting Feathers from their sheaths before snapping into a ready stance. His heart raced as he eyed the sprawling, wild vegetation surrounding him.

None of it was glowing, but Jieyuan wasn’t taking any chances. If the Viridian Dome had taught him one thing, it was that one should never trust plants—and that every forest could very well be a death trap just waiting to be sprung.

He waited, eyes darting around, looking for signs of movement. Seconds passed, but all he saw was the swing and flutter of leaves, petals, and stems in the gentle breeze. Just to be safe, he concentrated on his surroundings, felt for the current of time, and reached toward the future.

In his mind’s eye, he saw himself standing there while nothing happened.

Path Glimpse Divination. He’d wondered whether it would work. That was good news, at least.

His blood settling somewhat, Jieyuan slowly flowed out of his stance, standing up straighter. But he stayed alert, his senses spread out; drawing on Twin Serpent Cognition, he fixed half his mind on his surroundings.

The other half of his mind, he sent inward, checking on the Refining sphere. Here in the Heavenly Room, its presence was bright and clear, like a lit candle in the gloom; just brushing his mind against it told him pretty much everything he needed to know about the situation.

Jieyuan frowned. What he learned did nothing to assuage his suspicions about the plant life around him. Quite the opposite, in fact. But he’d also found that this was like the Amphis’s pursuit phase; the challenge wouldn’t start unless he willed it so. So he wasn’t supposed to be in any danger, at least not right off the bat.

He dropped back into a ready stance, the Shifting Feathers raised in front of him.

He wasn’t sure what the Refining pursuit phase would be like, but he was about to find out.

First difficulty.

Everything around him shook: the flowers, the shrubs, the trees—all of it gave a sudden, violent jerk, like a sudden jolt had run through the forest as a whole.

The next thing Jieyuan knew, his hands were grasping empty air. The trusty weight of the Shifting Feathers, the cool touch of the metal shafts against his palms: gone, both of them. Alarmed, he shot a glance down.

His hands were indeed empty, while the sheaths at his waist were full, the butt-ends of the Shifting Feathers sticking out of them.

What?

The crackle and crunch of leaves and branches just ahead whipped Jieyuan’s head right back up. Just ahead, stepping out from among the trees, was a creature.

One unlike any Jieyuan had ever seen.

It was about as tall as his waist, and roughly feline in shape. It sure wasn’t feline in nature, though; Jieyuan wasn’t sure it could even be called a beast. It looked more like a plant: a swirling, clumped mass of thick, twinned vines and branches made up its limbs and the bulk of its body. Leaves and flowers dotted its surface.

Two red orchids bloomed where its eyes should have been, a pair of triangular leaves above them playing the role of ears, and long, thick thorns acting as teeth in the creature’s half-open maw.

It could’ve easily been some bizarre garden feature if it weren’t for the fact that it was moving. It slowly advanced, and for all that it looked like a bunch of plants cobbled together, it moved as smoothly and naturally as a beast. Bark-lined paws trod lightly against the ground, green shoulders rolling along with the motions of its limbs.

Jieyuan’s hands shot down, reaching for the Shifting Feathers. His palms closed around the shafts, and he pulled up, trying to draw them. That didn’t happen; it was like trying to pull something embedded in stone.

Jieyuan gritted his teeth, not taking his eyes off the beast, and gave the Shifting Feathers just one more pull to be sure. There was absolutely no give to it.

The plant-beast stopped for a moment, going perfectly still. And then it slowly lowered itself, getting into a pose Jieyuan knew all too well. He didn’t need divination to know what would come next.

Rot. Jieyuan let go of the Shifting Feathers, giving them up for lost. He could read the signs well enough. They’d reappeared in their sheaths the moment he’d set things off, and now he couldn’t draw them. Clearly, he wasn’t meant to use them, and he wasn’t getting a choice in the matter.

The plant-beast pounced. Jieyuan was ready for it—he wasn’t helpless without his weapons—bringing his arms up and pushing a leg back, opening his stance, readying himself to grab onto the creature and throw it to the side—

A deep, overpowering sense of wrongness struck Jieyuan, and he just barely managed to jump to the side before the beast reached him. He skidded to a stop just under one of the trees, while the beast landed smoothly on the ground and turned back toward him.

What in the Heavens was that?

He didn’t get a chance to think about it; the beast charged at him, and this time he went for a different approach, drawing his leg back to kick at it—

WRONG.

Jieyuan almost lost his footing as that feeling struck him again; he threw himself to the left—and this time he didn’t manage it in time, the plant-beast swiping a paw at him just as he dodged, its bark-claws tearing through his robes and pants, scoring gashes into his leg.

Ignoring the ache and the pain entirely (it barely registered, really), Jieyuan jumped backward, putting some space between himself and the creature. The creature sprang after him. This time, he didn’t bother with attacking; he just pulled away.

There was no interference, no sudden bout of wrongness, as he drew back. He easily avoided the next few attacks, making no attempts to strike back as he studied its movement and attack patterns.

Then, feeling he had a good enough read on it, he tried a kick again just as it lunged at him—and this time he was ready for it when WRONG struck again. He aborted the strike and stepped to the side, letting the plant-beast harmlessly shoot past him.

Blood kept dripping from the gashes in his calf; he didn’t pay it any mind. He wasn’t planning on staying much longer. He just wanted to confirm some other things first.

What was clear so far was that he wasn’t supposed to attack the beast. Not with his weapons, and not without. Dodging was fine, but attacking was a no-go. Problem was, he was clearly meant to deal with the beast somehow. And if he couldn’t attack, then how—

Jieyuan moved out of the way as the plant-beast threw itself at him again.

Plant-beast… Its body was entirely plant: vines, bark, leaves, flowers, thorns. Plants.

This is supposed to be the Refining pursuit, isn’t it?

Jieyuan grabbed the Shifting Feathers. He couldn’t draw them, but he didn’t need to for Twin Serpent Cognition to work.

Letting half of his twinned mind busy itself with dodging the beast, he had his other mind focus inward. But he didn’t reach for the Refining sphere this time. Rather, he went for something else altogether. Something much more familiar.

He felt it: a red sphere in his ribcage, overlapping his heart. His soul. Just as he concentrated on it, he felt his soulsense come alive. The feeling of it was almost alien, after he’d gone so long without it, but familiarity returned just an instant later.

Without a moment to waste, Jieyuan reached inside his soul with the invisible hand of his soulforce and drew out some chroma. Taking it out of his body, he tried to turn it physical, but wasn’t surprised when the attempt failed. He focused back on the plant-beast, which had just failed another attempt to bite his leg off.

Now, how do I do this? Jieyuan considered the creature as it came at him again. He was pretty sure he was supposed to refine it. It was a plant, after all, for all that it acted and moved like a beast. Unlike beasts, whose bodies could only be refined upon death, plants could very well be refined alive.

He saw no other way to deal with it.

Still keeping half his split mind in charge of his body, Jieyuan reached out with his soulsense, sending it toward the beast. Even between its attacks, it remained well within his range. Its spirit-shadow was tenth-shade violet. Jieyuan wasn’t all that surprised; it was both bad news and good news.

Focusing on it, he was struck by a flurry of sensations: all sorts of different feelings, impressions, patterns, and colors.

It wasn’t any worse than when he inspected any old chromal plant, though. That was a good thing; the creature looked like it might be made of thousands of different plant bits, but its spirit-song was like that of a single, whole plant. Problem was, the spirit-song of a single chromal plant was already plenty complex.

There were four steps to refining. Attuning, essencification, amalgamation, and congealment. Out of those, only the first one was simple—the only one even remotely straightforward. He just hoped it would work; he shouldn’t be able to attune anything at Violetsoul—but he also shouldn’t have been able to sense anything at Violetsoul, either.

Gathering the chroma he’d already pulled out of his soul, Jieyuan guided it toward the beast. This wasn’t the kind of thing you could normally pull off while jumping around like he was; rather, something like this normally required total concentration. But Twin Serpent Cognition was handy like that.

His chroma, invisible to all his senses except his soulsense, flowed into the plant-beast; it didn’t seem to notice, just kept attacking him.

Jieyuan murmured his attuning hymn, “Ablaze.”

A connection snapped into place between him and the creature. Invisible, intangible, but present all the same.

The plant-beast froze mid-lunge; it dropped down like a wet sack. Jieyuan felt his connection with it snap, but just as he jumped back in preparation for another attack, he realized he’d gotten it wrong. Their bond snapped, but not because the creature had broken away.

He watched as the plant-beast came apart, unraveling, the many plants that made up its body unfolding and untwisting, until all that was left on the ground was a pile of oddly shaped stems, flowers, and twigs.

Hearing footsteps coming from behind him, Jieyuan whirled around.

Another beast rose from among the dense foliage. It was the same size as the first, but the shape of it was different. Wider, flatter. Canine. Wolf-like.

Jieyuan was smiling, though. Smiling and thanking the Heavens, because it looked like, at least for the first difficulty, attuning was all he needed to do.

With no time to waste, Jieyuan reached into his soul to draw some more chroma (and in doing so realized his reserves were full, like he hadn’t just used any of it—interesting, but not the time) and sent it toward the plant-wolf.

As his soulsense touched it, he felt its spirit-song. Uniform, just like the first. But then something else happened; as he looked at the wolf, he saw a vague, faint something overlapping its body, like a superimposed image, except it was too vague to tell with any level of clarity. And the melody he was getting from its spirit-song changed subtly, while the vague impressions and ideas he’d been getting from it seemed to solidify, become clearer…

The wolf lunged forward, and Jieyuan reacted on instinct, chanting, “Ablaze.”

The attuning bond formed. The creature slumped forward, crumpling. The bond broke. The creature came undone.

Jieyuan stared at the bits and pieces of the creature’s unraveled body, his mind still on the odd way his soulsense had behaved just now.

Could it be? He had an inkling of what had just happened, but he wasn’t sure he dared believe it. I can’t be that lucky, can I?

Rustling came from behind him. Jieyuan turned. A plant-beast walked from between two shrubs. This one was more like the first, shaped like a cat, but slightly bigger, and made of different plants; mostly green and brown, with little color to it.

It pounced, and the same dance from before resumed.

Jieyuan didn’t draw on his chroma this time, just focusing his soulsense on it; its spirit-song came into focus, melody and impressions all in one.

But as he kept his focus on it, that changed; the earlier image reappeared over the creature’s body, and this time Jieyuan saw it more clearly. Lines. Or rather, threads. Superimposed with the creature’s plant-flesh, each and every one of them a different thickness and color.

As he focused on these lines, the melody of its spirit-song changed again, just like last time, becoming clearer. And, accompanying them, the faint impressions and ideas that always underscored a spirit-song—except they were clearer, more solid, almost tangible.

Jieyuan didn’t draw chroma from his soul; he just kept dodging the plant-beast’s attack. He kept his attention trained on its spirit-song all the while, and it became clearer with each passing second, until he was seeing the lines over its body with perfect clarity, like they were really there.

Images, sounds, impressions. That was how spirit-songs worked, but this was a step above that. Jieyuan tried to go deeper, focusing on one specific line—and then the rest of the melody he was hearing faded, and he heard a single, pleasant sound. A note, light and airy, like he’d just plucked the string of some instrument. And together with that note: a single, clear impression, one of motion and agility.

Jieyuan turned his attention to another one of the many strings; a different note sounded, this one deeper, more resonant, and the impression he got was of strength, durability.

He pulled his focus away from that specific string, taking in the creature’s body as a whole and the strings overlapping it.

Except they weren’t strings he was looking at, but chords. The chords of its spirit-song.

Because that was what he was looking at: the many, many strings over its body were like a visual representation of its spirit-song—perfectly broken down and arranged in a way he could easily pick it apart.

Another soulskill. Three for three.

Jieyuan grinned.

Anren wasn’t going to believe it.

—∞—

Anren did not, in fact, believe it.

Not at first, at any rate.

“You can’t be serious,” Anren said, her voice low, her eyes wide. She glanced left, then right, like she was making sure there wasn’t anyone in earshot, before she stepped closer. “Another one?”

It was the sixth day; the Sword Tower’s ego had just popped in, told them they had an hour before the challenge phase, and then disappeared. The ego didn’t kill anyone this time around. Jieyuan noted, though, that there were only about eighty cultivators in the Heavenly Hall now; it looked like the third stage’s pursuit phase had claimed about half a dozen contestants.

Jieyuan couldn’t suppress a smug smile. “Another one,” he confirmed.

“I’ve never heard of anything like this happening,” Anren said. “Never. Just how lucky are you?”

Jieyuan shrugged. Daojue stood to the side, regarding the two of them without expression.

“Anyway, what does it do?” Anren said. “Your Concept this time around was Refining, right?”

“Basically, it lets me see spirit-songs as chords.”

“Chords? Hmmm.” Anren seemed to consider it for a moment; from her expression, though, Jieyuan could tell she didn’t get it. “And what can you do with that?”

“I think it’s better to tell you what my pursuit phase was like,” Jieyuan said. “The first three difficulties, I just had these beasts made of plants come at me. One at the first difficulty, two at the second, three at the third. All I had to do was attune them. The new soulskill wasn’t all that useful then.”

Anren nodded along.

“But then in the fourth difficulty, that changed—because attuning wasn’t enough anymore. I also had to essencify them, or they’d keep attacking,” Jieyuan said. “The chords helped with that—because when I channeled my chroma into the beasts, they started making different sounds. The sounds changed as I varied the channeling rate, and when I managed to get it to sound just like the original melody, essencification began. Just like that.”

He’d spent a couple of hours in the fourth difficulty, getting the hang of it. With three beasts coming at him, he’d had to pick them off one by one, essencifying them in sequence. Thankfully, the creatures came at him in waves; only after he’d gotten rid of all the current ones would the next batch of plant-beasts come at him.

“That’s— A shortcut to essencification rates, then?” Anren nodded. “That’s definitely useful—”

“I’m not done,” Jieyuan said. “Fifth and sixth difficulties, more plant-beasts. But then the seventh difficulty came, and now essencification wasn’t enough. After turning into essence, if I didn’t merge it with the essence of another beast, creating an amalgam, they’d reform.”

If he hadn’t been prepared for anything, knowing that something different would happen in the fourth difficulty, he might have died. The first time it had happened, the plant-beast had reformed too fast, and from just inches away.

“The new soulskill came in handy there, too. When I was joining two essences together, their chords came together into a new spirit-song, so I just had to repeat the process of the last time: vary the channeling rate until it matched the new song.”

Anren looked even more incredulous now, but she didn’t say anything, even though she looked like she wanted to.

“Eighth through tenth difficulties, one more plant-beast each,” Jieyuan said. “Eight, in total, at the tenth difficulty. I managed to reach it on the first day; after a while, I tried my hand at the eleventh.”

Now it looked like Anren couldn’t hold herself back anymore. “Did you manage it—”

“No.” Here, Jieyuan’s smile slipped. “If I turned the plant-beasts into amalgams, they didn’t revert. But that wasn’t enough, because I suddenly started feeling sick. I think I was supposed to congeal the amalgams into pills—but I couldn’t do it while I was becoming weaker by the second, and avoiding the attacks of the remaining beasts.”

Even with his new soulskill—and using both Twin Serpent Cognition and Path Glimpse Divination on top—he hadn’t managed to conquer the eleventh difficulty.

He’d never gotten so close to it before, but the longest he’d lasted in it had been a single wave. He’d been forced to spend most of his time in the tenth difficulty instead. His affinity with Refining now was the same as his Fate affinity: fourth-order. Nearly fifth-order, but not quite.

Jieyuan glanced at Daojue. Daojue, who’d gotten to seventh-order affinity in the very first stage. Only now that he’d really experienced for himself how hard the eleventh difficulty was did he realize just how big a deal what Daojue had done was.

And it wasn’t as if he’d gotten lucky with his first pick, Crystal. Daojue had also reached seventh-order affinity with Metal in the second stage, and before Jieyuan had started telling Anren about his new soulskill, he’d asked Daojue how far he’d gotten with Nullification—and wonder of wonders, the answer hadn’t changed: seventh-order.

“Oh, stop that,” Anren snapped. Surprised, Jieyuan turned back to her. “Wipe that look off your face. You already got three soulskills out of the trial. Most contestants don’t get a single one.”

Jieyuan knew that. But that didn’t change the fact that even with those three new soulskills, without which he doubted he’d have managed any of the three stages so far, Daojue was still so far above him.

Anren huffed. “You’re incorrigible.” But then she got a gleam in her eyes, and before Jieyuan knew it, she pounced at him. Her arms wrapped around his body, and she hugged him close.

Jieyuan staggered back, eyes wide. “What are you—”

She squirmed against him, a cackle in her voice. “Trying to rub off on your luck!”

What the actual rot.

He tried to push Anren away, but it was like trying to tear steel apart; her hold on him felt borderline unbreakable.

“Get off, woman,” Jieyuan snapped.

Anren only laughed louder and held him tighter.

He’d known she had problems with boundaries (he’d known from the moment she’d tried to take the Shifting Feathers just moments after they’d met), but this was ridiculous.

The only saving grace here was that, though her body was rubbing against his, she was doing it too roughly for it to feel like anything other than roughhousing. He still hoped Meiyao never found out about this.

The commotion didn’t go unnoticed. Questioning glances turned their way.

Jieyuan turned to Daojue. “Help me get her—”

His words caught in his throat as he took in Daojue’s narrowed eyes, furrowed brow, and tensed jaw.

That was not the expression of a happy man.

All right. He really needed Anren off him now.

If there was one thing he didn’t feel like dealing with, it was a jealous Daojue.

“Anren, get off,” he said, pushing her back again.

She didn’t budge, but the next moment she pulled away of her own free will. She wore the most punchable grin Jieyuan had ever seen. “So, learned your lesson?”

“My lesson?” Jieyuan stared at her, incredulous.

“No more sulking,” Anren declared. “Not on my watch. Or you’re getting hugged again.”

She is useful, Jieyuan had to remind himself as he took a deep breath. Really useful. Without her, you’d probably be dead. Remember that.

Besides, as much as he felt like strangling her, he doubted he’d succeed, with how much faster and stronger she was, not to mention Daojue would definitely intervene. He was still tempted, though. So very tempted.

But then his eyes fell on a spot behind Anren, and he forgot all about what had just happened. Because that woman from the Absolute Sword Sect was back, and she was looking over again, her silver eyes boring into him and Anren.

Their gazes met; unlike the last time, she held his gaze. She took a step forward, but then she seemed to think better of it, and she turned around and stalked off toward the center of the hall to join the other Absolute Sword Sect disciples.

“Jieyuan?”

Glancing at Anren, he found she was also looking at the woman’s retreating back. He couldn’t see any signs of that grinning, mischievous, childish Anren. Her expression was serious now, pensive.

“Do you know her?” Anren asked. “It’s not the first time she’s looked this way.”

“It isn’t,” Jieyuan confirmed. “And no, I don’t.”

“Hmmm.” She nodded meaningfully toward Daojue, who didn’t look quite so murderous anymore. “Be careful. The interest of the Absolute Sword Sect is rarely a good thing.”

Right. Anren probably thought this had to do with Daojue and his Tianzijun heritage. There was a chance she was right; Jieyuan was afraid, though, that it had more to do with himself.

Jieyuan watched as the silver-robed woman disappeared among her fellow disciples. “I had figured as much already.”

—∞—

As the void gave way to a forest, Jieyuan found himself in a clearing mostly free of vegetation. The trees formed an almost perfect circle around him.

A man was standing in the middle. He was tall and slender; he looked to be in his early thirties, and both his hair and eyes were mundane. He wore plain black robes.

The echo didn’t say anything, just gave Jieyuan a long, studying look. His dark eyes were cold and steely.

His voice, it turned out, was much the same.

“You are not a refiner,” the man said. “You are still a child. An infant, even. What in the Heavens are you doing here? No—no matter. The truth will reveal itself. Come. Sit.”

The echo sat down on the ground, then indicated the spot in front of him. It sounded less like an invitation and more like a command.

Jieyuan had gotten rather friendly echoes twice in a row. That particular streak had just come to an abrupt end. He had to say, though, that this was more like the kind of treatment he’d expected to get.

Quietly, Jieyuan walked over, then sat down where the man had indicated.

The man looked him over again; he didn’t seem any more impressed the second time around.

“For your challenge, I will attempt to refine your body,” the man said. “You are to thwart my attempts. Understood?”

The way the man asked the question didn’t give Jieyuan the impression he was expecting anything but yes as the answer.

Problem was, Jieyuan did not, in fact, understand.

“Refine my body?” Jieyuan said. The man’s steely regard immediately darkened, turning into a glare. “How does that work? My body’s mundane; it shouldn’t be possible—”

“You are inside a Heavenly Room,” the man cut him off. “In case you have not noticed it, the Laws here are malleable. I say your body can be refined, so it can. Are you ready to begin?”

Frowning, Jieyuan focused his soulsense on himself. And what he found on his body wasn’t aura; it was a spirit-shadow infused with chroma, much like that of a chromal beast or plant. Meaning that the man was right; as he was, he could be refined.

Jieyuan didn’t quite like this particular discovery. He also didn’t need to ask about the danger of this challenge phase; if the echo refined him, he’d turn into a puddle of goo. Failure was death, and quite a gruesome one at that.

But how exactly was he supposed to counter the echo’s—

“Enough,” the echo said, closing his eyes. “We start now.”

Jieyuan’s soulsense caught it as chroma flowed out from the man and into his body. Violet chroma: chroma he shouldn’t have been able to sense, being a Redsoul, but just like in the pursuit phase, none of the normal rules seemed to apply here.

Alarmed, Jieyuan focused his soulsense on himself, and words weren’t enough to describe his relief when he saw multi-colored chords appear over his body. He pulled on his own chroma, listening for the melody of his soul.

It was changing; the man was varying his channeling rate, probably trying to figure out Jieyuan’s body’s essencification rate. If his body’s spirit-song was like that of his soul, then it was currently very close to it.

Jieyuan didn’t hesitate; he started channeling chroma into his own body. Immediately, the melody changed, his channeling interfering with that of the echo.

The echo’s stony expression didn’t change, but his channeling rate did, taking into account Jieyuan’s. Just a few beats later, Jieyuan found the melody of his soul closely approaching his original one again—

He changed his own channeling rate; the echo reacted, changing his in turn, faster this time; Jieyuan changed his own again—but this time he went a step further. He grabbed onto the shafts of the Shifting Feathers, splitting his mind.

Leaving half his mind to deal with the echo’s, he gathered some more chroma with the other half and moved it out of himself, toward the echo—whose body, just like his, had a spirit-shadow. It was violet, but Jieyuan already knew that didn’t matter here.

The man’s eyes opened wide just as Jieyuan’s chroma penetrated his body, and while half of Jieyuan’s mind desperately struggled to keep the echo from essencifying him, the other half tried to essencify the echo’s body in turn.

The best defense, after all, was a good offense.

“How— What—” the echo sputtered. His attempts at essencifying Jieyuan slowed; at the same time, Jieyuan felt it as the man started channeling chroma into his own body.

Like Jieyuan, he fought the battle on two fronts—except, if the beads of sweat suddenly dripping down the echo’s forehead were any indication, he wasn’t having nearly as easy a time.

And Jieyuan was having a rather easy time. With the man’s attention split like this, it took no effort at all to keep him from essencifying his body. And though the man kept changing the channeling rate of the chroma he was pumping into his own body, Jieyuan was getting closer and closer to matching his original spirit-song.

“Enough.”

A tremor ran through Jieyuan. His soulsense suddenly vanished, like he’d lost access to it.

Jieyuan stayed put, glaring at the man, blood thumping in his ears as he fought the urge to draw the Shifting Feathers and spill blood.

The man gave him a long, deep look. He didn’t seem as antagonistic anymore. Rather, he looked a little shaken.

“You were granted Natural Symphony Insight, weren’t you?” It didn’t sound like a question. “You also have another soulskill, one that allows you to split your mind.”

“That’s right,” Jieyuan said, seeing no point in hiding it. Natural Symphony Insight did sound about right for his ability to see spirit-song chords, too.

The man stared at him, unblinking, for a few seconds longer before he sighed. “Then you have passed. There is no test I can give you within the constraints of the third stage that could challenge you as you are.”

The echo looked straight into Jieyuan’s eyes.

“You have been given a great gift, one that refiners throughout the Planes would move the Heavens for. Even the Linzushen would envy your aptitude now; only the true get of the Primordial Qilin could match you. You would do well to treasure it.”

Jieyuan’s eyes widened. “Hold on, Linzushen—”

“This is not the place for questions,” the echo said, and Jieyuan realized that even if the man wasn’t as unfriendly anymore, that was hardly the same as being sympathetic. “My purpose is to challenge you. I have done so, and you have passed. It is done.”

“No, wait, I just want to know—”

The man clapped his hands, and the forest faded, and Jieyuan was back in the Heavenly Hall.

Jieyuan glared at the steel door in front of him.

“Oh, come on.”

—∞—

The Heavenly Vault hung above Jieyuan; an infinite void surrounded him, and three spheres floated in front of him.

One was nearly as black as the void around it. Another was a dark shade of yellow mixed with violet, constantly pulsing. The last one was a burning, vibrant red flecked with orange, writhing and roiling.

DEATH.

PAIN.

FIRE.

“Finally.”