Chương 13: Chapter 12

Ling Tian considered his options. The sensible decision would have been to return to the shack, eat, inspect the cultivation manual again, and conduct no further experiments until he had fully documented the effects of the first deposit. Naturally, curiosity introduced a competing proposal. His spiritual perception had improved. Or perhaps his nervous system had. Either way, the five-meter radius around him now felt comfortable.

Yesterday, uncontrolled perception had nearly crushed his brain beneath the sheer volume of information. Today, with the Earth Qi continuously supporting his body and his mental filters already established, the same sensory workload felt manageable. That justified a controlled test. Controlled being the important word. Ling Tian settled into a stable seated position and closed his eyes. He expanded the radius. Five meters. Nothing unusual. Seven. Ten. The world unfolded farther around him.

He could sense the damp roots of the nearby pines pushing between cracks in the rock. Small concentrations of Earth Qi rested beneath stones scattered across the shoreline. Water Qi dominated the basin, so overwhelmingly dense that he maintained a deliberate mental exclusion around it. Twelve meters. Still stable. Ling Tian paused. No headache. No nausea. No pressure behind the eyes. He continued. Fifteen meters.

The range was several times larger than the narrow radius he had maintained during the previous day's descent to Hua City, yet his mind processed the information without immediate distress. Interesting. The Earth Qi had not simply improved his muscles. Either cultivation strengthened the nervous system as part of the same general reinforcement, or the continuous pulses from his Dantian were reducing mental fatigue the same way they reduced physical fatigue. Ling Tian filed the question away.

Then he swept his perception across the waterfall. The amount of Water Qi there was absurd. Even with most of it filtered, the torrent registered as a massive moving wall, dense enough to drown the weaker spiritual signatures nearby. Ling Tian angled his perception past it. Toward the cliff. The black stone face behind the falling water was saturated with Earth Qi. Dense, old, and stable. Exactly what he expected from a mountain. His awareness moved across it. Then stopped. Ling Tian frowned. He swept backward.

Stone. Stone. Stone. Nothing. He opened his eyes. The waterfall continued roaring. Ling Tian stared through the white curtain toward the cliff face beyond. He closed his eyes again. Another scan. The Earth Qi spread consistently through the mountain. Then, across one broad section directly behind the central waterfall, the signal disappeared. Not weakened. Disappeared. Ling Tian's eyebrows drew together. He narrowed his perception and concentrated on the anomaly. The result remained the same.

The mountain was hollow. Behind the enormous curtain of falling water existed a sizeable region where solid stone simply did not register. More tellingly, faint traces of Wind Qi moved inside the empty area. Contained Wind Qi. That mattered. If the space behind the waterfall were merely a crack in the mountain, airflow would behave irregularly. Instead, the currents circulated through what seemed to be an enclosed chamber before returning toward the entrance. Ling Tian opened his eyes slowly.

He stared at the waterfall.

"No." The waterfall ignored him. Ling Tian stared harder.

"No." Reality remained uncooperative. He rubbed the bridge of his nose.

"A hidden cave." Of course it was. A secret cave directly behind a waterfall. The sheer lack of creativity was almost offensive. Ling Tian had read enough fantasy in his previous life to recognize the scenario immediately. Hidden waterfall caves belonged beside mysterious rings, broken engagements, arrogant young masters, and ancient grandfathers as foundational infrastructure of the genre. Apparently this universe had standards. Low standards. He looked around the basin.

A majestic waterfall in an isolated mountain valley. A hidden cavity directly behind the curtain. Possibly carved rather than naturally formed. The probability of something dramatic being inside was uncomfortably high. The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Ling Tian sighed.

"Next there'll be a skeleton sitting cross-legged with a storage ring on one finger." He paused. Actually, he would accept the storage ring. That seemed useful. The sarcasm faded as his practical instincts returned. A hidden chamber was not inherently good news. Someone had created it. Or something had. The correct question was not what treasure might be inside. The correct question was why the entrance had been concealed behind several tons of violently falling water. Ling Tian studied the route.

The waterfall crashed hard enough to turn the basin below into constant white turbulence. Passing through the central section would be suicidal. Even a grown man could be knocked unconscious or pinned beneath the current. A ten-year-old child had no business attempting it. Unfortunately, Ling Tian was no longer operating at the normal specifications of a ten-year-old child. He looked down at his hands. Earth Qi.

Of all the elements he could have selected for his first deposit, Earth was uniquely appropriate for this particular problem. Stability. Weight. Structural reinforcement. His morning sprint had already demonstrated that the energy could support joints and absorb impacts. The cold basin had shown that it helped regulate physical stress. The waterfall would provide a significantly more violent test of those capabilities. The rational response was still to leave. Ling Tian knew that.

The chamber was not going anywhere. He could return later after acquiring more Qi, better equipment, perhaps a rope, and preferably another person willing to die first. The problem was information. If the chamber contained something valuable, leaving it uninvestigated meant accepting the possibility that someone else might find it. If it contained danger, knowing that danger existed several kilometers from his home was equally important.

And if it contained absolutely nothing, he would have wasted half an hour and acquired an excellent reason to never crawl behind waterfalls again. Ling Tian began constructing a risk matrix. Potential hazard: drowning. High severity. Potential hazard: impact trauma. High severity. Potential hazard: hostile creature behind waterfall. Unknown. Potential hazard: cultivation trap. Unknown and irritating.

Potential reward: shelter, resources, manuals, tools, artifacts, historical information, or some combination thereof. Potentially enormous. The analysis produced an answer he disliked. Investigate. Carefully. Ling Tian stood. He checked his herb sack and moved it farther from the water, wedging it securely between two rocks. Losing the morning's income because he decided to investigate a fantasy cliché would be humiliating enough to deserve death. His tunic remained damp. He left it where it was.

Wearing wet cloth beneath the waterfall would only add drag. Ling Tian stepped back into the basin. The water rose around his legs. The current strengthened as he moved toward the center. He planted each foot carefully on the slick stones below. Even with enhanced balance, a careless step could still send him down. Cultivation had improved his hardware. It had not repealed gravity. By the time the water reached his thighs, the current was pushing hard enough to shift his stance. Ling Tian stopped.

The Earth Qi turned inside his Dantian. He directed a portion of its influence downward. Not the Qi itself. He did not know how to remove the deposit from the core without risking another internal transit. Instead, he followed the passive pulse already spreading through his meridians and concentrated on his legs. The response was subtle. His muscles tightened. His feet seemed to settle more firmly against the submerged stones. The lower half of his body gained a dense, grounded quality. Ling Tian tested his stance.

The current struck him. He held. Good. He continued. Mist thickened around him until the opposite bank disappeared behind white spray. The roar of the waterfall grew beyond ordinary sound and became a constant physical vibration passing through his ribs. Ling Tian approached the edge of the falling curtain. Up close, the waterfall looked less like water and more like a moving wall. He reconsidered the plan. Again. Leaving remained available. No shame. No heroic destiny required him to enter.

Ling Tian looked through the white turbulence toward the hidden cavity his senses had detected. Then at the shore behind him. Then back.

"Terrible idea." He stepped forward. The outer edge of the waterfall struck his shoulder. Ling Tian nearly collapsed. The impact was vastly stronger than expected. Freezing water hammered down across his back with the force of repeated blows. His knees buckled, and one foot slid several centimeters across the stone beneath him. Ling Tian immediately withdrew half a step. The pressure eased. He stood outside the main curtain, breathing hard. New data. Extremely unpleasant data. The Earth Qi pulsed.

The jarring ache across his shoulder dulled. Ling Tian adjusted. The mistake had been attempting to stand upright beneath the water. That presented too much surface area and allowed the falling current to strike directly downward against his spine. He needed an angle. Lower profile. Forward momentum. He crouched slightly and leaned toward the waterfall. The Earth Qi inside his Dantian rotated. Ling Tian concentrated on the sensation of stability spreading through his legs, hips, and back. Then he moved. One step.

Water smashed across his shoulders. His knees bent but held. Another. The sound vanished beneath the torrent. There was no world anymore. Only freezing pressure. White chaos filled his vision. Water struck his skull, neck, spine, and arms so rapidly that individual impacts merged into one continuous force. Ling Tian clenched his jaw, lowered his head, and drove forward. His foot slipped. His stomach dropped. The other leg caught him. Earth Qi pulsed. The supporting limb locked. Ling Tian pushed. One more step.

The waterfall seemed determined to peel him away from the mountain and throw him into the basin. He refused. Not through raw strength. Through stubbornness. Slow, heavy, boring stubbornness. Earth. For perhaps two seconds, he understood the element far better than any passage in The Way of Natural Harmony had managed to explain. Do not overpower. Do not chase. Remain. The current pushed. Ling Tian stayed. Then he stepped through. The pressure vanished. The transition was so abrupt that he stumbled forward.

His palms struck smooth stone. Ling Tian fell to his hands and knees, coughing as water streamed from his hair and face. He sucked in a deep breath. Cold air filled his lungs. He remained there for several seconds. Alive. Excellent beginning. Behind him, the waterfall continued roaring, but its voice had changed. The curtain of water now stood between him and the basin, muffling the sound into a deep, constant thunder. Ling Tian slowly raised his head. Darkness. Complete darkness.

The sunlight filtering through the waterfall barely penetrated beyond the entrance. Several meters ahead, the world simply disappeared. The air smelled old. Wet stone. Stagnant moisture. Something faintly mineral. No animal musk. No rot. That was encouraging. Possibly. Ling Tian pushed himself upright. Water streamed down his body and pooled around his bare feet. He could not see. Fortunately, human eyesight was no longer his only available option. Ling Tian closed his eyes. His spiritual perception expanded.

Five meters. Ten. Fifteen. Twenty. The hidden space unfolded inside his mind. Ling Tian stopped breathing for a moment. This was not a natural cave. The entrance tunnel began rough enough, but several meters inward the stone abruptly changed. Jagged mountain surfaces transitioned into smooth walls carved with deliberate precision. The floor leveled beneath his feet. Curves appeared where erosion should have produced irregular fractures. He extended the scan. An archway. Another. The stone had been shaped.

Not chipped by hand. Shaped. Ling Tian stepped forward slowly. His bare footsteps produced faint echoes. The darkness no longer mattered. Through Qi perception, the geometry of the tunnel appeared as variations in Earth energy. Solid stone formed a dense boundary around him, while empty space registered as absence. He reached the first carved section and ran one hand across the wall. Smooth. Far too smooth. Even without sight, his fingertips could feel the precision. Someone had built this. A long time ago.

Ling Tian continued deeper. Faint patterns appeared in the walls. Not cracks. Runes. He stopped and directed his perception toward them. The markings contained traces of energy, but barely. Whatever power had once moved through the carvings had almost completely dissipated. The sensation reminded him of dead electrical wiring left inside an abandoned building. An infrastructure that had once carried something significant but now held only residual traces. That was both reassuring and concerning.

Dead formations could not kill him. Probably. Unless they were not actually dead. Ling Tian kept a respectful distance. The tunnel widened as he progressed. Two meters became three. The ceiling rose gradually beyond easy reach. Another carved arch waited ahead. He passed beneath it. The space beyond opened dramatically. Ling Tian froze. His spiritual perception spread outward to its limit. A vast chamber emerged. The walls curved away from him in a smooth, nearly perfect geometric shape.

The room spanned roughly twenty meters across, perhaps more depending on the sections beyond his sensory range. The ceiling rose high above, disappearing outside the reach of his current perception. The floor was polished stone. Flat. Deliberate. Ancient runes covered sections of the curved walls, their spiritual signatures faint and exhausted. The atmosphere was entirely still. No wind. No animals. No obvious movement. Ling Tian remained at the threshold. He did not step farther.

Finding a hidden chamber was one thing. Entering the center of an unknown cultivation installation was another. His excitement from discovering the hollow mountain had already been replaced by something considerably more useful. Paranoia. Ling Tian expanded his perception as far as he safely could and began sweeping the room. Floor. Walls. Ceiling. Corners. Every irregularity. Every concentration of Qi. Every suspicious absence. The chamber waited in silence.

Whatever had been hidden behind the waterfall had remained undisturbed for a very long time. Ling Tian intended to make absolutely certain it did not object to visitors before he became the first one.