Chương 52: Chapter 51: PASS A TEST

CHAPTER 51 PASS A TEST —∞— Daojue's gauntlets flashed every time it touched a string and it disappeared. And with how fast Daojue moved them, they flashed so constantly they seemed to be glowing steadily. It took Daojue just moments to get rid of all the strings covering his body. The spider didn't sit around waiting for Daojue to free himself, though. Instead it turned to Jieyuan, who was still very much so locked up, before crawling rapidly toward him, long legs skittering across the floor.

As it drew close, the spider's legs raised the brunt of its body higher, and it vaulted smoothly over the still-stuck Shifting Sister floating mid-air. Its mouthparts opened wide, revealing a dark, narrow fissure, glistening with thick, greenish saliva. A cloying, rotten stench struck Jieyuan's nostrils. But then a crystalline blur flashed between them, and the spider reared back, its fangs vibrating wildly as it let out a high, shrill shriek.

Daojue appeared between him and the spider, one red-gauntleted arm stuck out to the side. A beat later, Gleaming End—which had sunk into the ground after Daojue had thrown it just now—flew straight into Daojue's outstretched hand. The spider stopped a few feet away. Jieyuan could still see the outline of it past Daojue's back. Daojue didn't charge at the beast. Instead, he reached forward and rapidly waved his hand around the floating Shifting Sister. All the strings binding it immediately snapped.

Maeva hadn't stopped drawing on his soulforce for even a moment, and the moment Sapphire was freed up, she rushed back to his side, carrying the splitfang with her. Next, Daojue, without turning away from the spider, took a step back, and ran one of his hands over Jieyuan's body. Daojue's movements were quick, economical, and one green string after another snapped, the red gauntlet pulsing each time.

The touch of the gauntlet brushing against his skin wasn't the cool, smooth lick of metal; it felt neither hot nor cold, and seemed to be completely without texture. It felt just like materialized chroma, really. Neutral, unreal, like color given form and mass. The gauntlets looked like materialized chroma, too. Their surface was bare, plain, with just the laminar outline of scale mail, like your standard cultivator gauntlets, and it was pure red in color. Exactly tenth-shade red, in fact.

Tenth-density materialized chroma wouldn't have looked any different. Jieyuan's soulsenses told a different story, though. The gauntlets had the slightly vague, indistinct spiritual presence of bondskill manifestations. Which could only mean one thing. They were the result of Daojue's bondskill. The bondskill Jieyuan had only thought to exist based on assumptions and conjectures.

Assumptions and conjectures that had grown weaker these past few days, as he saw no real signs of it even after everything that had happened so far. As Daojue cut off more and more of the strings binding him, Jieyuan turned his focus away from the gauntlets themselves and toward their effects. Daojue wasn't destroying the strings on contact, not exactly.

Rather, after the gauntlet touched them, Daojue would simply continue with the motion, keep moving his hand, and the string would snap, like it'd lost all its strength, all its durability. Some sort of weakening effect? Jieyuan didn't get to think on it long. Within moments there were no more strings on him. Freed up, he moved to stand beside Daojue. It wasn't that easy to tell, but the spider seemed to have its eyes only on Daojue. Like it was evaluating him.

Wondering, maybe, just how its prey had gotten rid of its binding strings, and whether it was worth cutting its losses and retreating. Before, Jieyuan had been all for avoiding a fight. But the spider's power ability to bind him seemed too dangerous. Also, those strings hadn't felt like a spiritskill manifestation to his soulsenses, but rather more like a chromal material. If he was right about that, then the spider probably had other cards to play. He didn't want to risk it coming after them again later.

Moreover, if it weren't for Daojue, the spider would have reached him just now, and Jieyuan had the sneaking suspicion that whatever fate might have awaited him at its hands (or rather, legs), it wouldn't have been a pretty one. Now, there was such a thing as forgive and forget. Jieyuan wasn't much for it, though. Even more so when it'd be so easy to get even. Very slowly, so as not to draw any attention, he drew a snake-scale throwing blade from one of his holsters. He still had a hand free.

Maeva was by his side, holding Sapphire. Maeva, quick recap. Spider biology. What's the kill spot here? He'd studied spiders in biology class as Amyas, he was sure of that, but he'd be damned if he remembered the first thing about them.

"Well, if it's anything like a mundane one," Maeva said, "then it doesn't have a brain the way mammals do. It should be diffused—" Maeva, just tell me where to throw the rotting blade.

"Between the eyes should do the trick." Between the eyes it is. The spider didn't move, still eyeing Daojue. Daojue, likewise, did his best impression of a statue as he stared right back at it, both hands now on Gleaming End, still wearing his bondskill gauntlets. Jieyuan didn't know what Daojue was thinking, whether he was trying to scare it away or if he had some plan of his own, or if he was just waiting for the right moment to strike. It didn't matter. Jieyuan whipped his hand out.

The Orangerealm knife shot forward, a streak through the air. Before the spider could react it'd already burrowed cleanly into the center of its head, breaking the carapace and disappearing inside it. A viscous, grayish blue liquid bubbled around the sunken blade. One thing Jieyuan had been practicing a lot as of late was his throwing skills.

His Orangerealm implements didn't have the ability to ignore the durability of Redrealm entities like Gleaming End did (to do that he'd need to turn their Law offensive, and he could only do that by bonding them, which he couldn't), but their defensive Law ensured they were unbreakable against Redrealm entities. And the combination of augmented strength and unbreakable tools was a fearsome one. The spider shuddered, went still again, didn't move, like it was paralyzed.

Jieyuan wasn't sure if the blade had already done the trick; if the spider would collapse next, dead. And he didn't get a chance to find out, because Daojue dashed forward, and swept Gleaming End sideway across the spider's frozen body. The spear cut effortlessly through the spider's body, perfectly bisecting its head. Daojue jumped back before the resulting spray of blue and green hit him. Jieyuan did the same. He needed a lot of things right now, but nowhere on that list was a poison shower.

"Let's go," Jieyuan said, without preamble. He glanced at the spider's corpse, trying to catch sight of his Orangerealm knife in the midst of all the gory and possibly toxic mess, but quickly gave up on it. He always tried to recover his scale tools, but sometimes it just wasn't worth it. They went straight toward the next pocket. He didn't bother asking Huaxin, this time.

The spider might have had friends, and Jieyuan preferred to risk running into a new beast rather than waiting around and hoping no more of those spiders came searching for the one they'd killed. They went through the next few pockets without stopping. It seemed like luck was on their side this time, because they didn't come across a single beast. Jieyuan only stopped when they reached a spacious pocket mostly clear of vegetation and with a little rock outcrop near the center. It looked defensible enough.

It'd already been almost a day since their last break, so Jieyuan left Huaxin in charge of watching out for danger. They couldn't do as Meiyao used to, where she'd ensure there weren't any beasts in the region, so he had to settle for the next best thing. He turned back to Daojue.

"Let's stop here." Daojue's red gauntlets had disappeared at some point. He was back to wearing his standard metal ones, wrapped with a spirit-shroud. His bondskill must summon the red gauntlets over his normal ones, Jieyuan determined. He wanted to find out more.

"So," Jieyuan said, "you have a bondskill." Daojue, of course, didn't answer. Jieyuan hadn't expected him to, though. He was still getting his thoughts in order, trying to figure out the best approach here. Over the last few days Jieyuan had gotten an even better grasp on how Daojue worked, on what exactly it took to get him to speak. Since it looked like they'd be on their own for the foreseeable future, he'd actually put in the effort to figure out communication strategies.

Daojue didn't react to statements, even ones with implicit questions. You had to ask him a question outright, and it couldn't be one with an obvious answer; otherwise, Daojue wouldn't speak, either. The problem, of course, was that whether the answer was obvious or not was from Daojue's perspective, so you still had to put in some guesswork.

"What is it? What does it do?" Jieyuan asked. Straight to the point. There was no point mincing words with Daojue.

"Some kind of weakening effect?"

"No," Daojue said.

"It is called Spectral Zenith Nullification. It nullifies Conceptual effects."

"It nullifies?" Jieyuan asked. He leaned back against one of the rocks. Daojue stayed put.

"And wait, Conceptual effects? But that'd mean…" Just about everything. Mantle, bondskills, spiritskills, chromal artifacts… Pretty much everything that mattered to cultivators. To chromal beasts and plants, too. To everything chromal, in fact. The whole point of chroma was that it could allow its holder to draw on Concepts to affect the world. To produce Conceptual effects. Which Daojue could apparently nullify.

"That's…" Jieyuan thought back to when Daojue had used his bondskill on the strings earlier.

"You were nullifying their durability, weren't you? That's how you were snapping them." Daojue didn't respond. Which would imply the answer was obvious. So yes.

"All right. I think I got it. But… That's powerful. Absurdly powerful." Which begged one question.

"Why did you never use it before?" If it were anyone else, he'd have thought they wanted to keep it a secret, avoid drawing attention. After all, Daojue had only become a cultivator after joining the sect, so he must've brought it with him. But this was Daojue. Jieyuan didn't think he was the type to hide like that, even if it was the smart thing to do. Not to mention, they'd been in the Dome for a while now, and these past few days, the only one there to see Daojue use his bondskill would've been Jieyuan.

Considering their survival was at hand, Jieyuan just didn't see Daojue holding back like that. Daojue regarded him for a long while, then said, "Do not tell others about it." Jieyuan blinked.

"Others?" Daojue's violet eyes were intense.

"Nobody can know about it." He paused, briefly, then added: "That includes Meiyao." So Daojue was hiding his bondskill? It had to be a very big deal, then, because Daojue really didn't strike him as the cautious type.

"Why? What's so special about it?" Daojue said nothing, just stared at him. Waiting, Jieyuan realized, for him to promise to keep his bondskill a secret. Jieyuan frowned, considering his options. He decided to risk it.

"Is it because you were born with it? Because it's a violet skillseed, and you have five others just like it?" Daojue's reaction was curious: his eyes widening slightly, before narrowing. His gaze grew even more intense. After a beat, he said, "Meiyao." It wasn't a question. Jieyuan took a deep breath. That was as good as confirmation. He'd suspected it from the moment Meiyao had told him about her circumstances, but still… Rotting Heavens.

"Yes. Meiyao's just like you." This was Meiyao's secret, technically, but if Daojue was the same, then it didn't really matter; they were in the same boat.

"So there's no issue with her knowing—""No," Daojue cut him off.

"You must not tell her."

"Why?" Jieyuan pressed. Daojue just stared at him, unblinking, and Jieyuan knew he wasn't getting an answer out of him. Jieyuan sighed. Daojue clearly didn't want anybody to know about his bondskill; he'd only revealed it to save him. Jieyuan was many things, but he wasn't ungrateful.

"Fine. I'll keep it a secret. But can you tell me how exactly it works? Especially its limitations. So I can plan around it. I mean, I already know about it, so you might as well keep using it while it's just the two of us."

"I must touch the effect to nullify it," Daojue said.

"Chroma is expended on contact." Daojue said nothing else, so it fell to Jieyuan to fill in the gaps. If Daojue had to touch it…

"It only works on physical effects, then? And the chroma expenditure varies according to what it is you're nullifying?" Daojue said nothing. Which meant yes to both. That cleared some things up. So powers that directly acted on the mind, like Absolute Will Command, couldn't be nullified.

And if the chroma cost calculations were anything like Absolute Will Command's, then it might be that if you were trying to nullify something at a rank much higher than yours, it might cost too much chroma to make nullification worth it.

"Can you choose just what to nullify? As in, if you touch something with several properties, can you pick a specific property to nullify?"

"Yes," Daojue said. That might help with the chroma expenditure, then. Jieyuan thought things through a little further, then nodded.

"All right. I can work with that. Anything else I should know about it?" Daojue didn't answer, which was answer enough.

"I'll be taking first watch, then," Jieyuan said. Or rather, more precisely, Maeva and Huaxin would be. Daojue sat down where he was, in front of the rocks, crossing his legs and closing his eyes. Jieyuan did likewise, then took out some of the plants he'd picked today. He didn't sheathe the Shifting Sisters, but rather set them on the ground on his sides, just in case. Maeva had already stopped chanting, immersing herself in his senses. She'd be able to keep watch better than he could.

Something might get past Huaxin, but not her. That handled, Jieyuan inspected the flowers. They were all new ones, so experience wouldn't help him much here. Still, there was one—a small, dark rose—whose spiritual song felt rather close to that of a flower whose channeling rate he did know, courtesy of Meiyao. You're it.

He held it up in front of his eyes, attuned it with a quick chant, and then began to slowly channel chroma into it, drawing it from his soul and creating a thin line of it between himself and the flower. He started with a slow, steady channeling. There was a grace period of sorts to essencification, he'd found. A period before the essencification proper began, before it'd start turning liquid. There'd be signs, at this point, if you were doing something wrong.

For most plants, that was wilting if you were underchanneling, swelling if you were overchanneling. There'd be signs on its spirit, too, if you knew to look for them. And that let you correct your channeling rate in time before the ritual really kicked in. Assuming you were fast enough about it, of course. He'd found quite a few of these roses, so based on where he failed (because he would fail, no doubt about that), he could narrow down the right channeling range for the next one.

And keep at it until he'd found the right rate. Jieyuan caught it the moment the rose began to bloat between his fingers, and lowered the channeling rate. But then it abruptly wilted, and before Jieyuan could bring it back up, the essencification ritual came fully into effect. And the rose, instead of liquefying, crumbled to dust between his fingers. Sighing, Jieyuan waved away the dust, and picked up the next flower. But then he stopped, realizing that Daojue had opened his eyes, and was looking at him.

"Something's wrong?" Jieyuan asked him. Instead of replying, Daojue reached out and picked up one of the roses on the ground. They were sitting close enough Daojue barely had to reach forward. Daojue stared down at it for a moment. Jieyuan had a sinking suspicion. Don't tell me… Daojue attuned the flower so quietly Jieyuan didn't hear his attuning hymn. And then Jieyuan's soulsenses caught onto the flow of chroma, from Daojue to the flower. And then the rose turned into essence before his eyes. Just like that.

Daojue looked back up at Jieyuan.

"Channel." Jieyuan was still staring at the little, swirling clump of liquid flowing in front of Daojue. That was free-form refining, just like Meiyao did it. Granted, it was just the first step of it, essencification, but there was no way Daojue could've seen this flower before. Daojue had figured it out on the spot, and gotten it right on his first attempt. That shouldn't have been possible. Not unless…

"Don't tell me you also have some stupid bloodgift that tells you the properties of plants and—""Sovereign Chromal Intuition," Daojue said, simply.

"That's— That's its name, then?" Left unsaid was the confirmation that Daojue did have a chromal bloodline.

"Sovereign Chromal Intuition… Chromal… It lets you intuit the property of anything chromal?" No answer. So yes. Meaning that Daojue's bloodgift might very well be a combination of Meiyao's Divine Plant and Beast Intuition bloodgifts and then some. Heavens, that's so rotting unfair. Before Jieyuan could ask further, Daojue let the essencified flower drop to the ground, splattering.

And then Jieyuan sensed Daojue draw more chroma out of his soul, using it to form a line in front of him, one that then looped back into Daojue's soul. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. The line wasn't a static thing, though, but a flowing current of chroma. One moving at a rate very close to how Jieyuan had been channeling chroma right before the essencification ritual had failed.

"You—""Match it," Daojue said. Jieyuan stared at it. He knew what Daojue was getting at, what he was offering him. A shortcut. The answer, really. All he had to do was create a loop of his own, and match it to Daojue's to get the right channeling rate. But Meiyao could've done something like this, and she hadn't. Rather, she'd taught him how to figure out the channeling rate on his own. To watch for the signs, and adjust accordingly, until it became instinct.

One approach would get him results quickly, but the other one was way better in the long run. And Jieyuan had always been the type to think far ahead.

"I… Thank you," Jieyuan said, "but I think I need to figure this out for myself." Daojue regarded him silently. The closed loop of chroma faded away. And then, for the first time since Jieyuan had met him, Daojue smiled. It was a faint quirk of the lips, a subtle thing. But not so subtle Jieyuan could blame it on the light, or pretend he was imagining it.

"You are like him," Daojue said, before closing his eyes. Jieyuan just stared at Daojue's statue-still form. And wondered whether he'd just passed some sort of test. —∞— There was a hole in the ground. Jieyuan didn't like it on principle. He and Daojue were on one end of the pocket, having just entered it. Not right at the entrance, because they knew better than that, but still near it.

The hole was on the other end, directly opposite them, on the foot of a man-sized mound that was probably just the start of some bigger slope. Jieyuan could only see a few inches inside it before the deeper green of the boundary mist blocked off the view. It'd been more than two months since they'd gotten separated from Meiyao. They'd come across holes like these before. And more often than not, they meant bad news.

While mundane moles, wombats, and other burrowing creatures weren't particularly threatening animals (just whack them, really, and they'd go down), the same could not be said about their chromal counterparts. Jieyuan thought back to a giant mole they'd come across a month ago. One with an earth-bending spiritskill and giant, blade-like claws that had almost disemboweled him; the beast had been deceptively fast for its size, and clever with its spiritskill. It'd been one of their toughest fights.

It hadn't succeeded, of course. But to remember it by, the mole had left him with this thick, discolored white line across his stomach. One of the many, many recent additions to Jieyuan's ever-growing collection of scars. Jieyuan glanced down briefly, eyeing grimly the scarred tapestry his upper body had become. Even before he'd become a cultivator he'd been pretty banged up, but these last two months had multiplied the damage.

If it weren't for a cultivator's natural heightened healing, plus the regeneration augmenters, he didn't doubt he'd be more scar than skin. And dead. Very, very much dead. A thousand times over. He'd even been forced to resort to Fatebloom Renewal a couple of times; the last time he'd used it hadn't even been a week ago, leaving him just two drops of Heartblood at the moment. He focused back on the hole, gripping the Shifting Sisters tighter, considering their options.

Whether it'd be wiser to turn back or try to go around it. Huaxin wasn't sending him any warnings, which meant they should be fine for now. Neither Maeva nor his soulsenses had picked up on anything bad, either. That was little consolation, though, considering that only the burrow's entrance seemed to be in the pocket. The rest of it would be outside it, and there this whole sensing business got way muddier. The size of the hole wasn't promising, either. A crouched person could easily go through it.

Now, plenty had changed in the last two months. For one, Jieyuan was fairly sure that if he got another shot at the Radiant Gold Tournament, he'd just about curb-stomp everyone there besides Meiyao and Daojue—even as a fourth-step Redsoul, and without relying on Maeva or Huaxin. When there wasn't a day when you didn't have to fight for your life dozens of times, you either got better or you got killed. And then there were his training sessions with Maeva, which might just have been his best idea yet.

Some things, though, had stayed the same. And one such thing was that in the Viridian Dome, you did not go looking for trouble. The Dome already delivered all the trouble you could need and then some more. It didn't matter that he'd broken through to sixth-step Redrealm earlier today, and Daojue yesterday.

Normally, Jieyuan wouldn't have minded a fight to get used to the bump-up in power—especially to his new Redtalent, Chroma Materialization, which allowed him to materialize his attuned chroma, turning it physical—but he'd already gotten that fight. And then several more. Today alone they'd already killed six chromal beasts, and they'd only been walking for half as many hours. They were better off turning around, Jieyuan decided. No point in trying their luck.

"Daojue, let's just…" Jieyuan glanced at Daojue, and saw that he was staring fixedly, intently at the burrow. Daojue's right hand held Gleaming End in front of him, angled down. As for his left hand, it was over his right one, absently rubbing it. The look on Daojue's face, the absent gesture… Those weren't good signs. Jieyuan almost let out a curse. Oh, come on. It wasn't the first time he'd seen Daojue act this way.

Sometimes, Daojue would refuse to move even after Huaxin had cleared them to head to the next pocket, or hurriedly cross to the next one even when Jieyuan called for them to wait. He never explained afterward, either. Just stared at Jieyuan until he dropped the subject. It wasn't something that happened all that often. Maybe a dozen times altogether, give or take a few. But it'd happened enough times for him to recognize the look Daojue was wearing right now.

That, and the way he was absentmindedly rubbing one of the fingers of his right hand, over the gauntlet. The reason Daojue always came across as statue-like was because his body language was nearly nonexistent. Daojue never shrugged, nodded, or otherwise used the gestures that came so naturally to everyone else. If Daojue wanted to convey something that his usual tactic of silently staring at you wouldn't suffice for, he'd speak it out loud.

And the Heavens knew it was easier to squeeze water from stone than words out of Daojue. So it was impossible not to notice when Daojue did these absentminded gestures. Jieyuan recalled Daojue acting much the same way months ago: right before they'd found Protector Yuanzhi's cave and crystallized body in the Gleamstone Valley, as well as Gleaming End. Right before Daojue had found the cave, to be precise.

One other thing Jieyuan recalled was that on the very finger that Daojue was distractedly rubbing right now, under his gauntlet, was a certain blood-red ring. One that didn't register to Jieyuan's soulsenses but that he suspected was not mundane.

"Daojue, what's wrong?" Jieyuan asked, even though he was fairly sure he wouldn't be getting an answer; he certainly hadn't gotten one every time this had happened so far. Sure enough, Daojue didn't seem to hear, just stood there. These last few months, he and Daojue had gotten much closer. He'd come to understand Daojue a lot more, and in some ways, Daojue had even opened up; he'd talked about his brother, his chromal bloodline, and even his bondskill.

But Daojue's newfound openness only went so far; whenever he got like this, he clammed down hard. Waiting it is. Jieyuan turned his attention inward. Though it'd been a day since his breakthrough, he hadn't gotten as much practice with it yet as he'd have liked. He had a number of ideas for it already. He could work on that while he waited. Tapping into his soulforce, he drew a clump of chroma out of his soul and had it float in front of him. Then, with a thought, he materialized it.

And then he saw the little clump of chroma, floating in front of his eyes. Actually saw it, with his eyes. He'd seen materialized chroma many times before, having had many interactions with higher-step cultivators, who regularly used it, but he'd rarely gotten to inspect it up close like this. Materialized chroma looked like a three-dimensional splash of pure color. Matte and smooth. It looked ever so slightly unnatural, if not unreal.

He hadn't actually put it to the test yet, but from what he'd read, it was supposed to be about twice as tough and hard as mundane steel, but brittle like a crystal; if struck by a strong enough force it'd break rather than bend. Jieyuan had the clump of materialized chroma change shapes, transforming it into a sphere. His eyes narrowed in concentration as he used his soulforce to press in on it, rounding it. It wasn't as easy as manipulating immaterial chroma, which had come so easily to him.

Now that it had actual, physical mass, his soulforce had a harder time molding it. He could have unmaterialized it, changed its shape, and made it material again, but that wouldn't suffice for his needs. He'd just begun to change the sphere into a cube when Daojue moved, crossing over to the other side of the pocket in large strides. Jieyuan quickly unmaterialized the chroma and returned it to his soul before following. Daojue came to a stop right in front of the hole.

Stopping beside him, Jieyuan didn't bother wasting his breath this time and just waited. Either Daojue would enter, or he wouldn't, and there wasn't much he could do about it. With Meiyao, he could at least try to argue. With Daojue, his only bet would be trying to physically stop him, and he knew very well how that'd end. Besides, as frustrating as it could be when Daojue pulled this kind of stuff, nothing bad had ever come out of it, not when Daojue would refuse to move, nor when Daojue would charge ahead.

Granted, going down a burrow was a touch more dangerous than crossing into a new pocket, but Daojue wasn't stupid; and even if Jieyuan didn't understand why this was happening (though he had his suspicions), there had to be a reason for it. Jieyuan only had an issue with taking risks when he didn't stand to gain anything from it; for a good enough reward, he wouldn't hesitate to put his life on the line. Still, Jieyuan decided to cover their bases: Huaxin? No problems yet? SAFE, came the answer.

It was undercut by a heavy dose of uncertainty, but it was better than nothing. Daojue knelt down in front of the hole then went inside. All right, big guy, Jieyuan thought, crouching down, don't make me regret this. And, for Heaven's sake, let there be no giant moles inside. As big as the hole was, it still wasn't big enough for them to enter side-by-side, so Jieyuan went in just after Daojue. The ground was at a slight but noticeable decline.

While they advanced, Daojue's broad, muscled back filled Jieyuan's line of sight. Scars dotted it. Not nearly as much as Jieyuan knew were on his, but plenty of them all the same, long and short, thick and thin. Almost all of these scars were new, too. Two months ago, Daojue had had less than a handful of scars to Jieyuan's tens. Now Daojue's numbered in the tens, and Jieyuan's well into the hundreds. A moment later, and Daojue's back was replaced by a wall of solid green viridian mist. The boundary of the pocket.

Jieyuan didn't hesitate, crossing after Daojue. On the other side, he saw Daojue's back again. Jieyuan quickly checked in with Huaxin. Any change? They were in a new pocket now, and though Huaxin's ability to sense the world outside of a pocket wasn't perfect yet, it'd gotten way better at sensing danger inside one. NEGATION, Huaxin replied.

"Focus on your soulsenses," Maeva suddenly said. Jieyuan did so without a second thought. The first thing he noticed was that this pocket was unusually large. Even with his breakthrough to sixth-step Redrealm having increased the range of his soulsenses to thirty-six feet in every direction, he couldn't cover all of it. The second thing he noticed was, in fact, several things. Though not chromal beasts. Nor were they chromal plants. It can't be.

He was so surprised he even stopped his advance for a moment, but then he remembered himself and resumed his shuffle down the tunnel behind Daojue. Not for a moment did he take his focus off his soulsenses, off the things he was sensing at the end of this tunnel. It didn't take them long to reach the end of the tunnel. Daojue stepped out of it, and then out of the way, making space for Jieyuan. The tunnel opened up into a large, empty area. A cave of sorts, one that seemed to have been dug out.

The viridian mist ensured perfect, though greenish, visibility. And on the ground of the cave, cast in the mist's green glow, were the things he'd sensed but hadn't dared believe. Chromal artifacts. Piled on one side of the cave were weapons of all sorts. Dozens of them. Most of them swords, but also some sabers and spears. Jieyuan even spotted a mace. On another pile were armor pieces. Gauntlets and greaves, also in the dozens. A third pile was made of rings and bracelets and earrings, as well as pouches.

None of these artifacts had a spirit-shroud. And almost all the spirits Jieyuan could sense were at tenth-step Redrealm. What was important, though, weren't the artifacts whose spirit Jieyuan could sense, but the ones he couldn't. On the weapons side of the cave (the piles were far apart, clearly divided), there was a smaller, separate stack full of weapons that didn't register to his soulsenses. They were all swords, with the exception of one saber. Somehow, Jieyuan doubted they were mundane.

Just the same, there was a separate pile on the armor side, with gauntlets and greaves invisible to his soulsenses. Same for the accessories side, except it was split into three piles. The big one had Redrealm jewelry and bags. A smaller one, with more jewelry and bags, except ones he couldn't sense. And a third, much smaller one, with just a handful of rings and bags, as well as a bracelet. Now, Jieyuan was only guessing here.

But if on each side, the first pile was Redrealm artifacts, the second one was Orangerealm artifacts, the third one would be… Yellowrealm. Yellowrealm artifacts. Daojue walked over to the center of the cave and slowly turned around, regarding all the piles in turn. Jieyuan joined him there, looking between the artifacts (particularly the supposedly Yellowrealm artifacts) and Daojue.

He hadn't been expecting anything specific when he'd followed Daojue into the cave; if anything, he'd been resigned to deal with yet another mess. For once, though, it seemed the Heavens had favored the bold. Jieyuan didn't know how Daojue had sensed this place, or what he was looking for now. Both were good questions. There was an even better question, though. How did these artifacts even end up here? Jieyuan could guess their origins easily enough.

Most of the island's sects had sent at least one scouting party into the Viridian Dome. That meant at least thousands of Redsouls, hundreds of Orangesouls, and tens of Yellowsouls had entered the Viridian Dome never to return, and they'd have all been carrying artifacts of the same realm with them. As for how the artifacts had ended up in this cave… Jieyuan looked between the piles, the way the artifacts were haphazardly piled together. And he considered the fact they were in a dug-out cave.

A chromal beast must've collected these artifacts from the remains of those doomed cultivators and brought them here. A scavenger. In their time with Meiyao, she'd pointed out more than one such beast to them. But the existence of multiple scavenger beasts meant there was competition. And though Jieyuan could hardly claim expertise on the artifacts scene here in the Dome, or scavenger power dynamics, he reckoned a weak one wouldn't be able to hold onto several Orangerealm artifacts, and even some Yellowrealm ones.

"Daojue," Jieyuan said, "let's collect the higher-realm stuff and get out of—" A creature stepped out of the tunnel, onto the floor of the cave. A canine beast that stood about level with Jieyuan's waist. If it were a mundane dog, it'd have been on the larger side. For a chromal beast, particularly the ones found in the Dome, it was awfully small. Size, though, didn't mean much. Not when Jieyuan's soulsenses hadn't caught it before he'd seen it. Not when it remained invisible to Jieyuan's soulsenses.

Jieyuan went very still as he eyed the newcomer. It took Jieyuan a moment to recognize the beast. The triangular ears, the fox-like head, the long, bushy tail. Green-furred, except for its white underside. A greenseeker jackal, was it? The last time he'd seen one had been more than two months ago, back when Meiyao was still around. She'd said it was a scavenger, so that added up.

He couldn't recall her mentioning anything about it being a burrower, but it could be that she hadn't thought that important enough to mention. Or maybe some other beast had carved out this place, and the jackal had claimed it afterward. Either way, this is its turf, and we're intruding. Jieyuan went over everything else Meiyao had revealed about the beast. She hadn't told him what its spiritskills were, but she had mentioned its step. First-step Orangerealm. Which meant they weren't outright doomed, at least.

None of them moved. Not Jieyuan, not Daojue, and not the jackal. The beast might as well have been a statue as it eyed them, glowing green eyes narrow and attentive. No sound came from it. Meiyao might have been able to tell what was going on in its little head, but Jieyuan didn't have the slightest clue. Probably not anything good, though. The beast's gaze wasn't fixed on either him or Daojue specifically, but rather taking them both in at once. It was as silent as the grave.

Jieyuan stared right back at it, unmoving, unblinking. Stare-downs like this happened pretty often; almost always when it came to feline beasts, and more often than not with other types. Even after two months and well over a thousand beasts killed, Jieyuan would only need two hands to count the number of times a beast had gone for the kill right off the bat. Even the more aggressive ones would first spend a little while eyeing them from a distance before approaching.

Best as Jieyuan could tell, these standstills were the beasts weighing their odds, deciding whether engaging was worth it. He didn't know if all chromal beasts acted this way, but the ones in the Gleamstone Valley had been much the same. Jieyuan kept his breathing even and his body tensed but not tight. He considered the situation. Normally, he and Daojue would mirror the beast—going still, eyeing it back—in hopes of avoiding a fight, just as they were doing right now.

It worked out about one in three times, which wasn't as much as he'd have liked, but more than he'd have expected. This time around, though, the odds didn't seem to favor a peaceful conclusion. The jackal had found them in its lair. Even if it was willing to overlook that, Jieyuan doubted it'd let them take any of its treasures away. And he had no intention of giving up on the artifacts here.

The two-headed snake was the first Orangerealm beast he and Daojue had killed (the white half of it, at any rate), but it hadn't been the last. They'd taken down four more Orangerealm beasts, and each one had left him and Daojue with a new set of scars to remember it by. Now, Jieyuan didn't see the point in taking risks if he didn't stand to gain anything. But that wasn't the case here. There was a haul of Redrealm, Orangerealm, and Yellowrealm artifacts on the line.

And that, Jieyuan decided, was worth a little risk. His decision made, Jieyuan didn't hesitate. Activating his haster ring, he let go of the Shifting Sisters; as the two splitfangs dropped to the ground he swept his arms up, smoothly palming two of his snake-scale knives from his belt holsters—one in each hand—and threw the blades at the beast. The jackal blurred out of the way, and the blades burrowed into the wall of the cave.

But Daojue had moved at the same moment Jieyuan did, charging forward, and swept Gleaming End at the moving jackal. The beast retreated. Maeva, fetch me a pill. Daojue shot toward it, while Jieyuan let loose two more knives. The jackal kicked off to the side in a blur of green and white, toward the wall of the cave, and all the attacks hit either wall or empty air. Maeva, in the meanwhile, used his soulforce to draw an agility augmenter pill—a small, round, yellow thing—from one of his belt purses.

Mid-air, the beast spun around, reorienting its body, before it landed on the wall with all four claws, standing on like it was on the ground, like gravity was coming at it from sideways. Some manner of mantle-lashing? It wasn't the first time Jieyuan had seen a chromal beast replicate that particular Redtalent despite their lack of mantle. Before the jackal could do anything else, Daojue reached it, stabbing at it with his spear. It dodged again, dashing across the wall.

Another volley of blades followed up Daojue's attack, and Jieyuan was already preparing another. Maeva brought the agility augmenter to his lips, and Jieyuan swallowed it down just as the jackal dodged again. Immediately he could see its effects. Though the jackal probably moved at the same speed as earlier, this time Jieyuan saw it clearly as it kicked off the wall and jumped— for Heavens' sake, is it a dog or a rabbit?

—toward the opposite side of the cave, where it landed on the wall and stuck to it like a lizard. It was still fast, though. Too fast. Given Jieyuan's step and the agility pill he'd just taken, he should have about three-quarters the speed of a first-step Orangerealm. And yet the jackal was at least twice as fast as he was. What it lacked in size, it more than made up for in speed. Jieyuan gritted his teeth, palming two more scale knives. The larger a beast was, the greater its strength, that much was true.

But agility was usually inversely proportional to size; and speed, as Jieyuan saw it, was much more of an advantage than strength. Not to mention that a small beast's compact dimensions made it even harder to hit. Give me big and slow over small and fast, any day, any time. Daojue attacked again, and so did Jieyuan, sending more knives flying toward the jackal. Again the beast evaded. But this time was different.

Right before the jump, its body shimmered; and when it jumped, it did in two different directions, as two jackals appeared where there used to be one. Oh, come on. Jieyuan groaned. Not this rot again. One of the jackals went up, toward the ceiling. The other shot straight toward him. Two months ago, Jieyuan might have jumped back or drawn a pair of scale daggers to meet the charge. But he'd been in enough fights these last two months for his instincts to favor a different course of action.

He didn't move from his place as he whipped his arms down and then up. Two more Orangerealm knives went flying toward the beast. When something's in the air and can't fly, it might as well be a practice target. The jackal twisted, jerking its body mid-air; Jieyuan didn't get a proper look at the results of his throws as he stepped to the side. The jackal went straight past him, crashing into the wall at the back of the cave, falling into the pile of armor.

Jieyuan shot a quick look back to the front of the cave—Daojue was fighting the other jackal, keeping it occupied—before focusing on his target, which was just slowly getting out of the pile. Maeva, keep an eye on Daojue and the other jackal for me. His soulsenses were enough to cover the cave, and he felt Maeva's touch on his mind as she pulled on it. He couldn't sense the other jackal, but he could sense Daojue just fine.

He was sure Daojue had it handled, but he didn't know what other powers the jackal (or maybe it was jackals, now) had. The jackal got fully back on its feet, growling at him now, surrounded by discarded gauntlets and greaves. One of the knives Jieyuan had thrown earlier was sticking out of its chest, buried almost all the way through. Blood darkened the white fur around it. Of the other blade, there was no sign. Well, so much for hoping for a quick fight. Jieyuan waved his hands past his belt again.

His left one drew another throwing blade, whereas his right one took out a scale dagger: longer and thicker than his throwing knives, and with a proper handle. He was about to throw the blade when the jackal's eyes flashed. Everything went dark. Dark and silent and formless. Sight, hearing, touch, smell—all gone. Everything except his soulsenses. Jieyuan could sense the ambient chroma around him, Daojue further back, and the artifacts on the cave floor.

There were also multiple little voids, where there wasn't any ambient chroma. The higher-realm artifacts. But Jieyuan's biggest concern were the two much bigger voids, one near Daojue, and the other in front of him. The jackals. And there's our second spiritskill, Jieyuan thought, forcing himself to keep calm. Maeva, can you restore my senses?

"No," Maeva said.

"But I can take over—" No. I've got it. Just keep an eye on Daojue and the other jackal. Jieyuan took a slow, tentative step forward. His sense of balance was skewered, what with being unable to feel the floor under him—he felt like he was floating—but he anchored himself in his soulsenses. The jackal-shaped void in front of him didn't move. He couldn't feel the touch of the weapons in his hands, nor sense them with his soulsenses, as they were Orangerealm.

But he still had a feel for the strength of his grip, and his mantle provided a general sense of his body. It wasn't perfect by any means, but it'd have to do. What will it be? Jieyuan focused on the jackal. A lunge, or a prowling advance? He took another drawn-out step forward, slow and hesitant. That was when the jackal moved, stepping forward as slowly as he was moving. There we go. Come on, pup. Jieyuan pretended not to notice as he took another step.

The jackal moved too; faster than before, advancing cautiously but more confidently. The jackal must have only ever used this senses-suppression power on other beasts before, and if they had been at Redrealm like Jieyuan was, they shouldn't have been able to sense it; even with all the training Jieyuan had gotten from Maeva at using his soulsenses, sensing something through its void was no mean trick. You needed to have very good chromal depth perception (or whatever it was called) to pinpoint empty spots.

Meaning that the jackal should be confident Jieyuan had no way of telling where it was or what it was doing. Soon the jackal was within only a few feet of him. A jackal-shaped void of chroma, right in front of him. Jieyuan still feigned obliviousness. He stepped forward. The jackal lunged. Jieyuan whipped his right arm to the front, driving his dagger forward, while swinging his left arm, striking with his throwing blade from the side. Both his hands stopped just shy of the triangular, head-shaped void.

And then his senses returned. And Jieyuan saw the jackal, the dagger buried right between its eyes and the throwing knife sunken into the side of its neck. Jieyuan watched warily as the jackal twitched. He didn't remove his blades from inside its body. It was easy to tell when a cultivator died; their soul vanished, whisked up by the Heavens, so their body turned mundane again. With chromal beasts, their spirit remained, so you only had the physical, biological signs to go on.

Normally, a dagger to the brain should have been more than enough to seal the deal, but you never knew with chromal beasts. So Jieyuan waited, keeping the blades plugged until the jackal went entirely still and he felt the beast slump, the only thing holding it up being the blades piercing it. There we go. Jieyuan pulled the weapons out, and the jackal collapsed. He turned around. Daojue was standing behind him, Gleaming End held to the side, and looking unharmed for the most part.

There was no sign of the other jackal.

"It was a clone," Maeva informed him.

"It disappeared the same moment you regained your senses."

"Hmmm." Jieyuan glanced back down at the jackal. An Orangerealm beast, and he'd killed it practically on his own, despite being only at sixth-step Redrealm himself. Granted, it was easily the weakest Orangerealm beast they'd faced so far; scavengers were more about stealth than power, and the jackal had been no exception, given its spiritskills. But still. He grinned, then turned back to Daojue.

"Let's get out of here."