Chương 119: Everyone Else Got the Memo

Leo's hands shook as he returned to the common room alone. Sariya's words echoed in his mind. Someone powerful was covering a Slaughter Qi infection. Civilians were dying in the Catacombs, and no one knew why. He needed to do something. Anything. He glanced at the clock. It was late, but this couldn't wait until morning. He hurried to his teammates' rooms and knocked on each door.

"Emergency meeting in the common room," he said.

"Five minutes." Bleary-eyed and confused, they gathered around the low table. Leo took a deep breath.

"We have a problem," he said.

"Something Sariya Moirath just told me." He laid it out. He told them everything Sariya had shared. When he finished, he turned to Thad and Ella.

"Be careful with your enhanced vision while we're here. Both of you." Thad frowned.

"Slaughter Qi shouldn't be contagious," Leo said.

"But the Weaver Cult called it an 'infection' anyway. Be careful what you look at." The Nyxalis siblings exchanged a glance and nodded. No one had anything else to add. The silence stretched. Vivian pulled her notes into her lap and didn't look at them. Liyang stared at the floor. Mateo cracked his knuckles once, then stopped himself. Thad, for once, had nothing clever to say. They went to bed.

The next morning Leo woke to the smell of bacon and pancakes. Breakfast had already been laid out in their lounge. A long table of dark wood held silver platters arranged in neat rows. A full English breakfast on one end, bowls of rice congee topped with preserved eggs and crispy shallots on another, and dark spiraled pastries dusted with something that sparkled faintly. Oblivion Cult specialties, he guessed, based on how Thad was already demolishing them. Everyone was already eating when Leo walked out.

The Nyxalis siblings wore their Oblivion Cult robes, black lace layered over darker silk. Thad had somehow gotten crumbs on his high collar already. The boys wore suits like Leo's, though Liyang had loosened his tie and Danyl had given up on his entirely. Leo settled into an empty chair and reached for the bacon. It felt strange, eating such a greasy breakfast in formal attire. He'd been worried about crumbs until he noticed the small cleaning talismans beside each plate. One touch and any stain vanished.

That was one convenience he genuinely appreciated about the cultivation world. The door to the women's quarters clicked open, and Vivian stepped out. Leo glanced up from his breakfast and froze, a strip of bacon halfway to his mouth. She wore a charcoal skirt that fell just above her knees, dark stockings, and a fitted blazer instead of her usual academic robes. Her glasses were gone, replaced by contacts that made her eyes look larger, darker.

Without the thick frames obscuring her features, her cheekbones seemed more pronounced, her lashes longer. Leo blinked. He'd known Vivian for years, served with her in the Catacombs, watched her correct their formation teachers during lectures without flinching. In his mind, she'd always been the scary smart girl who made professors nervous. Vivian caught him staring and turned away, a faint flush creeping up her neck. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. Something shifted in the back of Leo's mind.

He filed it away and returned to his bacon, a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth. Honestly, he hoped Vivian dressed like this more often. As the team settled around the table, Leo noticed there were seven seats. Six filled. The seventh sat empty at the head.

"Who's the extra seat for?" Leo asked.

"Mateo, I think." Danyl gestured with his chopsticks.

"He wasn't here when I came out." Liyang frowned.

"Why would Mateo need a seat? The competition at the Grand Pavilion is restricted to participants only. No chaperones allowed."

"Maybe he just wanted breakfast with us?" Thad suggested through a mouthful of pastry. Ella dabbed her lips with a napkin.

"The attendants set this table. They would know the rules better than we do."

"Probably just a mistake," Vivian said.

"Or maybe here to encourage us before we leave." The front door opened. Mateo walked in. His grey eyes swept across the room. Everyone turned to look at him.

"Just came back from a meeting with the other chaperones." Mateo closed the door behind him.

"There's been a change of plans." He pulled out the empty chair and sat down, but didn't reach for any food.

"You were right last night, Leo. Something has happened. The cults have identified a credible safety threat." He paused.

"Chaperones are now permitted inside the competition venue." The words hung in the air. This was not normal. The Grand Formations Summit was supposed to be held in strict isolation. Only competitors and a designated moderator were allowed at the competition venue to prevent cheating. Thad was the first to figure out the problem.

"Wait." His voice cut through the silence.

"Every other team gets a formation master sitting in the room with them?"

"A chaperone," Mateo corrected.

"But yes. The other teams' chaperones happen to be formation masters."

"And we get you?" Mateo spread his hands.

"I'm what you have."

"No offense, but your formation knowledge consists of watching us practice." Thad's face had gone flat.

"Everyone else gets centuries of inherited technique and we get a guy who can't tell a Four Symbols array from a shopping list."

"That's not..." Mateo started.

"It's a little bit true," Leo said.

"I love you, man, but you're not exactly going to be coaching us through forbidden formations." Mateo's jaw tightened.

"That would be cheating, Leo. None of the chaperones will be coaching their students through anything."

"What's stopping them from cheating?" Leo leaned forward.

"Did you all swear a Dao heart oath?" Mateo's expression grew ugly.

"Oh no." Thad put his head in his hands.

"Oh no, no, no. Why couldn't we have brought Morimoto as our chaperone? He would have already figured out how to cheat for us. That man's entire career is built on getting away with things he shouldn't." Ella sighed.

"Thadelion."

"We're going to be the only team of idiots who isn't prepared to cheat." Thad looked up, his voice rising.

"Mateo, how could you let them do this to us? Did you just sit there while they rewrote the rules?" The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"It wasn't my decision." Mateo's voice was tight.

"New York Command agreed to their terms. If you want to blame someone, blame the brass for sending a combatant as their chaperone instead of a counterfeiter." Danyl had gone pale.

"Do you think it is because of the Slaughter Qi? That there's actually a real threat?" Vivian set down her chopsticks.

"I bet Leo's to blame for all this extra security." Everyone turned to look at her.

"Think about it." She adjusted her blazer.

"The cults probably heard there was a Qi Refiner who could kill Nascent Souls attending the Summit. A formation competition where delegates are isolated from their protectors. What if the famous Captain Chen decided formations were too hard and drew his sword instead?" Thad swung around to face Leo.

"She's got a point. Honestly, I'd be nervous if you weren't on my team."

"Hey." Leo raised his hands.

"Let's not put the blame on me, okay? It's clearly some greater threat."

"Is it though?" Thad squinted at him.

"Is it really? What happened to Lord Caelanthir? Oh wait you killed him! How does he stack up against some Qi Refining formation nerds?" Leo tried to redirect.

"But still, why in the world did the government pick you, Mateo? I get the whole homecoming angle you got going for you. But why couldn't we get someone stronger? Like the Flying Aces superstar Tompa Brady? Greatest Flyer of all time?" Mateo smiled. It was not a nice smile.

"I beat Mr. Brady in five seconds flat." He showed all his teeth.

"How else did you think I got this job?"

The Grand Pavilion had been transformed. Gone were the thousands of spectators from yesterday's opening ceremony. Now the vast auditorium stood nearly empty. The Pavilion was built like a cathedral crossed with an amphitheater. Curved walls of grey stone rose three hundred feet to a vaulted ceiling where formation arrays glittered like frozen constellations. Tiered seating swept upward in concentric rings, enough to hold ten thousand observers. The competition floor occupied the center.

Four long tables had been arranged in a square, each facing inward toward a raised platform holding a single formation plate. America's table sat on the western edge. The Grey Cult occupied the east, six competitors in ash-colored robes. The Weaver Cult had the north, their indigo uniforms standing out against the grey stone. The Hollow Cult took the south, all of them wearing bone-white masks. Behind the four teams, elevated on a secondary platform, sat the chaperones.

Mateo lounged at the end of a long bench in his navy suit, while the other three sat at attention in their cult robes, faces hidden behind masks. Their robes were oddly large and voluminous. Leo felt like he was looking at a tent with a mask on top rather than a Foundation Establishment cultivator. The Moderator stood alone on a raised dais at the northern end. He was the representative of the Great Ascension cultivators who oversaw the summit. He wore white robes and a blank ceramic mask.

Leo couldn't read his cultivation at all.

"The Grand Formations Summit will now begin." His Gothic filtered through Leo's translation earpiece with a half-second delay.

"Every formation is a window into the cultivator's understanding. We gather not just to compete, but to learn from one another."

"The competition will span four days. Each day, one delegation will present two formation problems. The first must be an intermediate formation. The second may be a forbidden formation."

"As host delegation, the Grey Cult will present first." The Grey Cult's captain rose from his seat—young, perhaps seventeen, with the sharp features and grey eyes of the Thandril bloodline. He walked to the center platform with the measured grace of someone trained from birth to command attention.

"Honored competitors. The Grey Cult welcomes you to Ashviel. For our intermediate formation, we will demonstrate a group formation. All six members of my team will participate." Leo had spent a whole month at the Institute training specifically on how to record and derive group formations. Group formations was a category of problems frequently proposed at the summit. After all, both Cranesong formations they had prepared were group formations. If they could think of the strategy, others could too.

Group formations exposed every weakness of a team. If one member's brushwork was sloppy or their timing was off, the whole formation collapsed. The weakest link determined the outcome.

"Each team may designate two members to observe using enhanced divine sense techniques," the captain explained.

"Additionally, any competitor may use non-divine-sense perception abilities from their seats." The rules made sense. Divine sense observation was limited to prevent overwhelming the presenting team with spiritual pressure. But other perception methods were fair game. Leo glanced at Thad.

"You and me?" Thad was already rising.

"Obviously." Across the floor, Sariya caught Leo's eye and smiled. She rose alongside a young man with silver threading through his dark hair. The Hollow Cult sent forward two figures in bone-white masks, their divine sense flexing outward in deliberate display. Their Si was about the same as Leo's, probably close to ten thousand. The six observers arranged themselves around the central platform. Leo pulled out his formation notebook. Back at America's table, Ella's eyes shifted.

The violet deepened, taking on that particular quality that Leo had learned to recognize. Ortho-k vision. Vivian slid closer to Ella, notebook open, ready to transcribe whatever insights Ella whispered her way. Leo settled into his observation position and reached for his Omnidirectional Awareness. The world expanded. His perception bubble inflated outward, encompassing the entire competition floor. He could feel the six Grey Cult competitors at the platform, their spiritual signatures bright against his senses.

He could feel the formation plate beneath their feet, inert but waiting. He could feel Thad beside him, already slipping into Third Person Perspective. The Grey Cult team had arranged themselves in a hexagonal pattern around the formation plate. Each member held a formation brush, though only the captain's brush gleamed with the distinctive shimmer of Tier Two spiritual ink. The other five brushes held Tier One ink, as the rules required for group formations. This was another rule of the competition.

Drawing with Tier Two ink required a Si of at least 1000, which was Foundation Establishment level. Most cultivators under eighteen couldn't reach that threshold. If all six members were allowed to use Tier Two ink, the competition would turn into an Si check that excluded anyone without exceptional spiritual strength.

"We begin," the captain announced. Six brushes touched the formation plate simultaneously. Leo's Omnidirectional Awareness tracked every stroke. The team moved with practiced synchronization, their brushes tracing complementary patterns spiraling toward the center. The captain's Tier Two strokes formed the primary structure while the other five wove secondary elements between them. Leo's pen moved across his notebook. Six Polarities base structure. Captain handling vertical axis runes.

Support members splitting horizontal plane into quadrants plus two floating anchors. The formation took shape with impressive speed. Each team member knew exactly where their strokes needed to go and exactly when to apply them. No hesitation. No wasted motion. The whole process took perhaps fifteen minutes. When the last stroke completed, the formation plate flashed with soft grey light. A second flash, and three copies materialized beside the original. One copy floated toward America's table.

Leo released his Omnidirectional Awareness and returned to his seat as Vivian snatched the tablet from the air. Her eyes were already scanning the formation's structure, cross-referencing against whatever Ella had whispered during the drawing.

"Not bad," she murmured.

"Good thing we prepared for this." Leo nodded. It should be an easy point for them. Group intermediate problems were well within their abilities. The Moderator allowed a brief recess. Water and light refreshments appeared on each team's table. Leo took the opportunity to stretch his legs and compare notes with his teammates.

"Anything unusual?" he asked Ella. She shook her head slightly.

"Standard Six Polarities work. Their captain has excellent brushwork. The support members are competent but unremarkable."

"I got the same read," Thad added.

"Nothing we can't handle. Honestly, I was expecting more from the host team." Danyl looked up from his own notes.

"They're saving their strength for the forbidden formation. That's where they'll try to crush us." Leo suspected Danyl was right. The recess ended. The captain returned to the center platform, alone this time.

"For our forbidden formation, I will demonstrate a technique passed down through seven generations of the Thandril bloodline." He raised his hand. Grey qi gathered around his fingers. Leo slipped back into Omnidirectional Awareness, divine sense expanding to encompass the platform. Beside him, Thad entered Third Person Perspective. The Weaver and Hollow Cult observers activated their own enhanced perceptions. The captain began to draw. And Leo couldn't follow it at all.

His divine sense tracked the movement of the captain's hand easily enough. He could feel the Grey qi flowing from the young man's fingertips, could sense its density and direction. But the qi itself was opaque to his perception. It moved, it settled, it formed patterns, and Leo's divine sense simply slid off the surface without penetrating to the structure beneath. He switched to ortho-k vision. The enhanced visual perception revealed more detail.

He could see the Grey qi now, could observe its peculiar stillness even as it flowed. The qi didn't move like normal spiritual energy. It settled into place with an almost liquid quality, filling the gaps in reality rather than pushing through them. But understanding the formation's structure? Impossible. The Grey qi refused to reveal its secrets. Leo swung his divine sense toward the chaperone section, locking onto Mateo's position. Any ideas? Mateo's response was a barely perceptible shrug.

Leo suppressed a surge of frustration. If Morimoto were here, the old counterfeiter would already be finding ways to cheat. Bribing an attendant. Slipping a recording talisman into the venue. Convincing someone on the Grey Cult team to "accidentally" leave their notes unattended. The man had no shame, but he got results. Leo looked back at the chaperone section. The three cult representatives sat with their hands hidden inside the tents they called robes. Probably taking notes.

Probably recording everything to feed to their teams later. Mateo caught his eye and gave him an encouraging thumbs up. We're doomed, Leo thought.