The sound of Jun's footsteps on the moss-laden roots was hushed, deliberate. Though it was morning in the Hollow Forest, the thick canopy blocked out much of the sunlight, creating a dim twilight that clung to the branches like ghostly fog. Each breath he took now resonated, not just through his lungs, but through the hidden filaments of the Breath Grid.
Something had changed in him.
Not just strength—though he could feel it, pooled deep in his meridians like coiled lightning. It was awareness. He sensed movement before it happened, registered echoes in the air long before they reached his ears. The Grid whispered. Jun listened.
He didn't walk with Riven this time. The older Rootless had gone north toward an Echo Ruin to recover a Breath Seal said to allow short-range teleportation through Rootless paths. Jun chose a different path. His breath drew him west, toward a place called the Stonewept Hollow—a known dead zone in system maps. Unmarked. Unclaimed.
But not uninhabited.
He arrived just before noon. The hollow was a broad depression in the land, dotted with jagged slate outcroppings and strange, petrified trees. Wind moved strangely here. Too quiet. Too focused. It was like stepping into the eye of a storm that had waited centuries to spin again.
At the center lay an altar. Not of stone, but of tightly wound Breath Threads—a lattice of energy so old and dormant it had congealed into something solid. Jun stepped toward it, each breath now automatically syncing with the pulse of the Grid.
He wasn't sure what he was doing, but instinct—and something deeper—urged him on.
He placed a hand on the lattice. Cold surged through him, but not painfully. It was memory. The place remembered him.
A voice, not human, not digital, echoed in the hollow.
"First breath taken. Second breath bound. Who walks the path Rootless and unmade?"
Jun didn't speak. He simply breathed. Slow. Deep. Honest.
A thread snapped from the altar and wrapped around his arm, embedding itself beneath his skin like a growing vein. He didn't flinch.
Knowledge flooded in. Not information—understanding. Techniques, ancient and nameless, meant to harmonize the Echo Meridian with physical movement. He felt his muscles shift. His center of gravity adjusted. Even standing still, his stance grew more fluid, like a reed in water.
Then, the test began.
Shadows coalesced at the edges of the hollow, peeling from petrified trees. They moved like oil, flickering, boneless. These were not players. Not AI-generated monsters. These were Echo Shades—remnants of failed cultivators whose Breath had turned inward and soured. They sought warmth. They sought life.
Jun moved.
He didn't fight with weapon or spell. His breath guided him. Each motion pulled Echo from the air, weaving it into strikes, dodges, and parries. His body became an extension of the Grid's rhythm.
The first Shade shattered under a palm strike that echoed like a temple bell. The second twisted toward him, shrieking, only to be deflected by a coiling shoulder turn and burst of Frostburn Qi.
When the last fell, dissolving into fading ribbons of regret, the lattice altar pulsed once more.
"Second node awakened. Breath Grid alignment: 2/3. Path divergence increasing."
He fell to one knee, exhausted. But he smiled. This was it. This was progress not made through loot drops or stat points. This was earned.
Hours later, as he camped beneath a Breath-withered tree, Jun opened the silk scroll again. The technique within—Echo Meridian: Body of Rainlight—was beginning to make sense. Each movement described in the manual corresponded to sensations he had just experienced.
It was like the manual had written itself from his memory.
Then, the silence broke.
Not in-game. From outside.
Jun blinked. For a moment, he was unsure if it was part of the game. But no notification came.
He was still connected. But there was noise. Voices. A knock?
His neural immersion flickered. A ripple in the Grid flared with feedback.
Then he saw it—not in the game, but in a superimposed vision his brain couldn't explain: A corporate strike team, real-world, armored and approaching his apartment door.
His eyes widened. The immersion level should have blocked external interference. They had overridden it.
A breath escaped him, sharp and cold.
He was no longer just a curiosity. He was a threat.
Back inside the game, the Grid trembled. Jun stood. His time in the Hollow was over.
He gathered his things, activated his Echo Thread from the altar, and vanished into the western ridgeline.
Tomorrow, the third node awaited. And the world, both digital and real, would never be the same.