The Assessment Hall was cold.
Copper conduits webbed the floor, exhaling a dry metallic tang. The air held a faint medicinal bite. At each station, crystals ticked like slow metronomes. Officials stood behind sand timers with faces carved from restraint. In the adjacent block, Yue Hong settled, a He-line instructor watching from shadow as if the room needed more gravity.
⸻
Qin Ye's station was a chair caged by copper arms, crystal orbs polished to mirror silence. He sat, feeling stone through wood, and let his eyes rest on a faint etching scratched into a conduit pillar.
[Daily Sign-In available.]
[Location: Conduit Pillar Etching.]
[Sign-In? Yes / No]
Yes.
[Ding! Sign-In successful!]
[Reward: Stabilization Thread (Lv.1, 20 breaths — smooth qi spikes) + Cooling Patch (1 use — minor overheat reduction, legal).]
A quiet thread for smoothing spikes settled behind his sternum. A thin, legal patch cooled in memory, waiting for fire.
⸻
Phase I: Baseline Draw.
A nod from the examiner. The crystals' hum woke, drawing a trickle of qi. A sand timer flipped; grains hissed.
Qin Ye recalled the diagram he had copied—breath cadence overlayed on strain thresholds, a neat lattice of safe and not. He matched his 4–4–2 to the rise in draw. Inhale—four. Anchor—four. Exhale—two. The resonance stayed clean, a line without chatter.
A clerk glanced at the crystal readout and wrote, "Clean curve. No resonance flutter."
He didn't look up. The pen told the room enough.
⸻
Procedure tries to lean.
An attendant near the adjacent block bent toward the examiner. "Cohort Four is accelerating their ramp. Should we match pace for parity?"
The word parity wore pressure like a coat.
Qin Ye spoke without turning. "Protocol specifies five-second increments per stage. Clause 8.2."
The examiner checked the log, eyes tracking ink he already knew. "Protocol stands. Maintain increments."
The sand's hiss became law again.
⸻
Phase II: Strain Ramp.
Draw intensified. Heat bloomed along meridians, the kind that wanted to become a spike if your breath forgot its job.
Qin Ye activated the Stabilization Thread. For twenty breaths, the curve smoothed, potential jaggedness sanded to a steady rise. The hum of the crystals matched his pulse, then learned from it.
[Ding! Micro-Goal: "Hold the Curve."]
[Reward: +200,000 Spirit Stones; Examiner Impression +1 (situational).]
The examiner's pen paused a hair longer over the page before finishing the stroke.
⸻
Friction.
Across the hall, Yue Hong pushed a showy ramp. In the same breath, his knee "accidentally" tapped a conduit. A small blip of off-resonance ran the hall's network like a rumor, legal gray angled toward Qin Ye's station.
Qin Ye didn't protest.
A Quiet Pivot of posture—pelvis by a breath's width, spine fine-tuned—changed the way qi pooled. He shifted his count by a half-beat, catching the blip and letting it fold into his own cadence like a missed step that became part of the dance. Then he tapped his crystal orb once—permitted signal for posture re-alignment. The clerk logged the adjustment without commentary.
Reset by the book. Gray lost its shade.
⸻
Phase III: Peak Window.
The final test: hold the strain at peak for a full sand timer. Heat stopped feeling like heat and started feeling like decision.
The line on the readout pressed into the safe channel's ceiling. At the edge of the crystal, a thin red tinge tried to appear.
Qin Ye applied the Cooling Patch. Legal. Minor. The cool spread inward like a hand on a fevered brow. The clerk's quill scratched: Cooling Patch applied—logged.
He rode breath like math. Inhale four. Anchor four. Exhale two. No heroics. Only numbers that refused to lie. The graph held.
The sand hissed itself out.
Silence returned to the crystals the way water returns to a level.
⸻
A chime. The result board lit soft letters.
Next to Qin Ye's mark: Pass — clean curve; no flags.
Beside Yue Hong: Pass — minor spike noted.
[Ding! Micro-Goal: "Zero Flag Strain."]
[Reward: Access: Calibration Bay (1 session) + +150,000 Spirit Stones.]
The Calibration Bay notice sat in his periphery like a tool he already knew how to use.
Up in the gallery, Liu Shan wrote in small, square script: Curve discipline sustained. Procedural counters effective. The slate made no sound when he set it down.
A fresh posting board took wax: Paired Application — dawn lot draw. Blank lists waited to choose partners out of breath and luck.
[Ding! Main Quest updated — Inner Gate Trial: 7 days.]
The last grain of sand slid through the neck of glass. Qin Ye timed his exhale to meet it and left the chair as if it had never had a claim on him.