Riven stood alone in the center of the training room, the door sealed behind him, the faint hum of the isolation array barely audible beneath the wood.
He took a breath.
Then another.
Good.
He reached into his inner pouch and carefully withdrew the first core — the water-aligned beast core.
He unwrapped it slowly, sat down and put it on the floor in front of him.
Up close, it looked even rougher than before. Uneven. Fractured. A dull, glassy surface that caught the light in warped reflections. Beneath it, faint blue hues pulsed lazily, as if the core itself was breathing.
Riven knelt.
Vaern's words echoed in his mind.
"You don't consume a beast core. You open it. If your blood accepts it, it'll come to you on its own."
He reached for his needle case, glad he'd made sure to always keep it close by in his robes.
One slender needle slid free — silver-grey, perfectly balanced. He held it between two fingers, steady, precise.
No hesitation.
He pierced the surface of the core.
The needle met resistance for a fraction of a second — then slipped in with a soft crack, like ice fracturing under pressure.
Immediately, the core reacted.
Fine fissures spiderwebbed across its surface, pale blue light leaking through the cracks. A thin mist bled out — not smoke, not vapor, but something heavier.
Riven withdrew the needle and raised his hand over the core, palm hovering inches above it.
He closed his eyes.
Focused.
The mist stirred.
At first, nothing happened.
Then — slowly — it shifted.
Not violently. Not explosively.
It rose.
A thin stream of pale blue essence lifted from the fractured core, curling upward like breath on a winter morning. It brushed against his palm—
—and vanished into his skin.
Riven sucked in a sharp breath.
Cold surged through him.
Not on the surface — inside.
It spread through his veins like icy water poured into a river, threading outward from his hand, flowing toward his heart, his limbs, his core. His muscles tensed instinctively, teeth grinding as the chill deepened.
Then his vision flickered.
Blood vision snapped into place.
That familiar hazy red field unfolded before him — blood cells drifting like distant stars. And there, scattered among them, the silver and gold flecks gleamed faintly.
The water essence entered the field.
It didn't overwrite anything.
Didn't stain his blood blue.
Instead, it wrapped around a few blood cells, like mist around metal — clinging, layering, binding.
And then vanished.
What.
He focused harder, scanning the blood vision again. Slower. More carefully.
Nothing.
No lingering blue. No foreign threads. No visible residue.
His chest tightened.
Had it failed?
He checked again, tracing the familiar constellation of silver and gold flecks drifting through his blood.
Still there.
Unchanged.
…Or so it seemed.
Riven narrowed his eyes.
He compared it to memory — to the way it had looked before. The spacing. The density. The way the flecks caught the light in the haze of his blood vision.
A realization crept in, slow and uncomfortable.
It wasn't gone.
It had been absorbed.
Completely.
So completely that he hadn't noticed at first.
If he'd had to put a number to it before, maybe five percent of his blood had been threaded with those silver-gold specks.
Now?
Five point one.
A change so small it bordered on invisible.
His pulse slowed.
Relief bled into something heavier.
If one core only improved his blood by that little...
How many would he need to reach the next stage?
To reach a coverage of twenty-five percent.
The thought made his skin prickle.
He shivered.
This can't be right.
It was too little.
Too slow.
If this was the rate… he'd never have enough money to finance it. Not with spirit stones. Not even if he drained every allowance the sect would ever give him.
The realization sat heavy in his chest, pressing down until it was hard to breathe.
No.
He refused to accept it like that.
As if defying the conclusion could change the outcome, Riven reached for the second core.
The wind-aligned one.
His fingers closed around it, and this time he didn't hesitate. He repeated the process — a careful incision with a needle, the controlled release, his palm hovering above the exposed core.
The essence rose.
Lighter than water. Sharper.
It slipped into his blood vision like a current, threading between cells with subtle precision.
Riven watched, breath held.
This time, the sensation was clearer — not stronger, but faster. The essence didn't linger. It aligned, wrapped, and dissolved almost immediately.
Again, nothing dramatic followed.
No rush.
No surge.
Just… absence.
Riven's jaw tightened as he searched his blood again, scanning for signs of failure.
Then he saw it.
Another barely perceptible shift.
If before it had been five point one percent…
Now it was five point two.
He sagged back slightly, bracing his hand against the floor.
Two cores.
Two spirit stones.
And all he'd gained was a fraction of a fraction.
Riven stared at his palm, fingers slowly curling shut.
This wasn't a path meant for the poor.
And yet—
His eyes hardened.
It was his bloodline.
His parents' bloodline.
The only innate connection he still had to them — something distance and time couldn't sever.
He wouldn't give up on it.
Riven's hand drifted to his chest, fingers closing around the small necklace hidden beneath his robes. The cord was worn, plain, unremarkable to anyone else. But to him, it was special. Steady. Grounding.
His sister's last gift.
He tightened his grip.
He would find his way back.
To her.
To his parents.
If money is what I need to get a map… and to improve — then money is what I'll get.
Becoming rich.
That would be his next goal.
Riven exhaled softly, the tension in his shoulders easing just a fraction.
It couldn't be that hard.
…Right?
>>>
The next morning, Riven and Ziren made their way down to the entrance hall of the lodge.
Light filtered in through wide openings in the bark-walls, catching on drifting motes of pollen and dust. The air buzzed with quiet anticipation.
The rest of their group was already there.
Lara and Talia stood near one of the pillars, dressed more formally than before — vibrant fabrics layered with subtle reinforcement, jewelry that looked decorative until you noticed the faint qi shimmer within. Mei was there too, practically glowing in a colorful outfit that somehow managed to look both playful and deliberate.
It didn't look like anything either of them would have found in the sect.
Their shopping trip must have been successfull...
And at the center of it all stood Elder Syen.
Dark-robed. Hands clasped behind his back. Expression as gloomy as ever.
His eyes flicked toward them as they approached.
"You're here," he said. "Good. Prepare yourselves."
He paused, gaze sweeping over the group.
"We may be heading to a banquet," Syen continued evenly. "But understand this—"
His tone sharpened just slightly.
"This is a cultivator banquet. It won't be anything like what you've experienced before."
A short inhale.
"Don't make the sect look bad."