Unity and the Fracture
The silver phantom did not dissipate. It lingered, its misty form holding a silent, waiting tension that resonated in Yao Xuan's very soul. The construct's nine-colored eyes burned brighter, the final judgment impending.
Across the cavern, the last phantom—the radiant white dragon—began to glow. Its light was not harsh, but profound, speaking of consciousness, spirit, and the pure essence of creation itself. The duality: Silver for space, matter, the foundation of existence. White for spirit, consciousness, the animating force.
The fracture separated substance from spirit, the vast consciousness intoned. The Silver Dragon holds the body, the domain, the tangible law. The Golden Dragon holds the spirit, the element, the raging power. Can the origin reconcile this divide?
The white light pulsed, not as an attack, but as a question. It washed over Yao Xuan, and he felt it probing not his power, but his intent, the fundamental nature of his will. It sought to understand if his comprehension was one of domination—seeking to forcibly re-merge what was split—or of something deeper.
Yao Xuan thought of the system, an external catalyst of order. He thought of his own transmigrated soul, a consciousness granted a new vessel. He thought of Gu Yuena—a mighty spirit confined, fractured, seeking wholeness.
He looked from the silver mist to the white light, and then down at his own hands, now sheathed in faintly gleaming dragon scales.
"True unity isn't a return to a forgotten past," he said, his voice clear and firm against the eternal waterfall. "It is the creation of a new whole from the understood pieces. Reconciliation is not erasure. It is acknowledgment, balance, and the willingness to build a new foundation with the fracture, not in spite of it."
He did not try to combine the two phantoms. Instead, he raised his right hand toward the silver mist, and his left toward the white light. From his heart, the warmth of his Ancestral Dragon bloodline flowed outward, not as a chain to bind, but as a bridge—a neutral, primordial pathway.
"The origin does not choose one over the other. It remembers a time before the choice was necessary. It can be the common ground both can stand upon."
The silver mist swirled, drawn to the authority in his right hand. The white light gentled, bathing his left in its calm radiance. For a moment, they balanced around him, distinct yet not opposed, connected through him to the deeper, older truth he embodied.
The construct lowered its hand.
Trial Concluded. Comprehension: Foundational. Bloodline signature confirmed: Primordial Unity. Access granted.
The phantoms and the construct dissolved into streams of light that flowed back into the nine-colored vortex now reappearing before Yao Xuan. But this time, the vortex did not lead out. It solidified into a shimmering, translucent pool of energy on the dais.
Reward: Soul Beast Spiritual Essence (Primordial Grade). Purified spiritual energy, compatible with all attributes. Absorb.
Yao Xuan approached. The pool glowed with a soft, inviting light. He knelt, placing his hands upon its surface. It was cool and solid, yet it yielded instantly, transforming into a torrent of incredibly pure, dense energy that surged into him.
It was nothing like the chaotic spiritual power of ordinary soul beasts. This was refined, ancient, and perfectly harmonious. He felt it bypass his soul power circuits entirely, sinking directly into his marrow, his blood, and finally, resonating with his Ancestral Dragon martial soul.
A profound warmth spread through him. He heard no system notification about evolution points. Instead, he felt a qualitative deepening. The dragon scales on his arms gleamed more vividly for a moment before fading. His senses sharpened. His connection to that deep, internal river of primordial power felt more tangible, more readily accessible.
When he opened his eyes, the cavern, the waterfall, the dais—all were gone. He stood back in the featureless white chamber, the nine-colored gate now inert and fading behind him. A standard exit portal swirled to life a few feet away.
Elsewhere in the simulation, in a generic soul beast forest, Gu Yue's hand froze mid-motion as she was about to dispatch a Thorned Vine Panther.
A tremor passed through the virtual world. Not a physical shake, but a ripple in the very fabric of the spiritual energy composing it. To the others—Xie Xie, Tang Wulin, Wang Jinxi—it felt like a brief lag, a flicker in the simulation.
To Gu Yue, it was a clarion call.
Her silver eyes widened minutely. That ripple… it carried a signature she knew in her bones. It was draconic, but of an order so ancient it made her own Silver Dragon King bloodline stir with a mixture of reverence and acute awareness. It was the same profound echo she'd sensed from Yao Xuan before, but magnified a hundredfold, purified, and answered by the platform's core systems.
'He triggered a deep-layer response,' she thought, her analytical mind whirring. 'The platform didn't just test him; it conversed with his bloodline. What did it ask? What did he answer?'
Beneath the cool analysis, another layer reacted. Na'er's foundational memories supplied a visceral, instinctual response: a flash of worry. Was he safe? That energy surge felt immense.
The Thorned Vine Panther lunged, breaking her reverie. With a flick of her wrist, a shard of ice pierced its eye, dissolving it into data fragments. She felt the meager trickle of spiritual energy absorb into her, but her attention was elsewhere.
'He is more than just a candidate,' Gu Yue concluded, her heart a complex knot of strategy and emotion. 'The platform recognizes his authority. This… changes the parameters.' The sovereign in her saw confirmation; the girl who carried Na'er's heart felt a surge of protective anxiety.
When the weekly session ended, and the students were ejected from the pods back into the Spirit Pagoda's observation room, Yao Xuan was the last to emerge. His expression was calm, but there was a new, subtle depth in his eyes, a quiet solidity that hadn't been there before.
"Boss! You were in there forever!" Xie Xie exclaimed, though his tone was more curious than complaining. "What happened? My simulation was just a bunch of annoying Blaze Rabbits."
"Mine was Ironhide Boars," Tang Wulin said, looking energized. "Tough, but good practice."
Wang Jinxi and Zhang Yangzi offered similar reports of standard, challenging simulations.
All eyes turned to Yao Xuan. Gu Yue's gaze was particularly intense, though her face remained an elegant mask of polite inquiry.
"The platform detected my bloodline was… atypical," Yao Xuan said, choosing his words carefully under Instructor Wu Changkong's observant eye. "It ran a separate calibration trial. More of a puzzle than a fight."
"A puzzle?" Wu Changkong mused, stroking his chin. "Interesting. The Spirit Ascension Platform is full of mysteries. As long as you benefited and are unharmed."
"I benefited," Yao Xuan confirmed, meeting Gu Yue's eyes for a fleeting second.
In that glance, she saw it. Not just progress in power, but a step forward in understanding. And he saw in her eyes not just analytical curiosity, but a flicker of relief so quick anyone else would have missed it. It was the Na'er part of her, peeking through before the Gu Yue persona reasserted control.
As they filed out of the Spirit Pagoda into the late afternoon light of Donghai City, the upcoming winter break hung in the air. Gu Yue walked beside Yao Xuan, the silence between them comfortable.
"The calibration trial," she said softly, her voice meant only for him. "It involved draconic principles, didn't it?"
Yao Xuan nodded. "Unity. And fracture."
A profound understanding passed between them. He didn't need to explain further. She, of all people, knew the weight of those words.
"Winter break begins in two weeks," Gu Yue said, her tone shifting back to the cool, collected academy genius. Yet the underlying intent was clear, a bridge between her two selves. "My… family has a secluded library. It contains some obscure texts on ancient bloodlines. The ones the academy lacks. It might help your research."
The invitation was extended. Not just to a home, but to the next stage of her carefully laid test—and to a place where Na'er's memories whispered that he belonged.
Yao Xuan looked at her, at the silver hair stirring in the breeze and the eyes that held universes of conflict and hope. "I would be honored," he replied.
The path ahead was clear. The trial in the platform had been one of comprehension. The trial awaiting him at her home would be one of destiny. And at the heart of it all, binding past to present, was the simple, unwavering trust in a pair of silver eyes.