True inheritance is not taking the sword from another's hand,
but understanding where its blade was pointing—
and stepping quietly into the place they never had the chance to reach.
The air inside the stone chamber had frozen.
Jiang Muchen crouched before the stone platform, one knee pressed to the ground. His fingers hovered just above the nearly eroded inscription, not touching it. Torchlight danced across the walls, causing the words "Beware… the Nether…" to flicker in and out of clarity—like the ragged breathing of a dying man fighting for one last moment of consciousness.
Everything beyond those words had been ground away by time, leaving behind an unsettling silence.
"Senior Brother Jiang…" Zhou Xiaohuan's voice came from behind him, barely louder than a whisper. It trembled despite her effort to steady it.
Jiang Muchen didn't turn around.
Still half-crouched, he shifted his gaze from the inscription to the seated skeleton, then back again—three times in total. Only then did he inhale slowly and reach into his robe, taking out a piece of clean white cloth.
It was simple cotton.
A gift from an old woman at the Servants' Courtyard on the day he left.
Take it, she had said. A child walking far from home should always carry something clean.
He used that cloth to wipe the bones.
Carefully. Slowly.
As though brushing dust from a priceless porcelain relic.
He began with the skull, gently removing centuries of accumulated grime. Then the shoulder blades, the ribcage, the spine—every joint, every seam between bone segments, nothing overlooked.
The cloth darkened quickly, turning gray-black.
No one spoke.
Inside the chamber, the only sounds were the faint rasp of fabric against bone and the distant drip… drip… of water seeping from somewhere beyond the walls. In the silence, the sound felt like a clock—or a warning counting down.
By the time a stick of incense would have burned out, the skeleton was clean.
Under the torchlight stood a complete set of pale yellow bones. Fine cracks webbed across the surface—scars left by miasma corrosion, like the fissures of a dried riverbed. Jiang Muchen leaned closer, his face inches away, examining it inch by inch.
"When this senior passed," he said softly, almost to himself, "his cultivation had just entered early Foundation Establishment."
His finger traced the air above the ribs.
"The third and fourth ribs—old injuries. Poorly healed. Likely struck by a heavy-handed technique during an early conflict. And here—" His gaze shifted to the right arm. "The ulna was fractured once. The alignment was slightly off when it healed. That explains why he later abandoned sword arts and cultivated the Thick Earth Art instead—defensive, forgiving, not requiring precise control."
His hand moved without touching, reading the bones like a text written in another language.
"Judging by ossification and joint wear, he died around thirty-seven or thirty-eight. Reaching Foundation Establishment at that age—his talent wasn't extraordinary, but it was far from poor." Jiang Muchen glanced around the bare chamber. "Yet he lived simply. Very simply."
He examined the hands last.
Long fingers. Clear joints. On the knuckles of the index and middle fingers, there were signs of bone overgrowth—marks left by years of holding a stylus, carving sigils, or maintaining delicate hand positions.
"He specialized in talisman crafting… or formations." Jiang Muchen looked toward the damaged Dust-Avoidance Talisman on the stone door. "That talisman is badly worn, but its core energy-routing pattern is astonishingly precise. You don't carve lines like that without decades of discipline."
He stepped back three paces.
Then bowed.
Deeply.
Once.
Twice.
A third time—his back bent so low his head nearly touched his knees.
"Senior Shi Jian," he said, voice clear and steady. "I, Jiang Muchen of the Hongchen Pavilion, together with twenty-three fellow outer disciples, have today received your remaining legacy."
"The Thick Earth Art and the Earth-Origin Stones will be used well. They will not gather dust."
"We will honor your remains—move them beyond this cave, and bury you in a clean, sunlit place."
He paused, then spoke more softly, each word precise.
"As for your warning about the Nether… though I do not yet see the whole picture, I will remember it. If it concerns the innocent, if it involves unresolved cause and effect—then within my strength, I will not turn away."
Silence followed.
Then Jiang Muchen turned to the others.
"Senior Brother Lu. Zhao Tiezhu. Li Hu. Sun Ming." He named four people. "You will escort Senior Shi's remains out of the cave. Find a dry slope that faces the sun and can see the sky. A simple stone mound will do. No marker. No name."
"He was a rogue cultivator," Jiang Muchen added quietly. "He likely wouldn't want empty formalities."
"Yes," Lu Hanshan replied solemnly.
"Zhou Xiaohuan." Jiang Muchen turned to the girl clutching her records. "You and two others will clean this chamber thoroughly. Every crack. Every corner. Even the ceiling. If the senior left anything—a scratch, a symbol—record it."
"I understand!" she answered immediately.
"The rest of you—help me examine the iron box and the Earth-Origin Stones."
The iron box was fully rusted, its hinges seized. Lu Hanshan had earlier pried it open with the tip of his sword. Surprisingly, the inside was well preserved.
At the bottom lay dried, gray-brown moss.
"Nerve-Calming Moss," Jiang Muchen said after rubbing a pinch between his fingers. "It stabilizes spiritual fluctuations and slows energy dissipation. It's useless now, but… it tells us how much he valued what was inside."
He picked up the jade slip.
Cool. Intact.
This time, he read slowly.
The first three layers of the Thick Earth Art were exactly as expected—steady, grounded, practical. No grand metaphors. Just fundamentals: sensing earth-aspected qi, refining it, circulating it in a way that was stable and enduring.
"I'll transcribe this tonight," Jiang Muchen said, looking up. "Three copies. One stays with our team as a shared inheritance. One goes back to the Pavilion for Wang Duobao—to distribute to other low-born disciples."
"And the third…" His eyes narrowed slightly. "I'll attempt to merge the Earth Vein Chapter with Elder Chen Sao's Sweeping Mind Technique."
Murmurs stirred.
"Not everyone has an earth spiritual root," Jiang Muchen continued, "but the sweeping technique's emphasis on fine control aligns with the enduring stability of the Thick Earth Art. There's common ground."
Eyes brightened.
Then came the Earth-Origin Stones.
Five in total.
After a brief pause, Jiang Muchen distributed them—not equally, but appropriately.
One for the team.
One for Lu Hanshan's heavy sword.
One for Zhao Tiezhu's future shield.
The last two—crafted into protective pendants for the support members.
No objections.
Because what he distributed wasn't stone.
It was recognition.
Then—
"Senior Brother Jiang…" Sun Ming spoke hesitantly. "I don't have an earth root. And my cultivation is only Qi Condensation Layer Three…"
"The first layer of the Thick Earth Art isn't about elements," Jiang Muchen said gently. "It's about foundation. Try the qi-solidification method. It will help you break through."
He recorded a jade slip on the spot.
Sun Ming read it—and froze.
Every flaw. Every bad habit. Every bottleneck.
All seen.
"Thank you…" His voice broke.
Then Zhou Xiaohuan cried out softly from the corner.
"This spot—below here—it's hollow!"
A hidden compartment.
Inside—
A journal.
Plant remains.
And a black bone shard.
The journal ended in blood.
The bone shard was cold. Hungry.
And unmistakably—
A marker.
Jiang Muchen sealed it away.
Then faced the group.
"Everything you saw today—no one speaks of it."
The oath echoed.
As they left the chamber, the jade box in his robe grew warm.
Some inherit power.
Others inherit unfinished warnings.