He had glanced back at the doorway before crossing the courtyard that morning. Li Mei was not there. The courtyard was empty, just the stone and the pale predawn sky.
The blade answered his intent before he finished thinking it.
Wang Ben moved through the basic forms in the pre-dawn darkness, the courtyard stones cool beneath his bare feet. Thrust. Withdraw. Pivot. Cut. The blade caught the first gray light of morning, its edge tracing silver arcs through the air.
Two weeks since the wolf. Two weeks since he'd woken to find himself changed in ways he still didn't fully understand.
He completed the sequence and began again, slower this time, focusing on the transition between movements. The sword Zhao Daniu had forged answered every shift of his grip... quick in the wrist, solid in the strike. Six months of a master craftsman's life, distilled into steel.
[FORM ANALYSIS]
[Current Execution: Moderately efficient]
[Primary Deficiency: Shoulder tension during thrust recovery]
[Secondary: Weight distribution favors rear foot excessively]
[NOTE: Shoulder tension during thrust recovery phase reduces withdrawal speed.]
Wang Ben adjusted his stance, letting his shoulders drop. The next thrust flowed more smoothly into the withdrawal.
He'd been doing this every morning since he could hold the sword without his arms shaking. Rise before dawn. Train until breakfast. Study until lunch. Train again until dinner. Study until sleep claimed him.
It wasn't enough. It would never be enough. But it was what he could do.
The System's cold assessments helped more than he'd expected. Not dramatically. A minor correction here, a small adjustment there. But over hundreds of repetitions, those small improvements accumulated. His body was learning patterns that felt ancient, corrections his limbs made without waiting for his mind to agree.
The dreams, he thought. It has to be the dreams.
He didn't understand where the knowledge came from. Didn't understand why his body sometimes moved before his mind could think. But he was learning to trust it, the way a swimmer learns to trust the water.
The sun crested the eastern wall as he finished his final set. Sweat cooled on his skin. His arms burned with the good ache of honest effort.
"You're getting better."
Wang Ben turned. Zhao Yu stood at the courtyard entrance, leaning against the doorframe. He was still pale, still moving carefully, but the dark circles under his eyes had faded. Two weeks of rest and his mother's cooking had done what pills alone couldn't.
"Watching me train?" Wang Ben sheathed the sword. "Don't you have better things to do?"
"The physicians say I'm not allowed to do anything interesting for another week." Zhao Yu limped into the courtyard, favoring his left leg. "So I watch. Learn what I can." He paused. "You move differently than you used to."
"Fighting for your life changes things."
"It's more than that." Zhao Yu's eyes were thoughtful. "The forms are the same ones everyone learns. But you... you flow. Like you've been doing this for years instead of weeks."
Wang Ben wiped his face with a cloth. "I've been reading the old formation texts in the library. They talk about energy flow, balance points, how forces move through a structure." He shrugged. "It made me think about footwork differently."
It wasn't entirely a lie. He had been reading formation texts. He just hadn't learned swordwork from them.
Zhao Yu looked skeptical. "Formation texts taught you to fight like that?"
"They taught me to think about where force goes. The rest is just practice."
Zhao Yu was quiet. Then: "My father says talent reveals itself in crisis. That some people have potential sleeping inside them, waiting for the right time to wake up." He met Wang Ben's eyes. "Maybe that wolf woke something in you."
Guilt twisted behind Wang Ben's ribs. He only nodded. "Maybe."
"I've been thinking." Zhao Yu straightened, wincing. "When I'm recovered. When I can train again. I want to train with you. Not just alongside you. With you."
"You're a stage ahead of me."
"For now." Zhao Yu's voice held no jealousy, only certainty. "That won't last. I've seen how fast you're improving. In six months, a year... you'll pass me. I'd rather be your training partner when that happens than your subordinate."
Wang Ben studied the older boy. Sixteen years old. Mid-stage body refinement. Son of a retainer family with no political power and limited resources. They'd stood in the same courtyard at last spring's gathering, the one where the city's cultivation families presented their young cultivators, and Wang Ben couldn't remember exchanging a single word. By all rational calculation, Zhao Yu should be distancing himself, hedging his bets, waiting to see which way the winds blew.
Instead, he was offering loyalty.
"Training partners," Wang Ben said slowly. "Not followers."
"Partners." Zhao Yu extended his hand. "Equal. For as long as that makes sense."
Wang Ben clasped it. "Deal."
...
The meeting with the Patriarch had been... illuminating.
One week after the wolf, Wang Ben had stood in the same chamber where the elders had questioned him, but this time without an audience. Just him and Wang Tiexin, the seven-hundred-twenty-year-old leader of the Wang Clan.
The old man had regarded him for a long time before speaking.
"Sit."
Wang Ben had sat. The chair was too large, made for cultivators with centuries of accumulated presence. He felt like a child playing at being an adult.
"I've been thinking about your survival," the Patriarch said. His voice was unhurried, each word carefully weighed. "About your breakthrough. About these dreams your father mentioned years ago."
Wang Ben had kept his face still. "Yes, Patriarch?"
"Do you know what I see when I look at you, boy?"
"A junior clan member who got lucky?"
"No." Wang Tiexin's ancient eyes held a glint that might have been amusement. "I see my grandson."
The statement caught Wang Ben off guard. He'd known, intellectually, that the Patriarch was his grandfather, Wang Tian's father. But the old man had always been a distant figure, a presence felt more than seen, occupied with clan matters far above the concerns of a single struggling family.
"Your father was brilliant," Wang Tiexin continued. "The most talented of all my sons. When he found that Spirit Fire, I thought..." He shook his head. "It doesn't matter what I thought. What matters is what I see now."
"What do you see, Grandfather?"
The word slipped out before Wang Ben could stop it. He'd never called the Patriarch that. It felt presumptuous. But the old man's eyes warmed, just for a moment.
"I see the same brilliance. The same drive. But tempered by caution your father never had." Wang Tiexin leaned forward. "Caution. Your father was fearless. Too fearless. He reached for Grade 7 refinement before his body could handle it, and it nearly destroyed him."
If only you knew, Wang Ben thought.
"The dreams," the Patriarch said. "Tell me about them. Truthfully."
Wang Ben had prepared for this. "I see... fragments. Techniques I've never learned. Battles I've never fought. Sometimes it's clear, like watching someone else's memories. Other times it's just... feelings. Instincts. Like my hands already know how to do things I was never taught."
"And the wolf?"
"I don't remember most of it." That was true enough. The fight existed in his memory as flashes: the System's cold analysis, the wolf's hot breath, the moment when his spear had found the creature's heart. "My body moved. The dreams... they moved through me."
Wang Tiexin was silent.
"There are stories," he said finally. "Old stories, from before our clan settled in Redstone City. About cultivators touched by fate. About souls that carry echoes of past lives, not full reincarnations, but fragments. Pieces of people who died with unfinished business."
Wang Ben's heart beat faster. "You think that's what happened to me?"
"I think something happened to you. Whether it's ancestral memory, karmic inheritance, or something else entirely..." The Patriarch shrugged. "I'm seven hundred and twenty years old, boy. I've learned that the world contains more mysteries than answers."
He rose from his seat, and Wang Ben scrambled to stand.
"I won't ask you to explain what you don't understand. But I will ask you this: whatever gift has come to you, whatever power these dreams provide, use it wisely. Use it to grow strong. And use it to protect this family."
"I will, Patriarch."
"Grandfather." The correction was gentle but firm. "In private, at least. You're my blood. Remember that."
Wang Tiexin studied him, and the old man's posture shifted. The Patriarch's formality fell away, replaced by a quieter, more dangerous focus: a grandfather's attention.
"Ben'er." The familiar suffix made Wang Ben's chest tighten. "You've been different since the forest. Not just the fighting. The way you carry yourself. The way you think before you speak, like a man measuring the weight of every word." He let the silence stretch. "An old man notices these things."
Wang Ben held very still. "The forest changed me, Grandfather. I don't know how else to say it."
Wang Tiexin watched him. Then the old man exhaled through his nose and nodded, not because he was convinced, but because he'd chosen to trust. "Then grow into whatever the forest made you, Ben'er. I'll be watching."
Wang Ben had bowed, lower than custom required. "Yes, Grandfather."
The meeting had ended there, but its weight had lingered. The Patriarch knew something was different. He'd chosen not to press, for now. But Wang Ben understood that the old man would be watching, waiting to see what his strange grandson would become.
One more person watching. One more person he couldn't fully trust with the truth.
But also, perhaps, one more person who might stand between him and Elder Liu if things went wrong.
...
The Wang Clan library was a monument to better days.
On his way across the courtyard, Wang Ben noticed the faint shimmer of defensive formations built into the compound walls, lines of inscription that followed the natural grain of the stone rather than cutting against it. "Your mother's father laid those," Wang Tiexin had told him once, passing through this same courtyard. "Li Cheng insisted the arrays would hold longer if they listened to the stone first." Twenty years later, they still held.
Three stories of shelves, once filled to bursting with scrolls and bound texts, now stood half-empty. The gaps told the story of the clan's decline more eloquently than any words. Valuable technique manuals sold to pay debts, rare formation diagrams traded for resources, centuries of accumulated knowledge scattered to the winds.
But what remained was still substantial. Basic cultivation guides. Herb encyclopedias. Beast classification texts. Formation theory primers. On a lower shelf, a set of personal notebooks caught his eye, their spines marked with an unfamiliar name: Li Cheng. Formation diagrams filled the pages, node placements drawn in careful ink.
[CROSS-REFERENCE: FORMATION NODE ANALYSIS]
[Node placement method: divergent from standard references. Insufficient data for full analysis.]
Wang Ben traced a node with his fingertip. The standard formation texts placed nodes on a geometrically imposed grid, clean lines and equal spacing. Li Cheng's nodes followed the contours of the ground itself, curving where the stone curved, clustering where the terrain thickened. It reminded him of the old memory: his grandfather pressing his palm flat against bare stone, listening to what was already there before changing anything. It settled alongside the things he understood without knowing why, knowledge that arrived already finished.
He moved on, though he noticed he'd spent longer studying a single formation node than he had on the entire herb encyclopedia. The foundational knowledge that every cultivator needed, deemed too common to sell.
Wang Ben had been here every afternoon since he'd recovered.
He sat at his usual corner table near the east window, the one he'd claimed without thinking on his first visit and returned to every day since. Three books spread before him. A Comprehensive Guide to Blackwood Forest Flora. Principles of Defensive Array Construction. Spirit Beasts of the Northern Territories: Classification and Behavior.
To anyone watching, he was a diligent young cultivator studying for his future. Nothing suspicious. Nothing remarkable.
They couldn't see what was happening inside his mind.
[DATABASE RECONSTRUCTION: ACTIVE]
[Processing: "A Comprehensive Guide to Blackwood Forest Flora"]
[Page 147: "Bloodroot - hemorrhagic suppressant, grows in damp soil..."]
[Cross-referencing archived cultivation knowledge...]
[Potential Match: "Crimson Vitality Grass" (high confidence)]
[Properties: Compatible hemostatic compounds]
[Database: UPDATED]
The pattern repeated through the afternoon: a name from the local text, a cross-reference from somewhere he had no memory of learning, a match that should not exist. The System devoured each entry and asked for more.
Wang Ben turned another page, and the System processed another dozen entries.
He paused on a formation diagram halfway through a cross-reference text. The principle behind it clicked instantly, the way a lock answers a key, rising from that bottomless place he'd first noticed weeks ago. But when he picked up his brush to note down why it worked, the words wouldn't come. He understood the answer. He just couldn't trace the path that led to it, as if the knowledge had bypassed every step between question and conclusion.
He didn't fully understand why he felt compelled to read these books. The urge had started small, a vague sense that he should be studying, that knowledge mattered in ways he couldn't articulate. But over the past two weeks, it had grown into a need closer to hunger.
Every herb description. Every formation diagram. Every beast classification. His mind devoured them, and somewhere deep inside, recognition clicked.
It's not just me, he thought. Something in the dreams... something wants this information.
The System offered no explanation. It absorbed, sorted, and hungered for more.
"Young Master Wang."
Wang Ben looked up. The library keeper, an elderly man named Shentu who had served the clan for sixty years, stood nearby with a stack of scrolls.
"Elder Shentu."
"I brought the texts you requested." The old man set the scrolls on the desk. "Intermediate Formation Theory, volumes four through six. And the clan's copy of Practical Alchemy for Beginners."
"Thank you."
Elder Shentu hesitated. "Forgive an old man's curiosity, but... you've been here every day. More than any young cultivator I've seen in decades." His eyes narrowed. "And reading material well beyond basic body refinement curriculum."
"Knowledge is power," Wang Ben said. It felt like a quote from somewhere, though he couldn't remember where.
"So the old masters taught." Elder Shentu's eyes were shrewd, appraising. "Most young people prefer physical training. Faster results. More impressive to their peers." He tilted his head, studying Wang Ben as one might study an unfamiliar character in a familiar text.
"I hate feeling weak." Wang Ben gestured at his body. "I'm at mid-stage body refinement. I'll never outmuscle a qi condensation cultivator. But knowledge... knowledge doesn't care what stage I'm at. And I'd rather be useful than strong."
Elder Shentu considered this. Then he smiled, showing teeth worn smooth by age.
"Your father was the same. When he was young, before he found his Spirit Fire, he read everything. Said an alchemist needed to understand the world, not just the recipes." The smile faded. "It's good to see someone carrying on that tradition."
After the old man left, Wang Ben opened Practical Alchemy for Beginners and began to read.
[ALCHEMY DATABASE RECONSTRUCTION: INITIATED]
[Processing: "Chapter 1: The Principles of Pill Refinement"]
[Cross-referencing archived cultivation knowledge...]
[Note: Fundamental principles show strong correlation with known universal constants]
[Deviation analysis: Local variations in qi density require adjusted timing]
[Database: UPDATING...]
[Local Herb Database: 23% reconstructed]
...
Later that afternoon, Wang Ben wandered into the library's forgotten corners.
The third floor's eastern wing hadn't been touched in years. Dust lay thick on the shelves, and the scrolls here were remnants of the clan's distant past. Outdated cultivation manuals. Obsolete formation diagrams. Records of transactions from centuries ago. Nothing valuable enough to sell, nothing useful enough to study.
Perfect for his purposes.
One scroll caught his eye as he browsed. An old cultivation manual, its pages brittle with age, with a margin notation in faded ink: For cultivators with unusual meridian configurations, core techniques may be adapted through careful modification of the channeling sequence. An interesting thought. He let it settle into the growing collection of things he did not yet understand and moved on.
He selected a scroll at random. The paper was old but still intact, covered in faded characters describing some merchant's inventory from three hundred years ago. Worthless. He tucked it into his robe and continued browsing, eventually selecting two more scrolls of similar quality. Old poetry. A letter to someone long dead. Nothing anyone would miss.
That night, in his room, Wang Ben scraped the old ink from the first scroll with slow, even strokes. The technique required patience. Too much pressure would damage the paper. Too little would leave traces of the original text. He worked slowly, methodically, until the scroll was blank.
Then he began to write.
The System couldn't guide his hand directly, but the knowledge was there, welling up from a place beyond conscious thought. He wrote in deliberately archaic language, mimicking the style of the old texts he'd been studying. Vague. Incomplete. The kind of half-remembered technique that might have been copied and recopied over centuries until crucial details were lost.
On the Strengthening and Refinement of Meridian Pathways, he titled it.
The finished scroll filled three columns of dense, archaic text. Vague where it needed to be vague, precise where precision would hook an alchemist's curiosity. A puzzle missing its final piece.
When he finished, Wang Ben held it up to the lamplight. The paper looked appropriately aged. The ink was fresh, but he could fix that. A few days in a drawer with some old books, exposure to air and dust, and it would appear as worn as anything else in the library's forgotten corners.
He rolled it with both hands and set it aside. The other two blank scrolls he would save for future use.
Wang Ben knew what the missing piece was, the knowledge rising from that deep place where the dreams lived, but he couldn't tell his father. Not without explaining how he knew. He would need to find the right ingredient. And then, somehow, let his father discover the connection himself.
...
The market was chaos.
Wang Ben moved through the crowds, a cloth bag over his shoulder, eyes scanning the stalls. Herbs. Medicines. Cultivation supplies. The east market district was a riot of color and noise, merchants hawking their wares while customers haggled over prices.
His mother had given him a list. Basic supplies for the household, some herbs for the baby's care, a few minor cultivation resources. Simple errands.
But the System was anything but idle.
[ENVIRONMENTAL SCAN: ACTIVE]
[Threat Assessment: Minimal]
[Crowd Density: High. Mixed cultivation levels within immediate vicinity.]
[Cultivator Presence: Mixed levels detected]
[Estimated body refinement: 12-18 (based on physical markers)]
[Estimated qi condensation: Several (behavioral markers suggest higher cultivation)]
[Foundation establishment: 1 confirmed (spiritual pressure released)]
[Irregularities: None]
[Processing Local Data...]
[Market Stall 7: "Old Chen's Herbs"]
[Inventory Assessment: Bloodroot (fair quality), Spirit Grass (good quality), Silverleaf (exceptional - significantly underpriced)]
[NOTE: Silverleaf at this stall is significantly underpriced relative to quality]
Wang Ben paused at Old Chen's stall, examining the herbs with what he hoped looked like casual interest. The Silverleaf was indeed exceptional. The leaves had a particular sheen that indicated high spiritual density. Old Chen had priced them the same as his average stock, probably unable to tell the difference.
"These Silverleaf," Wang Ben said. "How much for the bundle?"
"Fifty copper, young master." Old Chen squinted at him. "Good eye. Most people skip right past them."
Wang Ben counted out the coins. A small advantage, but advantages accumulated.
He finished the rest of his mother's list methodically, moving from stall to stall, comparing prices the way Old Chen probably wished his other customers would. Near the eastern end of the market, two merchants were haggling in lowered voices, their conversation dying when they noticed him passing. One name caught his ear before he moved out of range: Phantom Gate. He added it to the other fragments he'd collected and kept walking.
By the time he left the market, the cloth bag was full and the afternoon sun had begun its descent.
...
That night, Wang Ben sat across from his father at the dinner table, watching him try to hide his trembling hands.
"The auction is in three weeks." Wang Tian's voice was carefully controlled. "The Thousand Treasures Pavilion announced it today. They're featuring several healing treasures, including..." He paused, swallowing. "Including a Grade 8 Mid-Quality Meridian Restoration Treasure."
Li Mei set down her chopsticks. "How much?"
"The estimate is fifteen to twenty mid-grade spirit stones."
Silence. In the corner, baby Wang Chen gurgled in his crib, oblivious to the tension.
Wang Ben knew the numbers. His father had saved approximately thirteen mid-grade stones over nine years. It wasn't enough. Even at the low estimate, he'd be outbid.
Li Mei set down her sewing. "We could ask the clan for a loan."
"I already did." Wang Tian's jaw tightened. "The Patriarch... offered his sympathy. Said resources were tight with the beast tide warnings. That perhaps after things stabilized..."
A polite refusal, Wang Ben translated. The clan has already written Father off.
"The wolf materials," Wang Ben said. "How much did they sell for?"
Wang Tian blinked at the sudden shift. "The antlers fetched six mid-grade stones. The pelt... the poison damage hurt the price. Only three mid-grade, when an undamaged Jade Snow Wolf pelt might have brought eight or nine." He paused. "After the clan's cut and processing fees, nine mid-grade stones remain. Held in trust for you until you come of age."
"I want to use them. For the auction."
Silence fell over the table. Li Mei's chopsticks stopped halfway to her mouth. Wang Tian stared at his son as if he'd grown a second head.
"Ben..." his father started.
"You have thirteen saved. With my nine, that's twenty-two." Wang Ben met his father's eyes steadily. "It's not enough to guarantee victory, but it gives us a fighting chance."
"That money is yours. Your future. Cultivation resources, techniques, opportunities..." Wang Tian shook his head. "I won't take my son's future to fix my past mistakes."
"What future do I have if my father can't protect our family?" Wang Ben kept his voice calm, though his chest ached with the effort. "You're at mid-stage qi condensation. Injured or not, you're still one of the strongest cultivators in our branch. But if you keep declining, if the damage spreads... I'd rather have a healthy father and an empty purse than the reverse."
A long silence.
Li Mei reached over and placed her hand on her husband's arm. "He's right, Tian. We're a family. His resources are our resources, just as ours would be his if positions were reversed."
Wang Tian looked between his wife and son, his composure cracking behind his eyes. "When did you both become so..."
"Stubborn?" Li Mei offered.
"Practical," Wang Ben said.
His father let out a breath that was almost a laugh. "I was going to say 'willing to sacrifice for a broken old man.' But stubborn and practical work too." He let out a long breath, then slowly nodded. "We'll combine our resources. Twenty-two mid-grade stones. It may not be enough, but..." He swallowed. "Thank you, Ben. I don't deserve a son like you."
"You deserve better than a son who would let his father suffer when he could help."
Wang Tian's hand found Wang Ben's shoulder and squeezed. "You've changed. Since the forest. How you talk, how you think... it's like you aged ten years overnight."
"Nearly dying will do that."
"So you keep saying." His father's eyes searched his face, and this time he didn't look away. "These dreams of yours. I've been going through some old clan records in my spare time. There are stories, from centuries ago, about cultivators who remembered things they shouldn't. Techniques they'd never learned. Knowledge that seemed to come from nowhere."
Wang Ben went still. "What kind of stories?"
"Fragmentary. Incomplete. Most of the detailed accounts were sold off years ago." Wang Tian's voice was careful, probing. "But if we could find patterns, compare what you're experiencing to what others have documented..."
"You want to investigate."
"I want to understand." His father leaned forward, and the gentleness left his voice. "Ben, I'm not asking out of curiosity. A father has the right to know what's happening to his son. You owe me that much."
The words landed like a blow. Wang Ben opened his mouth, and for a terrible moment the truth pressed against his teeth. The System. The Archive. The dead universe whispering in his skull. He could end the lies right now.
His jaw locked. The words wouldn't come.
Wang Tian watched the struggle play across his son's face. Whatever he saw there made his shoulders drop.
"Not yet," he said quietly. It wasn't acceptance. It was a man choosing patience because the alternative was worse. "But I'll keep reading. Keep looking. And when you're ready, I'll be here."
Wang Ben nodded, his throat tight. The offer wasn't forgiveness. It was a debt, marked and waiting.
...
The next week passed in a rhythm of training and study.
Wang Ben's sword work improved incrementally, the System's micro-corrections accumulating into noticeable gains. His forms grew smoother, his transitions more fluid. He was still far from matching Zhao Yu in raw cultivation, but in terms of technique, the gap was narrowing.
[PROGRESS REPORT: WEEK 3]
[Physical Condition: Good]
[Cultivation: Body Refinement Stage 4 (stable)]
[Breakthrough Proximity: Low (natural progression)]
[Sword Proficiency: Notably improved execution]
[Database Reconstruction: 31% (local herbs), 12% (formations), 8% (beasts)]
[Repair mechanisms: active. Projected timeline for expanded functionality: extended.]
Zhao Yu began training with him in the third week, his injuries healed enough for light exercise. They sparred carefully at first, both mindful of his still-tender ribs. But even cautious sparring was educational.
"You're reading me," Zhao Yu said after their third session, breathing hard. "Every time I commit to an attack, you're already moving."
"I just... watch, I guess." Wang Ben offered him a water flask. "Like, you always drop your left shoulder right before the big swings. And your feet spread wider when you're about to back off. Once you notice it, it's hard to unsee."
"How do you notice these things?"
Because something in my head analyzes combat like a seasoned tactician, Wang Ben didn't say. Because I dream of battles that lasted centuries, fought by beings who could shatter mountains.
"I watch," he said instead. "I remember. Everyone has patterns."
"Including you?"
"Including me. Which is why I need training partners." The corner of Wang Ben's mouth lifted. "To show me my own patterns before enemies do."
Zhao Yu considered this. "You're strange, Wang Ben. But I think I like strange."
The beast reports grew worse.
Wang Ben heard about them during his patrol shifts, brief assignments to the outer herb fields, watching for threats while gatherers worked. The clan's warning formation was back online, properly maintained this time, but the information it provided was troubling.
"Three body refinement-level beast sightings within a kilometer of the walls this week," the patrol leader muttered. "That's double last month."
"The deep forest?" another guard asked.
"Must be. Something's driving them out." The patrol leader spat. "I've seen this before, five years ago. Beasts getting bolder, pushing into territory they normally avoid. Then the tide hit, and..." He shook his head. "Hopefully it won't come to that."
Wang Ben noted it.
[BEAST TIDE ANALYSIS]
[Time Since Wolf Incident: 3 weeks]
[Data Points Collected: 47]
[Trend Analysis:]
[- Week 1: 2 Rank 1 sightings near walls]
[- Week 2: 4 Rank 1 sightings near walls]
[- Week 3: 7 Rank 1 sightings near walls (3 within 1km)]
[Pattern: Exponential increase in beast activity]
[Historical Correlation: Strong match with pre-tide behavior patterns]
[Assessment: Beast tide likely within 4-8 weeks]
[Confidence: MODERATE]
Not certain. Nothing was certain at 1%. But the trend was clear.
Something was coming.
The end of the month came faster than Wang Ben expected.
He sat in his room as evening fell, turning over the threads he'd gathered. Three weeks of study, and the System's database was still barely scratching the surface. The Blood Wolf Mercenary Company was in the city. He'd heard rumors about mercenaries escorting prisoners toward the domain capital. Experienced hunters. Information brokers. The kind of people who paid well for useful knowledge.
Not yet, he decided. Watch. Learn. Wait for the right moment.
The auction was in two weeks. His father's last hope, or so Wang Tian believed. But Wang Ben had something better than a treasure that others would bid on. The scroll hidden in his room held an approach that could work, if paired with the right catalyst. The System couldn't guide the process at 1%, but his father could. Wang Tian understood temperature control, timing, the interaction of herbs and spiritual energy at a level that few could match.
If the auction provided a catalyst that met the requirements, then perhaps...
A knock at the door interrupted his thoughts.
"Come in."
His mother entered, Wang Chen cradled in her arms. The baby was awake, dark eyes tracking the lamplight with infant curiosity.
Li Mei set a folded piece of paper on the corner of his desk. "Market list for tomorrow. The baby's herbs are running low, and your father needs silverleaf if the trader still has any." She glanced at the scrolls spread across the desk surface but didn't comment on them. Instead, she shifted Wang Chen to her other arm and looked toward the window, where moonlight caught the edge of the compound wall.
"Your father was the same at your age," she said. "Always studying. Always somewhere else in his head, even when he was sitting right in front of you." A faint smile crossed her face. "I used to think it was rude. Then I married him and realized it was just how he loved things. Quietly. Completely."
She crossed the room and kissed his forehead, the way she'd done when he was small.
"Don't stay up too late, Ben."
After she left, Wang Ben sat in the lamplight for a long time, the market list sitting untouched beside scrolls that covered subjects far beyond what any fifteen-year-old should be studying.
He pulled the hidden scroll from beneath the false bottom of his desk drawer and unrolled it. The meridian technique stared back at him, incomplete, waiting for a catalyst he hadn't found yet. Two weeks until the auction. Perhaps less until the beasts made the question irrelevant.
He rolled the scroll up and reached for his mother's market list. Silverleaf. Baby herbs. The small errands of a family that didn't know what was coming.
Wang Ben picked up his brush and began adding items to the list that Li Mei hadn't asked for.