The testing hall did not erupt into chaos.
That alone told Lin Ye everything.
He stood at the edge of the stone platform as elders recorded results, their expressions carefully neutral. Talents were announced. Grades were assigned. Names were called and dismissed one by one.
When his turn came, the crystal had glowed—briefly, faintly, then stabilized into something ordinary enough to be written down and ignored.
Body Tempering. Second Layer.
Acceptable.
Unremarkable.
Lin Ye lowered his head and stepped away with the others, heart steady, breathing calm. Outwardly, he was just another candidate filtered through the academy's vast intake.
Inwardly, he felt the delay.
Not relief.
Delay.
Only once he crossed the academy gates and followed the stone path toward the outer rest courtyard did the sensation finally surface.
A heaviness.
Not pressure—weight.
As if something unseen had been trailing him since the moment the crystal dimmed.
He stopped beneath a withered spirit tree and sat, closing his eyes as if to rest. Around him, other youths whispered excitedly, arguing over rankings and future mentors. No one paid him any attention.
Good.
The warmth bloomed without warning.
Deep in his chest, slow and controlled, spreading through his veins in a pattern that had nothing to do with the breathing art he had practiced for weeks. It was not violent. It did not burn.
It remembered.
His heartbeat deepened.
Not faster.
Heavier.
Each pulse carried impressions instead of memories—shattered skies, beasts kneeling in silence, bloodlines screaming as they were forced awake too late.
Lin Ye's fingers curled slightly against the stone.
So it still reacted.
Even suppressed.
Even restrained during testing.
Not yet, he warned silently.
This was not the place.
This was not the time.
The warmth pressed outward, testing the boundaries of his flesh, his meridians, his bones. There was no pain—only the sense of a sealed gate shifting under pressure.
Then something answered.
Cold.
Absolute.
A presence without form wrapped around the warmth in his veins, locking it down with precision rather than force. The sensation vanished instantly, leaving behind a faint chill that settled into his marrow.
Lin Ye exhaled slowly.
So the restriction was tied to exposure.
Not advancement alone.
The academy crystal had probed too deeply.
That realization was more dangerous than the stirring itself.
His cultivation followed only after everything settled.
Muscles tightened. Blood circulated more smoothly, refined without excess. The change was subtle—so subtle that even if someone stood beside him, they would sense nothing beyond a slight increase in stability.
Second Layer.
Confirmed.
No further movement.
Lin Ye did not push.
In his previous life, countless geniuses had died chasing the feeling he had just suppressed. He had buried many of them himself.
Elsewhere, the consequences were too small to name.
An instructor within the academy briefly paused while reviewing records, brow furrowing for no clear reason before dismissing the thought. In the inner beast enclosures, a contracted spirit beast lifted its head, unsettled, then settled again.
Nothing escalated.
Nothing connected.
Back in the courtyard, Lin Ye opened his eyes.
He replayed the testing crystal's response, the timing of the restriction, the moment the warmth surfaced.
The bloodline reacted to scrutiny.
The restriction responded to recognition.
That meant one thing.
The academy was not a safe place for growth.
Not yet.
Rising, he blended back into the departing crowd, posture relaxed, steps measured. To any observer, he was forgettable—another youth who had passed, neither celebrated nor pitied.
The sun dipped lower over Blackwater City as candidates dispersed into streets and inns, futures already diverging.
Lin Ye walked with them.
Quiet.
Unnoticed.
Carrying within him a bloodline powerful enough to be acknowledged—and denied—by forces far above the academy itself.
For now, that was enough.