The question spread faster than any decree.
It did not shout.
It did not accuse.
It simply lingered.
If Azure Cloud Sect can exist like this… why can't we?
Sect masters heard it whispered by disciples.
Elders found it buried inside reports.
Even Heaven encountered it—echoing faintly in places where law had once been absolute.
And questions, once rooted, were notoriously hard to uproot.
---
A young disciple from another sect asked Lin Chen directly one morning.
"Master Lin… are we doing cultivation wrong?"
Lin Chen paused.
He chose his words carefully.
"You're doing it the way you were taught," he said.
"That doesn't mean it's the only way."
The disciple bowed deeply.
Not in reverence.
In relief.
---
> System Observation:
Cognitive Shift Detected (External): Widespread
Effect: Declining Blind Compliance
Lin Chen rubbed his temples.
"This is going to upset a lot of people."
The mountain replied:
Truth is rarely polite.
---
Not everyone welcomed the change.
A coalition of hardline sects formed quietly—those whose power depended on speed, pressure, and attrition.
They issued a joint statement:
"Azure Cloud Sect promotes weakness and stagnation."
Lin Chen read it while eating breakfast.
"…That's new," he said. "They used 'stagnation' instead of 'heresy.'"
Little Green flashed a sign:
PROGRESS
---
Then came the challenge.
A formal one.
A neutral ground.
A doctrinal comparison trial.
No battle.
No blood.
Just outcomes.
Which sect produced more stable cultivators over a fixed period?
The coalition was confident.
Speed had always won.
---
> System Alert:
Comparative Trial Initiated (World-Scale)
Risk: Reputation, Not Survival
Lin Chen smiled.
"Oh. That's dangerous for them."
---
Months passed.
The results arrived quietly.
Coalition sects:
High advancement.
High dropout.
High collapse.
Azure Cloud Sect and its imitators:
Slower growth.
Near-zero collapse.
Retention near absolute.
Numbers did not lie.
But pride did.
---
The coalition rejected the results.
Declared bias.
Declared manipulation.
Heaven… said nothing.
And that silence was deafening.
---
Lin Chen stood on the mountain at sunset.
"We didn't win," he murmured.
The mountain answered:
No.
But they lost the argument.
And once an argument was lost—
Force was all that remained.
Which meant the next chapter of this story
would not be about ideas…
But about whether a world
that had learned to slow down
could survive
those who refused to.