The notice went up on the main hall's board. Crimson paper, black ink.
Annual Outer Sect Tournament. All disciples of Qi Condensation Stage 15 or above required to participate. Ranking determines resource allocation, mentorship, and advancement.
Zhou Kai read it twice. Qi Condensation Stage 15. He had just broken through to Stage 18 after the marsh, but that was his private truth. His public cultivation, carefully masked by the void-sheath's passive suppression, was registered at Stage 6. Pathetically low.
He would be forced to register. And then he would be exposed.
[Tournament mandate detected.]
[Public cultivation level: insufficient.]
[Conflict: Compliance vs. exposure.]
[Options: 1. Suppress cultivation further to evade mandate (high risk of detection). 2. Reveal true stage (catastrophic attention). 3. Petition for exemption (requires elder approval).]
Option three was the only path. He went to Elder Mu's courtyard that evening.
The elder was watering a pot of spirit fern. He didn't look up. "You've come about the tournament."
"Yes, Elder. My registered stage is too low. I seek exemption."
"Denied." Elder Mu snipped a dead leaf. "Your registered stage is a fiction. Your actual stage qualifies you. You will participate."
Zhou Kai's throat tightened. "Elder, if I compete at my true level, questions will—"
"You will not compete at your true level." Elder Mu finally looked at him. "You will compete as a Stage 6 Soul Attendant. And you will use only the abilities a Stage 6 Soul Attendant could plausibly have."
"That's impossible. I'll be eliminated in the first match."
"Will you?" The elder's gaze was flint. "A Soul Attendant's role is support. Defense. You have demonstrated kinetic redirection. You have shown a minor cleansing ability. Lean into that. Be defensive. Be annoying. Be impossible to knock out of the ring. Let others exhaust themselves against you. That is your path."
It was a strategy. A thin one.
"And if I'm forced to attack?"
"Then you have misunderstood the assignment." Elder Mu turned back to his fern. "The tournament is not about winning. It is about surviving without revealing what you are. That is your true test. Dismissed."
The tournament grounds were a sea of noise and color. Five raised stone rings, each fifty feet across. Hundreds of outer disciples milled about, checking brackets, boasting, sparring lightly to warm up.
Zhou Kai stood at the periphery, his sheath at his hip. He felt exposed. The last time he'd been in a ring, he'd broken a sword with a stone-skinned hand. Now he had to fight with nothing but plausible deniability.
His first match was called early. Ring Three. Against a disciple named Yan, a Wood-Weaver from the Herbalist track. Stage 17.
Yan was slender, with quick hands. Her symbol was a vine-whip coiled at her belt. She looked at Zhou Kai with open curiosity, not contempt. "You're the one who helped Luo in the mines," she said as they bowed. "Thank you."
A polite opponent. That might be worse.
The overseer dropped his flag.
Yan's whip unfurled, green and alive. It snapped toward Zhou Kai's legs, fast as a serpent.
Zhou Kai didn't try to dodge the way a warrior would. He stepped like a miner avoiding a rockfall—a small, efficient shift. The whip cracked against the stone where his foot had been.
[Observation: Wood-Weaver. Style focuses on entanglement and gradual Qi drainage.]
[Recommended defense: Minimal movement. Allow proximity. Use sheath redirect at close range.]
Yan pressed. Her whip became a blur of green, trying to loop around his arms, his waist. Zhou Kai moved in small, tight circles, always just out of reach. He looked passive. Almost clumsy. But he was never where the strike landed.
The crowd began to murmur. This wasn't a fight. It was a chase.
Yan frowned. She changed tactics. She planted her feet, and the whip not only struck—it sprouted. Thorns erupted along its length. One grazed Zhou Kai's sleeve, tearing the cloth and drawing a thin red line on his arm.
First blood.
The crowd cheered. Yan didn't smile. She pressed the advantage, the thorn-whip coiling for a crushing bind.
Zhou Kai let it come.
The vines wrapped around his torso, pinning his arms. Thorns bit into his robe. Yan pulled tight, beginning her Qi-drain technique. She would sap his energy until he collapsed.
This was the moment.
Zhou Kai focused on the sheath. Not to release energy. To do the opposite.
[Activating void-sheath: Qi siphon.]
The sheath at his hip grew cold. A subtle, inverted pull began. The Qi that Yan was trying to drain from him was instead subtly redirected—not into him, but past him, into the void of the sheath. It was a trickle, not a torrent. But it was enough to disrupt her technique.
Yan felt it. Her drain wasn't working. Her opponent's Qi felt hollow, endless. A bottomless well.
Her confidence flickered. She pulled harder.
Zhou Kai took a step forward. Then another. The vines around him strained. Thorns ripped fabric but couldn't penetrate deeper—the void-sheath's passive reinforcement made his skin just a little tougher than it should be.
He walked toward her, dragging her own whip with him.
Yan's eyes widened. She tried to yank back. Too late.
Zhou Kai was within arm's reach. He didn't strike. He simply reached out with his free hand and placed his palm lightly against her sternum.
"Yield," he said quietly.
She could have kicked. Could have head-butted. But the shock of his calm, his impossible resistance, broke her focus. She felt the cool, steady pressure of his hand. She felt the emptiness where his Qi should be.
She swallowed. "I yield."
The overseer's flag rose. "Winner: Zhou Kai!"
The crowd was silent, then exploded in confused chatter. He hadn't thrown a punch. Hadn't used a technique. He'd just… walked, and won.
Yan recalled her whip, the thorns retracting. She looked at the shallow cut on his arm. "You could have ended it sooner."
"I didn't want to hurt you."
She shook her head, a faint, respectful smile on her lips. "You're a very strange attendant." She bowed and left the ring.
[First match: victory.]
[Strategy: successful. Minimal ability exposure.]
[Public perception: confusion > understanding.]
[Note: Defensive endurance is being noted.]
Zhou Kai exited the ring. He felt eyes on him. More than before.
His second match was after noon. Against a burly Stone-Skin Pugilist named Goran. Stage 19. A direct counter to Zhou Kai's supposed style—Goran's entire technique was built to break through defense.
This time, the crowd was larger. The strange attendant who won by not fighting had drawn curiosity.
Goran cracked his knuckles. His skin had a dull, rocky texture. "No whip to tangle me up, attendant. Just fists." He grinned. "Let's see your sheath eat this."
The flag dropped.
Goran charged. No finesse. A hammering straight punch aimed at Zhou Kai's chest.
Zhou Kai didn't try to redirect. He couldn't—the sheath needed impact to store energy, and Goran's punch would shatter his ribs before the void could buffer it. Instead, he did the last thing anyone expected.
He turned his back.
He presented the sheath directly to the punch.
Goran's fist, meant for soft flesh, slammed into the hardened leather over his kidney.
CRACK.
The sound was of breaking bone. Goran screamed, stumbling back, clutching his hand. Two fingers bent at wrong angles.
The sheath hadn't absorbed the energy. It had simply been harder than Goran's stone-skinned fist.
[Sheath material integrity: 100%.]
[Opponent injury: self-inflicted.]
[Psychological impact: high.]
Zhou Kai turned around. "Yield?"
Goran was in too much pain to argue. He nodded, cursing through gritted teeth.
The match lasted four seconds.
The crowd's murmuring grew louder. This wasn't skill. This was absurdity. Was he lucky? Was the sheath enchanted?
[Second match: victory.]
[Exposure risk: elevated. Sheath durability is now a point of scrutiny.]
[Recommendation: In next match, allow a clean hit to demonstrate "vulnerability."]
Zhou Kai's third match was the last of the day. His opponent was Dao Feng.
The name rippled through the spectators. Dao Feng was a favorite. A Sword-Scribe, Stage 22. His symbol was a elegant jian blade. He was known for precision, not power. For cutting exactly what he intended, and nothing more.
He was also Ling Yue's occasional training partner. Zhou Kai had seen him once or twice—quiet, observant, dangerously calm.
They bowed in the ring. Dao Feng's eyes were grey, assessing. "Your sheath," he said, his voice low. "It is not what it seems."
"It is a sheath."
"A sheath holds a blade. Yours holds something else." Dao Feng drew his jian. The sound was a clear, singing note. "Show me."
The flag fell.
Dao Feng didn't charge. He moved in a slow circle, his sword tip tracing invisible patterns in the air. Zhou Kai matched him, keeping his distance.
Then Dao Feng struck. Not a thrust. A flick. A tiny, precise cut aimed at the leather cord holding Zhou Kai's sheath to his belt.
Zhou Kai twisted. The blade missed the cord, but the edge kissed the sheath itself.
A long, shallow scratch appeared on the leather.
The crowd gasped. The invulnerable sheath was marked.
[Sheath surface damaged: superficial.]
[Note: Opponent is testing material, not attacking you.]
[Threat assessment: intellectual. High.]
Dao Feng looked at the scratch, then at Zhou Kai. "So it can be marked. Good. Now, let's see what happens when I strike not the sheath, but the space just beside it."
He attacked again. This time, the jian moved in a blur, not aiming for Zhou Kai at all, but for the empty air around him—left, right, above. The blade hummed, cutting wind. Zhou Kai felt the passes more than saw them. Each was a feint, a probe, trying to gauge his reaction speed, his instinct.
Zhou Kai didn't react. He stood still, making Dao Feng do all the work. It was maddening defense.
Dao Feng paused, breathing evenly. "You are waiting for me to tire. A valid strategy against brutes. Not against me." He changed his grip. "Sword-Scribe Technique: Seven Lingering Questions."
He thrust seven times in rapid succession. Each thrust aimed at a different point on Zhou Kai's body—shoulder, knee, hip, hand, ribs, neck, forehead. None were killing blows. All were disabling.
Zhou Kai couldn't dodge all seven. He chose two to block with the sheath, let two graze his clothing, and focused on the last three.
For those, he did something new.
He didn't move his body. He moved the void.
[Activating spatial perception: minor.]
[Cost: high. Duration: instantaneous.]
For a fraction of a second, Zhou Kai saw the world as a map of densities. He saw the path of Dao Feng's blade as a line of compressed air. And he saw the empty spaces—the voids—between the molecules of his own robe, his own skin.
He shifted, not his flesh, but his presence along those voids.
The three thrusts passed through his robe, missing his skin by less than a hair's breadth. The fabric tore, but his flesh was untouched.
It looked like incredible, impossible luck.
Dao Feng's eyes widened. He withdrew, staring at the torn robe, the unbroken skin beneath. "That was not dodging."
"It was," Zhou Kai said.
"No. You didn't move. The air moved around you." Dao Feng lowered his blade slightly. "What are you?"
"A disciple. Like you."
Dao Feng studied him for a long moment. Then he did something unexpected. He sheathed his jian.
"I yield."
The crowd erupted in protest. He hadn't been hit! He was dominating!
The overseer was stunned. "Discipline Dao, you are not injured. Why yield?"
Dao Feng kept his eyes on Zhou Kai. "Because I have learned what I came to learn. He is not an opponent to be defeated in a ring. He is a puzzle to be solved. And puzzles require time and quiet." He bowed to Zhou Kai, a deep, respectful bow. "Until next time, attendant."
He walked out of the ring, leaving a vacuum of confusion.
[Third match: victory by forfeit.]
[Opponent Dao Feng: threat level elevated. Understanding level: dangerous.]
[Warning: Spatial perception use detected by high-sensitivity opponent. Future caution required.]
Zhou Kai stood in the center of the ring, the scratches on his sheath and robe the only proof a fight had happened. He had advanced to the next round without throwing a single offensive move.
But he felt more exposed than ever. Dao Feng had seen something. Had understood a fraction.
That night, in the deserted training yard, Zhou Kai practiced. Not cultivation. Movement. He replayed Dao Feng's thrusts in his mind, trying to feel the voids without accessing the spatial perception. It was like trying to smell color.
"He sees patterns."
Ling Yue leaned against a moonlit pillar. She held two steaming cups. She offered one. "Willow bark tea. For the nerves."
He took it. The tea was bitter, calming. "He saw something he shouldn't have."
"Dao Feng sees everything. It's his gift. And his curse." She sipped her own tea. "He's not your enemy. He's just… a truth-seeker. And you are currently the most interesting truth in the sect."
"That's dangerous."
"Very." She looked at him. "You did well today. You played the part. But the part is getting harder to play. Soon, you'll have to choose: remain the strange attendant, or become something else entirely."
"Elder Mu says I must remain."
"Elder Mu is wise. But he is not in the ring." She set her cup down. "I have a message for you. From the mines."
He tensed. "What?"
"Foreman Bo. He says the seepage in Gallery Nine has spread. It's not Soul-Scorch. It's something new. Black, bubbling. It dissolves stone. He's sealed the gallery, but he's losing men to panic. He asked if the 'cleansing ghost' could take a look."
A new problem. A practical one. Away from prying tournament eyes.
[New mission: Investigate corrosive seepage.]
[Alignment: Potential Water Blade forging opportunity.]
[Risks: Unknown toxin, structural collapse.]
[Reward: Practical experience, sect contribution, continued mining sanctuary.]
"When?" Zhou Kai asked.
"Tomorrow at dawn. Before your next match." Ling Yue smiled faintly. "I'll go with you. I want a sample. If it dissolves stone, it might be useful."
He nodded. The tournament was a spectacle. The mines were real. The seepage was a tangible problem he might solve, a mystery his growing water affinity might unravel.
He finished his tea. The moon was high.
"Do you ever miss being normal?" Ling Yue asked suddenly.
Zhou Kai thought about it. He thought about the six sleeping shapes inside him. The void that whispered. The sheath that held everything and nothing.
"No," he said. "I don't remember what that felt like."
She nodded, as if she understood. "Good. Normal is overrated." She took his empty cup. "Dawn, then. Bring your sheath. And your patience."
She left him in the moonlight.
He touched the shallow scratch on his sheath—Dao Feng's mark. A reminder that even the empty could be scarred. Could be seen.
[Tournament day one complete.]
[Status: Advancing.]
[Primary threat: Dao Feng (observation). Secondary threat: Public scrutiny.]
[New objective: Investigate Gallery Nine seepage.]
[Water Blade resonance: 58%.]
[Qi Condensation Stage: 19.]
The night was silent. But Zhou Kai could hear it—the low hum of the sleeping Blades, the whisper of the void, the distant, bubbling echo of something new and corrosive eating its way through the dark.
He had a tournament to survive.
A mystery to solve.
And a Blade, waiting to be born from understanding.