The same deep hum, the same dissolution into light. When Gen's senses reassembled, the stark white cylinder was gone. He stood on soft, damp earth. The air was thick with the smell of loam, decaying leaves, and a faint, sweet floral scent. Towering, gnarled trees with luminous silver bark rose around him, their branches intertwining far above to form a dense, shadowed canopy. No sky was visible, only a deep, misty gloom where a ceiling should be. Roots, thick as his thigh, snaked across the forest floor, glowing with a soft blue bioluminescence.
Gen leaned against one of the silver-barked trees, catching his breath. His left forearm throbbed where he'd bound it hastily with a strip of cloth torn from his robe. *A forest inside a tower,* he thought, a grudging smile touching his lips. *It really is a place of wonders.*
His hand went to his neck. A pendant he hadn't noticed before rested there—a flat, circular stone disc on a leather cord. It was divided into five equal wedges, like slices of a pie. All five segments were a dull, lifeless grey. He ran his thumb over it, frowning. *A token? A tracker?*
A rustle in the undergrowth made him freeze. Then a flock of small, iridescent birds burst from a thicket, chirping in frantic alarm. They didn't fly up toward the non-existent sky. They flew *horizontally*, deeper into the strange, enclosed forest, as if fleeing something.
Gen's curiosity overpowered his caution. He moved in the direction the birds had fled from, keeping low, his steps silent on the moss. He pushed through a curtain of hanging vines, and the forest opened into a wider clearing.
And there she was.
Lorel stood bathed in a column of soft, pink-gold light that seemed to emanate from her very skin. Her twilight hair was bound back, her simple robes stained with dirt and moss, but her posture was one of grounded, focused power. In her right hand, she held not a physical sword, but a blade of pure, condensed light the color of a dawn sky—a manifestation of her **Zhidow** given lethal form.
Her opponent was a nightmare given flesh. It stood twice the height of a man on four massive, bear-like legs tipped with obsidian claws. Its torso was armored in overlapping, iridescent scales like a dragon, and a long, powerful tail ending in a bony mace lashed the air behind it. When it roared, a puff of sulphurous smoke, not full flame, issued from its maw—a **Bear-Dragon**, an Infant beast blending brute force with monstrous defense.
Lorel wasn't fighting alone. Chubbs, a comical yet determined figure, darted around the beast's flanks. His own **Jingdao** was a sputtering, unsteady bronze aura around his fists. He wasn't attacking. He was *distracting*. As the Bear-Dragon focused on Lorel's glowing sword, Chubbs would lunge in, slapping a reinforced palm against its scaled haunch with a sound like hitting a gong. ***THWONG!*** The beast would flinch, its attention divided.
"That's it, you overgrown lizard! Look at me!" Chubbs bellowed, dancing back as a claw the size of his head swiped at the air he'd just occupied.
It gave Lorel her opening. She flowed forward, her light-blade singing through the air. She feinted high, then dropped, the blade sweeping low to score a deep, sizzling line across the beast's foreleg. The scales resisted, but the created energy burned through, drawing a roar of pain.
Gen watched, leaning against a tree at the clearing's edge, a smirk on his face. *What's the fatty doing with her?* he thought, the old, dismissive habit rising before he could check it.
The Bear-Dragon, enraged, ignored Chubbs. Its baleful eyes fixed on Lorel. It dropped onto its front paws and charged, a scaled avalanche. Lorel's eyes widened. She brought her light-blade up in a two-handed guard, bracing.
The beast didn't bite. Its powerful tail, a blur of muscle and bone, whipped around in a horizontal arc with terrifying speed. It wasn't aimed at Lorel's guard. It was aimed *behind* her guard, at her center of mass.
***WHUMPF!***
The bony club of the tail connected squarely with Lorel's crossed arms. The light-blade shattered into a thousand motes of pink-gold light. The impact lifted her off her feet and sent her flying backward across the clearing—directly toward Gen's hiding spot.
His smirk vanished. His face paled. He tried to push off the tree, to dive aside, but it was too late.
Lorel's flying body hit him like a sack of grain. They went down in a tangled heap of limbs, rolling through the soft ferns. Gen's world became a blur of silver bark, blue roots, and the sudden, shocking softness of a warm, yielding form on top of him. His face was buried against the soft curves of her chest, now undeniably fuller and more defined than the girl he remembered. The scent of her—sweat, forest, and that unique twilight-flower aroma of her energy—filled his senses.
For one frozen, impossibly long second, neither moved.
Then Lorel gasped. She scrambled off him with a speed that spoke of pure panic, coming to her knees. Her face, already flushed from exertion, turned a deep, brilliant scarlet that reached the tips of her ears. She couldn't meet his eyes. "What… what are you doing here?" she stammered, her voice barely a whisper.
Gen pushed himself up on his elbows, the ghost of her warmth still imprinted on his skin. His heart was pounding, but he covered it with his old, easy arrogance. "What does it look like?" he said, brushing dirt from his robe. "Same as you. Climbing. Challenging myself." He tried to sound nonchalant, but his voice came out slightly rough.
"I meant…" she started, wringing her hands, her gaze darting anywhere but his face. "I wasn't expecting… to meet this early…" Her thoughts were a whirlwind of mortification. *I've ruined it. He must think I'm clumsy, foolish. We've never… stars above, we've never been that close. He felt my… he must have felt…*
Gen took her stumbling words as simple surprise. He shrugged, starting to get to his feet. "Just luck of the Tower, I guess—" His eyes, moving of their own accord, flickered downward, tracing the line of her body where her torn, dirt-stained robe clung to her new, womanly shape. He saw the rapid rise and fall of her chest.
Lorel followed his gaze. A spark, hot and mortifying, seemed to jump between them in the dim forest light. She stiffened, her blush deepening to an almost painful hue.
Gen caught himself. He looked away sharply, a strange tightness in his own chest. "Sorry," he muttered, the word unfamiliar and awkward on his tongue. "For… what happened."
His apology, meant to defuse the tension, only made it worse. Lorel looked like she wanted the forest floor to swallow her whole.
"YOU!"
Chubbs's outraged bellow shattered the moment. He stood with his hands on his hips, glaring at Gen, having recovered from his own dodge. He stomped over and planted himself squarely between Gen and Lorel, blocking the line of sight entirely. "You rascal! Can't you hide somewhere else? My lady and I were conducting a delicate hunting operation to secure our passage to the twenty-fifth level!"
Gen frowned, the irritation clear. He wasn't sure if it was directed at Chubbs's tone or the fact that Lorel was now hidden from view. "Fat boy, get out of my face."
Chubbs recoiled as if struck, placing a hand over his heart in theatrical offense. "No tact! Absolutely no cultivation of social grace! My lady is ten thousand times more refined!" He turned, reaching for Lorel's hand. "Come, my lady. We should depart. The atmosphere has been sullied."
But Lorel's hand slipped from his grasp. She was still flushed, but her voice, when she spoke, was firmer. "Perhaps… we should stay together."
Chubbs's jaw dropped. He looked as if she'd just suggested they set themselves on fire. "My lady?"
Lorel avoided looking directly at Gen, focusing on Chubbs. "We would have a greater chance. The rules don't forbid cooperation." She finally turned her gaze to Gen, though her eyes stayed fixed on a point just over his shoulder. "The pendant," she explained, her tone shifting to one of practical instruction, a safe topic. "The five grey segments. They represent groups of five floors. This is the tenth floor grouping—floors six through ten. There are Infant beasts here, their strength equal to First, Second, or Third Wheel cultivators."
She pointed toward the trees where the Bear-Dragon had lumbered off, nursing its wound. "Defeat a beast equal to a First Wheel cultivator, and one segment lights up. A Second Wheel beast lights two. A Third Wheel beast… it lights all five segments at once, qualifying you directly for the trial of the twenty-fifth floor."
Gen's frown deepened as he processed this. He closed his eyes for a moment, extending his senses. The air was thick with auras—not just the residual energy of beasts, but the sharp, competitive signatures of other cultivators, some distant, some frighteningly close. "That means almost everyone from the first trial is here, spread out," he said, opening his eyes. "The beasts are limited. We'd need to find and defeat three First Wheel beasts, or one Second and one First… or one Third."
Lorel nodded. "We were trying for the Third Wheel beast. The Bear-Dragon. We… failed."
Gen looked at her, really looked. He saw the sweat on her brow, the determined set of her jaw beneath the lingering blush, the controlled power that had shaped that light-blade. She *had* grown. Powerful. The realization sent an unexpected, faint warmth through him, cutting through his irritation. He glanced at his bleeding arm. He was wounded. She was capable.
"Fine," he said, the word coming out more gruffly than he intended. "Stay. If you want."
A small, genuine smile broke through Lorel's embarrassment, bright and sudden. It made something in Gen's chest do a funny flip. "Good," she said.
In her mind, the two voices warred. One, clear and stern: *You don't need to be his shadow. You came here to walk your own road. This is a step back.* The other, quieter but stubborn: *But it's Gen. My betrothed. And he's hurt. And… he asked me to stay.* The old flaw, the desire for his recognition, coiled comfortingly in her heart. For now, she let it win.
"Well!" Chubbs huffed, seeing the decision was made. He crossed his arms, a picture of put-upon loyalty. "If we are to be a hunting party, then I shall be the vanguard! And the tactician! And the morale officer!" He eyed Gen. "You can be the… distracting element."
Gen just shook his head, a faint, involuntary smirk tugging at his lips as he looked past Chubbs at Lorel, who was carefully not looking back at him. The forest, with its hidden dangers and rivals, suddenly felt a little less lonely.