CHAPTER 181
### After
The twenty-three sections.
Li Shan's model had depended on the hollow's disruption triggering the development acceleration.
The disruption had not occurred.
He sent Li Shan the full account of what had happened at the hollow.
Li Shan's response came back in twenty minutes.
*The model is void. The disruption did not occur. The twenty-three sections continue developing at standard rate.*
*However.*
*The hollow's continuous frequency deepened by another four percent during Rong Yan's seven practitioners sitting at its edge.*
*The between quality drawing out of suppressed cultivation appears to have contributed to the hollow's frequency.*
*Seven practitioners with suppressed between quality sitting at the source of the between quality for three hours.*
*The hollow deepened.*
*The new propagation rate is thirty-five percent above baseline.*
*The twenty-three sections that Li Shan's model showed accelerating to seventy to eighty-five percent are now receiving a thirty-five percent above baseline propagation rate from the hollow directly.*
*Standard development with thirty-five percent above baseline propagation.*
*Threshold timeline for the twenty-three sections: eight to twelve months instead of the original fourteen to eighteen months.*
*The faction came to slow development.*
*Seven of them sat at the hollow's edge for three hours.*
*Development accelerated.*
He read the message.
He showed it to Lin Mei.
She read it.
She was quiet for a moment.
"The between quality in suppressed cultivation," she said. "When it contacts the source—"
"It feeds the source," he said.
"Yes," she said.
"Rong Yan and the six with him," he said. "Thirty years each of suppressed between quality."
"Seven practitioners," she said. "Times thirty years each."
"Two hundred and ten years of accumulated suppressed between quality," he said.
"Contacting the source for three hours," she said.
"And the hollow deepened four percent," he said.
She looked at the grey blade.
"The eighteen who left," she said. "If they had stayed—"
"The hollow would have deepened more," he said.
She was quiet.
"Mo Xuan's network," she said. "The adaptation document. Shadow Sect practitioners who are adapting to option three."
He looked at her.
"Every Shadow Sect practitioner who contacts the hollow," she said. "Every practitioner whose between quality has been suppressed for years—"
"Deepens the source," he said.
"Yes," she said.
"The adaptation is the mechanism," he said.
"Yes," she said.
She began writing.
He watched her write.
He counted nothing.
He committed.
The work was strange and specific and nothing like what he had expected when the sword found him in the vault.
He had expected power.
He had gotten the between.
The between was better.
He looked at the grey blade.
At the ordinary grey metal where the color had been.
At the between quality in the dantian and the domain and the crack.
At eighteen breaths.
He sent one more message.
To Rong Yan.
*The hollow deepened four percent while you and your six sat at its edge.*
*The between quality in suppressed cultivation feeds the source when it contacts it.*
*The eighteen who left. If any of them want to return — the hollow will be there.*
*Mo Xuan will know what to do with that information too.*
Rong Yan's response: *I will tell them.*
*Also: Mo Xuan contacted me. He says he has been waiting for someone like me for eight months.*
*He says: you are not the first Shadow Sect practitioner to find the hollow. You are the first to sit at its edge.*
He read the last line.
Not the first to find it.
The first to sit.
He thought about the first thing he had done when he found the vault.
He had sat beside the rusted sword.
He had not picked it up immediately.
He had sat.
The sitting was always first.
He picked up his pack.
He walked west.
The road continued.
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