Library knowledge transformed Lin Xuan's planning. The Azure Cloud Codex revealed seventeen unexploited spiritual energy concentrations across the city—minor compared to the fractured ley line, but accessible immediately rather than in three years.
He prioritized three: abandoned temple, merchant's sealed cellar, and—the most valuable—Lin Clan ancestral graveyard's hidden chamber.
The last required family blood to enter. Convenient.
Lin Xuan's "illness" worsened sufficiently to justify pilgrimage to ancestral shrines. He traveled with minimal escort—two guards who accepted bribes to wait at the entrance while he "prayed alone."
The graveyard's secret lay beneath the seventh matriarch's tomb. Lin Xuan cut his palm, pressed blood to the stone, and watched ancient mechanisms awaken. The Lin Clan's founders had been more powerful than their descendants knew; this chamber predated the current main house by four centuries.
Inside: three preserved corpses in meditation postures, spiritual energy still circulating through crystallized meridians. Ancestor relics—cultivators who'd achieved partial immortality before death failed completely.
And their treasures.
Lin Xuan took only what he could use: a jade ring compressing spiritual energy storage, allowing Qi Refinement cultivators to wield techniques requiring Foundation Establishment reserves. A manual on Shadow Walking—movement technique lost when the Lin Clan declined. Pills, preserved in perfect stasis, that would accelerate cultivation without side effects visible to external examination.
He left the bodies undisturbed, the chamber's existence unrecorded. Future need might require return.
His guards noticed nothing except prolonged prayer. They returned to Azure Cloud City, Lin Xuan apparently weaker than ever, leaning heavily on servant arms.
That night, he tested the jade ring. Compressed spiritual energy flooded his meridians, painful but controllable. Combined with the Heavenly Spirit Breathing Method, his cultivation accelerated beyond calculation.Qi Refinement fifth layer. Achieved in six months what had taken his previous self four years.But speed created instability. His foundation needed consolidation—combat experience, technique mastery, body strengthening. The tournament had provided initial testing; more serious challenges awaited.Lin Xuan considered his options. The Black Market hosted death matches for anonymous cultivators. Dangerous, but effective training.
He began planning his second identity.