Kaelen sat cross-legged in the quiet of his chamber, eyes closed, his breathing slow and deliberate.
From the outside, he looked calm — like any disciple immersed in midnight meditation. His qi flowed in even cycles, pure and steady, the very image of discipline.
That, of course, was the problem.
A faint shimmer pulsed in the air above him — a golden thread no thicker than a strand of hair. The Council's sigil.He could feel it there now, constantly humming, watching.He had felt it for weeks — the faint warmth against his skin whenever he drew breath, the way the air trembled when his mind drifted too far.
It had taken time to understand what it was, but once he had, the realization changed everything.
"Watching me even now…" he murmured, almost inaudible. "Then watch."
He let his qi move exactly as they expected — the same patterns, same rhythm. His outward aura was a flawless performance. But deep within his Soul Palace, another flow stirred, quieter and sharper.
That inner current wound through his spectral meridians — a thin, threadlike current invisible to ordinary perception. This was his true cultivation, the one hidden beneath the mimicry.
He called it the shadow cycle.
It drew from the faintest residual fluctuations of the sigil's own energy — the small distortions left when the Council's surveillance brushed against him. By watching the pattern, he had found the gaps between each pulse.
And in those gaps, he hid.
The process was dangerous. Once, he had almost overstepped — his aura had spiked for a heartbeat, and the sigil's light had flared, nearly burning through his inner veil. But that close call had taught him something valuable.
Even divine eyes had blind spots.
A soft flicker crossed the room as the lantern flame wavered.Kaelen opened his eyes. The reflection in the flame rippled faintly, not quite matching his movement. The sigil distorted it.
He studied it quietly, then whispered,"You see only what I allow."
He rose, pacing toward the window. The courtyard outside lay drenched in moonlight, quiet save for the distant murmur of wind chimes. Across the way, a few other disciples cultivated, their qi flaring brightly in the night.
Joren's aura was among them — fierce, steady, proud.Kaelen could almost taste it through the air, burning like iron under pressure.
He looked away.
The sigil pulsed faintly again, as if reminding him not to wander.
Fine, he thought. Let's test how close you're willing to follow.
He turned his palm upward. A faint ripple of gray energy gathered there — nothing overt, nothing that would spike the readings. It was the trace energy he'd gathered from his last shadow cycle, compressed into a pin-sized spark.
He guided it carefully into the wooden floor beneath him. The spark seeped through the grain, spreading like ink, connecting to a faint sigil carved in the hidden underside of the floorboards.
A mark of his own making.
From here, he could redirect a fraction of his energy downward, masking the true fluctuations by spreading them through the sect's foundation stones — the same network that the Council used to observe.It was a delicate trick, one that could unravel if he lost focus for even a moment.
But it was working.
The sigil above him flickered — not flaring, but hesitating.For the first time, Kaelen felt its presence dim slightly, as if uncertain what it was seeing.
He exhaled slowly.
That's it… Just keep looking where I want you to.
He returned to meditation, feeding more of his inner current through the shadow cycle. Slowly, his qi began to bend — not outward, but inward, reshaping itself. His Spectral Meridian Insight activated, and the faint diagram of his meridians unfolded within his mind.
It was like watching rivers of light — hundreds of thin lines carrying essence through every limb.And now, because of his experiments, he could see something new: faint distortions where the sigil's energy passed through his body.
It wasn't just watching him — it was using him as a node in the network.Through him, the Council could observe the surrounding region's energy flow as well.
That realization made him smile faintly. "You shouldn't have done that," he whispered.
He extended his inner sense outward, gently touching the tether that connected him to the network. His consciousness brushed the surface — and he saw it: the lattice of runic links stretching like a web across the sect, each point tied to a disciple.
Hundreds of lives, watched through one grand system of light.
He withdrew before the web could sense him, heart steady.He had only touched it for a breath — but that breath was enough.
Now he knew the rhythm of their eyes.
When the sigil flared again, returning to its steady glow, Kaelen looked up at it with calm defiance.The faintest hint of satisfaction crossed his face.
"Your gaze," he said softly, "has limits."
He stood, pulling his cloak around him, and moved to extinguish the lantern. The flame went out with a soft hiss, plunging the chamber into darkness.
And for the briefest moment, as the light faded, the sigil's golden glow vanished too — replaced by a dim gray flicker, pulsing in rhythm with his heartbeat.
The watchful eye was still there, but something else was now watching it back.