A sharp sound snapped him out of his thoughts.
He looked up abruptly, cheeks flushing slightly.
It was his stomach.
Again — louder this time.
"How long did I cultivate...?" he muttered, glancing around.
There was a shallow ring of darkened stones a little closer toward the entrance. A pile of white-gray ash at the center. Burned bone-bark, mostly. A few charred sticks. The half eaten stag on the side, had lost some of its meat too.
He blinked.
"Way too long," Yue Lin said quietly across the cave. "I had to eat by myself."
"That long?"
She nodded. "Yes. It's hard to tell how much time really passed though."
Riven looked back at the cold ashes.
Yeah.
No sun. No moon. No change in the sky. The world outside the cave looked the same as when he closed his eyes. But the dead fire — and her tone — were clear proof that a lot of time had passed.
"You should eat something," Yue Lin added. "I'll get some more wood to burn."
She stood and made her way toward the cave entrance.
Then as she left his line of sight, something pulled at his waist.
A sharp tug.
Riven looked at the taut chain around his waist.
A beat later, Yue Lin's voice drifted back in from just outside. "…Uh. I already used all the close pieces of wood. You gotta come with me."
He stared blankly for a second.
Awkward silence stretched a moment too long. Then he got up, muttering, "On my way."
As he walked toward the entrance, he caught himself smiling faintly.
It was a tired smile. But a real one.
His body ached — a low, dull fatigue in the muscles — but beneath it was something solid. Strength. Not just from rest, but something more fundamental.
The weight of his qi had changed.
The breakthrough was complete.
He'd never struggled with cultivation.
Not really.
But even so, he felt a flicker of quiet satisfaction at how smoothly it had gone.
I should've just sat down and done this earlier, he thought, a hint of self-annoyance in the corners of his mind.
But realistically, he knew better.
It hadn't been that long since he'd entered his current stage. In truth, he should have still been a little ways off from the peak. Not quite ready.
But the qi in this strange place was different. Denser. Maybe even purer?
He wasn't sure.
But he'd suspected,the sheer amount here could help — that if he sat down and focused, it could push him the final stretch.
And it had.
Exactly as he'd hoped.
He stepped out of the cave.
Yue Lin stood outside waiting for him.
Once there, they walked a few more steps and collected some wood before returning back inside.
Yue Lin crouched by the old fire ring and rebuilt it with practiced ease. A spark from her flint stones, a gentle puff of breath — and the flames came alive again.
Riven sat nearby, eating the last warm strips of stag meat in silence.
It wasn't a feast. But it was enough.
When he finished, he wiped his fingers on his trousers, glad he could use the inscribed qi array to clean it up later.
Their food supply was officially gone now.
Yue Lin stood as he did, brushing ash from her knees. "We should explore more. Find out where the next island is and secure more food."
They gathered what little they had and left the cave behind — not for good, but with its location burned into memory. They'd come back to rest later.
The two of them followed the river upstream this time, keeping to the edges of the forest and scanning for movement. The spectral chain pulsed gently between them, slipping over rocks and roots, growing faint when relaxed… and tightening without warning when they grew careless.
Like when Riven lagged behind a moment too long to wash his hand in the stream.
The chain snapped taut.
"Gah—damn it—!" he grunted, stumbling forward as the invisible force yanked at his waist.
Yue Lin had stopped just ahead, glancing back blankly. "What are you doing?"
He grimaced, his hand dripping with water. "Just… wanted to clean up."
He might have wiped his hand after eating, but he still wasn't the biggest fan of the faint lingering feeling of grease on it.
She paused.
Then looked away slightly.
"…I want to bathe too," she said after a second. "But—" she tugged the chain lightly at her hip, a faint clink of ethereal links ringing in the air.
It was semi solid now due to the distance inbetween them,
"Oh." Riven blinked. Understanding dawning. "Right."
An awkward silence stretched between them. She didn't say anything else. Neither did he.
Eventually, they figured out a solution.
They found a curve in the riverbank, just wide enough to offer two narrow alcoves of privacy, half-separated by a curtain of jagged rock. It wasn't perfect. The chain still tugged lightly if one moved too far, but it was enough for them to turn their backs to each other and wash without complete embarrassment.
Still, Riven couldn't help the flush in his face when he caught the glimpse of her silhouette in the corner of his eye — hair rolling down in waves, slick and white down her back as she wrung it out with both hands. She moved with the same calm she always did, but there was something… different in the quiet.
Something he noticed more now.
The way she brushed her damp hair back behind her ear, fingers delicate, absentminded — and for no good reason, his heart skipped.
Just once.
But enough for him to feel it.
He looked away sharply.
Focus.
>>>
They returned to the cave with a fresh kill a bit later — another crystalline-antlered stag. Smaller, wiry, but enough for two meals. They'd found it a little further up the stream, drinking some water.
Days passed like that — or what felt like days.
They kept moving.
Exploring.
Cooking together.
Kinda.
They didn't have spices or anything that would justify calling what they were doing cooking.
It was really just roasting meat.
Time passed, with occasional bickering — about which way to head, whether a rock was safe to sit on, or if the pale blue mushrooms Riven found were poisonous.
They learned to work around the chain in all things: walking, resting, bathing, even gathering herbs.
Once, Riven went to relieve himself behind a tree and the chain jerked tight again, almsot dragging Yue Lin too close.
Bit by bit, the awkwardness faded.
As time passed, they explored further and further into the island.
That was when they chanced upon a different scenery than usual.
Gone were the rocks and bone trees.
The river grew shallow, then dry. The air turned hotter — drier — and the stone beneath their feet cracked into orange-tinged flakes, crumbling like ancient skin.
A desert.
Not of sand, but of scorched stone. Flat and vast, stretching in all directions.
"It's never a good sign when the scenery changes this much," Yue Lin muttered.
Further into the desert they saw something both of them recognized.
A solitary stone slab.
Upright.
Weathered.
Its surface was too far to read, but even from here, Riven knew what it was.
He stared down at it for a moment, then glanced at Yue Lin.
She didn't speak, but her eyes were already fixed on the same thing.
The chain between them swayed faintly in the dry breeze.
"…Do we have to check that out?" he asked quietly.
"Probably…" she answered hesitantly.
They both stood there a moment longer, neither moving.
The slab didn't do anything. It didn't glow. It didn't pulse. It just stood there — half-buried in the cracked stone like it had always been waiting. Silent. Still.
"I mean," Riven said, frowning slightly, "we're supposed to survive. That's what the first marker said, right? Just… last two months and the path forward opens."
"Mm," Yue Lin murmured. She didn't look away.
"And we've got shelter. Food. Water. We could just stay near the cave and wait."
Another pause.
Then she asked, "Is it really that simple?"
Riven hesitated slightly, staring across the distance.
He still remembered the fight with the skeleton knight.
It wasn't even just a monster.
It was sentient, even tried to trick him.
And now he was supposed to believe he could just hide in a cave for a bit and pass the next trial?
"I don't think so."
Both of them adjusted their gear in silence, checking weapons, tightening straps, making sure everything was where it needed to be.
Then — together — they stepped into the heat.