The letter arrived at midday, carried by a correspondence disciple whose face held the carefully blank expression of someone delivering news they knew was terrible.
Jin was in his field, applying the Earth Drill technique to a section of stubborn soil, when the young woman approached. She bowed formally, held out the sealed envelope, and departed without a word. Her haste told Jin everything he needed to know before he even touched the paper.
The seal was his brother's—the simple wax stamp Wei Chen used for all his correspondence. But the handwriting on the envelope was different. Shakier. Written by someone whose hands trembled as they formed the characters.
Jin's stomach clenched as he broke the seal.
Brother,
I do not know how to write these words. I have started this letter three times and thrown each attempt into the fire. But you must know what has happened, and there is no one else to tell you.
Father is dead.
Bandits came to our village ten days ago. Not ordinary bandits—they were led by a cultivator, an old man with terrible power who demanded tribute we could not pay. When Father tried to negotiate, tried to explain that we had already given everything we could spare, the cultivator struck him down.
He died in Mother's arms. We buried him beside Grandmother, in the plot he had prepared for himself years ago.
The bandits took everything of value—the spirit stones you sent, our savings, even the new plow we purchased last season. They said they would return in three months for more. Mother has not spoken since the funeral. The children are terrified.
I do not ask you to come. I know your duties at the sect are important. I know you cannot simply leave. But I wanted you to know. Father spoke of you often in his final days. He was proud of what you have become.
I am sorry to burden you with this grief.
Your brother,Wei Chen
Jin read the letter once. Twice. Three times.
The words didn't change. Didn't become less real no matter how many times his eyes traced their shapes.
Father was dead.
The man who had taught Jin to hold a hoe. Who had worked fields until his hands bled to feed his family. Who had sold everything—everything—to give Jin this chance at the cultivation world.
Dead. Struck down by a rogue cultivator for the crime of being unable to pay tribute he never should have owed.
Something cold settled in Jin's chest. Not grief—that would come later, he knew. For now, there was only ice. Only clarity. Only the absolute certainty of what he needed to do.
He folded the letter carefully and tucked it into his robes.
Then he went home to pack.
—————
Lin Mei found him throwing supplies into a traveling bag with mechanical efficiency.
"Jin?" Her voice held concern. "What's happening? You left your field in the middle of—"
"My father is dead."
The words came out flat. Emotionless. Jin didn't look at her as he spoke, his hands continuing their work—spare robes, dried rations, the small pouch of spirit stones he'd been saving.
"What?" Lin Mei crossed the room, placing herself between Jin and his bag. "Jin, stop. Look at me."
He stopped. Looked at her. Saw the shock in her eyes as she registered whatever expression his face held.
"Bandits," he said. "Led by a cultivator. They raided the village. Killed my father when he couldn't pay their demands." He reached past her to grab a coil of rope. "I'm going."
"Going? Going where? To do what?"
"To find them. To kill them. To bring my family somewhere safe."
"Jin—" Lin Mei's hand caught his arm, her grip surprisingly strong. "Think about this. You're level eight. The cultivator who killed your father—you don't know his level, his techniques, his resources. You could be walking into—"
"I don't care."
The words cut through her protest like a blade. Jin met her eyes, and whatever she saw there made her release his arm.
"My father died protecting his family from people who shouldn't have been able to touch him. Died because I wasn't there to protect them. Because I was here, advancing my cultivation, building my life, while they faced dangers I should have anticipated." His voice cracked slightly. "I will not let his killers walk free. I will not leave my mother and brother to face them again."
Lin Mei was quiet for a long moment. Then she stepped aside.
"How long will you be gone?"
"I don't know. A few days at minimum. Perhaps a week."
"Wei Feng will ask where you are."
Jin's heart clenched at the thought of his son. The boy was too young to understand death, too young to know that his grandfather had been murdered by men who would never face justice unless Jin brought it to them.
"Tell him I had to help family. Tell him I'll come back." He finished packing and shouldered the bag. "Take care of our fields. I've shown you everything you need to know."
"I know." Lin Mei stepped forward and wrapped her arms around him, holding tight despite the bulk of his pack. "Come back to us. Please."
"I will."
He kissed her—hard, desperate, full of emotions he couldn't name—and then he left.
—————
Jin traveled through the night.
His level eight cultivation allowed him to move faster than any mortal conveyance, his body strengthened by years of advancement, his endurance enhanced by perfectly efficient qi circulation. He ran when the terrain allowed, walked when it didn't, stopped only when absolutely necessary.
The journey that had taken three days by ox cart when he first came to the sect passed in less than twenty hours.
He arrived at his home village as dawn painted the eastern sky in shades of gray and gold. The place looked different from his memories—smaller, somehow, and more fragile. The houses seemed to huddle together like frightened animals, their walls showing signs of recent violence. Doors hung crooked on broken hinges. Windows gaped empty where shutters had been torn away.
And everywhere, the evidence of what the bandits had taken. Empty animal pens. Stripped gardens. The hollow-eyed stares of villagers who had lost everything they couldn't hide.
Jin's childhood home stood at the edge of the village, near the fields his family had worked for generations. He approached slowly, his enhanced senses scanning for threats, his heart pounding with anticipation and dread.
The door opened before he reached it.
His brother stood in the doorway—Wei Chen, who had sacrificed everything to give Jin his chance, who had worked the copper mines to afford the sect's tribute, who had written that terrible letter with shaking hands.
He looked older than Jin remembered. Thinner. His broad shoulders were bowed with grief, his strong hands hanging loose at his sides. But his eyes—when they found Jin—lit with desperate hope.
"You came," Wei Chen said, his voice rough. "I didn't expect—I didn't want you to risk—"
"Where are they?" Jin interrupted. "The bandits. Where do they camp?"
Wei Chen's expression shifted. He studied his younger brother—really studied him—and something in what he saw made him take a step back.
"Jin… you're different. Your presence, your bearing. You feel like…" He trailed off, unable to find words for what his mundane senses were detecting.
"I'm level eight Qi Gathering," Jin said flatly. "I've been advancing faster than anyone expected. Now—where are the bandits?"
"There's a cave system in the hills to the north. Three hours' walk for ordinary folk. They've been using it as a base for months, raiding villages throughout the region." Wei Chen's voice hardened. "But their leader is a cultivator, Jin. An old man with white hair and terrible eyes. He killed Father with a single strike. You can't—"
"I can." Jin gripped his brother's shoulder. "Stay here. Protect Mother and the children. I'll return before nightfall."
He turned and began walking north.
—————
Jin found the bandits' trail within an hour.
They were not subtle. Their passage through the countryside left obvious signs—trampled vegetation, discarded refuse, the marks of heavy boots on soft earth. They moved with the arrogance of those who feared no pursuit, confident that their cultivator leader made them untouchable.
That confidence would be their death.
Jin tracked them to their cave, a dark opening in the hillside perhaps two miles from the nearest village. Smoke rose from within, carrying the smell of cooking meat and unwashed bodies. Rough laughter echoed from the shadows, the sounds of men who had taken what they wanted and feared no consequence.
He counted perhaps twenty bandits lounging around the cave entrance and the clearing before it. Most were ordinary mortals—rough men with crude weapons, dangerous to villagers but no threat to a cultivator of Jin's level. A few showed signs of minor cultivation, perhaps the first or second level of Qi Gathering—enough to make them stronger than normal humans, not enough to matter.
The cultivator leader was not visible. Probably deeper in the cave, where the comfort would be greater.
Jin considered his approach.
He could challenge them openly, announce his presence and his intentions, give them a chance to surrender or flee. That was what a righteous cultivator would do. What the stories he'd grown up with would suggest.
But Jin was not a character from a story. He was a man whose father had been murdered. Whose family had been robbed. Whose home had been violated by people who deserved no mercy.
He activated Void Presence, drawing his spiritual signature inward until he was little more than a shadow among shadows. Then he moved.
—————
The first bandit died without knowing he was in danger.
Jin's fire-enhanced fist struck the base of his skull, channeling just enough Ember Sphere energy to turn the blow lethal. The man dropped silently, his companions still laughing at some crude joke, unaware that death had entered their camp.
The second and third followed in quick succession. Jin moved through the edges of the clearing like a ghost, his Swift Shadow Step technique carrying him from target to target faster than untrained eyes could follow. Each strike was precise, efficient, final.
By the time the remaining bandits realized something was wrong, half their number lay dead or dying.
"We're under attack!" someone screamed. "The cultivator—get the master!"
Jin let Void Presence drop, revealing himself at the center of the clearing. His robes were spattered with blood. His face held no expression at all.
"Your master will not save you," he said.
The bandits charged—the surviving dozen, their fear transformed into desperate aggression. They came with swords and clubs and the wild courage of men who knew they were fighting for their lives.
Jin met them without mercy.
Swift Shadow Step carried him between their attacks, his enhanced agility making their weapons seem to move through molasses. His fists, reinforced with qi, shattered bones with each strike. When they tried to surround him, he unleashed an Ember Sphere that sent three men screaming, their clothes and flesh burning with spiritual flame.
It was not a battle. It was an execution.
When the last bandit fell—a young man, barely more than a boy, who had tried to flee and earned a broken spine for his cowardice—Jin stood alone in a clearing full of corpses.
He felt nothing. No satisfaction. No horror. Only the cold certainty that his work was not yet complete.
"Impressive."
The voice came from the cave mouth. Jin turned to face the cultivator who had killed his father.
The old man was perhaps sixty years of apparent age, though cultivation made such estimates unreliable. His hair was white and thin, pulled back in a style that had been fashionable decades ago. His face was weathered, lined with age and cruelty, dominated by eyes that held the flat regard of a predator assessing prey.
He wore robes that had once been fine but were now stained and patched, the remnants of better days. A sword hung at his waist—not a flying sword, Jin noted, but a simple combat weapon appropriate for close-quarters battle.
His cultivation aura pressed against Jin's senses. Level six. Peak of the middle stages, perhaps preparing for advancement to level seven.
Two levels below Jin's own. But levels were not everything, as Jin had learned long ago. Experience, technique, equipment—all could shift the balance of a fight.
"You killed my father," Jin said.
The old man's eyebrows rose slightly. "Did I? I've killed many men. You'll have to be more specific."
"A village ten days' journey south. A farmer who refused to pay tribute. You struck him down in front of his family."
"Ah." The old man nodded, a slight smile touching his thin lips. "The stubborn one. He had spirit, I'll grant him that. Refused to beg even as he died." His smile widened. "Are you here for revenge? How touching. How foolish."
"I'm here to end you."
"End me?" The old man laughed—a dry, unpleasant sound. "Boy, I've been cultivating since before your father was born. I've killed disciples from three major sects, survived purges that eliminated entire lineages, built and rebuilt power bases across half this province. You think you're the first to come seeking vengeance?"
"I think I'm the last."
Jin attacked.
—————
The battle was nothing like his slaughter of the bandits.
The old man was skilled—decades of combat experience encoded in every movement, every reaction, every countering strike. His level six cultivation was supplemented by techniques Jin had never seen, attack patterns refined through countless real battles.
Jin's first Ember Sphere was deflected by a wall of water that the old man summoned from the morning dew. His Swift Shadow Step was anticipated, the old man somehow predicting his movements and positioning counter-attacks. Even his enhanced strength seemed insufficient against an opponent who knew exactly how to redirect force.
They exchanged a dozen blows in the first ten seconds. Jin took a cut across his forearm. The old man suffered a burn on his shoulder from a partial Ember Sphere connection. Both retreated briefly, reassessing.
"You're stronger than I expected," the old man admitted. "Level eight? Unusual for someone your age. You might have gone far, if you'd chosen your enemies more wisely."
Jin said nothing. He was analyzing the old man's style, looking for patterns, searching for weaknesses. The water technique was powerful but seemed to require proximity to moisture. The anticipation of Swift Shadow Step suggested experience fighting agility-focused opponents.
But the old man was slower than Jin. His reactions, while skilled, lagged behind Jin's youth and superior cultivation level. And his defensive techniques, while effective, consumed significant qi—more than Jin's efficient attacks required.
This fight would be decided by endurance.
Jin attacked again, this time with a different strategy. Rather than seeking immediate victory, he focused on attrition—landing small blows that accumulated, forcing the old man to expend energy on defense, gradually depleting his reserves.
The old man recognized the strategy too late. By the time he tried to end the fight with a devastating water-blade technique, his qi was too depleted to execute it properly. Jin sidestepped the weakened attack and countered with an Ember Sphere to the chest.
The old man screamed as spiritual flames consumed his robes and seared his flesh. He fell backward, rolling desperately to extinguish the fire, his defensive concentration shattered.
Jin was on him before he could recover.
His fist connected with the old man's jaw, the impact enhanced by all his level eight strength. Bone shattered. Blood sprayed. The old man's body went limp, his eyes rolling back in his head.
But Jin wasn't finished.
He struck again. And again. And again. Each blow releasing some fraction of the rage he'd held frozen since reading his brother's letter. Each impact a payment toward a debt that could never truly be settled.
When he finally stopped, the old man's face was unrecognizable. His skull was fractured in multiple places. His breath came in shallow, gurgling gasps that grew weaker with each passing moment.
Jin watched him die.
He felt no satisfaction. No closure. Only a hollow exhaustion that seemed to seep into his bones.
His father was still dead. Nothing he did to this man would change that.
—————
Jin returned to the village with the old cultivator's sword and a pouch containing the stolen spirit stones he'd recovered from the cave. The bandits' supplies he left for the villagers to salvage—food, tools, clothing that had been taken from homes throughout the region.
His family was waiting.
His mother looked ancient, her face carved with grief, her eyes holding the empty stare of someone who had lost her reason for living. She said nothing when Jin approached, didn't seem to recognize him until he knelt before her and took her weathered hands in his.
"Mother," he said softly. "I'm here. I came home."
Something flickered in her eyes. Recognition, perhaps. Or just the faintest spark of life returning to a heart that had given up on hope.
"Wei Jin." Her voice was barely a whisper. "My little Wei Jin. You came."
"I'm sorry I wasn't here. I'm sorry I couldn't protect him."
His mother shook her head slowly. "He was proud of you. Every letter you sent, every spirit stone—he would hold them and smile and say 'my son is going to be someone.' He believed in you, Wei Jin. Don't carry guilt for something you couldn't prevent."
Jin's composure finally cracked. Tears spilled down his cheeks as he held his mother's hands, as the grief he'd been suppressing finally found release. He wept for his father, for the years they would never have, for the conversations left unspoken and the reunion that would never happen.
His mother held him as he cried, her own tears falling silently, two broken hearts sharing their pain.
—————
They buried the ashes together.
Jin had cremated his father's murderer and scattered the remains in a place no one would remember. But his father's grave—a simple mound beside his grandmother's resting place—received proper rites. Incense and offerings. Prayers spoken in voices thick with emotion. The rituals that had been performed in this family for generations.
Jin knelt before the grave as the sun set, his head bowed, his hands pressed to the cold earth.
"I'm sorry," he said quietly. "I should have been here. Should have protected you. Should have done more than send spirit stones and letters while you faced dangers alone."
The grave offered no response. The dead never did.
"I'll take care of them," Jin continued. "Mother, Wei Chen, the children. I'll bring them somewhere safe, somewhere that bandits and rogue cultivators can't touch. I'll make sure they never have to fear again."
He reached into his robes and withdrew a small jade pendant—a gift his father had given him before he left for the sect, carved with characters meaning "perseverance" and "honor."
"I kept this with me every day. Every time I wanted to give up, every time the cultivation world seemed too harsh, I would hold it and remember why I was there. Remember who I was working for."
Jin pressed the pendant to his lips, then set it atop the grave mound.
"Rest now, Father. I'll carry the burden from here."
He rose, turned, and walked away.
There was no medicine for regret. Only the determination to do better going forward.
—————
The journey to the sect took three days with his family in tow.
Jin had arranged for a cart and supplies, using the recovered spirit stones to purchase what they needed. His mother rode in the back with Wei Chen's wife, Mei Ling, and the two children—Wei Jun, now seven years old, and Wei Hua, who had just turned four. Wei Chen walked beside the cart, his expression mixing grief with cautious hope.
"You're sure the sect will accept us?" he asked for the third time.
"Not into the sect itself," Jin clarified. "But there's a settlement near the outer walls—families of disciples, merchants who serve the cultivation community, support workers of various kinds. I've arranged housing and introduced you to people who can help you establish yourselves."
"And we'll be safe there?"
"The sect's protective formations extend over the entire valley. No rogue cultivator would dare attack so close to Dark Rose territory." Jin's voice hardened. "And if anyone tries, I'll be nearby."
Wei Chen was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke again, his voice held a wonder that hadn't been there before.
"You've changed so much. The little brother who tripped over his own feet, who couldn't hold a hoe properly, who cried when he had to leave home—he's gone. In his place is…" He gestured vaguely, struggling for words. "A warrior. A protector. Someone who tracked down Father's killers and destroyed them single-handedly."
"I did what was necessary."
"You did more than that. You became what you needed to become." Wei Chen placed a hand on Jin's shoulder. "Father would be proud. Is proud, wherever his spirit has gone. You've honored everything he sacrificed for."
Jin didn't respond. The words stirred emotions he wasn't ready to process—grief mixed with determination, guilt mixed with resolve. He focused on the road ahead, on the practical tasks that needed to be accomplished, on the family he was bringing to safety.
Emotions could wait. Duty could not.
—————
Lin Mei met them at the settlement's edge.
She ran to Jin the moment she saw him, throwing her arms around him without caring about the audience of strangers watching. He held her tightly, breathing in the familiar scent of her hair, letting her presence wash away some of the darkness that had accumulated during his journey.
"You came back," she whispered against his chest.
"I promised I would."
"Your family?"
Jin pulled back slightly, gesturing toward the cart where his relatives waited uncertainly. "Mother, Brother, sister-in-law, nephew, niece. I've arranged housing for them nearby. They'll be safe here."
Lin Mei studied his face with knowing eyes. "And you? Are you safe?"
"I'm alive. The bandits are dead. Their cultivator leader is dead." Jin's voice flattened. "My father is still dead. Nothing I did changed that."
"But you did something. You protected your family. You brought justice for your father's murder." Lin Mei cupped his face in her hands. "That matters, Jin. Don't let grief convince you otherwise."
Jin wanted to believe her. Wanted to find comfort in the knowledge that he'd done everything possible. But the hollow ache in his chest refused to fade, a permanent reminder of what he'd lost.
"Let's get them settled," he said finally. "Then I want to see Wei Feng. I've been gone too long."
—————
The months that followed were a time of healing and growth.
Jin's family established themselves in the settlement with surprising speed. Wei Chen found work as a laborer in one of the businesses that supplied the sect, his strong back and honest nature earning him a reputation as a reliable worker. Mei Ling took in sewing, her skilled hands producing garments that sold well among the more prosperous residents. The children adapted to their new surroundings with the resilience of youth, making friends among the other settlement families.
Only Jin's mother remained diminished. She moved through each day in a fog of grief, eating little, speaking less, her eyes always seeking something that wasn't there. Jin visited when he could, sitting with her in silence, offering what comfort his presence could provide.
Some wounds healed slowly. Some never healed at all.
But life continued regardless.
Jin returned to his work in the agricultural division, throwing himself into his duties with renewed intensity. His field flourished under his attention. His techniques improved through constant practice. And his cultivation—enhanced by the insights gained from his battle with the rogue cultivator—continued its steady advancement.
[Azure Harmonization Method - Current Efficiency: 100%]
The tracker pulsed with its familiar certainty, the automatic cultivation working tirelessly in the background of his consciousness. Jin could feel level nine approaching—a distant pressure that grew more distinct with each passing month.
But he had other priorities now beyond his own advancement.
"Try adjusting the circulation through your lower dantian," he instructed Lin Mei during one of their evening cultivation sessions. "The energy is pooling there instead of flowing smoothly upward."
Lin Mei made the adjustment, her brow furrowed with concentration. Jin watched with his enhanced perception, tracking the subtle movements of qi through her meridians.
"Better," he said. "But you're compensating too much in the opposite direction now. Find the middle path."
This had become their routine—Jin using his perfect efficiency and deep understanding of cultivation to guide Lin Mei's practice. The technique he'd shared with her was good, but not optimized for her specific body. Now, drawing on insights from his own development and from the combat experience that had sharpened his understanding of energy manipulation, he helped her refine it further.
The results were remarkable.
Lin Mei's cultivation speed had tripled compared to a year ago. Her modified technique, shaped by Jin's guidance and her own adaptations, had become something uniquely suited to her spiritual roots and physical characteristics. Level four was now within reach—a barrier that had blocked her for years finally yielding to systematic improvement.
"How does it feel?" Jin asked as she completed the evening's practice.
"Different. Smoother." Lin Mei opened her eyes, her expression holding wonder. "Each session, the energy flows more easily. I can feel myself advancing—actually feel it, not just hoping it's happening."
"You'll reach level four within the next few months. After that, level five. The momentum builds once you break through the early bottlenecks."
"And then?" Lin Mei's voice held something beyond curiosity. "How far can I go?"
"I don't know. But further than you ever expected, I think." Jin reached out to take her hand. "We'll find out together."
—————
Two years passed.
Jin marked the time by the growth of his son, who had transformed from a chubby toddler into a curious, energetic child of four. Wei Feng had inherited his mother's quick wit and his father's stubborn determination, approaching the world with an intensity that alternated between delightful and exhausting.
He had also, Jin noticed with mixed emotions, inherited some aptitude for spiritual energy.
"Bug!" Wei Feng announced proudly, holding up a spirit beetle he had managed to catch after months of failed attempts. The insect's legs waved futilely in his grip, its mandibles clicking in frustration.
"Good catch," Jin said, examining his son's prize. "But remember—we don't keep the beetles. We either release them or—"
"Eat them," Wei Feng finished with a gap-toothed grin. "Mother showed me how to roast them. They taste nutty."
Jin glanced at Lin Mei, who shrugged with the unconcerned air of someone who had grown up in an agricultural sect. "He needs to learn where food comes from."
"He's four."
"I was catching beetles at three. He's behind schedule."
Jin shook his head, but he was smiling. The warmth of family—something he'd nearly lost, something he'd fought to protect—surrounded him now in a way that made all the burdens he carried seem bearable.
His mother had finally begun to recover, the fog of grief lifting slowly as time worked its patient healing. She would never be the woman she'd been before her husband's death, but she was present again—cooking meals, playing with her grandchildren, occasionally even laughing at Wei Feng's antics.
The scars remained. They always would. But life grew around them, incorporating them into something new.
—————
The breakthrough came on a winter night, two years and three months after Jin's father's death.
He was cultivating in his usual spot—the small meditation space he'd created in their courtyard, sheltered from the elements but open to the sky. Snow fell gently around him, each flake carrying trace amounts of spiritual energy that his automatic cultivation absorbed without conscious effort.
The bottleneck had been building for months. Level nine—the peak of Qi Gathering, the final step before Foundation Establishment—required more accumulated energy than all previous levels combined. Even with his perfect efficiency, even with constant automatic cultivation, the process had taken longer than any previous advancement.
But tonight, he felt the barrier beginning to yield.
Jin focused inward, directing conscious attention to supplement the automatic process. His qi reserves strained against the limits of his current level, pressing against the invisible wall that separated level eight from level nine.
Pressure. Resistance. The sense of something vast waiting just beyond his reach.
And then—breakthrough.
The barrier shattered, and Jin's cultivation surged forward into territory he had never touched before. His meridians expanded dramatically. His dantian deepened into something approaching infinite. His spiritual senses exploded outward, suddenly able to perceive the entire agricultural terrace in exquisite detail—every disciple, every plant, every flow of spiritual energy through the sect's vast infrastructure.
Level nine Qi Gathering. The peak of the mortal realms of cultivation.
Jin opened his eyes, snow melting on his upturned face, and smiled.
[Azure Harmonization Method - Current Efficiency: 100%]
The tracker confirmed what he already knew. Perfect efficiency. Maximum advancement within the Qi Gathering stage. And ahead of him, the distant but no longer impossible dream of Foundation Establishment.
He was fifteen years old. He had three years before he turned eighteen—the age he had set as his goal for achieving Foundation Establishment.
Three years to accomplish what most cultivators with his spiritual roots never achieved at all.
It would be difficult. Perhaps impossible. The Foundation Establishment breakthrough was fundamentally different from any previous advancement—not just an accumulation of energy, but a transformation of the cultivator's very existence.
But Jin had accomplished impossible things before. Had advanced faster than anyone expected. Had built a life worth living despite every obstacle the cultivation world had thrown in his path.
He rose from his meditation, brushing snow from his robes, and walked inside to share the news with Lin Mei.
She was waiting, as she always was, with tea and warmth and the quiet support that had become the foundation of his life.
"It happened?" she asked, reading his expression.
"It happened. Level nine."
Lin Mei's face broke into a smile that lit up the small room. "I knew it would. I knew you could do it." She rose and embraced him, her own cultivation aura—stronger now, solidly at level four—mingling with his vastly expanded presence. "What now?"
"Now I prepare for Foundation Establishment." Jin held her close, feeling the warmth of her body, the steady rhythm of her heartbeat. "Three years. If I maintain my current progress, if my efficiency holds, if I can find the insights I need for the breakthrough…"
"You'll do it," Lin Mei said with absolute certainty. "You've done everything else you set your mind to. This won't be any different."
Jin hoped she was right.
Foundation Establishment before eighteen. The dream that had seemed so distant when he first stumbled through the sect's gates as a clumsy six-year-old child.
Now it was within reach.
He just had to grasp it.
—————
End of Chapter Thirteen