The next morning, when the first light of day had just spilled over the eastern roofs of the Mu Clan, Mu Xuan had already opened his eyes.
He had barely slept.
But unlike the nights before, the clarity in his eyes this time did not come from pressure or unease. It came from something far more defined.
Direction.
The old man's final words beneath the hidden chamber still lingered in his mind.
The Mu Clan would open an internal trial.
The outside families had already begun to take notice.
Three days.
That was far too short a time for someone to truly become stronger. But if all he needed was to learn how to keep his own power from revealing itself, then those three days were not entirely hopeless.
Mu Xuan sat up, washed his face with cold water, and silently left his courtyard.
This morning, the gazes within the clan were no fewer than they had been yesterday. The only difference was that Mu Xuan no longer found himself distracted by them the way he had before. Compared to those eyes, the truly worrying thing was the cold current within his meridians. If he was careless, it would leave traces anywhere name patterns or name-intent existed.
And the Mu Clan... was not lacking in such things.
The path leading down into the hidden chamber was as cold and deep as ever.
When Mu Xuan stepped inside, the white-haired old man was already standing before the ancient stele, just as before. He did not turn around. He only said lightly,
"You came earlier than yesterday."
Mu Xuan stopped.
"I don't have much time left."
The old man gave a faint nod.
"Knowing you are short on time is a good thing."
As soon as he finished speaking, he swept his sleeve.
Three points of light appeared on the stone floor before them.
In the blink of an eye, three small name patterns took shape on the ground. Compared to yesterday, these were slightly more complex. They were no longer independent circles, but each consisted of three layers of luminous lines winding around one another, like underground streams interwoven beneath the earth. The light moving inside them was extremely stable—not too fast, not too slow—but if one looked closely, it was obvious that every line bound the others together.
Mu Xuan stared at them.
"What is different this time?" he asked.
The old man replied,
"Yesterday, you learned how to keep your force from disturbing them."
"Today..."
He pointed to the name pattern on the left.
"You must make it shift."
Mu Xuan lifted his eyes.
"But only a single stroke."
The old man continued.
"Do not destroy the whole thing."
"Do not extinguish it."
"You only need to pull one line away from its original course."
He looked directly at Mu Xuan.
"If you can do that, then you will truly begin to understand your power."
Mu Xuan stepped forward.
He stood two paces away from the leftmost name pattern and lowered his eyes to the structure of light moving within it.
If he used brute force, this would be simple. The cold current inside him already had a nature that twisted and severed name-intent. If he simply poured force into it, then forget one line—even the entire pattern would likely dim.
But that was not what the old man wanted to teach him.
What he needed now was precision.
Mu Xuan drew in a slow breath, then gradually closed his eyes.
His awareness sank inward.
The cold current still flowed through his meridians like a thin strand of dark smoke. After a night of quiet regulation, it had become slightly more stable than before, yet it was still far too sensitive to complete name-intent.
Mu Xuan did not force it to stop.
Nor did he try to press it down by force.
He simply guided it more slowly, letting its flow become deeper, thinner, almost sinking beneath the ordinary pathways of his meridians.
Only when he felt it had quieted enough did he open his eyes again.
His right hand slowly lifted.
A thread of cold force, so slight it was almost invisible, gathered little by little at the tip of his finger.
Mu Xuan did not touch the center of the name pattern.
He only hovered at the outer edge, observed it for a moment, then found the junction where two streams of light crossed.
He touched it.
The pattern trembled.
One line of light at the outer edge tilted slightly.
Then the entire structure shuddered far more violently than he had expected.
Pfft.
The whole name pattern went dark.
Mu Xuan withdrew his hand.
Behind him, the old man spoke calmly.
"You are still too rigid."
Mu Xuan looked at the extinguished pattern.
"That junction was correct."
"But the force you sent into it was not," the old man said. "You were not pulling it off course. You were forcibly cutting it apart."
He waved his hand again.
The pattern lit back up as before.
"Do it again."
Mu Xuan said nothing.
On the second attempt, he changed his approach.
He did not gather force first. Instead, he allowed his awareness to follow the course of the pattern itself. One circuit, then another. He watched the light flow outward from the center, then curl back inward, like a living pulse circulating through hidden veins.
This time, he waited longer.
He waited until he could clearly see where, within that cycle, the weakest point lay.
Only then did he touch it.
The pattern shuddered.
The outer line tilted a little.
Mu Xuan's pupils tightened slightly.
But in the next instant, the cold force at his fingertip bit deeper of its own accord. The pattern swayed violently, almost going dark again.
Mu Xuan pulled back immediately.
The pattern stabilized, but one streak of light had clearly shifted from its original path.
The old man watched in silence, then finally said,
"Better."
"But still not enough."
Mu Xuan frowned faintly.
"Still too strong?"
"No." The old man shook his head. "You still haven't truly made it fall silent."
He stepped closer and stood beside Mu Xuan, his eyes fixed on the glowing pattern on the floor.
"You always think that controlling your power means forcing it to obey."
"But what you carry inside you is not a dog."
"The harder you force it, the harder it will bite back."
Mu Xuan remained silent.
The old man continued,
"You must make it think that this is what it wants to do as well."
That sentence caused something in Mu Xuan's eyes to shift.
He turned to look at the old man.
But the old man had already taken half a step back, offering no further explanation.
Mu Xuan stood still for a while longer.
Then he looked again at his own fingertip.
Not suppress.
Not force.
But guide.
The moment that thought surfaced, he let his awareness sink inward once more.
This time, he did not try to press the cold current deeper.
He simply let it flow.
Very slowly.
Then, with the lightest touch of awareness, he guided it along his right arm, through the meridians, until it gathered at the tip of his finger as though he were leading a thin stream of water into a narrow crevice.
Not forcing it.
Not urging it.
Simply guiding it to the right place.
Mu Xuan opened his eyes.
His finger descended again.
The thread of force this time was thinner than before, and quieter. It no longer carried the sharp sensation of a blade newly drawn from its sheath. It felt more like a cold line that barely seemed to exist.
He touched the same junction again.
The pattern trembled.
One line of light shifted.
But this time, the rest of the structure did not collapse into violent instability.
It merely slowed for a single beat.
Then it continued circulating along its new course.
Mu Xuan stared intently at the pattern before him.
He had succeeded.
It had not gone dark.
It had not shattered.
Only one stroke had shifted.
Behind him, the old man finally showed the faintest trace of approval in his eyes.
"This can barely be called stepping through the gate."
Mu Xuan said nothing, but his breathing clearly slowed.
This was not a battle.
Nor was it a breakthrough.
But to him, this was the first time he had truly understood how the power inside him was meant to be used.
It had not been born for crude frontal confrontation like ordinary name power.
It had been born to find weakness—and then tilt everything off course by the slightest margin.
And sometimes, that slightest margin alone was enough to bring an entire structure down.
The old man conjured another name pattern.
"Continue."
For the rest of that morning, the hidden chamber was filled only with the shifting glow of name patterns and the occasional brief remarks of the old man.
"Wrong point."
"Too early."
"Too late."
"Do not look at the brightest point. Look at the weakest."
Mu Xuan failed many times.
At one point, he managed to tilt the outer layer, only for the inner structure to collapse.
Another time, he found the correct point, but the cold force in his meridians suddenly rebounded, leaving his fingertip numb with chill.
At another, he performed beautifully on the first pattern, only to ruin the second entirely.
Each time, the old man offered no comfort.
He corrected only a single point.
Yet those short remarks made Mu Xuan understand his own power more clearly.
By the time the sun had climbed toward midday, he was finally able to shift three name patterns in succession without extinguishing them entirely.
Though his control was still rough, and far from stable, it was already a world apart from yesterday.
The old man lowered his hand.
All the name patterns on the floor dissolved.
"That is enough."
Mu Xuan lowered his hand and slowly exhaled.
His mind was somewhat weary, but his eyes were brighter than before.
"So this is my first technique?"
The old man looked at him.
"If you wish to call it that, then so be it."
He paused for a moment, then added,
"One finger to break a single stroke."
"At best, it can barely be called breaking a pattern."
Mu Xuan memorized those words.
Breaking a pattern.
Though it was not yet a formal name, at least from this day onward, he was no longer someone who understood nothing about fighting with his own power.
At that very moment, hurried footsteps sounded from the stone path leading into the chamber.
Neither Mu Xuan nor the old man turned at once.
Only a few breaths later, a voice echoed down from above.
"Eldest Young Master!"
Mu Xuan recognized it as someone from the Steward Hall.
The old man said coldly,
"Go up."
Mu Xuan gave a slight nod, then turned and left the chamber.
When he reached the upper end of the corridor, a middle-aged steward was already waiting there. The man's expression was respectful, but his bearing was clearly somewhat urgent.
"Eldest Young Master, the Clan Leader has issued an order."
Mu Xuan looked at him.
"What is it?"
The steward drew in a light breath.
"In three days, the inner court will hold a trial."
"This trial is not only to select the representatives of the Mu Clan for the Name Contest, but also to reevaluate the entire younger generation after the Name Inscription Ceremony."
The man paused briefly, then spoke more slowly.
"All members of the younger generation who are qualified... must participate."
Mu Xuan's expression did not change after hearing this.
Only the cold current in his meridians trembled ever so slightly.
So it had finally come.
The steward looked at him, then lowered his voice further.
"There is one more matter."
"The Lin Clan has already sent people over today."
"They said... they had heard that the Mu Clan experienced a strange phenomenon during the Name Inscription Ceremony, and so, while preparing for this year's Name Contest, they wished to exchange pointers in advance."
Mu Xuan lowered his eyes slightly.
The words were polite.
But the meaning behind them could not have been clearer.
What had happened in the Mu Clan was no longer something that could be contained within the clan itself.
The outsiders had begun to arrive.
And once they arrived, they would not merely watch with their eyes.
They would test.
Mu Xuan slowly tightened his fingers inside his sleeve.
The cold current in his body remained quiet, but now he had already learned how to make it more silent than before.
That was what he had learned this morning.
It was also something he would have to master as quickly as possible.
Because the next time he stood before the people of the Mu Clan—and before the people of the Lin Clan—he would no longer be allowed to fail the way he had inside the hidden chamber.
Mu Xuan lifted his head and looked at the bright patch of sky visible above the corridor.
By now, the morning sun had risen higher.
Above ground, the Mu Clan was likely still moving through its day as usual. But beneath that calm surface, the ripples had already begun spreading outward.
The inner court trial.
The Name Contest.
The Lin Clan's arrival.
Everything was pushing him forward.
Mu Xuan stepped past the steward and walked along the northern corridor, his pace still calm and steady as ever.
Only this time, something inside him had already changed.
From the day of the Name Inscription Ceremony until now, he had always been pushed along by events.
But from this day onward—
if he could not avoid what was coming, then he would walk toward it with his own feet