CHAPTER 174
### Threshold
The first section crossed on the morning of the second day.
He felt it before Bing Xi announced it.
The development had been climbing — four point three times standard, then five, then five point eight as the application's calibration deepened into the grandmother's frequency — and at the fifth hour of the second morning the climbing stopped and the section became.
Not building toward threshold.
Past it.
Generating.
The specific quality of something that had crossed from receiving to producing.
"Yes," Bing Xi said.
He released the application.
He looked at the section.
"Li Shan," he said.
"I read it," Li Shan said through the relay. "First section generating. Extending the pattern-reading through the generating section's output now." A pause. "The extension works. The generating section is conducting the pattern-reading twenty-three li further than standard range."
"Toward the second section," Jian Yu said.
"Yes," Li Shan said. "And beyond. The generating section is conducting the pattern-reading another thirty li east of itself."
He moved to the second section.
Three li east.
Seventy-one percent.
He read its development character.
A military training unit. Twelve cultivators rotating through the section on two-week postings. The section had received twelve different practitioners' frequencies over the past year. The pathway structure had integrated them into something collective — not synchronized the way the village had synchronized, but layered. Twelve voices at once.
He calibrated to the layered collective.
Not one frequency.
Twelve simultaneously.
He applied from all three directions through the calibrated collective.
The development rate hit six point two times standard.
He held it.
Eighteen breaths.
Lin Mei sat beside him.
She did not read his condition. She read the section.
"The multiple frequency calibration," she said. "You are holding calibration to twelve practitioners' frequencies simultaneously."
"Yes," he said.
"That is not documented in the archive," she said.
"No," he said.
She wrote.
He held the application.
On the afternoon of the second day with the second section Lin Mei said: "The faction."
He extended to the outer edge.
Forty-seven cultivation signatures.
Still moving south.
The timeline had changed.
They had accelerated.
Five days from now instead of seven.
Not seven days of margin.
Two.
"Li Shan," he said.
"I read the movement change two hours ago," Li Shan said. "I did not tell you immediately because it would have disrupted the application."
He looked at Lin Mei.
"He made the right call," she said.
"Yes," he said.
"Two days of margin," he said.
"Yes," Li Shan said. "The second section needs to cross threshold before the faction reaches the hollow."
"How long at the current rate," Jian Yu said.
Bing Xi read.
"Fifteen hours," she said.
The faction was five days out.
The section needed fifteen hours.
Three and a half days to spare.
"The mathematics improved," Li Shan said.
"Yes," Jian Yu said.
"The multiple frequency calibration increased the rate significantly," Li Shan said.
"Yes," Jian Yu said.
"I will document the multiple frequency calibration's development rate contribution when you can speak," Li Shan said.
"Tomorrow," Jian Yu said.
"Tomorrow," Li Shan said.
He held the application.
Twelve frequencies simultaneously.
Eighteen breaths.
The grey blade at his hip.
Lin Mei writing beside him.
The faction five days out.
The section fifteen hours from threshold.
He committed.
He worked.
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