Morning broke pale and thin, the kind of light that made wet stone look colder than it was.
The rain had stopped sometime before dawn. The courtyards still glistened, the puddles holding small pieces of sky.
Ye Tian stepped out into the quiet and listened.
The sect had a sound when it woke. Doors, sandals, soft voices. A bell in the distance. A bird brave enough to try the eaves. It all folded together into a rhythm that most people forgot to hear.
He stretched once, slow and careful. The warmth of the Cultivation Accelerator settled deeper with each breath. It was not a fire. It was a tide. With every inhale it came in, with every exhale it went out, and each time it returned it left a little more behind.
Whispers came before faces. They slid along the walkways ahead of him, the way rumor always runs faster than feet.
"He beat Su Jian in the rain…"
"Luo Ming too, they say it was three moves…"
"The elders are not pleased…"
Ye Tian walked on. He did not speed up to catch the voices, and he did not slow to let them pass. They gathered on their own.
By the time he reached the practice yard, the voices had become a circle of disciples, and the circle had a center. Three inner sect disciples stood under the shade of a cedar, their robes clean, their hair tied with strips of gold thread, their faces arranged in patient disdain.
The tallest of the three stepped forward. He had a pretty face that looked carved and a smile that did not belong to kindness.
"Chen Mu," he said. "You have been busy."
Ye Tian stopped where the shade reached his feet. "I trained."
"You embarrassed Luo Ming," the tall one said, as if repeating a small fact, "and then you made Su Jian slip on wet stone in front of the outer court."
A ripple of laughter moved through the circle. It had the gentle sound of people trying to make cruelty sound like music.
"Do you plan to embarrass the inner sect next," the pretty one asked, still smiling, "or shall we do this properly."
The Origin System's voice arrived like a second thought.
[Nearby systems detected: six]
[Recommendation: Identify utility before engagement]
"Names," Ye Tian said.
The pretty one inclined his head slightly, as if this were a court rather than a yard. "I am Zhou Ren. These are Li Yan and Qiao Ping."
Ye Tian's gaze flicked, not at their faces, but at the faint letters only he could see.
[Target: Zhou Ren]
[System: Low grade Weapon Mastery]
[Function: Improves familiarity and speed with all common weapons, minor increase to accuracy]
[Integrity: 62 percent]
[Target: Li Yan]
[System: Minor Balance]
[Function: Reduces stance breaks, improves footing on poor terrain]
[Integrity: 58 percent]
[Target: Qiao Ping]
[System: Minor Muscle Memory]
[Function: Slightly increases repetition learning speed for basic forms]
[Integrity: 49 percent]
The circle of disciples had grown. Outer sect robes pressed against inner, and more faces peered over shoulders. The yard tasted like dust and old rain. The air carried the clean bite of cedar sap and the faint sharpness of oil from the weapon racks.
Zhou Ren let his smile soften. "We are not cruel, Chen Mu. We do not beat outer disciples for sport. We offer lessons. A small exhibition, for the good of the sect. You will accept, of course, for the honor you have recently taken upon yourself."
Li Yan's mouth twitched. Qiao Ping looked everywhere except at Ye Tian.
"Exhibition," Ye Tian said. "On the central platform."
"Of course," Zhou Ren said.
They moved together through the yard, the circle widening, the murmur rising. The central platform was a square of old wood, sanded smooth by years of feet. Scar lines crossed it in pale streaks where weapons had bit and been stopped. An old banner hung limp at the far corner, its ink faded to a ghost of a character that once meant something sharp.
Zhou Ren stepped up and lifted his hand. His voice was not loud, but it carried.
"Brothers and sisters. We give the outer court a lesson. Some have forgotten lines. Today we draw them again."
He turned and spread his fingers at the racks. "Choose your weapon."
Ye Tian looked at the rows. Spears, sabers, swords, staves. Hooks and rings. Chains. A pair of heavy iron fans sat folded on a lower shelf, their edges dull, their weight honest.
The Origin System hummed.
[Target primary: Zhou Ren]
[Seizure chance: 74 percent]
[Optimal trigger: Prolonged weapon contact, exchange of three sequences minimum]
[Note: Weapon Mastery integration will enhance all armament handling, broad utility]
The fans did not look like power. They looked like something an aunt might carry walking by the river. They had weight. They had reach when opened. They hid small movements behind larger ones. They stole eyes.
Ye Tian did not move to them yet. He stepped past the obvious racks and stopped by the most neglected shelf, where a practice rope dart lay coiled like a sleeping snake. The dart was wood, the cord simple hemp, the weight barely enough to make it behave at distance. It was a tool for making fools of the impatient and the proud.
He reached down and lifted it. The cord gathered in his hand with the easy slither of old hemp.
A sound moved through the crowd. It was not laughter, not yet. It was the part of laughter that waits to be born.
Zhou Ren's smile creased, then held. "A rope dart," he said, as if the words were a poem and he had been given a poor translation. "Very well."
Li Yan took a spear. Qiao Ping chose paired short sticks. Zhou Ren reached for a simple practice saber, the kind a good hand could make look like a living thing.
The platform took their weight. The crowd settled to the edges. A few elders watched from the walkway, their sleeves still, their eyes half hooded. Even the cedar seemed to lean.
Zhou Ren raised his blade and pointed it politely toward Ye Tian. "We begin when you breathe out."
Ye Tian let the rope dart rest in his palm. He felt the cord with his fingers, the way the fibers had split and been pressed back together, the small roughness that would bite if you pulled too fast without care. He breathed in once and let it go.
"Begin," he said.
Zhou Ren came like a man dancing. His feet placed themselves in pretty lines, his shoulders relaxed, his blade moving in a simple arc that was not simple at all. The first cut would have shaved the hair from a man's wrist if the man were slow and the wrist were foolish.
Ye Tian let the cord slide. The dart rolled over his fingers and fell and swung and came up in a smooth loop that met the blade and lay against it as if asking to be friends. Wood touched wood. Pressure met pressure. The cord bowed and straightened. The blade could not find a purchase.
The crowd made a small noise, the kind that people make when something does not go the way they know it should.
Li Yan advanced on Ye Tian's left, the spear low, the tip seeking a foot, a knee, the trailing hem of a robe. Qiao Ping came on the right with quick hands, his sticks tapping a rhythm against each other to build courage.
The rope dart flicked. It did not try to be fierce. It was a lazy fisherman's arm, an old gate swinging in a quiet wind. The loop slid around the spear haft and stole an inch of control. The dart brushed Qiao Ping's wrist. His tap lost its rhythm for a breath.
[Proceed with Seizure?]
Ye Tian felt the saber in his palm through the rope. He did not grip it. He did not need to. Contact was contact. The Origin waited like a cat at a hole.
"Yes," he thought.
The world narrowed to the sensation of wood on wood and cord on skin. Heat rose under his fingers and then went away. Words that no one else could see burned and faded.
[Seizure complete]
[Acquired: Low grade Weapon Mastery]
[Integrating…]
Zhou Ren's eyes flicked. It was a small movement, the kind that says a man has felt a wind he did not expect to feel.
Ye Tian stepped, not fast, not slow. The rope dart swept low and then high. The saber met it again and again, and each time the contact taught Ye Tian something that he already knew in his bones but had not yet remembered in this body. Weight. Angle. The way breath moves through fingers. He was not using a rope. He was using attention.
Li Yan pushed in on the left. The spear tried to pin the cord against the platform. Ye Tian let it, then turned his wrist and pulled. The loop rolled, the spear levered, Li Yan's stance broke a thumb's width, then a full foot. Qiao Ping's short sticks cracked against the cord and slid. The wood of the dart thumped his forearm. His fingers went numb for a breath and then remembered how to close.
[Devotion +6]
[Integration progress: 41 percent]
[Projected benefit on completion: noticeable increase to handling speed and recovery, broad proficiency rise]
Zhou Ren smiled again. It was thinner now, the edges a little tired. "Pretty tricks," he said lightly.
He came in a line this time, no dance. Two cuts, one thrust, a turn that would have taken a scalp if the head had been foolish. Ye Tian made the rope simple. Straight lines met curves. The dart pecked, slid, kissed, rested. Wood chose the back of a wrist instead of the edge of a blade. Balance failed the smallest amount it could and still be seen.
"Again," Zhou Ren said.
They moved.
The crowd found its voice. It was full, now, and warm, and hungry. Whispering turned to words said a little too loud.
"He is playing with them…"
"No, look… look at the saber, it is being led…"
"Who taught him a rope, who teaches rope in the outer court…"
The elders on the walkway did not speak. Their eyes made small movements. A sleeve shifted. A thin hand curled and uncurled against old wood.
Li Yan planted his spear and shoved. Qiao Ping threw both sticks at Ye Tian's shoulder and stepped in to grab the cord with both hands. Zhou Ren cut at the same time, a neat triangle of intent meant to give Ye Tian only bad choices.
Ye Tian gave them a bad choice back. He dropped the cord.
It fell, then rose, then wrapped. The spear haft, Qiao Ping's wrist, the saber's guard. For a breath, all three lines were one line. Ye Tian stepped into the space that opened and put his palm lightly against Zhou Ren's shoulder as if to ask him to sit.
Zhou Ren went back two steps. His smile vanished long enough to show the face behind it. He held there, breathing a little harder, the saber steady in his hand because habit is sometimes stronger than surprise.
[Integration progress: 73 percent]
The rope dart uncoiled from the tangle with a tug and a lift. Ye Tian let it circle and fall and circle again. It was quiet in his hand, the way a river is quiet just before it grows teeth.
Zhou Ren's blade came on a flat line toward Ye Tian's ribs.
[Integration complete]
[Low grade Weapon Mastery merged with base parameters]
[Result: noticeable increase to handling speed and accuracy across common armaments]
[Synergy unlocked: minor recovery boost after weapon exchanges]
Ye Tian did not catch the blade. He caught the man holding it. The cord slid around the hilt, the dart tapped the knuckles, the pull was soft and then not soft at all. The saber left Zhou Ren's hand and spun once, twice, then struck the platform and lay there blinking at the sky like a fish out of water.
Silence made a sound. It came from everywhere at once, then collapsed under its own weight.
Zhou Ren looked at his empty hand. He looked at the saber on the floor. He looked at Ye Tian as if trying to remember which story he had walked into.
Li Yan found his spear and did not move. Qiao Ping rubbed his wrist and looked at the elders as if they might tell him what to do next.
Ye Tian lifted the rope dart. He rolled the cord over his fingers once more and let it fall quiet.
"I thought we were drawing lines," he said.
No one answered, not yet.
[Nearby systems detected: four]
[Recommendation: End on advantage, avoid overexposure. Note: Devotion harvest elevated, witnesses impressed, potential envy growing]
Zhou Ren bent, picked up his saber, and wiped a clean blade that did not need wiping. When he straightened, the smile had returned to his face. It did not reach his eyes.
"A lesson, then," he said. "For the outer court."
He bowed a fraction. It was almost proper. It was almost genuine.
The elders on the walkway turned at last. One nodded to another. A thin voice drifted out and fell like a leaf.
"Enough."
The circle began to loosen. The murmur came back, but it sounded different now. Less certain. More curious. A few faces watched Ye Tian the way people look at the mouth of a cave they did not know was there yesterday.
A shadow stepped out from the cedar's far side. A woman in plain robes, her hair bound with a single strip of white cloth. She was not beautiful in the way stories spend ink on, but her eyes were clear, and when she spoke her voice did not waste time.
"You will not be left alone," she said.
Ye Tian looked at her. "You know this because you are kind, or because you are informed."
"Both," she said. "The elder who smiles when systems change hands has begun to take interest. If you would like to keep walking, you should know where the stones are under the water."
"Your name," Ye Tian said.
"Mu Qing," she said. "I keep a list."
She did not explain what kind of list. She did not need to. The way she stood told him that the list was written in more than ink.
Zhou Ren's smile turned toward her, polite and thin. "Mu Qing, your duties are in the archive, not in the yard. Do not dirty your sandals."
Mu Qing did not look at him. She looked at Ye Tian. "Sparring Day is posted at noon. Every outer disciple will be required to show a form. Some will try to take what is not theirs in front of watching eyes. If you want to choose your ground, choose it before they do."
The Origin System stirred.
[Notice: Public schedule detected]
[Projection: High Devotion opportunity at Sparring Day]
[Advisory: Prioritize targets with defensive utilities, potential shield or skin type systems]
Ye Tian nodded once. "Then I will walk early."
Mu Qing's mouth moved, the smallest shape a smile can make and still be seen. "Good," she said.
She stepped back into the cedar shade and was gone into the moving bodies before the next breath.
Zhou Ren slid his saber into its loop, the metal ringing softly against wood. "We look forward to your form, Chen Mu."
Ye Tian looked at the racks again. Spears, sabers, swords, staves. Hooks and rings. Iron fans. He set the rope dart carefully back on its shelf.
"Forms are a way to count breaths while people watch," he said. "I prefer counting when their mouths are open."
He turned and stepped down from the platform. The crowd opened for him. Feet moved, robes brushed, the smell of cedar held steady.
At the edge of the yard, a younger disciple nearly bumped into him, then backed away, bowing too many times, speaking too fast.
"Senior… senior, is it true you will choose the iron fans for Sparring Day… they say no one uses them, they say no one remembers the old forms…"
Ye Tian looked past him to the fans on the lower shelf. They waited like patient hands.
He did not answer the boy. He did not need to. His eyes were answer enough.
The bell at the hall struck noon. The sound rolled across the yard and made the banners tremble.
[Devotion +8]
[Status: Reputation rising, hostility forming, opportunity expanding]
[Next action: Select armament for Sparring Day]
Ye Tian walked back toward the racks, toward the iron fans whose weight would feel honest in his palms. The crowd shuffled to see. The elders watched without moving. Zhou Ren's smile held like old paint on a damp wall.
Ye Tian reached out, closed his fingers around cool iron, and lifted both fans from the shelf.
The metal sang softly when the hinges breathed.
He opened the right fan just enough to let the ribs catch the light, then closed it again.
The sound was simple, a clean click in a quiet yard.
"Very well," he said, so only the iron could hear, "let us count the breaths."
The yard exhaled as one body. The whisper became a wave.
And the chapter ended with two closed fans waiting to open in front of the whole sect.