The Hall of Rites was a cavern of cold stone and silence. Threads of incense coiled in the still air. A soft harmonic hum came from glass Oath Lamps. Ropes marked the path, taut and precise. Chalk grit crunched underfoot at the threshold. Tall shutters along the side walls leaked a seam of winter light that never touched the floor.
Qin Ye's boot settled on the granite step of the Oath Gate.
[Daily Sign-In available.]
[Location: Oath Gate Threshold.]
[Sign-In? Yes / No]
Yes.
[Ding! Sign-In successful!]
[Reward: Oath Thread (Lv.1, 25 breaths — steady voice/breath during public declarations; tight clause phrasing window) + Witness Glove Writ (1 use — force glove-change & ink/check kit swap with a public log).]
The Oath Lamp nearest the desk breathed once, its tone aligning with his chest. Breath counted 4-4-2. The hall's hum matched on the anchor beat.
⸻
A He-line aide materialized. "The east Oath Desk has shorter queues. This way."
"Clause 2.1," Qin Ye said, gaze set on the primary desk. "Route parity."
The aide's smile held a fraction too long. He drifted back into the line of pillars and vanished.
A registrar proxy leaned toward the Oath Scribe, a whisper forming, the angle neat—no contact, just a shadow over the ledger.
"Clause 9.1," Qin Ye stated, the citation bound to his footfall by practiced habit. "Oath integrity requires public witness. No ex parte contact."
The Device Witness orb chimed softly. A thin white glyph ticked in the corner of a projection pane. The proxy straightened. The whisper died unspoken.
[Ding! Micro-Goal: "Bind 9.1 in Public."]
[Reward: +190,000 Spirit Stones; Public Witness +2% (situational).]
He did not look at the proxy again. He didn't need to.
⸻
The Oath Desk held an ink well, a wax-tied scroll with a ribbon parity seal, and a set of witness gloves. The Oath Lamp cast a steady glow; its glass skin recorded breath tremor. A slender tally rod rested across an abacus slate, ready to stamp time against words.
He stopped before touching anything.
"Rope parity at dais," he said.
A proctor checked the nearest post. The rope twanged a finger flatter than the others. He adjusted tension; chalk marks were retraced clean. The stamp thudded once. The field was even.
His eyes caught a faint residue around the ink well's nib—a familiar, matte-black tint. A Null Crest signature. The nib itself leaned a hair off true—enough to cause a micro-lag in ink flow, desyncing breath from script.
He didn't accuse. He requested.
"Ribbon seal parity check. Glove integrity verification. Nib tip serial log."
The Oath Scribe blinked. The requests were lawful; more, they were inevitable.
Qin Ye activated the Witness Glove Writ.
A pulse of authority forced the Scribe and the attending aide to remove their current gloves. Fresh, sealed gloves were donned. The entire ink kit was swapped for a new, certified set in full view. The Oath Lamp brightened a shade as if pleased.
The Device Witness voiced a flat, mechanical line. "Glove and kit swap logged."
[Ding! Micro-Goal: "Glove the Ink."]
[Reward: +190,000 Spirit Stones; Parity Verification +2% (situational).]
The aide's eyes flickered toward a discreet tray under the desk. He palmed nothing. Because there was nothing left to palm.
⸻
He touched the scroll.
The wax-tie uncoiled with a quiet crackle. The parchment breathed open, edges springing into the lamp's light. The Oath Scribe set the tally rod at the ready, its tiles silent as teeth.
He activated the Oath Thread.
For twenty-five breaths, his voice was a steady instrument. The hall narrowed to the ink, the lamp, the ring of rope around the dais, the even grain of the parchment under his wrist. Breath counted 4-4-2. Cadence married to clause.
"I, Qin Ye, submit to public witness—" The Oath Lamp's note slid up, matching his anchor beat. "—and bind my steps to open routes under Device Witness—"
Mid-sentence, a pale wash tried to gray the live index pane beside him. A micro-throttle. The kind that softened a line just enough to seed a "format drift" wedge.
The Oath Thread held his cadence; the words remained true. Qin Ye opened his palm a fraction—enough to will the safeguard he'd primed on approach.
Public Anchor flared, clean and invisible to most eyes but loud to the log: any administrative action touching this oath would mirror a badge hash within ten breaths. The pane coughed out a hash mismatch and snapped back to crisp.
[Ding! Micro-Goal: "Oath Under Index."]
[Reward: +190,000 Spirit Stones; Declaration Steadiness +2% (situational).]
He reached the hinge phrase—where most candidates stumbled under pressure—and did not stumble. The Oath Lamp's tone and his chest beat were mirrors.
"—and I accept binding under open index, clause precedence public and present."
The tally rod clicked his last syllable.
Silence. Then a single exhale ran through the rows behind him, small as a page turning.
⸻
The registrar proxy raised a hand. "Format mismatch. Wording drift detected."
"Clause 7.2," Qin Ye said, as if reading a weather note. "On-frame replay and parity verification."
The Device Witness orb replayed the oath at half-speed. The ribbon seal was sampled—its parity held. The exchanged gloves' seal numbers matched ledger and time. The nib's serial sparkled in the log: the clean kit. No lag marks anywhere on the stroke intervals.
At the aide's feet, the discarded nib in the swap tray glowed. Qin Ye lifted a finger.
"Evidence Seal."
The master seal pulsed once, settling like frost over the tampered nib. A chain of luminous ticks linked it to the aide's tray and the desk shelf where it had slept. The scribe's hands twitched and stilled.
The appeal was denied. With no temper. With no sound but stamp on slate.
The stamp fell.
⸻
He did not leave the dais. He set the quill down, wiped the excess ink from the nib with the edge of a blotter, and faced the Oath Scribe again.
"Cloth parity on blotters," he said.
The scribe hesitated, then flipped the cloth edge. Clean. Logged. That was all. The petty wedges had died early. Nothing left but the form.
Behind them, a low bell swung in a quiet arc, measuring the room's breath.
A junior clerk approached with a fresh caution. "Glove residue check on the plate carrier is recommended," he offered, careful, offering a route that would send Qin Ye to the side and break the even arc of his exit.
"Clause 2.1," Qin Ye said, not moving his feet. "Route parity. Plate at rostrum."
The clerk nodded as if he had meant that.
⸻
The Oath Plate waited beneath a glass hood at the Registry Rostrum, its bronze face a cold mirror. Two stamps sat beside it like a pair of heavy eyes. A small brass arm lifted the hood with a soft hydraulic whisper.
The Rites Prefect watched from three steps up the dais, his face flat with professional weather. He raised a brow at the plate. The Oath Scribe's stamp cut down.
"Route A," the Prefect said, his voice as dry as chalk. "Oath recorded."
A pale echo line moved up the nearest index pane, linking Qin Ye's oath to the Hall of Rites route cartography. The string held steady; no greying, no drift. The bind was clean.
⸻
Lin Xiu passed an adjacent desk. Her glove swap had been logged, her recitation crisp. She kept a slow blink on the anchor beat and never lost the line. A silent nod passed between them like two pens drawing the same straight.
In the far lane, a rope marker trembled with a breath of slack. Qin Ye pointed without turning his head. The nearest proctor twanged it taut and retraced the chalk without needing to be told. The log stamped. The line restored.
At a second station, Yue Hong hesitated, an index hiccup on his entry. His fingers hovered above the plate. The Oath Lamp beside him pulsed—first breath, second breath, third—
"Index node on the second lamp pulse," Qin Ye said, low, enough to carry. Neither a command nor a favor. A clause under a breath.
Yue Hong's angle shifted one knuckle. The node took the input on the next beat. The pane stopped twitching and went smooth. He did not look back.
⸻
The registrar proxy was not done.
"Residual clause—9.1 rubric permits internal ceremonial classification at conclusion," he tried, pitching it toward the Prefect, aiming to snap the oath out of daylight once it had finished.
A live pane fluttered on the periphery, feigning a permission to gray the closing line.
"Clause 9.1 was bound in public," Qin Ye said, voice no different than before. "Oath integrity under open witness."
The Device Witness scrolled the earlier bind, footfall timecode and all. The grey collapsed in on itself like ash into water.
The Prefect did not look at the proxy. "The oath is public," he said, and closed a ledger with one finger.
⸻
On the upper gallery, He Rulong watched, a stillness that bent the light. The space around him felt like stone had grown gravity.
"Words are edges too," he said, almost to the pillar, and let the pillar keep the rest.
Qin Ye inclined his head a fraction. That was all the speech the hall could carry without tilting.
⸻
A clerk in neutral linen approached with a final procedural wedge. "Safety review pause recommended for Route A, due to increased incense density near the Oath Corridor."
"Clause 7.1," Qin Ye answered, watching the Oath Lamp's skin dim and brighten. "Audits are not interrupted by scheduled allocations."
The clerk's stamp fell into his own slate. The wedge rolled away like a seed that couldn't catch.
⸻
He lifted the Oath Plate. The bronze face was cold enough to draw heat from his palm. He felt the weight not as metal, but as an angle that finally agreed with his center.
The live index panes flashed a faint warning flicker. He felt, rather than saw, the attempt—Proc-Hub Δ testing a memo thread through 9.1's back door.
Hash Sight rippled across his vision: a brittle filament of "9.1" glowed, then a smaller, hungrier variant—β—reached.
The earlier public bind knocked the thread back before it could find purchase. It scraped across his field like a dry brush and went out.
⸻
[Ding! Optional Objective completed: "Complete the Oath with zero halts, zero format warnings."]
[Reward: Technique Chest (procedural/oath, unlocked).]
He accessed the chest.
Oath Cadence (future declarations gain a 5-breath grace period against index throttles) or Public Seal Step (first step after a public declaration reinforces its index presence for 10 breaths).
He chose Oath Cadence. The knowledge settled into his rhythm, a second skin over breath.
⸻
He turned to leave. The Oath Corridor ahead ran straight and narrow, ropes like rails, lamps whispering their round white notes. Chalk dust gathered at the stone seams. His steps made no noise; the hall made it for him.
A junior proctor in training pivoted to block him, half by accident, half by thought. Qin Ye moved one foot an inch and changed nothing else. The proctor found himself two inches to the side without knowing who had moved.
The Rites Prefect made a mark on a private slate: "Exit: zero cross-contact."
At the corridor's mouth, a fresh rope post creaked. He paused.
"Clause 4.2," he said to no one in particular. "Boundary refresh." It was done before the sentence finished. The log captured ink drying in air.
He didn't look back.
⸻
Back at the dais, the registrar proxy tried to reach the Oath Lamp control again. A proctor flicked the cover closed and locked it with a neat, bored snap. The proxy's hands went into the sleeves of his robe like birds going to sleep.
A clerk carried the tampered nib toward a sealed case. The Evidence Seal shimmered faintly, as if pleased to have something to hold.
Liu Shan wrote on his slate: "Oath: public; chain: clean. Attempted 9.1-β probe: deflected."
Stamp. Stamp. Stamp. Names rose and fell on the boards like fish breaking the surface and going under again.
⸻
[Ding! Main Quest updated — Hall of Rites: First Trial Gate — 1 day.]
Qin Ye stepped through the Oath Corridor exit. The lamp's breath cooled. The ropes lost their hum by a finger's width. The stone underfoot was clean, as if someone had wiped it before he arrived.
A final stamp thudded behind him, small and very final.
On the lintel, a ghostly tag flickered and vanished: 9.1-β.
He felt the place where it had been. He filed the angle in the quiet.
Then he walked on.