The tunnels beneath the Inner Court became Arin's world a realm of darkness, foul scents, and the muffled rhythm of the arrogant Sect above. He spent the next twelve hours in a state of hyper-vigilance, using his hidden niche as a hub for intelligence gathering.
With his ear pressed to the foundation stone, the thick, mundane sounds of the Inner Court became his map. He listened to the soft footfalls of the disciples, the distant chanting of cultivation mantras, and the clatter of porcelain from the meal deliveries. He pieced together the floor plan from these sounds, confirming the location of the Pill Garden's secondary storage: two stories above him, near the alchemy workshops.
The voices of the maintenance staff lower-tier cultivators performing sanitation duties were the most valuable. They complained about a recent blockage in a main runoff pipe that serviced the Pill Garden's overflow, near where the Cloud-Drifting Bloom was being temporarily housed. Arin used the complaints and the specific location of the pipe's cold resonance to pinpoint his vertical target with chilling precision.
The target pipe was a massive, ancient lead conduit, nearly a yard in diameter, designed to flush corrosive alchemical waste. It was heavily reinforced with a simple, brute-force earthen core, immune to conventional strength. But Arin possessed something far beyond simple brute force: Bone-Forged density.
He crawled through the sluggish sewage to the base of the pipe. He reached up, pressing both hands against the cold, immense surface. He didn't focus on pulling or striking; he focused on compressing himself and the structure.
He activated his Bone-Forged essence, channeling his internal strength into his skeleton, making his body an unyielding wedge of pure, low-frequency pressure. His muscles groaned, burning against the force. But his bones forged and reinforced by the Divine Mark held absolutely firm, pushing with the slow, relentless force of a geological shift. He focused on the narrow seam where two sections of the pipe were joined by a rusted, iron clamp.
The pressure built over long, agonizing minutes. There was no crash, no audible splintering. Instead, the iron clamp holding the pipe sections together began to creak, then flow under the pressure, warping the metal. A hair-thin fissure, almost invisible, appeared in the foundation stone beside the pipe, stressed by the warping pressure.
Arin held the pressure, forcing the narrow fissure to widen fractionally, just enough for a hand to squeeze into. He retracted his body, panting, the immense physical drain leaving him shaking. He had successfully created a silent, almost undetectable path upward—a tiny defect in the Sect's massive structure that only a master thief could exploit.
Exhausted, Arin retreated to his niche. He had created the path; now he needed the final intel on the defense. He forced a connection to the goddess, the familiar, searing cold replacing the physical pain.
"Seliora. The Cloud-Drifting Bloom. Its value is astronomical. The storage will be guarded by more than just disciples. Tell me the formations I face. And the herb itself, is it stable?"
Seliora's fragmented essence shimmered in the black void of his mind, her form appearing strained, as if the sheer spiritual density of the Inner Court was painful to her.
"The herb is volatile, Arin. It is not grown, but gathered from the chaotic heart of the Triallands. Its pollen is a potent narcotic, capable of disrupting the Qi Circulation of cultivators up to the Aperture stage. If inhaled, it will paralyze your mortal body within seconds."
She paused, then focused on the defense. "The Sect has relied on the Life-Sensing ward for high-value organic goods since the last war. It is a crude, powerful formation that detects any substantial reservoir of living spiritual energy a dense Qi core, a powerful, active soul."
She projected a simple, profound truth:
"This is their fatal arrogance. They focus only on those who possess power, not those who possess potential. Your mortal core is empty, constantly drained by my Mark. You are weak, Arin, and that weakness is your greatest shield against their detection. The ward will see the massive energy of the Bloom, but it may slide right over your empty core."
The vision ended, leaving Arin trembling with revelation. The greatest defense of the Inner Court was geared toward catching arrogant, high-level infiltrators whose active Qi signatures would trigger the alarm.
Arin was no reservoir; he was a constantly leaking vessel, barely holding his life force, utterly devoid of the rich, living Qi the formation was searching for. His emptiness, his poverty of power, was his perfect camouflage.
He looked up at the fissure he had silently forced. The time for caution was over. He was going to rise through the filth, exploit his own destitution, and steal the greatest spiritual treasure the Duskwind Sect possessed.