Kaelan's five conscious threads descend together, slipping into the core of the flying ship like rivers returning to the sea.
They do not clash.
They do not dominate.
They weave.
At the centre of the composite array, the newborn spiritual will trembles—simple, instinctive, barely aware of its own existence.
Kaelan does not erase it.
He refines it.
His conscious threads wrap around the fragile will, stabilising it, compressing it, restructuring its function.
The will cries out—not in pain, but in confusion—as its authority is gently stripped and reshaped, reduced from master to foundation.
The ship shudders.
A wave of pressure ripples outward.
Its aura slips.
From Spiritual Treasure—
down to Spiritual Tool.
The gathered crowd gasps in unison.
Faces pale.
Eyes widen.
Murmurs erupt like sparks in dry grass.
"Did it fail?"
"The ship's grade dropped!"
"What did Lord Kong do?"
Before fear can take shape, the air changes.
The ship hums again.
Deeper.
Denser.
The aura surges upward, no longer wild, no longer expansive, but terrifyingly concentrated.
Spiritual Tool—
Spiritual Treasure—
then stabilising at the peak.
At the same time, the colossal flying ship begins to shrink.
Not collapse.
Not break.
Shrink.
Its hull folds inward with impossible elegance.
Arrays compress without distortion.
The mast shortens.
The fans retract.
The spiritual pool condenses into a single radiant point.
In moments, the massive sky-dominating vessel becomes no larger than a palm.
Kaelan steps forward.
The crowd falls silent.
The miniature flying ship floats down gently and settles above his hand, spinning slowly like a living artefact.
Its aura is calm.
Obedient.
Complete.
Then it fades—
slipping into Kaelan's body without resistance.
For half a breath, the world stands still.
Then cheers erupt.
The field explodes with sound—roars of awe, laughter, disbelief, reverent shouts.
They do not understand what they have witnessed.
They only know they have seen something that overturns every rule they believed in.
Later, deep within the royal palace garden, silence returns.
Moonlight spills across stone paths and quiet ponds.
Kaelan stands alone beneath a flowering tree.
He exhales.
From his chest, a faint glow emerges.
The flying ship appears again—but now it is no larger than a toy, hovering gently in the air.
Its surface gleams with refined runes, flawless and alive.
Then mana pours out.
The ship unfolds—not into wood and metal, but into form and presence.
Light stretches, reshapes, and condenses.
An identical figure steps forward.
Same face.
Same aura.
Same calm eyes.
Kaelan's third clone opens its eyes.
The clone says nothing.
It reaches into Kaelan's storage ring, retrieving several spiritual treasures refined long ago—tools prepared for this moment.
They vanish into its possession.
Without ceremony, the clone rises.
It steps into the air, accelerates, and becomes a streak of light heading eastward—
toward the Silver Treasure House.
Kaelan watches until the sky swallows it.
Only then does he turn away.
Every second of Kaelan's memory streams upward through the thin earpiece resting against his skin, converted into pure spiritual information and transmitted into the transmission ball suspended high in the sky.
Images, sensations, calculations, failures, refinements, pressures, realisations—nothing is lost.
The moment the process stabilises, the transmission ball pulses once and disperses the data across invisible channels.
Far away, within the Tang Kingdom capital, his clones receive everything.
At the Wizard Academy castle, spiritual light flickers inside sealed chambers as foreign memories pour into waiting minds.
The experience is seamless.
There is no shock.
No rejection.
The knowledge slots into place as if it has always been there.
The flight of the ship.
The battlefield in the east.
The pressure that froze two armies.
The refining of the ship's will.
The shrinking.
The fusion.
The birth of the third clone.
Understanding settles like dust after a storm.
Moments later, the first clone leaves his meditation chamber and walks toward the inner laboratory tower.
The Wizard Academy castle hums quietly, arrays embedded into its walls responding to his presence.
Inside the laboratory, the second clone works among rows of experimental crops, his sleeves rolled up, fingers glowing faintly as he adjusts growth arrays embedded in the soil.
Spiritual plants sway gently, leaves shimmering with contained essence.
The first clone steps inside.
"Are we waiting for the main body to refine us a large Spiritual Treasure?" he asks, his tone calm but direct.
The second clone does not look up.
"What are we going to do?" the second clone says while adjusting a nutrient formation.
"We don't have the energy to refine a Spiritual Treasure-grade instrument, and we don't have the needed materials either."
The first clone walks closer, eyes sharp.
"The main body has already sent the third clone east," he says.
"He is carrying spiritual treasures we no longer need."
The second clone pauses, then straightens slightly.
"He plans to auction them at the Silver Treasure House," the first clone continues.
"He will convert them into materials suitable for refining large-scale Spiritual Treasures that can give birth to their own will."
The second clone finally turns.
"There is a difference," he says slowly, "between Spiritual Treasures with will and those without."
"There is," the first clone agrees.
"For clones," the second clone says, "what we require is a Spiritual Treasure with will."
The first clone nods.
"What if we refine it with first-grade materials?" he asks.
The second clone shakes his head almost immediately.
"The grade of material matters less than the structure," he says.
"The most important component of a Spiritual Treasure with will is the spiritual pool."
He gestures toward a schematic hovering above a worktable.
"For that," he continues, "we need Crystal Iron—material capable of trapping, compressing, and stabilising spiritual energy until it reaches a density where awareness can form."
The first clone watches the schematic silently.
"The main body already confirmed something," he says after a moment.
"The flying ship's will did not form because of the hull, the arrays, or the fans."
The second clone listens closely.
"It formed because spiritual energy gathered in sufficient quantity," the first clone continues, "and behaved like an elemental spirit."
He taps the schematic where the core is marked.
"The spiritual pool was the core," he says.
"Once energy density crossed a threshold, a will naturally emerged."
The second clone exhales.
"That explains the timing," he says.
"The will formed only after the pool began condensing liquid spiritual energy."
"Yes," the first clone replies.
The second clone frowns.
"We don't have enough Crystal Iron," he says.
"We have some, but not enough to build a full spiritual pool."
The first clone smiles faintly.
"I know," he says.
The second clone studies his expression.
"But I have a way," the first clone continues, "to build a spiritual pool with the little Crystal Iron we already have."
The second clone's brow furrows.
"How?" he asks.
The first clone does not answer immediately.
Instead, he turns and begins walking toward the exit.
"I will show you," he says.
"This cannot be explained with words alone."
The second clone hesitates.
"No," he says.
"I am working."
The first clone stops at the doorway and looks back.
"You can work later," he says evenly.
"This cannot be told—it has to be shown."
Silence hangs between them.
The second clone glances at the crops, then at the suspended data constructs slowly dimming as he powers them down.
He sighs.
He closes the data centre arrays with a wave of his hand.
"Fine," he says, stepping away from the worktable.
He follows the first clone out of the laboratory.
They walk through the inner corridors of the Wizard Academy castle, passing sealed rooms filled with humming artefacts, incomplete arrays etched into stone, and experimental constructs frozen mid-refinement.
Once outside the castle, the second clone finally speaks.
"Where are we going?"
"To the palace complex," the first clone replies without slowing.
The second clone frowns slightly as they continue forward.
The palace complex is heavily guarded, layered with ancient arrays, and filled with relics from generations of Tang Kingdom rulers—but refining a spiritual pool with limited Crystal Iron does not immediately connect to any of it.
He follows anyway.
An hour later, their carriage comes to a stop in front of the main palace gates.
The massive doors stand open, officials and guards moving in orderly silence beneath carved stone pillars and glowing inscription lines.
The first clone steps down.
The second clone follows.
They enter the palace without hesitation, their presence acknowledged but not challenged.
Inside, Li Xueyao pushes open the doors of her office and steps into the corridor, Meilin close behind her.
She rubs her forehead lightly.
Even after becoming a Bronze-stage Official Wizard, the weight of royal administration has not lessened—if anything, it has grown heavier.
Documents.
Budgets.
Border reports.
Wizard deployments.
At that moment, two familiar figures pass through the corridor ahead.
Her steps slow.
Kong Wuya's clones.
Her brows knit together as she watches them walk past, their expressions calm, their pace unhurried.
"Why are they here?" she mutters.
The question lingers because, since returning from the Chen Kingdom, the first clone has stayed almost entirely within the Wizard Academy, and the second clone rarely leaves it at all.
They are energy bodies.
They cannot spend the night with her.
She does not consider them her husband.
She would not allow such closeness even if they asked.
And more than that—
She has heard the rumours.
Kong Wuya has taken a lover in the Chen Kingdom.
The thought leaves a faint tightness in her chest, quickly buried under layers of reason and pride.
Meilin, walking beside her, speaks quietly, echoing what Li Xueyao is already thinking.
"Without sufficient reason, they wouldn't return to the royal palace," she says.
"And they're heading toward the inner secret rooms."
Li Xueyao's eyes narrow slightly.
"The inner secret rooms…" she repeats.
Those chambers are not part of the normal palace.
They house sealed relics, legacy formations, and artefacts that even most royal family members are forbidden to access.
Her curiosity sharpens.
"Let's follow them," she says.
Meilin nods without hesitation.
They turn and begin walking after the two clones, keeping a measured distance as the corridor grows quieter, the walls thicker, the inscriptions older.
The further they go, the fewer servants appear.
The air itself feels heavier.
Ahead, the first clone slows slightly, stopping before a heavily sealed passageway marked with layered royal sigils.
The second clone looks up at the ancient seals, his earlier doubts deepening into focused attention.
Behind them, Li Xueyao and Meilin come to a quiet halt at the corridor's edge, watching.
Questions gather in Li Xueyao's mind.
What are they seeking in the palace?
What does this have to do with refining?
And why here, of all places?
The sealed passage hums softly.
And the moment stretches—
Just before something long untouched is about to be opened.
END.