Darkness filled the cultivation room.
No lamps burned. No spirit-lights glimmered.
He sat unmoving at the center of the room, legs crossed, spine straight, hands resting loosely on his knees. His eyes were closed, lashes casting shadows against hollowed cheeks.
Another cycle completed.
Slowly, carefully, Zareck guided the raging remnants of spiritual energy inward, compressing them until they settled deep into muscle and bone. The pain had dulled with repetition, no longer sharp enough to steal his breath, but it never truly faded.
It lingered.
A reminder.
Three days.
He had lost track of how many times he had broken himself in that span. He only knew that he had stood up fewer times than he could count on one hand. He had eaten twice. Small, tasteless meals shovelled into his mouth without hunger. He had washed once, when the stench of sweat and blood became impossible to ignore.
And yet…
He wasn't starving.
That, more than anything else, unsettled him.
His body felt dense, heavy, as though it carried weight beyond flesh. The constant intake of spiritual energy, violent, excessive, unforgiving, had dulled his need for food to a faint ache at the back of his awareness. Even cultivators in the Body Forging Realm were known to require regular meals.
Zareck barely noticed the absence.
He inhaled slowly.
Crack.
A faint internal sound echoed through his frame as something settled into place. Muscle fibres tightened. Bone accepted strain that would have shattered it days ago.
He exhaled.
Silence returned.
Then—
Knock. Knock.
Zareck's eyes snapped open.
The sound cut through the stillness like a blade.
Someone was at the door.
His heart lurched. He surged to his feet too quickly, dizziness washing over him as blood rushed where it hadn't flowed properly in hours.
Crack. Crack. Pop.
His joints protested violently, sharp sounds tearing through the quiet as his body unfolded from stillness. Pain flared briefly, then vanished, swallowed by something stronger.
Zareck steadied himself against the wall, breath shallow.
"Krab?" he called hoarsely.
No answer.
His pulse quickened.
Old Man Krab hadn't returned since that night. Three days of silence. Three days of questions piling atop one another until they felt heavier than the pain.
Zareck crossed the room in long, uneven strides and reached the door. His hand hovered over the latch for a heartbeat.
Then he pulled it open.
Light flooded in.
Zareck squinted, eyes burning as they struggled to adjust. A figure stood just beyond the threshold, silhouetted against the daylight.
"Zareck," a familiar voice said. "There you are."
Zareck blinked.
"…Will?"
Will Keeps stood there, breathing a little harder than normal, clothes rumpled, hair slightly out of place. His usual easy smile flickered across his face, then faltered as his eyes focused properly.
"…By the ancestors," Will muttered. "What the hell happened to you?"
Zareck looked down at himself.
Only then did he notice.
His robes hung looser than they should have. His skin was pale, stretched tight over denser muscle. Faint lines, half-healed cracks and bruises long past their worst, mapped his forearms and neck.
He probably looked like a ghost that had learned how to breathe.
"I was cultivating," Zareck said simply.
Will stared at him for a long moment, then let out a shaky laugh. "You look like you tried to fight a mountain and lost. Twice."
Zareck stepped aside immediately. "Come in."
Will hesitated, then crossed the threshold.
The moment he entered the room, his expression changed.
The air was thick. Raw and unsettling. As if the room itself had been bruised and never given time to heal.
Will swallowed. "You've been in here the whole time, haven't you?"
Zareck closed the door behind him. "Mostly."
"How much is mostly?"
Zareck thought about it, then shrugged. "I stood up… a few times."
Will rubbed the back of his neck. "Figures."
There was a pause.
Then Will's gaze sharpened. "Elder Grigs' lecture already started."
Zareck stiffened. "What?"
"Yeah," Will said. "That's why I came to get you."
A flicker of something crossed Zareck's face. He hadn't noticed the passage of time at all.
"…Sorry," he said.
Will waved it off, but his eyes lingered on Zareck, searching. "You didn't answer the door earlier. I almost left."
Zareck's jaw tightened. "I didn't hear anything."
That earned him a long look.
"Zareck," Will said carefully, "you're not supposed to look like this after three days."
Zareck met his gaze.
"I know."
The silence stretched between them, heavy with unspoken questions. Zarek thought about it all. About Krab. About the manual. About what he had done to himself in the dark.
Will sighed. "You coming or not?"
Zareck glanced once toward the cultivation room, toward the faint, lingering presence of something half-tamed and half-awake within him.
Then he nodded. "Yeah. I'm coming."
Will smiled again, smaller this time. "Good. Because if you're going to turn yourself into whatever this is—" he gestured vaguely at Zareck, "—you might as well hear what a Core Realm elder has to say about it."
Zareck huffed a weak laugh and reached for his outer robe.
As they stepped out into the light together, the cultivation room fell silent once more.
They moved quickly through the inner streets, neither speaking.
The library loomed ahead, its tall stone walls etched with old formations meant to preserve silence and focus. The doors stood open.
No guards.
That should have been the first warning.
They stepped inside.
The moment their feet crossed the threshold, the world stopped.
Elder Grigs' voice cut off mid-sentence, the lingering echo of his last word dissolving into an oppressive stillness. Zareck felt it instantly. Dozens of gazes snapping toward them like drawn blades.
No.
More than dozens.
The vast library was packed.
Rows upon rows of youths sat cross-legged on the polished stone floor, jade slips resting before them. Roughly a hundred of them, give or take. At the edges of the hall stood several adults. Cultivation instructors, Zareck realized distantly, men and women with disciplined postures and sharp eyes.
And nearer the front…
Elders.
Zareck's spine tightened.
Elder Grigs stood at the centre dais, hands folded behind his back, long brows drawn low. His cultivation wasn't released, but it pressed down all the same, subtle and suffocating. The Core Realm wasn't nothing to scoff at.
Every eye in the room was on them.
Will stopped beside Zareck, posture relaxed, face unreadable.
Zareck swallowed and stepped forward instinctively, bowing deeply. Will followed a half-breath later, his bow just as low, just as respectful.
The silence stretched.
Elder Grigs' gaze lingered on Zareck first. Something flickered there. Recognition, faint and distant, like recalling a name heard years ago.
Then his eyes slid to Will.
They hardened.
"Well," Grigs said at last, his voice calm and sharp enough to cut stone. "It seems two disciples believe themselves above time."
Zareck opened his mouth. "Elder, I—"
"Silence," Grigs said mildly.
Zareck closed his mouth immediately, head still lowered.
"You are late," the elder continued, pacing slowly across the dais. "Late to a public lecture. Late to instruction meant to guide the first steps of your cultivation paths."
His gaze returned to Zareck. "Hans disciple, your tardiness reflects poorly, but at least you possess the courtesy to bow properly."
Zareck felt a knot tighten in his chest.
Then Grigs turned fully to Will.
"As for you," he said, voice sharpening, "your presence here at all already stretches the patience of this hall."
A murmur rippled through the crowd.
Will did not react.
"You arrive late," Grigs went on, "disrupt a lecture, and yet carry yourself as though this were a casual visit." His eyes narrowed. "Perhaps discipline was never properly instilled."
The implication hung heavy.
"Then again," Grigs added coolly, "one cannot expect refinement from servant stock."
Zareck's head snapped up. The frown came instantly, sharp and unmistakable. His fingers curled into fists at his sides.
Beside him, Will remained perfectly still. His expression did not change. If anything, he looked… relaxed.
Will bowed his head lower.
"This junior acknowledges Elder Grigs' words," he said evenly. "This was my failure. I accept any punishment."
Zareck stared at him.
Grigs studied Will for a long moment, clearly dissatisfied by the lack of fear. "You will reflect on your place," the elder said. "And be grateful that mercy is shown today."
Will did not argue. "Yes, Elder."
Zareck felt something sour twist in his stomach.
This was his fault.
If he hadn't—
Before Grigs could continue, a clear voice rose from within the seated crowd.
"Elder Grigs."
The room stiffened.
Zareck's eyes widened slightly as Malichi Hans stood up from among the disciples near the front. His posture was straight, his expression polite, but no doubt there was steel beneath the courtesy.
Grigs turned slowly.
"Speak," he said.
Malichi bowed, precise and formal. "This disciple believes your words just now were… inappropriate."
The air thinned.
It wasn't what Malichi said.
It was that he said it at all.
Whispers died instantly. Even the instructors shifted uneasily. To challenge an elder publicly, even gently, was no small thing. Especially in front of so many young disciples.
Grigs' eyes locked onto Malichi.
They stared at one another.
Seconds passed.
Zareck felt sweat bead at his temple.
Finally, Grigs spoke. "Explain."
Malichi lifted his head. "This lecture concerns cultivation foundations. To conflate lateness with lineage, and discipline with birth, risks misleading the younger generation about what truly strengthens a cultivator."
His words were measured. Respectful.
But unmistakably firm.
The silence grew heavier.
Grigs' expression did not change, but the pressure in the room shifted, subtle as a blade being sheathed halfway.
At last, the elder exhaled softly.
"Hmph," he said. "The clan head's son speaks boldly."
Some of the instructors relaxed, just a fraction.
Grigs waved a hand dismissively. "Very well. This matter ends here. Both latecomers will stand at the rear and listen."
He turned back toward the hall as if nothing of note had occurred.
But the adults in the room saw it clearly.
He had backed down.
Only slightly.
Zareck released a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.
Will straightened and stepped back without a word, moving to the edge of the hall. Zareck followed, his mind racing.
As they passed Malichi, their eyes met.
Malichi gave a faint, almost imperceptible smile.
Zareck felt a strange warmth in his chest.
The lecture resumed, Elder Grigs' voice flowing once more through the hall as though nothing had interrupted it.
But Zareck knew better.
Words had been spoken.
And some of them would not be forgotten.