Sect Master Yuan sat back down on his jade throne, the four large screens hovering perfectly around him displayed different angles of the Proving Sanctum where the two young men faced off against each other.

  Wei Lin opened with an aggressive attack, flames surrounded by the dark energy he’d developed in the last couple of days. Ke Yin responded with his typical mobility tactics, swarms of green light surrounding him as he teleported between various seeds.

  “Why isn’t he using that other energy?” Elder Meng asked, looking confused at the screen. “We’ve seen him use the red and blue energies before. Wouldn’t this be the perfect time to use it for an opponent like Wei Lin?”

  “I think he is saving those energies for a decisive moment,” Elder Wan replied. “Those red and blue energies must take a lot of spiritual energy to use.”

  “Or maybe he’s finally learned to hold back,” Elder Zhao said with a grunt. “Flashy attacks are great for getting people’s attention, but fundamentals count much more in a long fight.”

  Yuan said nothing, but he didn’t agree with their analysis.

  He could see what really was causing Ke Yin to be cautious.

  As the Sect Master looked at Ke Yin’s spiritual signature with his Karmic Sight, he saw concern emanating from Ke Yin. Not for himself, but for his opponent. With every marketplace technique that Wei Lin used, Ke Yin’s aura flickered with worry.

  The boy was worried about Wei Lin absorbing those energies.

  But why?

  Was it because he didn’t want to share his powers?

  Or was it something else?

  The Sect Master’s eyes narrowed slightly as he analyzed the options. Everything he had seen of Ke Yin over the last week led Yuan to believe that Ke Yin was not selfish. The young disciple had shown actual concern for others, helping people in the Lower Realms without expecting anything in return.

  No, there had to be another explanation.

  Dangerous.

  Those energies must be dangerous to anyone who hasn’t developed enough spiritually to handle them.

  That explanation fit with what Yuan had seen of Ke Yin.

  The boy was a world walker.

  Energies from foreign realms often came with risks that natives of those realms had adapted to handle, but which could prove catastrophic to outsiders.

  Even though Ke Yin was fighting with so many self-imposed restrictions, he was doing quite well. His combat instincts were sharp, and his techniques were solid. He was showing good strategic thinking for a young person. This boded well for Ke Yin’s overall development as a cultivator.

  As both combatants pushed their limits, the battle grew in intensity. Wei Lin was using creative ways to utilize the marketplace techniques. Yuan had to admit that the way the merchant could absorb, convert, and redirect different types of spiritual energy was a true sign of creativity and talent.

  What impressed Yuan the most was what happened next.

  Wei Lin’s massive hand construct, a technique that combined multiple elemental stalls into something approaching Elemental Realm power, was met with Ke Yin’s manifested tree branch. The silvery construct held its ground against the chaos of energy generated by Wei Lin’s constructs.

  “That’s interesting,” Elder Wan said. “Partial manifestation of an inner world construct. The boy’s mastery of his cultivation method continues to surprise.”

  “It’s more than that,” Yuan said quietly. “Watch the flow of energy.”

  The other elders leaned forward and focused their spiritual senses on the screen. Many of them had enough spiritual strength to see the underlying currents of the battle, although Yuan suspected none of them fully understood what they were seeing.

  The tree branch wasn’t just manifesting; it was living. Not in the sense of a normal plant, but with the deep vitality that came from something grown in soil nourished by forces beyond this world. Yuan had seen his own master use this technique many times before, and he knew just how powerful it could become.

  When Ke Yin struck Wei Lin for the final time, sending him crashing into the far wall, Yuan believed the fight was over.

  But after a brief pause, Wei Lin started laughing.

  “Something’s wrong,” Elder Meng said. “That energy signature…”

  Yuan sensed it as well. The spiritual energy that Wei Lin was generating was changing, and it became something alien and threatening. After the boy stood up, his wounds healed at a rapid rate, and Yuan’s suspicions were confirmed.

  “Red and blue energies,” Elder Zhao gasped. “He has access to Ke Yin’s power sources.”

  “How did he manage that?” Elder Wan asked. “When did he have the opportunity to steal them?”

  “The Fallen Realm,” Yuan replied simply. The other elders looked at him, and he explained further. “When the shapeshifter exploded with those energies, Wei Lin absorbed them into his marketplace as a defense mechanism to protect himself and his friends from elimination. Ever since then, the energy has been poisoning him.”

  A few of the elders’ voices rose simultaneously as they expressed their concerns and speculations. Yuan put up his hand, and immediately the room fell silent.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  “So, now we know why Ke Yin avoided those techniques,” Yuan continued. “Not because he was being selfish, nor because he was tactically cautious. It was to protect his friend.”

  Elder Chen Yong nodded slowly. “He knew Wei Lin could absorb them. But more than that…”

  “He knew they were poisonous,” Yuan finished. “To anyone without the proper cultivation system to handle them correctly.”

  This new perspective changed everything Wei Lin had done recently. His increasingly aggressive behavior, his flippant disregard for the lives of his opponents, and his growing disconnection from normal social relationships — all of those actions were caused by the corruption of forces he didn’t understand or control.

  “Do you think we should interfere?” Elder Meng asked quietly.

  “No,” Yuan replied. “Ke Yin made his choice to face this challenge. We will honor that decision.”

  On the screen, Wei Lin confirmed the elders’ suspicions as to how he had acquired access to the energies, and he then transformed into something nearly unrecognizable. When he launched his next attack, the elders could feel the sheer force behind it.

  But Ke Yin was no longer holding back.

  His counterattack was quick and effective. With a single Blink Step, he bypassed Wei Lin’s defenses, and his blow landed with sufficient force to knock Wei Lin off balance. Ke Yin’s next few moves were a showcase of martial skill that had several elders leaning forward with interest.

  “His foundation is impressive,” Elder Wan said. “See how smooth he transitions from one move to the next. There is little to no wasted motion, and he uses very little energy.”

  “The boy has been studying,” Elder Chen Yong said with approval. “That series of movements; I see elements from at least four different schools of combat.”

  Yuan watched Ke Yin dismantle Wei Lin’s augmented abilities with growing satisfaction. Red and blue energies might make Wei Lin faster and stronger, but they could not give him experience or wisdom. Ke Yin had both in abundance for a young cultivator.

  The battle reached its climax when Wei Lin partially manifested his inner world.

  “Inner world partial manifestation,” Elder Zhao exclaimed. “At Qi Condensation Realm. That should be nearly impossible before Stellar Realm.”

  “Beyond Heaven cultivation methods operate differently,” Yuan replied as he studied the dark cathedral that had enveloped the Proving Sanctum. “Although this is more impressive than most.”

  The cathedral was unsettling to look at: a twisted building constructed from what appeared to be black market items, with windows displaying images of spiritual commerce. However, what captured Yuan’s attention was its basic nature.

  Scholars had identified three types of Beyond Heaven cultivation methods based on their potential:

  The first category was the most common.

  Mortal Transcendent methods broke the normal rules of cultivation yet still operated within comprehensible frameworks. They provided impossible combinations of elements or granted abilities that didn’t normally exist but followed an internal logic that was understandable to mortals.

  The second category, Celestial Transcendent methods, operated on principles that normal cultivators couldn't fully grasp. They touched on fundamental forces of reality itself, allowing practitioners to manipulate concepts rather than just energy. Because of the complexity of these methods, their users were frequently unaware of what they were manipulating.

  The third and highest category Primordial Transcendent methods dealt with the foundational aspects of existence itself. Users of these methods could modify reality at the conceptual level, but the cost was usually their humanity.

  Yuan had always known that the World Tree Sutra was a Beyond Heaven rank cultivation method, but he had been unsure of which category it belonged to. The Sutra emphasized growth, adaptation, and connection to multiple realities, suggesting that it was either a high-level Celestial Transcendent or maybe even a Primordial Transcendent method.

  Wei Lin’s Merchant’s Path was clearly a Celestial Transcendent method. The idea of creating a spiritual marketplace that could trade in concepts and realities rather than just energy was far beyond what most cultivators could understand. But what was most remarkable about this method was that it demonstrated evolutionary potential; it might actually evolve from Celestial to Primordial Transcendent rank under the right conditions.

  Now, it was time to see if this was one of those situations.

  The spiritual tentacles extending from the dark marketplace were not trying to drain energy alone. They were trying to establish a permanent link, a path that would give Wei Lin continuous access to those red and blue power sources.

  Ambitious. Clever. And incredibly foolish.

  “He’s trying to create a direct link to Ke Yin’s cultivation base,” Elder Meng said with growing alarm. “If something goes wrong…”

  “It already has,” Yuan replied. His spiritual senses detected the instant when something vast and ancient reacted to the invasion of its territory.

  Genesis Seed’s reaction was absolute.

  Yuan felt the reverberation of its fury even through the viewing screens; a presence so old and powerful that Yuan’s own Civilization Realm cultivation was trivial by comparison. Whatever force protected Ke Yin’s inner world had detected Wei Lin’s attempted theft and retaliated with proportionate ferocity.

  Wei Lin’s cathedral began to collapse rapidly. Before the catastrophe could completely destroy it, he quickly cut away the infected portions of his cultivation base, preventing complete contamination. A desperate act that would have left most cultivators permanently damaged, but one that likely his father would find a treasure to help him recover from.

  When the boy finally collapsed, his voice barely audible through the Formation Arrays, Yuan was able to hear the words that confirmed his assumptions.

  “Save me.”

  So, the red and blue energies were indeed poisonous for anyone who hadn’t cultivated a proper framework to safely process them. Fortunately, Yuan had prevented the other elders from experimenting with samples. The corruption might have driven them to madness or worse.

  “The boy made his choice,” Elder Zhao said coldly as they watched Ke Yin kneel beside his unconscious friend. “Power always comes with a price.”

  “But he was manipulated by forces that were beyond his comprehension,” Elder Chen Yong countered. “How can we condemn him for corruption he couldn’t recognise?”

  “Because wisdom means knowing when to pursue power and when to hold back,” Elder Wan said. “Wei Lin chose to gamble with energies he couldn’t hope to comprehend.”

  “In the Fallen Realm, he had no choice but to absorb the energies, or else the backlash would have eliminated both him and his friends,” Elder Meng countered.

  Yuan listened to the debate of the elders with half his attention. The other half was focused on something much more troubling — the karma connecting the two boys.

  When Yuan initially examined the spiritual signatures of Ke Yin and Wei Lin, their bond had been merely the ordinary ties of friendship and shared experience. Strong, but not unusual for cultivators who had fought side by side.

  These connections had grown much stronger, and in a manner that was far more complex.

  The corruption that Wei Lin had absorbed, the spiritual link he had tried to establish, and the profound changes to both of their cultivation systems — all of these events had connected their destinies in a manner that would be nearly impossible to untangle.

  And somewhere in this web of potential futures, Yuan could see threads that led to decisions that would dramatically change each boy.

  This story was far from over. If anything, today's battle had been merely the first chapter of a much larger tale.

  The portal began to open, and a few moments later, Ke Yin stepped through carrying the unconscious form of his friend.

  Wei Lin appeared pale and frail, nothing like the ferocious predator that had created the dark cathedral minutes before. Ke Yin's expression was neutral as he walked towards the staging area, but Yuan could see the weight of responsibility falling on the young man's shoulders.

  The boy knew, possibly better than anybody else, that his friend's fate was now forever linked to his own.

  Yuan felt a brief moment of sympathy for Ke Yin.

  While power always came with responsibilities, few cultivators were burdened with having to advance their own cultivation while bearing the weight of their friend’s corruption.

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