Together, the three of them stood at the centre of the hall, no longer scattered sparks, but a fire ready to rise.
And far above, in the world now breathing Qi once more, countless eyes, human, beast, and god, turned toward the reawakened flame.
Time was passed by exploring the large grounds of the Void palace.
Kalavan stood alone in one of the palace's ancient armouries, a chamber untouched by time yet filled with its echoes. The room was circular, walls lined with elegant blackwood racks and engraved chests, each one holding weapons and armour that hadn't seen the light in millennia.
Dust did not cling to anything here. The air itself was reverent.
His eyes scanned rows of artifacts, greatswords with hilts wrapped in woven spirit-leather, morning stars forged from black volcanic steel, their heads etched with symbols of mourning and war. One in particular caught his eye, its spiked ball radiating a faint red pulse. Kalavan reached toward it, and the weapon hummed in return, as if acknowledging his presence.
He passed it by, for now.
A display of rapiers sat to his left. Each blade was elegant, refined. Their ivory handles glowed softly, inlaid with veins of green jade that pulsed with embedded wind essence. When he brushed a finger along one, the blade quivered, releasing a whisper of cutting air.
Further along the wall stood a set of daggers, short, curved, and forged from a metallic alloy that shimmered with blue and silver hues. The hilts were wrapped in frost-bound leather, still cool to the touch, suggesting an affinity with ice.
Kalavan's gaze shifted to a suit of armour nestled within a deep alcove. It was light, clearly built for mobility. Silver-grey with hints of emerald at the seams, it appeared to be crafted from wind-hardened plates. Small runes along the chest piece marked it as "Sky-forged", a technique lost to modern smiths.
Another mannequin held a heavier set, plated in obsidian with overlapping pauldrons etched in deep gold. A cape of scorched silk still hung from its shoulders, charred and whole at once, resistant to all but divine flame.
But Kalavan wasn't drawn to weight or spectacle.
He walked toward a rack near the rear of the room, where simpler gear lay, blades not less elegant, but less demanding.
A curved sword nestled beside twin daggers. No ornate carvings. No glowing runes. But their balance was perfect. The steel was unyielding. His fingers brushed the hilt of the sword, and the blade responded, shimmering faintly with residual Qi, the element of wind dancing across its edge in the form of barely visible ripples.
"I'll take these," he murmured, sliding the daggers into sheaths at his belt and lifting the sword to his side, this will do to practice with for now.
As he turned to leave, a gentle breeze stirred the room, no windows open, no wind present.
The palace had acknowledged his choice.
Kalavan, practiced with blade and instinct both, stepped from the armoury no longer as a bystander, but as a cultivator ready to carve his path.
He had completed his foundation overnight. Not in a burst of light or a divine proclamation, but in silence. In stillness. The restored array had offered him a path, and he had walked it. Not because of prophecy. Not because of lineage. Because he chose to.
And in choosing, the palace had opened its gates to him.
They regrouped in the central hall as the first rays of morning light crept through the towering windows. Each of them carried a backpack, filled not with treasure, but with knowledge, ancient scrolls, preserved manuals, cultivation texts, and relics proving that what they'd seen was no dream.
When they approached the Iron Doors, the change was immediate. The old seal unwound with a whisper rather than a rumble. The palace had come to acknowledge all of them as successors.
Sunlight streamed into the hallway, casting golden beams that danced across polished floors and living murals. A breeze followed, soft and pure, and the sound of birds singing in the wild.
They had returned to the surface to gaze upon the outside world.
But what greeted them was not the chaos of a broken ruin.
It was a garden.
The land around the Void Palace had transformed. Once broken ground and tangled roots now shimmered with spiritual life. Crystalline flowers bloomed where rubble once lay. Pathways of smooth stone wound between natural terraces lined with glowing trees. Spirit veins crisscrossed the terrain, pulsing softly with newly awakened Qi.
A sanctum reborn.
The collapse that had buried the palace had reshaped the region. Now it sat raised high, framed by flowering roots and jagged stone. Wind rustled through nearby canyons like a chorus.
Kalavan inhaled slowly. "Feels like the world itself is bowing to this place."
Ryu nodded. "Because it remembers the power this place contained."
Yan stood quietly at his side. "We should tell someone. About this. About what's coming."
Kalavan folded his arms. "The academy. The Royal Court. The Temple of Vesta. If the cultivation world sleeps through this, it won't wake up until it's too late."
As if on cue, the sky pulsed.
A ripple of energy rolled across the horizon, a wave of Qi so subtle it would go unnoticed by mortals, but to cultivators, it was the toll of a divine bell.
It echoed through mountain and forest, sea and sky.
It was the first of many.
In far-off corners of the world, the reaction had already begun.
On a remote continent, a dead wasteland bloomed. Cracked earth burst open with roots and stone pillars. New mountains rose where none stood before, sculpted by reawakened spirit veins.
Beasts once common, foxes, birds, cats, grew in size and strength. Dormant bloodlines within them activated, ancient genes long buried by time. A stag in the Kaar forest grew to the size of a wagon overnight, antlers aglow with silver light.
In a sunken ruin beneath the Southern Sea, cultists dressed in bone-white robes felt their wards crumble. They raised their heads. "The seal has been broken," one whispered. "We move at nightfall."
In the glass-towered city of Myar, a scribe dropped her quill as her scroll ignited with runes lost to the First Age. Across oceans, the shift was felt.
The world wasn't just waking, it was remembering.
Back in the palace, the trio had not yet left.
They prepared.
Kalavan's training had shifted. He focused now on agility and speed, refining the dual flow of sword and dagger combat. Under Yan's guidance, and with Ryu's pressure in sparring, he began to shape the wind.
His element.
It came to him in whispers, not storms. A breeze behind his step, a current guiding his blade.
"Don't force it," Ryu said as they sparred one morning. "Let it carry you."
Kalavan grunted, dodging a sweeping flame. "Easy for you to say, fire-boy."
But his footwork lightened. His strikes flowed.
Yan watched from the side, a smile on her lips.
While Kalavan trained, Ryu and Yan explored deeper layers of the Void Palace.
In the main celestial vault, they mapped the stars, constellations that no longer existed in the current sky. In the scroll archives, they studied combat formations and ancient philosophies. Yan loved the hours they spent with ink-stained fingers and open texts. Ryu, once shy, spoke freely now, debating theory, drawing diagrams, laughing as they compared notes.
He was no longer the quiet student trailing behind.
He stood at her side.
"You've changed," she said one night as they sat outside beneath the glowing canopy of spirit trees.
Ryu turned toward her, the firelight casting his features in gold. "Is that bad?"
"No," she replied. "I thought you were always strong deep down, but now… you know it."
He scratched the back of his neck, eyes drifting upward. "I'm still not the strongest, or the smartest."
"You're the most honest," she said softly.
Ryu's chest tightened. He looked at her, truly looked and saw not the princess, not the heir to a kingdom, but the girl who laughed when he mispronounced ancient terms, who painted beside him in silence, who burned brighter than any flame.
Yan saw the look in his eyes.
But neither spoke.
The moment was enough.
As the weeks passed, the Void Palace became more than sanctuary. It became home.
They rotated through the Void Room to continue advancing. Kalavan remained slower than the others, but steadier with each passing week. His foundation deepened, his wind techniques grew sharper, his presence quieter, but more dangerous.
Yan rose to Stage Seven of the Elemental Realm. Her phoenix flames began to pulse with intent, forming symbols mid-air when she meditated. Her body and Qi moved in perfect balance.
Ryu reached Stage Nine. But the final step, Ascension, remained out of reach. He studied alone often, refining his void pocket.
Now being able to create a void pockets in which he can store equipment, this was a specialty which the void emperor had left to him directly as a descendant, refining his void pocket took effort to allow it to work properly but with the continuous practice he could expand the size of this pocket he created in the void.
Now, it was larger. Two cubic meters had become three and a half. With each refinement, he gained more control. He learned to fold time within it slightly, keeping herbs fresh longer, or condensing air to survive brief storage use.
It was still fragile, but it was his.
A soul-tethered realm, hidden between dimensions.
One night, Yan stumbled across a scroll in the yin-yang chamber. Her eyes scanned it, and she flushed red.
It detailed dual cultivation: an ancient method of spiritual harmony between yin and yang cultivators. If done with perfect balance, emotional, spiritual, and physical, the pair could temporarily surpass mortal limits.
She snapped the scroll shut and shoved it back into the shelf.
Too risky. Too intimate.
Too... tempting?
Several months had passed since they first fell through the earth.
Now, standing again atop the palace steps, they gazed out over the wild terrain of a changed world.
Mountains lined the east.
Mist-draped canyons split the west.
And far to the north, where the sky shimmered with spectral light, they saw it.
A beacon.
A signal from another palace..
Their journey was far from over.
But they would walk it together.