The air in the clearing of the Silent Bamboo Pavilion was still, heavy with humidity and the sweet scent of damp earth. In the center, a training dummy reinforced with iron bands and low-level defensive talismans waited, impassive. It was the kind of target the Jade Ring disciples used to test the power of their strikes.
THWACK!
The sound wasn't a loud crash, but a dry, compact thud. Xiao Yue's wooden sword struck the dummy's torso cleanly. Her movement had been flawless: the rotation of her hip, the alignment of her shoulder, the flow of Qi from her dantian to the sword's tip... it was all a model of efficiency, a perfect dance that would have made any master weep with envy.
But the result was disappointing. The wooden sword bounced off, leaving barely a shallow dent in the hardened wood. The impact's energy dissipated with a dull hum, lacking the raw force needed to break through the defenses.
Xiao Yue stepped back, her chest rising and falling with controlled breaths, but her fists were clenched in frustration. She looked at the insignificant mark and then at her own hand, which vibrated with residual energy.
"I don't understand," she said aloud, her voice cutting through the morning silence. She turned to the figure watching from the pavilion's shadow, where a steaming breakfast tray had been left. "My control is perfect, Kenji! The execution was flawless, I felt the energy flow without a single leak! Why don't I have the strength to break it? Why is my best strike still so... weak?"
Kenji, who now personally supervised Xiao Yue's morning sessions thanks to the optimization of his duties as an Analyst, didn't answer right away. He set his notation tablet on the stone table, approached with his usual calm, and raised a hand.
"Stop. Your analysis of the problem is incorrect," he said, his voice as flat and objective as ever. "It's not a failure of your software, but a limitation of your current hardware."
Xiao Yue frowned. "Hardware? What are you talking about?"
"The path of cultivation," Kenji explained, "is like building a tower. An ascent through ten great realms of power. Each realm isn't just 'more strength'; it's a fundamental upgrade of the entire system. An update of the base architecture." He stopped beside her, his gaze fixed not on the girl, but on an invisible concept he seemed to be sketching in the air.
"The first realm, Qi Condensation, is the foundation. You learn to gather the bricks, to collect ambient energy and give it form. That's where you were before. It's where most low-level disciples are, splashing in the mud and hoping they have enough bricks to start building."
Xiao Yue nodded slowly, remembering the feeling of having chaotic, dispersed Qi inside her.
"The second realm," Kenji continued, "is Core Formation. This is where the real qualitative leap happens. You don't just stack the bricks; you fuse them under immense pressure until you forge a solid, dense block in your dantian. A core. That core becomes a high-density battery. You no longer need to gather energy for every strike; you draw it from a stable, potent source. The Jade Ring disciples, like your future opponent, already have this core. That's why their power is denser, heavier."
The revelation hit Xiao Yue with the force of a sledgehammer. "So, what does that mean for me?"
"You, Xiao Yue," Kenji said, and for the first time, she detected an almost clinical hint of approval in his voice, "have just begun to build that block. Your Qi has started to solidify. You are in the Initial Stage of the Core Formation Realm. It's a critical system upgrade. Your body and meridians are reconfiguring themselves to handle this new energy density." He paused, giving her time to process. "You can't force more raw power right now because your system is, literally, in the middle of a reconstruction. It would be counterproductive. Like trying to run a high-computation program while installing a new operating system. You would only cause a catastrophic crash."
Xiao Yue's frustration didn't vanish, but it changed shape. It was no longer the helpless anger at her own weakness, but the lucid understanding of a technical barrier. A problem that could be analyzed.
"Zian," she mentioned softly, her brother's name always present like a storm cloud on the horizon.
"As you mentioned, Zian has already connected his core to his mind. He is in the third realm: Spiritual Connection," Kenji confirmed. "That is why his control seems so instantaneous and arrogant. However, you must not get frustrated. Frustration is an inefficient emotional process that only consumes mental processing cycles and delays your performance. Sooner or later, with my guidance, you will overcome that inefficiency."
Kenji walked away and picked up the wooden sword Xiao Yue had dropped. He weighed it, not as a weapon, but as a tool.
"This leads us to the strategic conclusion," he said, handing the sword back to her. "You cannot win this challenge by forcefully tearing down your opponent's wall. His wall, his Qi Core, is thicker and denser than yours. Period. It's a hardware fact. That is why our strategy is not force, but precision demolition. We will not attack his wall; we will attack its mortar. We will use logic to exploit the cracks in his architecture."
With that declaration, the physical training session ended, but the day's real lesson had just begun. Xiao Yue spent the rest of the morning in deep introspection. The hierarchy of power, which had always been a vague concept of "strong" or "weak," now had a clear structure in her mind. It was an organizational chart. And she, at last, understood which rung she was on and why the next one seemed so far away.
That night, Kenji found her for their strategic analysis session. He found her sitting by the stone table, her gaze lost in the darkness of the bamboo forest.
"How do we find those cracks?" she asked without preamble. Her voice was serious, that of a CEO facing a seemingly insurmountable market problem. "If a Jade Ring disciple's system is inherently more robust, how am I supposed to 'demolish it with precision'?"
Kenji didn't answer immediately. Instead, he pulled a scroll from his sleeve. It wasn't one of his efficiency diagrams or one of his task lists. It was a handwritten copy of the scroll he had taken from the library, the one that smelled of danger and arcane knowledge. He unrolled it slowly on the table.
Principles of Disruptive Qi Channeling.
The title seemed to whisper in the stillness of the night.
"I have spent the last few nights analyzing this document," Kenji said, his voice lower than usual. "It's... anomalous. Unlike other manuals, this one doesn't focus on self-optimization. It doesn't teach how to build a taller or stronger tower." His fingers brushed the first line of text. "This manual teaches the principles of demolition. It's not about strengthening our system, but about introducing an error into the opponent's system at the critical moment."
Xiao Yue leaned in, her golden eyes fixed on the strange characters. "Introduce an error? Like a poison?"
"More subtle," Kenji corrected. "A poison is an external agent. This is an internal manipulation. The manual theorizes that any cultivator's Qi flow, no matter how powerful, follows predictable patterns. A rhythm. If you can perceive that rhythm and, at the precise instant of impact, introduce a contrary Qi vibration—a frequency 'dissonance'—you can cause their own energy to nullify itself for a split second. Their technique isn't stopped by your strength; it collapses from within. Their sword isn't blocked; it simply... fails."
The implication chilled Xiao Yue's blood. It was a profoundly dishonest idea by the standards of the cultivation world, which valued the direct clash of strength and will. It wasn't the tactic of a warrior, but of an assassin.
"That's... twisted," she whispered. "It's not honorable."
"'Honor' is a public relations metric used by those already in power to dictate the rules of engagement in their favor," he retorted, his voice as cold as steel. "For a startup in a hostile market, survival is the only honorable metric. Victory is the only KPI that matters."
Xiao Yue looked at him, seeing for the first time the depth of his pragmatism. He didn't see good or evil, only efficiency and inefficiency. To him, honor was a sentimental variable that hindered the achievement of objectives.
"The manual is theoretically flawed and high-risk," Kenji continued, his tone even graver. "It warns that a miscalculation not only nullifies the attack but that the dissonant energy could rebound and destroy the user's meridians. The risk of self-destruction is... significant. That's probably why it was abandoned in a basic section: it's a dangerous theory, a suicidal tactic for anyone who can't guarantee perfect execution."
They looked at each other in the dense, fragrant silence. The chirping of crickets seemed to have stopped. Kenji was presenting her with a choice, not an order. It was a high-risk investment proposal. They could follow the slow, safe path, strengthening their foundation bit by bit in the hope of catching up to their competitors in years, or they could bet everything on this dangerous, disruptive technology.
Xiao Yue thought of the pitying glances. Of her brother Zian's arrogance. Of the bitter taste of powerlessness that had followed her all her life. She thought of the dull thwack of her sword against the dummy.
Then, she looked at Kenji. She saw the certainty in his eyes. He had no doubts. For him, it wasn't a moral dilemma, but the only logical solution to the problem they had defined. His confidence in his own analysis was so absolute it was contagious.
A slow, sharp, and dangerous smile spread across her lips. It was the smile of someone who had been dealt the worst cards their whole life and was suddenly offered an ace, even if it was poisoned.
"Draw the damn diagram, Kenji," she said, her voice firm and stripped of all doubt. "Teach me how to break the system."
Kenji gave a single nod. He picked up the forbidden scroll and took out a new, blank one. In the flickering light of the oil lamp, his face was impassive, but his eyes shone with a predatory intensity. He was not a servant or an Analyst. In that moment, he was an engineer designing his deadliest weapon, and Xiao Yue's soul was the prototype.
Project Phoenix was about to enter its armament development phase. And the first weapon would be a virus.