The egg didn't move.
Not in hours. Not through the night. Not even when the morning light crept through the cracks in Pavilion Seventeen and warmed the stone beneath it.
But Wang Lin remained nearby, seated with his arms folded, eyes shut, breath calm. He wasn't cultivating. He was listening — not with his ears, but with his blood.
And he could still feel it. That pulse. Quiet. Deep. Like something dreaming with its eyes wide open.
"It's still resonating," Long Shan said. "Even if it's not responding physically. It's learning."
"Learning what?"
"You. This place. Maybe this world."
Wang Lin opened one eye, gazing across the small meditation chamber toward the egg. "Then it better learn fast. I don't slow down."
He stood slowly, rolling his shoulders, letting the silence stretch between them.
"You haven't checked your status since the transformation."
"I haven't needed to," Wang Lin said. "But… show me."
[Status Panel]
Name: Wang Lin
Realm: Qi Condensation – Stage 2
Bloodline: Celestial Dragon (Integration: 20%)
System Sync: 19%
Universal Shop: Tier 1
SP Available: 11
Egg Status: ???
Known Skills:
• Dragon Step
• Crushing Palm
• Enhanced Focus
• Stubborn Will
• Weightless Flow
• Dragon Pulse
• Internal Echo
He exhaled through his nose.
The body felt lighter.
Sharper.
But even now, the weight of the transformation lingered in his memory — like fire flickering beneath the surface of calm water.
And in that calm, as his hand brushed the egg's shell again, a fragment of memory sparked behind his eyes.
The hunt.
The one he endured before discovering the egg. Before the bloodline shifted.
Before the dragon stirred.
It had begun deep in the western ridge of the restricted zone — where few dared enter and fewer returned.
Wang Lin had entered alone.
He didn't want an audience. He didn't need validation.
He needed a fight.
A real one.
Something to test the new heat in his blood.
He'd walked until the Qi itself turned hostile. Until the very air seemed to flinch around him.
And that's when he saw it.
A black-furred spirit beast — six-legged, long-fanged, and armored in plated hide.
A Ravine Howler.
Twice his height. Quick. Cunning. Feral.
He hadn't drawn a weapon.
Just cracked his knuckles and stepped into the clearing.
The beast charged — jaws open, claws dragging earth.
Wang Lin dodged.
Barely.
The ground where he'd stood exploded in a spray of shattered roots and stone.
He moved like water, not out of fear, but with control.
"Long Shan."
"I'm watching."
"Tell me how to kill it."
"Break the left front knee. It's slower on the right. Then force it into a rotation, and crush the exposed heart node under the rib."
"Good."
He moved.
One strike.
The beast howled in pain.
Then a pivot — palm glowing.
Crushing Palm.
Boom.
The Ravine Howler fell with a thunderous crash.
Breathing.
But broken.
Wang Lin walked forward, stepping over the wounded monster.
Its breath came in wheezing gasps. Eyes wild. It looked up at him not with rage… but recognition.
As if it had seen something it wasn't supposed to.
And then, with one final breath, it stopped.
The ground beneath it steamed faintly as its spiritual essence dissolved into the air.
"You barely used 40% of your output," Long Shan had said.
"I didn't need more," Wang Lin had replied.
And that was the end of it.
Until the earth pulsed beneath him minutes later.
Until the egg called.
He opened his eyes now, staring at the shell again.
"You saw that too, didn't you?" he muttered.
The egg pulsed once. Faint. Barely noticeable.
But there.
Alive.
"It responded," Long Shan said. "Not directly. But it remembers the hunt."
"The beast saw something. It looked at me like it knew it couldn't win. Like it had seen that power before."
"Your bloodline holds echoes. Things not even I can access."
Wang Lin stood slowly and turned from the chamber.
"I'm going back."
"To the beast's den?"
"No," he said. "To the deeper forest."
"You want more fights?"
"I want more memories."
By afternoon, he had already left the sect grounds. This time, deeper than before — past the Ravine Howler's domain, through fog-drenched glades and over black stone cliffs where Qi warped the wind itself.
Hours passed.
He fought twice more — once with a serpentine lizard that bled frost, and again with a giant beetle whose armor cracked only after five concentrated strikes.
Neither stood a chance.
And yet, none of them brought the same feeling.
No resonance. No pulse.
No answers.
He paused at the edge of a dry ravine, staring down at twisted bones and dark soil.
"You sense anything?"
"No. But the egg is stirring."
Wang Lin reached into his robe and drew it out carefully.
The shell now carried a faint blue sheen.
It pulsed once in his hand.
Then again — stronger.
And beneath that pulse… another spark.
A flicker of gold.
"Long Shan."
"I see it."
"What is that?"
"I don't know. It wasn't there before."
"So it's growing."
"Yes. And fast."
Wang Lin turned the egg slightly, the golden shimmer fading just as quickly as it appeared.
Whatever it was — it wasn't ready.
But it was watching.
And waiting.
He returned the egg to its wrap, this time with a breath of focused Qi sealed around it — not as a cage, but a shield.
Then he looked up at the twisted sky above the ravine.
"If you're mine," he said softly, "then I'll make this world worthy of you."