The return trek to the Rust-Fang Wastes was a journey through a landscape of paranoia. Every shimmer of heat on the horizon, every distant rumble of a ground-qi eruption, made Lin Feng's heart stutter. Granny Luo's warning echoed in his mind: "The heavens themselves might be watching."
He was no longer an anonymous forager. He was a variable in an equation he didn't understand, a blip on the radar of powers that could shatter mountains. The weight of the components in his pack—the plasma conduit, the nano-filament, the data-slate—felt like both a promise and a sentence.
He found his way back to the territory now guarded by the Rust-Steel Mantis. As he approached the canyon, a familiar chittering echoed from the rusted shadows. The Mantis emerged, moving with a fluid, silent grace that belied its size. The amber light in its eyes brightened at the sight of him, and a sensation of acknowledgment brushed against his mind. The shoulder joint, he noted with a surge of pride, moved smoothly, the stress-pattern he'd seen with his Azure Pupil now barely visible.
Safe. Return, the Mantis projected.
"For now," Lin Feng murmured, patting its armored carapace. The gesture felt strangely natural. "We have work to do."
His first task was the qi-dampening field. Using the incomplete schematic from the data-slate, he spent the next day in a fever of activity. He buried the plasma conduit at the five cardinal points of a small, sheltered area nestled between two collapsed freighters, creating a pentagon of influence. Using the crystalline nano-filament, he painstakingly inscribed the crude energy-channeling patterns from the schematic onto the surrounding metal walls, creating a rudimentary formation array. It was a far cry from the elegant, spirit-stone-powered arrays of the great sects; this was a jerry-rigged, desperate thing, running on the volatile ambient qi of the Wastes.
When he activated it, pushing a thread of his own qi into the central node, the air within the perimeter hummed and subtly thickened. The constant, background whisper of the Wastes—the gnawing hunger of the Nest-Grinders, the slow, geological pulse of the earth-qi, the faint, psychic static of the Mantis itself—muffled into a dull murmur. It was like being underwater. To any spiritual sense scanning from the outside, this area would now register as a minor, natural qi dead zone, unworthy of attention.
It was their first layer of defense. Their sanctuary.
Within this shielded zone, Lin Feng began his true work. He sat cross-legged on the hard ground, the dull-grey stone held in his palms. He closed his eyes and reached for the seed of knowledge the stone had planted in his mind: the principle of [Qi-Weave Synchronization].
It was not about brute-force cultivation, drawing in as much qi as possible to break through to the next realm. The Wastes' qi was too chaotic and toxic for that anyway. This was about refinement and resonance. He visualized his own feeble qi not as a river, but as a loom. The chaotic environmental energy was the raw, tangled thread. His will was the shuttle.
He began to breathe in a slow, rhythmic pattern, drawing in the toxic air. Instead of trying to force it directly into his Dantian, he let it swirl around him, using his Azure Pupil—activated with a minimal trickle of energy—to see the individual strands of energy: the jagged, corrosive red of metal-qi, the sluggish, heavy brown of earth-qi, the volatile, sparking yellow of stellar radiation.
With painstaking care, he began to weave. He guided a thread of pure earth-qi to intertwine with a thread of his own neutral spiritual energy. Then he did the same with a strand of stellar radiation. It was like trying to braid smoke. Again and again, the threads slipped, the energies repelling each other or exploding into useless sparks. His head throbbed, and his Dantian ached from the constant, precise expenditure.
The Rust-Steel Mantis watched, immobile, its amber eyes tracking the subtle fluctuations of energy around the boy. It did not understand the process, but it understood the intent: harmony. Stability.
After what felt like an eternity of failure, a single, stable strand of energy finally coalesced. It was a hybrid thread, holding the stability of earth and the vibrant potency of stars, all bound by Lin Feng's own will. It was thicker, calmer, and far more powerful than any energy he had ever handled. He guided this newly woven strand into his Dantian.
A jolt, like a pleasant electric shock, ran through him. His Dantian, which had always felt like a cold, small vessel, suddenly glowed with a warm, steady light. The fatigue from his efforts vanished. He felt… more. Not just replenished, but enhanced.
This was the Path of the Starfall Tamer. He wasn't just consuming energy; he was crafting it, creating a unique qi that was his alone.
Emboldened, he turned his attention to the Mantis. The principle of [Neural-Link Resonance] flickered in his mind. His current connection to the creature was passive, a receiver for its broad emotional broadcasts. He needed to make it active, a true two-way conduit.
He focused on the Mantis, his Azure Pupil revealing the magnificent, complex tapestry of its spirit-tech core. He saw the pathways of its consciousness, not as a human mind, but as a river of data and instinct. He began to project his newly woven qi towards it, not as a command, but as an invitation—a request to sync their frequencies.
At first, the Mantis's systems resisted, their defensive protocols flaring. But Lin Feng persisted, projecting only calm, trust, and the shared memory of the repaired shoulder. Slowly, the resistance faded. Their connection solidified, shifting from a faint whisper to a clear, open channel.
[Link Established. Resonance: 23%. Stability: Acceptable.]
The words formed in his mind, not as sound, but as pure information. He could now feel the Mantis's state with crystal clarity: its energy levels, the integrity of its systems, even the slow, constant process of its metallic carapace regenerating. He could feel its satisfaction at the qi-dampening field, its simple appreciation of the relative silence.
And he could send more complex concepts.
Scan. Perimeter. Alert.
The Mantis immediately turned its head, its multifaceted eyes and internal sensors sweeping the canyon. A data-stream flowed back to Lin Feng: thermal signatures of distant Scrap-Rats, the vibration patterns of the wind, the chemical composition of the air. It was raw data, but through their link, Lin Feng could interpret it with an instinctual ease that startled him.
He had built a shelter and established a true bond. He was no longer a boy and a beast; they were a nascent unit. A Tamer and his charge.
A hundred li to the east, where the Wastes began to give way to jagged, qi-infused mountains, a figure stood atop a spire of obsidian-like glass. She was tall and slender, clad in robes of pristine white and silver that seemed to repel the very dust of the land. An embroidered spire, piercing a cloud, adorned her chest—the symbol of the Sky-Spire Sect. Her name was Yun Zhao, and her eyes, the colour of a winter sky, held a cold, unwavering certainty.
In her hand, she held a jade compass, its surface a swirling map of ethereal light. It charted the flows of heaven and earth qi for a hundred leagues. Or it should have. For days, a dissonance had been growing in the deep Wastes—a patch of chaotic, fused energy that defied natural law. It was a heresy against the pure, ascending path of celestial cultivation her sect embodied.
Her master's words echoed in her mind. "The Great Collision was a corruption, Yun Zhao. A sickness inflicted upon our world by the hubris of the star-farers. Our duty is to purify, to burn away the mechanical and return the spiritual to its unsullied state. What cannot be purified must be eradicated."
The needle of her compass twitched, spinning erratically before settling again, pointing firmly towards the Rust-Fang Wastes. The dissonance was there. Stronger than before. And it was… structured. It was no longer a random anomaly. It was being cultivated.
A true Heretic was at work. One who willingly fused their spirit with the profane alloys of the star-farers, creating abominations that threatened the very order of heaven.
Yun Zhao's lips tightened into a thin line. She lifted her hand, and a sword of light, forged from condensed moonlight and her own profound qi, materialized in the air beside her. It hummed with a purity that made the corrupted air of the Wastes seem to recoil.
She would find this Heretic. She would offer them one chance to renounce their path, to let her purify their corrupted Dantian. And if they refused…
The sword of light pulsed, its keen edge singing a silent song of annihilation.
She stepped off the obsidian spire, not falling, but descending as if walking down an invisible staircase of air, her white robes fluttering untouched by the grime of the world below. The hunt had begun.
Back in the sanctuary, Lin Feng's eyes snapped open. A jolt of primal alarm, not his own, had shot through the neural-link.
The Mantis was projecting a high-priority alert. Its sensors had detected a new energy signature entering the outer range of its perception. The data-stream was unlike anything they had encountered before: intensely focused, impossibly pure, and radiating a chilling, absolute intent. It was a qi signature that felt like ice and lightning, and it was moving with purpose. Directly towards them.
Lin Feng's blood ran cold. He didn't need the Azure Pupil to know who it was.
The Sky-Spire disciple.
He looked at the Rust-Steel Mantis, then at the faintly shimmering boundary of their qi-dampening field. It had hidden them from a casual scan. It would not hide them from a dedicated seeker who was now homing in on their location.
Their sanctuary had just become a trap.
"We can't fight her," he whispered, the cosmic principles from the stone feeling suddenly theoretical and fragile in the face of this imminent, tangible power. "We have to run."
But the Mantis projected a different sensation. Not fear, but a cold, calculating analysis. It sent an image to his mind: the canyon's topography, their position, the approaching signature. And then, a plan. A dangerous, desperate gambit that leveraged the one advantage they had: the Mantis's intimate knowledge of this treacherous land, and Lin Feng's new ability to see its hidden energies.
It was not a plan to win. It was a plan to survive.
Lin Feng met the creature's amber gaze, a grim smile touching his lips. The Path of the Starfall Tamer was not one of frontal assault. It was one of adaptation, synergy, and cunning.
"Alright," he said, his voice steadying. He reached out, placing a hand on the Mantis's cool, armored head, pouring his will and his newly woven qi into their link. The resonance between them flared, climbing from 23% to a straining, unprecedented 41%.
The hunter was here. It was time for the prey to become the landscape itself.
He looked towards the canyon entrance, where a figure in pristine white was now visible, walking calmly through the rust and ruin, a sword of pure light floating at her side.
"Let's show the heavens what happens when they look too closely into the abyss of the Wastes."