The enemy struck at dawn on the third day.
Not the expected assault from the west, but a feint from the eastern sector. A smaller force, perhaps three hundred cultivators, launching coordinated attacks against positions that had been stripped of defenders to reinforce the western wall.
Wang Ben was already moving when the alarm bells began, his body responding to weeks of conditioning while his mind processed the tactical implications. The eastern attack was a distraction, designed to force the fortress to commit reserves and expose weaknesses for the main assault to exploit.
But knowing it was a distraction didn't change the need to respond.
[COMBAT ALERT: Eastern sector engagement]
[Enemy force: Approximately 320 cultivators, mixed cultivation levels]
[Primary threat assessment: Moderate. This is probing/diversionary action]
[Formation support requirements: Nodes 8-14 require stabilization]
[Recommendation: Provide formation support while preserving capacity for primary assault response]
The formation support center was organized chaos when Wang Ben arrived. Cultivators moved between stations, channeling spiritual energy into nodes that trembled under enemy pressure. The defensive arrays were holding, but barely.
"Node 12 is failing!" someone shouted. "We need reinforcement!"
Wang Ben moved to the indicated station without waiting for orders. The node's energy pattern was disrupted, Ice techniques from the attacking cultivators creating crystalline interference that threatened to collapse the entire array segment.
His hands found the formation chalk and began work, the Scripture-enhanced precision of his movements compensating for his qi condensation cultivation level. The Ice intrusion was smaller than the damage from the main assault, but it was still substantial.
He adapted his qi frequency, matching the Ice signature just enough to work with the intrusion rather than against it. The technique was becoming natural now, the elemental flexibility that should have been impossible for someone of his level operating smoothly beneath conscious awareness.
[FORMATION REPAIR: Node 12 stabilization]
[Ice intrusion: Moderate (1.8cm penetration)]
[Repair method: Resonance extraction, Fire-aspected reinforcement]
[Estimated completion: 8 minutes]
[Host elemental adaptation: Active (Ice frequency matching)]
The work absorbed him entirely, each movement calibrated to the specific requirements of the damaged formation. Around him, other formation masters worked on their own nodes, the collective effort slowly pushing back against the enemy pressure.
"How are you still standing?" The question came from Zhang Wei, a grizzled formation master who had been working the adjacent node. Sweat dripped from his brow, his qi reserves visibly depleted. "You've been at this for three hours. I've seen core formation cultivators burn out faster."
Wang Ben didn't have an easy answer. The truth was that his techniques consumed a fraction of what theirs did. Where Zhang Wei poured qi into the formation like water through a sieve, Wang Ben's energy flowed with precision that wasted almost nothing. The same work, a tenth of the cost.
"I pace myself," he said. It wasn't a lie, exactly. Just not the whole truth.
Zhang Wei grunted, unconvinced but too tired to press. "Whatever you're doing, keep doing it. We need every hand that can still work."
The attack stretched through the morning.
When it finally ended, the eastern cultivators withdrawing in organized retreat, the fortress had suffered forty-seven dead. Lighter than the main assault, but still forty-seven names that would be added to the memorial wall.
And the western attack had not yet come.
The afternoon brought exhaustion and uncertainty.
The tactical team convened to analyze the morning's attack, trying to determine whether the eastern assault was the only diversion or the first of several. Wang Ben participated remotely through reports, his formation duties keeping him occupied with repair work that couldn't wait.
By evening, he was drained in ways that went beyond simple fatigue. The constant pressure of combat support, the emotional weight of the fallen, the intellectual demands of tactical analysis. Everything accumulated, pressing down on him with force that even his Scripture-enhanced cultivation struggled to bear.
"You need rest." Elder Wang Hongwei found him during a brief pause in the repair work. "I've been watching you. You're pushing too hard."
"The fortress needs every formation master."
"The fortress needs formation masters who are functional, not exhausted." The elder's voice carried the authority of decades of experience. "There is a meditation alcove in the eastern garden that remains undisturbed by combat. Go there. Cultivate. Restore yourself."
Wang Ben wanted to argue, but his body's fatigue was undeniable. He nodded reluctantly.
"Two hours."
"Three." Elder Wang Hongwei's tone brooked no argument. "And that's an order from your delegation leader, not a suggestion from your elder."
Wang Ben yielded to authority and made his way to the indicated location. The eastern garden was a small space, tucked into a corner of the fortress where the combat's chaos hadn't reached. The ambient qi was calm here, stable in ways that the damaged sectors weren't.
He settled into his cultivation position, his body grateful for the stillness, and began the Scripture's methods.
The session started normally.
Spiritual energy flowed into his meridians, drawn by patterns that had become as natural as breathing. The motes accumulated, earth and metal and fire and traces of other elements, all integrating smoothly into his cultivation base.
[CULTIVATION SESSION: Hour 1]
[Qi absorbed: 387 motes]
[Qi retained: 38 motes]
[Retention efficiency: 9.8%]
[Elemental composition:]
[- Earth: 16 motes (42.1%)]
[- Metal: 11 motes (28.9%)]
[- Fire: 7 motes (18.4%)]
[- Wood: 3 motes (7.9%)]
[- Ice: 1 mote (2.6%)]
[Environment: Eastern garden (Sheltered, stable elemental mix)]
[Note: Approaching milestone threshold. Maintain current cultivation pattern]
Wang Ben continued, his thoughts quieting as the meditation deepened. The day's stress began to fade, replaced by the familiar rhythm of qi absorption and refinement.
Something was different tonight.
He couldn't identify it at first. A subtle quality to his awareness that had been building over the past few sessions, becoming slightly clearer each time. The ghost-impression he had noticed before, the faint sense of something at the edge of perception.
Now, as he drew qi into his meridians, the impression sharpened.
There.
He felt it. For the first time, not as numbers on a System display, but as direct experience. Spiritual energy flowing toward him, entering his body, and then...
...slipping away.
Like water through a cracked vessel. Like sand through spread fingers. The qi arrived, touched his meridians, and a portion of it simply vanished. Not absorbed. Not refined. Just... gone.
So this is what I've been losing.
The realization struck him with unexpected force. All this time, he had known the numbers. Nine percent retention meant ninety-one percent waste. But knowing and feeling were different things, and now he could feel it.
Every breath drew spiritual energy into his body. Every breath lost most of that energy to... whatever mechanism caused the waste. He could perceive the loss now, sense the qi dispersing before his cultivation could claim it.
[MILESTONE ACHIEVED: Threshold of Awareness]
[Retention efficiency: 10.0%]
[Effective combat assessment: Host's ability to retain and utilize qi at 10% efficiency allows techniques to execute with significantly greater force than cultivation level would suggest]
[New capability unlocked: Waste-perception]
[You can now directly perceive spiritual energy that fails to integrate with your cultivation base. This awareness cannot be unlearned. You will always see what others cannot.]
[Note: This milestone represents the first step on a path that most cultivators never walk. The Qingxuan Archive records that waste-perception is prerequisite to understanding efficiency mechanics. What you now perceive, others dismiss as natural cultivation variance]
Wang Ben sat in the quiet garden, processing what had just happened. His power had doubled. His cultivation speed had doubled. On paper, this was a triumph.
But what he felt was grief.
He opened his eyes to the evening darkness, stars visible through gaps in the garden's canopy.
The waste-perception remained. He could feel it now, a constant awareness of spiritual energy moving through the environment. Qi drifted past him, through him, around him. Most cultivators absorbed a fraction and refined it into power. He did the same.
But now he could see what everyone was losing.
Father, he thought. What's his efficiency? Three percent? Four? Every time he cultivates, ninety-six percent of everything he absorbs just... disappears.
Father at the fortress. Mother waiting at home with Chen'er. Zhao Yu. Everyone who depends on these walls holding.
They worked so hard. Cultivated for hours, days, years. Slowly accumulated the power that defined their place in the world. And all that time, most of what they gathered was slipping away, lost to a mechanism they couldn't perceive and didn't understand.
Wang Ben had known this intellectually. The System had shown him the numbers from the beginning. But knowing wasn't the same as seeing, and now he couldn't unsee it.
This is what the Scripture teaches, he realized. Not just techniques for cultivation. Understanding of what cultivation actually is. The Ten Transcendents saw this clearly. They knew what everyone else was losing.
And they found ways to keep more of it.
He rose from his meditation position, his body feeling different in ways that were hard to describe. His qi moved more smoothly through his meridians. His techniques would respond more readily. His cultivation base had expanded dramatically, each session now advancing him twice as fast as before.
All invisible from the outside. No one would notice that his power had doubled, because qi condensation cultivators weren't supposed to have meaningful power regardless. The advantage was internal, a secret benefit that would accumulate over time.
Another thing he couldn't share. Another capability he couldn't explain.
But also another tool for survival. Another step toward the strength he would eventually need.
...
Zhao Yu found him as he was leaving the garden.
"There you are." His friend's expression carried news, tension visible in the set of his shoulders. "The tactical team has been looking for you. Captain Liu needs analysis on the morning attack."
"What's the situation?"
"The western force is moving. The scouts think they'll hit us tomorrow, maybe the day after." Zhao Yu fell into step beside him as they walked toward the tactical center. "The northern encircling force is still positioning. It's going to be coordinated."
Wang Ben processed this. Two attacks, possibly three, converging on a fortress that had already been weakened by days of combat. The defensive arrays were strained. The cultivator reserves were depleted. The supplies Lin Suyin had brought were already being consumed.
"What about the expedition?"
"Lin Suyin says it's postponed indefinitely. Can't exactly go treasure hunting in the Blackwood while the fortress burns, can we?" Zhao Yu's voice carried a mix of frustration and relief. "Which means we're stuck here for the duration. Not that I'm complaining about missing a trip into spirit beast territory."
The duration. However long the enemy chose to press their offensive. Days, weeks, possibly months. The war had its own timeline, indifferent to the plans of those caught in its grip.
"Come on," Wang Ben said. "Let's see what Captain Liu needs."
They walked through corridors that had become familiar over weeks of deployment, passing cultivators who moved with the grim purpose of those preparing for battle. The fortress was stirring, shaking off the day's exhaustion to ready itself for whatever came next.
Wang Ben moved with them, his newly-doubled power invisible beneath his qi condensation exterior. He could feel the spiritual energy around him differently now, perceive the currents and flows that made up the ambient qi. And overlaid on all of it, the constant awareness of waste.
Everyone around him was losing power. Every cultivator in the fortress, in the kingdom, in the world. They cultivated and lost, cultivated and lost, their entire lives spent gathering spiritual energy that mostly slipped away.
And none of them know, he thought. None of them can see it.
He could. He would always see it now.
The System called it the Threshold of Awareness. Wang Ben was beginning to understand why.
The tactical briefing ran late into the night.
Captain Liu presented the intelligence on enemy movements, the coordinated positioning that suggested a major offensive within two days. Wang Ben analyzed the patterns, looking for weaknesses that could be exploited and strengths that needed to be countered.
His thoughts seemed to come faster now, connections forming more readily. Whether this was a genuine effect of the milestone or simply confidence from achievement, he couldn't say.
The results spoke for themselves.
"They're overcommitting to the western approach," he said, indicating positions on the tactical map. "See how the force from the north is timing its movement? They want to hit us simultaneously, but the coordination requires them to slow their main assault. That creates a window."
"What kind of window?" Captain Liu asked.
"If we strike the northern force before they're in position, we break their coordination. The western assault happens alone, and we've already proven we can hold against that." Wang Ben traced the probable movement patterns. "It's risky. We'd be committing forces outside the fortress walls. But it might be our best chance."
The senior officers debated the proposal, weighing risks against potential rewards. Wang Ben participated in the discussion, defending his analysis when challenged and acknowledging weaknesses when they were pointed out.
Eventually, Commander Feng made his decision.
"We prepare for defensive action," he said. "But we keep the option for a counter-strike open. Young Master Wang Ben's analysis will be refined overnight. If the pattern holds, we may have an opportunity."
It was less than full commitment, but more than dismissal. Wang Ben accepted it as the best he could expect from officers who had been fighting this war for decades.
The meeting ended, and cultivators dispersed to their duties. Wang Ben remained for a moment, staring at the tactical map and the positions of forces that would clash within days.
Doubled power, he thought. Twice the cultivation speed. Waste-perception that shows me what everyone else is losing.
And I'm still just one qi condensation cultivator in a fortress full of people who are about to die.
It wasn't enough. The milestone was a step, an important step, but the gap between where he was and where he needed to be remained vast.
Still, he had crossed a threshold. He could perceive what others couldn't. He was beginning to understand what the Scripture actually taught.
One step at a time. One threshold at a time.
Until eventually, he was strong enough to matter.