The night before the second Resonance jump, Sunset Mountain was silent, but it was the silence of a held breath, not a cemetery.
Li Fan sat in the center of the Ancestral Hall, the ethereal scroll of the Mirror of Resonant Fate unfurled before him. The Ancient Ink was the color of a dying star, filling the final watches with a rhythmic, azure pulse.
He had spent the last moon refining thirty jars of Sunset Nectar. Each sunrise, Scar-Face Ma would arrive at the gate, take the jar with a mixture of greed and fear, and vanish into the valley. In exchange, the Iron Fist Hall had become a wall. They didn't just stop the small-time extortionists; they had begun to patrol the foot of the mountain, their iron-gray banners fluttering in the wind.
"Sect Leader," Jing'er said, entering the hall with a tray of the spirit-marrow tea. Her eyes were bright, and she moved with a quiet power that suggested she had already crossed the threshold of the 1st Layer of Qi Condensation.
"I will be entering a deep meditation tonight, Jing'er," Li Fan said. "No matter what happens, no matter what sounds you hear, you are not to enter this hall until the first light of the next watch."
Jing'er bit her lip, but she bowed deeply. She had learned to trust the "Quiet Moments" of her master. "I will guard the door myself, Sect Leader."
As she left, the final drop of ink fell.
[RESONANCE COMPLETE]
[THE SECOND JOURNEY COMMENCETH]
The world didn't shatter this time. It dissolved like silk in acid. Li Fan felt the Great Fading take hold of his senses, the smell of woodsmoke and the chill of the hall being replaced by that familiar, crystalline vacuum.
When he opened his eyes, he was back in the snowy wasteland of the Year 10,000.
But it wasn't the same wasteland.
The snow was still there, and the velvet sky was still filled with too many stars. But the ruins... the ruins had grown.
Li Fan stood before the same base-stone of the Ancestral Hall. But the fallen jade beam was gone. In its place, a small, circular shrine had been erected—a structure of fused black glass that looked as if it had been grown rather than built.
On the lintel of the shrine, carved in a script that burned with a faint, internal fire, were five characters:
[FORGE OF THE STARRY CROWN]
Li Fan's heart began to hammer. He walked into the shrine. Inside, the air was warm—not because of a fire, but because of a residual resonance of the Stellar Depths technique that had persisted for ten millennia.
In the center of the shrine sat a pedestal. On it was an artifact that made Li Fan gasp.
It was a Perfected Refinement Crucible. It wasn't made of iron or jade. It was a sphere of fluctuating bronze light, held in place by three rotating rings of celestial script.
Beneath the crucible was a scroll of preserved spirit-parchment.
[RECORD OF THE DIVIDEND: THE SUNSET LEGACY]
[DESCRIPTION: BECAUSE THE SEED WAS PROTECTED, THE FORGE SURVIVED THE FIRST COLLAPSE. THIS CRUCIBLE WAS REFINED BY THE SEVENTY-SECOND SECT LEADER, INSPIRED BY THE ANCIENT TRUTHS LOOTED FROM THE VACUUM.]
Li Fan reached out, his fingers trembling as they brushed the parchment. He realized the terrifying beauty of the Mirror.
By refining the Sunset Nectar in the Present, he hadn't just bought off a thug. He had created a historical momentum that allowed a "Forge" to exist in the future Sunset Sect. The Seventy-Second Sect Leader—someone who wouldn't be born for another thousand years—had used Li Fan's "Inverse Smelting" to create this crucible.
And now, in the year 10,000, Li Fan was looting the evolved version of his own invention.
[LOOT ACQUIRED: THE PERFECTED CRUCIBLE ACCORDING TO AXIOM]
[FUNCTION: ALLOWS THE REFINEMENT OF 'TRASH' INTO 'AXIOM-GRADE' ESSENCE WITH ZERO WASTE.]
Li Fan laughed, the sound hollow and sharp in the silent shrine. He didn't just have a method anymore. He had a Sacred Engine of the Ancestors.
But the scroll contained one more line of text, written in a smaller, more desperate hand.
[TO THE ONE WHO RETRIEVETH THIS: THE VOID-DEVOURERS ARE COMING. THE SUNSET IS NOT THE END. IT IS THE ANCHOR.]
Li Fan's laughter died. He looked at the rotating bronze light and felt the weight of ten thousand years pressing against his chest.
The azure scroll in his vision began to flicker.
[HEAVENLY COOLDOWN EXPIRED]
[THE ANCHOR PULLS]
As the future shrine faded, Li Fan gripped the memory of the rotating bronze rings. He wasn't just bringing back a jar of silver dew this time. He was bringing back the Pattern of Creation for a power that would make the Great Sects of the Present look like children playing with mud.
The Fading returned.
When he opened his eyes in the Ancestral Hall, the first light of dawn was hitting the floor.
And outside, he heard a new sound. Not horses.
It was the sound of a bell—a clear, resonant chime that came from the valley.
The Cloud-Pass Merchant Alliance had arrived.
Iron Fist Hall's sudden rise had not gone unnoticed. Master Iron-Throne's breakthrough to the Peak of the 5th Layer within suns, coupled with the scent of "Spirit Nectar" that had reached the nearby trade routes, was a beacon for the greedy. Merchants have the longest ears in the province, and they didn't want jars of wine. They wanted the boy who held the Sacred Engine.