"Wait, you're going in now?" Kai asked, holding the books.
"The sooner I sleep, the more energy I save," she replied.
Her form began to blur, turning into a mist of blue light. The mist swirled around the coffin, caressing the face of her sleeping body one last time, before shooting into the Crescent Jade Pendant.
Flash.
The pendant pulsed once with a bright light, then dimmed. The room suddenly felt emptier. Colder.
"Sleep well, Teacher," Kai whispered to the silence.
He reached into the coffin—careful not to touch the skin of the body—and gently unclasped the necklace. The chain was cold. He placed it around his own neck, tucking the jade under his shirt. It sat against his chest, a cool weight that felt like a second heartbeat.
"Just you and me now, Xiao Bai," Kai murmured.
He walked over to the desk, pulled out the wooden chair, and sat down. Xiao Bai hopped onto the table, curled her tail around her nose, and instantly fell asleep.
Kai lit a nearby oil lamp—which remarkably still had oil after fifty years, likely another feature of the array—and opened the first book.
[Notes on the Azure Periphery - by Su Qing]
The handwriting was elegant and sharp, written with a steady hand.
Kai turned the pages, skipping the introduction on botany, and found the section titled: "The Bone-Eating Forest."
He started reading, and within minutes, his brow was soaked in cold sweat.
"The forest is not named for the beasts that eat bones," Su Qing had written in red ink. "It is named for the soil. The earth in the central region contains a high concentration of corrosive acid. If a traveler sleeps on the bare ground without a barrier, they will wake up with their flesh melted."
"Great," Kai muttered, shifting in his seat. "Acid dirt. Good to know."
He turned the page.
"Beware the Iron-Beak Crows. They travel in flocks of hundreds. Individually, they are Rank 1. Together, they can strip a Rank 3 Cultivator to a skeleton in ten seconds. They are attracted to the smell of blood."
Kai touched the bandage on his cheek where the panther had scratched him. He made a mental note to wash thoroughly before leaving.
He picked up the second book. This one was thinner—about 60 to 70 pages. He flipped to the middle and found a fold-out map.
He spread it across the desk. It was a masterpiece of cartography. Su Qing had drawn the forest in intricate detail, marking every danger zone and water source.
However, as his eyes moved past the forest edge, the map became sparse.
Su Qing had drawn an arrow pointing towards the North East.
"Beyond the forest rim lies Black-Iron City," the note on the map read. "It is a mining fortress. I have never entered it, so I know little of its internal structure, but it is the closest outpost of civilization for a rogue cultivator."
Kai stared at the name. Black-Iron City.
He closed his eyes, accessing the memories he had gained from his basic studies in the Lin Clan.
"It's a neutral city..." he whispered. "Run by a coalition of Merchant Guilds and minor sects. It's far."
His finger traced the map to the far East, way off the edge of the paper.
"If I went East," Kai muttered, "I would hit Flame Cloud City."
Just thinking the name made his skin crawl. Flame Cloud City was the majestic Capital of the region. It was a sprawling metropolis of fire and gold, the seat of power for the main branch of the Lin Clan. It was where the "Gods" lived.
"That is the Lion's Mouth," Kai realized. "I cannot go East. If I step foot in the Capital, my aura will be detected instantly."
He looked back at the North East marker.
"Black-Iron City is perfect," he decided. "It's far enough from the Capital that the Lin Clan's influence is weak, but large enough to hide in."
He leaned back in his chair, visualizing the massive continent.
The Bone-Eating Forest, Black-Iron City, the terrifying Capital in the East—all of these were just small specks within the Violet Yang Domain.
"The Domain is vast," Kai whispered, recalling the old maps in the Clan library. "Billions of lives. Thousands of sects. And I am just one ant trying to cross it."
He looked at Su Qing's map again. She had charted the forest perfectly, but for the city, she had only written: "Beware of humans more than beasts."
"She really didn't know much about the outside world here," Kai noted. "She came from the Greatland, hid in the forest, and died. The local politics of Black-Iron City... I'll have to figure those out myself."
As he continued to study the terrain features of the forest—memorizing the safe paths through the acid soil—the light in the room began to shift.
Kai looked up.
Outside the window, the artificial sky had turned a deep, velvet black. The simulated stars were out.
But something was wrong.
Normally, night in a sanctuary should be peaceful. But Kai, with his heightened Dark Affinity, felt a sudden pressure pressing against the invisible walls of the array.
Creaaaak.
The wooden walls of the cottage groaned.
Kai stood up instantly, blowing out the lamp. He moved to the window and peered out.
The beautiful valley was still there, illuminated by the fake moon. But at the edges of the illusion, where the array met the real tree bark, Kai could see shadows writhing.
It looked like black smoke trying to push through a glass pane.
'The night outside,' Kai realized with a shiver. 'The Yin energy is so strong it's actually pressing against Su Qing's barrier.'
He saw a shape—something massive and multi-legged—crawl across the outside of the barrier, blocking the "stars" for a moment. It was huge. Much bigger than the panther.
It sniffed the barrier, then moved on, unable to detect the tasty morsels inside.
Kai let out a breath he didn't know he was holding.
"She wasn't kidding," Kai whispered, clutching the map in his hand. "If I were out there right now... I'd be dead."
He looked back at the coffin where Su Qing's body lay in eternal repose, and then at the pendant on his chest.
The wilderness wasn't a playground. It was a grinder. And tomorrow, he had to step right into its teeth.
He sat back down, reignited the lamp, and pulled the book closer. His eyes, dark as the void, scanned the pages with renewed intensity.
He wouldn't just read. He would memorize. Every poisonous plant, every beast territory, every safe path.
Tonight, he was a student. Tomorrow, he would be a traveler.