Tan Xiaoling’s immortal’s cave was one of the most comfortable He Yu had ever seen. More than just a grotto carved from the living rock of the mountains, it was practically a home. She’d swept away any dirt from the floor, and laid down exquisite foreign rugs. In the far corner, a pile of silk cushions sat near a pillar of spirit stone, much like the one they’d found in Kang Zhu’s cave. The entrance was partially hidden, but unscripted. He Yu wasn’t particularly surprised by that. Tan Xiaoling likely welcomed the challenge intruders provided.

  The area around the cave contained potent flows of natural qi. Even without the spirit stone vein she’d uncovered, this would have been an excellent spot to cultivate in. Among the nearby peaks, countless spirits and beasts roamed. Tan Xiaoling said golden tigers wandered into the area frequently, making it an ideal location for her to use. The nearby mountains would provide a source of both mountain qi for Chen Fei, and enough snow and ice for Li Heng’s purposes. Yan Shirong could simply make use of the shadows in the more densely wooded parts. Tan Xiaoling claimed He Yu could find more than enough spirits with suitable aspects in a nearby valley.

  With their needs met, and any potential foes a distant thought, they settled in to cultivate and train.

  They based their training regimen on their time under Yi Xiurong’s supervision. After rotating through one-on-one sparring sessions that gave each of them a chance to face all the others, they finished their sparring with a winner-take-all melee. Predictably, Tan Xiaoling usually emerged victorious in these exercises. But as the weeks turned to months, He Yu took the victor’s position more frequently.

  For her part, Tan Xiaoling had made good use of her time up in the mountains. Like all the rest of them, she’d undergone certain physical changes the reflected her advancement. The most noticeable of them all were her eyes. They’d always been a bit light compared to anyone whose cultivation left them with natural coloring, but now they were anything but natural looking. Her eyes had become twin pools of molten gold with her advancement to Nascent Soul. No pupil, no iris or sclera—just a solid, metallic field gold, unnaturally reflecting a dim light even when it was otherwise pitch-dark. Just looking at them was unnerving, and evoked memories of a golden tiger’s roar. He Yu wouldn’t be surprised if she could root her opponents in place with a glance one day.

  Aside from her eyes, she’d undergone other changes, too. Her hair, always worn back and away from her face, had gained a bit of a wild, unkempt look. According to her, there was nothing she could do about it, and even He Yu could tell it was something that bothered her. At least Li Heng was quick to mention he thought it suited her. A brief argument resulted in the two of them kicking the others out of her cave for a few hours. When they finally emerged, whatever disagreement they’d had was clearly settled. He Yu was just happy they’d gotten it out of their system sooner rather than later.

  Finally there was the way Tan Xiaoling carried herself. She’d always been strong, and she’d always moved like it. Now, even the most casual of gestures contained a sense of strength and power they hadn’t before. The sense of abstract danger she’d always worn like a gown had become more defined. Almost predatory. Upon reflection, it made sense. Tan Xiaoling’s primary cultivation technique was the Golden Tiger Cultivation Law, after all. That she would become ever more like one of those beasts as she advanced only made sense.

  With her advancement to Nascent Soul, her spirit had likewise deepened. During her time in the mountains, she’d shifted away from her previous cultivation style, adapting her arts to focus more on metal and fire. She claimed it made more sense with her Way, and He Yu couldn’t deny she’d made the correct choice.

  Her presence now resembled the expansive White Desert they’d crossed to reach the Jade Mountains themselves. The sun of her spirit was the main difference. Hers was not the blinding white ball of oppressive heat and death that had sapped He Yu’s very life. It was dark, black at the center, but no less of a blaze for it. A deep crimson corona limned the dark sun, much like the Tan Xiaoling’s ultimate technique. Gazing up at it through the Peerless Judgment, He Yu could plainly see where the Mark of the Dark Sun had gotten its name from. What had once been her sandstorm was now a storm of metal—gleaming white and razor sharp. Finally, at the center of her spirit’s desert, was the oasis stalked by a great golden tiger.

  Of course, Tan Xiaoling wasn’t the only of their number to have grown. Each of them had, in their own way, become more. More of themselves, and more of the promise they’d always held.

  Li Heng’s presence was much the same as it had always been—deep and cold, a moonlit expanse of glinting snow. It was just so much more now. The cold was deeper. The night was darker, despite the gleaming silver moon. The twin silver streaks in his hair that he’d gained so long ago had grown thicker with his advancement to Nascent Soul while also taking on a shine of their own. Like they reflected moonlight even in the full brightness of the day.

  The wounds he placed upon the world with his jian technique, the Darkmoon Strife, were deeper than they’d ever been. The cold more enduring, the darkness more oppressive. The expanse of his spirit had grown, and that was even more apparent with his body enforcement technique—the Raiment of the Frozen Soul. When combined with the weight of his Nascent Soul presence, it seemed only natural that Li Heng could bring the full force of winter to any place he ventured into.

  More than just the advancements of his techniques and his presence, he’d traveled further along his Way in their time apart. So many aspects of his personality, his fighting style, the way he carried himself and more—they existed in balance with one another in ways they simply hadn’t before. He fought in a style that brought together a seamless flow between offense and defense, shedding both the too-passive reliance on his Winter Moon Reflection and his later overcorrection to favoring the Darkmoon Strife. His “noble’s mask” was less a mask than it had ever been, and he wore it as easily as he wore his humor and his grin. In truth, he was more at ease with himself than He Yu had ever seen him.

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  With his advancement to Nascent Soul, Yan Shirong had perhaps most clearly reached a new stage in his advancement. At peak Golden Core, the depths of his shadows had already grown deeper than even the darkest, moonless night. Now he could call shadows from daylight should he need to. The sensation of eyes watching from deep within his umbral cloak had now fully manifested. Every time he unleashed his presence in full, countless eyes opened from within the darkness, peering outward, observing everything within their sight. No secret could remain safe from him, and not even the tiniest movements escaped Yan Shirong’s notice.

  Although he still used his many tendrils of shadow to haul himself around, both his movement technique and the shadows themselves had taken on new qualities. His movement technique, the Darkwalker Shroud, now allowed him to step through the shadows themselves. He completely vanished from this world, and stepped through another before reappearing in a different pool of shadow from the one he’d just left.

  Even as Yan Shirong’s shadow tendrils, the Umbral Puppetmaster technique, allowed him to command even more shadow tendrils and throw an impossible number of daggers, the most significant development had come when he reached Nascent Soul, and gained access to his family art’s principle technique.

  It had taken him several weeks at Tan Xiaoling’s cave to finally craft enough constructs to make proper use of the technique. The Puppeteer’s Legion allowed Yan Shirong to control a small army of constructs. He’d always made use of constructs, but mostly as messengers and scouts. This was different.

  Once he’d completed his legion, he unleashed them in training. Dozens of the little things would swarm the battlefield. Yan Shirong could activate any of his techniques through any one of them. A barrage of daggers—thankfully unpoisoned during training—could explode from any angle at any time. Same with his Myriad Black Thorns, the only direct offensive technique in his arsenal. He could even swap places with one of his constructs, although he claimed it was still difficult for him to manage.

  At least now everyone had stopped believing Yan Shirong’s continued insistence that his arts weren’t suitable for direct combat.

  By contrast, Chen Fei’s improvements were perhaps the most subtle. Her outward appearance had hardly changed, with the only real marker coming in the form of her muscles feeling a bit more firm than was natural. Even for someone of her impressive raw physical strength. He Yu could also swear she was about a finger or so taller than when they’d first met, but she insisted that wasn’t the case. He didn’t push the issue, as he was still just a tiny bit sensitive about being the shortest of them all.

  The feeling of her spirit was likewise much the same as it had always been. Strong and solid, with roots of rock reaching deep into the earth, and towering mountain reaching to the heavens above. The layers of the White Mountain Body Art had become more defined, but they still acted as layers—each technique building upon the previous.

  Her family art, the Seventy-Two Blessed Symbols, had advanced, but only its efficiency. She was still limited by the ability of formations themselves, but she formed her scripts faster than she ever had. It gave her versatility that the White Mountain Body Art sorely lacked—both in her ability to disrupt and trap her opponents, and also lending her already impressive strikes explosive power.

  Finally, there was her new technique, the Falling Star Strike. She and He Yu had left the others for several weeks to go work on it. She’d said she had wanted to perfect it before showing it off, but Kang Zhu had forced her hand. So, while they were away, they perfected it. Now, the gleaming mass of metal and mountain qi manifested a strike that truly carried the force of a fallen star. Even against someone as physically resilient as Tan Xiaoling, a single use that technique sent her opponent crashing into whatever unfortunate obstacle lay behind them.

  He Yu himself used their time in the mountains to finally come fully into his power as a Fifth Realm expert. His presence was ever more like a storm—a mass of swirling black clouds flickering with the distant light of heaven’s wrath. Each of his strikes brought down the same. When he activated the Peerless Judgment during his cultivation, he found himself finally standing atop that infinite stair. The Heavenly Palace itself rose to heaven at his back, and the world stretched out below and before him. He’d truly come into the new epithet Yongnian had given him before he’d left the shrine—Regent of the Heavenly Palace.

  The pillars of the Empyrean Ninefold Body Tempering—now five in number—rose around him. The Five Crescent Winds had truly come into its own, proving itself the perfect vessel for reaching out with the principle offensive technique of the Cloud Emperor’s Heavenly Palace—Heaven’s Descending Blade. The Spring Rain Mirror came more easily to him now than it ever had. And finally, at long last, the Sky Dragon’s Flight granted him the promise of its name.

  Most important of all, though, was the promise he’d seen in his advancement, and how it tied in to whatever it was Elder Cai had given him. During his meditation, more and more frequently, he saw the dragon in the heart of the storm. He came to better understand the subtle changes Elder Cai’s influence had made to his techniques. The changes weren’t anything he could fully comprehend, but it was clear what they were—the insights of an expert a thousand years his senior. While he couldn’t yet make full use of it all, there was truly no greater gift Elder Cai could have left him with.

  Then there was that single glimpse he’d been given by Li Renshu. A glimpse of his Dao—the Dao of Heroism. He Yu had always known he walked the path of a hero. That he walked the path of a legend. But this was different. Coming to understand and define one’s personal Dao was the key to all the higher realms. It normally wasn’t something a cultivator managed before the Soul Refining stage. Now that he’d seen it, the Sixth and Seventh Realms were all but guaranteed to him.

  As tremendous a boon as all of their advancements served, it was little comfort when a familiar presence interrupted their daily training. They’d already been together in the mountains for a full year at that point. He Yu and Tan Xiaoling had both recently reached middle Nascent Soul, and the others were nearly ready to push through the same bottleneck. Even with the five of them far stronger than they had any right to be, young as they were, it was a small comfort in the face of the approaching foe.

  In a burst of fire and heaven burning with incandescent rage, Xin Lu slammed to the earth in the midst of their training field. Every tree within a hundred feet burned to cinders in an instant. The ground blackened to ash.

  “At last, I’ve found you,” Xin Lu said, unleashing the full might of his peak Nascent Soul.