Yu Chen gasped, gripping his chest as he jolted awake.

  His body radiated with pain from Xiao Huang’s sudden attack. Terrified, he ran his hands across his body, searching for wounds. To his surprise, he didn’t feel any. As his adrenaline faded, he realized the pain was familiar. He’d felt something like this once before, when he’d taken an attack to his soul. He raised his hand, rubbing at his face as Lan She stirred restlessly near his waist.

  The snake wasn’t happy to feel him in pain. Feelings of indignation rolled through their bond as she uncoiled from his waist, preparing to attack. He slid a hand into his robe, caressing her. He did his best to send her soothing thoughts as he twisted his fingers, bringing out the piece of soul-cleansing jade.

  He let out a sigh of relief as the energy in the jade spread through the air around him. It was like a balm to his wounded spirit, causing the pain to retreat. Thankfully, Xiao Huang’s attack wasn’t as bad as the one he’d taken last time. He only felt a bit of vertigo and was able to restrain his urge to throw up. It was more like an abrasion, than the gaping wound the wolf had left behind.

  Why had he done that? Yu Chen wondered. He couldn’t train like this. Even if it was small, it would take days to recover from. Scowling, he laid back down and closed his eyes. His frown deepened as he saw the claw still hanging in his mind, rendered in perfect detail. Then it moved and his brows unclenched, widening in surprise.

  The claw fell, tearing through reality.

  Understanding flashed through Yu Chen as the attack finished and Xiao Huang’s claw rose once again. The dragon hadn’t attacked his soul, he’d carved a technique into it! Excitement welled inside him as he watched it fall, elegant in its simplicity.

  Yu Chen’s fingers twitched on their own accord, attempting to mimic the move.

  Any thoughts about the pain disappeared as the jade stifled it, allowing him to ignore it, as he did everything else. Xiao Huang and his advancement, the ship and the others on board. They all evaporated; his mind fixated on the single claw filling his vision. He watched as it rose again, moving with all the surety of the morning sun before descending with the weight of the world.

  He fell into a trance.

  An entire day and a night passed as he watched that claw. He didn’t feel hunger, or thirst, Serbo’s princely feast was enough to sustain him, and Lan She was content to hibernate at his side.

  On the dawn of the second day, he finally managed to look deeper.

  The dragon’s flesh peeled away, revealing the pattern of the qi flowing through it. It was nothing like the technique Yu Chen had learned, where he’d condense his qi into a single point. Xiao Huang’s talon, no, his entire forefinger, was flooded with a thick qi that writhed strangely, roiling with a dense energy. He frowned, looking closer only to be horrified by what he saw.

  Xiao Huang hadn’t condensed his qi into a point, but into channels that ran from the core of his dantian all the way to the tip of his claw. What he’d thought was a solid mass was actually ten thousand tiny streams of qi tightly bound together!

  Was such a thing even possible?

  Two more days passed as Yu Chen considered it. The energy packed into each one of those streams was enough to make him sweat, but what captivated Yu Chen was what it meant. When he condensed his qi, it was always at the last moment, and he used it as a way to sharply increase his force. Xiao Huang’s qi somehow flowed in condensed streams, before pooling into his talon and condensing even further.

  Yu Chen swallowed. Right before Xiao Huang unleashed the attack his claw trembled, shaking with the repressed energy of ten thousand streams of qi converging into one, like tributaries into a great river. A technique fit for a dragon who himself embodied the river.

  Not that it was a technique, not exactly. It wasn’t the sort of thing that could be written down in a book or summed up with words like earth-grade and heaven. After all, a bad technique would show you how to move your body, and the good ones showed you how to move your qi.

  Xiao Huang’s technique showed far more than that.

  The next time the claw descended the world disappeared. The background was the first to fade away, followed by the rest of the dragon’s clawed limb. Then the forefinger peeled back, leaving only the flow of qi. Finally, that faded as well, revealing something new. The attack wasn’t claw or qi. It was pure Intention, fueled by a deep understanding of countless Concepts.

  Yu Chen’s mind reeled at the sight, and he bucked in his bed. Unbeknownst to him a thin line of blood ran from one nostril, staining his bedding. His eyes fluttered and he almost woke from his trance, but even if he wanted to he couldn’t. The moment of enlightenment seized him in a firm grasp and kept him from looking away.

  The Concepts spread out to fill every inch of his mind’s boundless space as the claw descended. Yu Chen couldn’t tear his eyes away, forced to watch the chaotic mix of energies as they were unleashed, forced to watch as Xiao Huang’s attack did the impossible and cleaved through space.

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  Reality itself couldn’t block the attack.

  Yu Chen hardly had time to appreciate this though as the Concepts whirled through his mind, demanding his attention. The sight of them humbled him once again. There were so many, far more than Yu Chen could name. There were those he recognized of course. The five elements, and life and death as well. He’d grown closer to those after his time in the river.

  The attack also contained a lot of… Space? It was something he’d sensed before, when his spatial bag had been broken open. Even that was the tip of the iceberg. Dozens more lurked beneath the surface, Concepts related to sharpness and penetration along with others he didn’t know. Yu Chen immersed himself, becoming familiar with as many as possible. Not that it was easy. They only showed themselves in the briefest of moments before the attack would finish. Then they disappeared, and the attack would start all over again.

  Three more days passed as he lay there, absorbing whatever he could. During this time his connection with the elements deepened, particularly the one with Water. It was the first Concept he’d ever touched upon, and his time in the river had left him sensitive to it. He soon realized his connection to it far outstripped the others. Strangely enough it was death that came in second. It resonated with him, unlike the others that seemed almost standoffish at his presence.

  Yu Chen watched that movement thousands of times during those days, until the sensation was embedded in his bones, and the flow of qi seemed as natural as breathing. Only then did the claw release its hold on him, retreating somewhere to the depths of his spirit.

  He finally woke up on the dawn of the seventh day.

  His eyes blinked open, staring at the ceiling in confusion. A long moment passed as he mentally prodded himself, but when he felt no pain, he sat up, yawning loudly as he stretched. Dried flakes of blood fluttered to the ground as he rubbed the sleep from his eyes. He frowned at them, before standing up and approaching the washbasin in his room.

  His stomach grumbled ravenously, so after freshening up he headed outside and ducked into the galley, looking for something to eat.

  To his surprise Xue Lan was already there, sitting at a table filled with a pile of flatbreads and a steaming pot of some fishy soup. She looked up from her bowl, frowning at him as he entered the room.

  “You are alive!” she said, tapping her bowl with her spoon. “We were beginning to get worried. You haven’t left your room for a week.”

  He scratched his head, giving her a sheepish smile. “I was busy cultivating.”

  She rolled her eyes at his words, but her lip quirked up at the side. “No time to waste, huh? You just broke through.”

  He shrugged, turning around to grab one of the empty bowls from the tray on the counter. He took his time ladling some of the soup before replying.

  “It’s not time that I’m worried about,” he finally said. Sitting down he took a bite of the soup as he thought over his words. “It’s all the people out there who are willing to kill me. Every second I waste they’re out there growing stronger.”

  Xue Lan fell silent at his words, playing around in her bowl with her own spoon.

  “I need to become stronger too.” She finally said, clenching her spoon a bit harder than she had before he’d spoken.

  Yu Chen considered comforting her, but she wasn’t a child. The truth was she needed to become stronger, they all did. In the end he simply nodded, taking another bite. She stared at him for a second, hesitating before saying what was on her mind.

  “You haven’t been activating the array.” She blurted out.

  Yu Chen blinked, surprised at her words, before flushing with embarrassment. The array was a great boon, and he hadn’t meant to keep it to himself. Did Xue Lan want to use it?

  “I’ve been talking with the others,” she said, unaware of his thoughts. “Sun Yuan thinks you were concerned about the amount of energy it was draining from the mast, but Yan Ziqi believes we have more than enough spirit stones to offset it.”

  Yu Chen took another bite of soup, thinking about her words. They thought he was trying to reserve resources? The truth was, he’d been laying in his bed. If he hadn’t been caught in his trance the array would have been turned on day and night.

  “We think you should activate it.” Xue Lan continued, “The others and I all want to cultivate as much as we can before we arrive to Baixian city.”

  He frowned. The array wasn’t that powerful, was it? He’d seen it as a personal aid, before… He mentally slapped himself. Of course, after the Riverlord reforged the ship, it was far more powerful, able to pull in spiritual energy from all around, covering the entire ship in a thick fog.

  “Ok,” he said, nodding his head. If the others wanted to cultivate, who was he to stop them? He picked a few pieces of fish out of his bowl, feeding them to Lan She before finishing the rest of his soup. He used a piece of flat bread to mop up the remains before ladling out another bow.

  “I’ll be returning to secluded meditation.” he said, taking a bite of his soup.

  Xue Lan nodded. “I think we all will, as soon as you activate the array. Sun Yuan doesn’t mind staying above deck, and besides, his connection with the ship will inform him of anything strange.” She took a bite of bread before continuing, “He’s preparing to break through soon too. He might be stronger the next time you see him.”

  Yu Chen nodded, but he barely heard her. They finished eating in a companionable silence. Once he was finished, he stood up, dusting himself off before returning to his room. A small part of him wanted to check in with the others, but it was outweighed by the far larger part that wanted to see Xiao Huang and continue his training.

  He strode over to the array as soon as he entered the room, pulling off his robe and sending it into his spatial ring with a flash. Another swipe of his hand sent out the fossilized bones he’d gathered long ago, filling the room with a dense qi. Satisfied, he fell to the ground cross legged. Lan She shifted at the sudden loss of warmth, but she only cinched around tighter, wrapping his waist like a belt.

  Xiao Huang had bid him to return, day and night.

  Yu Chen breathed in, activating the array beneath him. As the spiritual energy in the room began drifting towards him, he breathed out, activating his breathing technique. A black hole erupted in his belly, greedily sucking in the energy in the world around him.

  He breathed in once more, summoning his hopes, his fears, his dreams. All the stray thoughts running through his mind lined up. He breathed out, banishing them and falling into his meditative state.

  Yu Chen’s mind expanded as he focused on nothing, concentrating solely on the pattern of breaths that kept his technique going.

  When the moment was right Yu Chen spun his attention inward, watching as the world turned inside out. It was a disorienting feeling, but he smiled as he felt the sensation of sunlight playing across his skin.

  He opened his eyes. For the first time ever, Yu Chen had willfully entered his inner world.