Necro remained still as the echoes of the breakthrough faded, letting the last tremors settle within his meridians. The world around him was quiet once more, the twilight deepening into night, with only the hush of the waterfall and the occasional call of a night bird to mark the passage of time.
He drew a slow breath, feeling the Green Lotus within his dantian pulsing gently, each potential petal resonating with the stabilized, purified energy now coursing through him. The veins of Dao energy within the Lotus shimmered with emerald light, woven together with the refined principles he had fought to comprehend, each thread a path to further insights, further mastery.