Like a shooting star, Jalen was hurled across the Vault.
The Origin Shard didn't guide him—it launched him. Wind Qi flared around his body in compressed rings, blurring the sky into streaks of distortion. Clouds snapped past him like torn scrolls.
"What now?" he yelled into the wind, voice grinding through clenched teeth. "You can't keep flinging me around like a lost scroll!"
The shard answered with a pulse of soft light—defiant, unreadable.
Then gravity bent. Space folded. The world shifted.
He struck what looked like a mountain—jagged stone wrapped in mist—but the impact didn't shatter him. It shattered the illusion.
Reality peeled like paper soaked in spiritual ink. What the outside realm saw as ordinary terrain cracked wide open. Hidden beneath was a sovereign subspace—a sealed domain woven into the Vault's inner skeleton.
An island of obsidian root and memory-threaded stone. Spirit-fed trees. A slow, glowing river with strong photonic qi. And nestled at the center, veiled beneath sovereign formation arrays: a silent temple built from white stone that pulsed with legacy intent.
The perimeter of this space wasn't open. It was protected.
Anyone beneath Spirit Fusion Realm attempting to force their way in would be shredded mid-transition. Stronger cultivators might survive entry—but not without effort.
Yet Jalen didn't force his way in.
His Breath Like Dust technique erased his spirit signature, folding his presence into the terrain itself. He slipped past the arrays not as a cultivator, but as mist—undefined, unreadable, unwanted.
So when his boots touched the isle's edge and the temple stood waiting, it wasn't triumph.
It was quiet permission.
__
Inside the temple, silence reigned.
No formation arrays. No guards. No traps. Just a pedestal veined with spiraling runes.
And atop it: a pulsing white crystal fill with light qi.
Jalen didn't need guidance to recognize it.
A Light Spirit Seed.
His brow furrowed.
For his shadow physique and core, the seed was incompatible—almost hostile. Light and shadow repelled one another. A cultivator attempting to absorb both risked internal collapse, meridian fragmentation, and worse.
The seed would be better suited to someone with photonic qi. Someone whose body aligned with gentler rhythms and healing essences.
Still, the seed was rare. Valuable. And the Origin Shard had dragged him here for a reason. Maybe it's able to fuse these opposing energy within him without causing collapse. Or maybe his second spirit core will be able to produce a miracle. That makes him excited to see what the outcome of this may bring
He stepped toward it.
The Vault responded.
Raw qi slammed into him. Not through technique, but through inherited suppression—a legacy pressure forged long before his birth. It wasn't alive, yet it watched. It didn't speak, but it judged.
On the first day, he reached one hundred steps before being expelled.
His ribs ached.
His spirit burned.
The second day, he pushed harder. One hundred and ten steps. A vein ruptured in his shoulder. Blood flecked his sleeve.
The third day—one hundred and fifty.
Then rejection.
Silent and crushing, like a soul caged inside bone.
He tumbled from the temple again, body folded, cloak torn, breath staggered. He collapsed beneath an ancient herb cluster that shimmered faintly in response to his qi.
Jalen didn't move.
He stared past the ridges at the temple, listening to its silence. It didn't beckon him, nor did it push him away.
It simply waited.
So he left. Not defeated—only thoughtful.
He wandered into the wilds of the Vault Realm.
The deeper sectors pulsed with chaos dressed as elegance: rivers of liquid light flowed like veins through floating ridges; beasts roared across cliffside altars, chasing cultivators mid-breakthrough; relics flickered through compressed memory; battles erupted over fragments that may or may not hold legacy.
Jalen passed through all of it untouched.
Until he reached a ridge scorched by combat. Not because he was interested but because the origin shard practically rang out at him.
There—beneath cracked stone and flickering glyphs—stood a woman from the Sabre Sect Diamond Realm. Her sword dripped refined intent, her posture that of someone who fought only to eliminate.
Before her, barely standing, was a rogue cultivator—white-blond hair, average frame, Peak Amethyst Realm. Seventeen years old in his features and aura.
Blood ran down the young man's left arm. His ribs were broken. His stance, though defiant, swayed like a flame against the wind.
Jalen paused in the shadows.
The woman's voice cut sharp.
"Hand over the treasure, boy."
The rogue spat blood, eyes narrowing. "I found it first."
She didn't argue.
She let her blade speak.
One slash. Blade light flickered—and the boy collapsed.
His blood splattered across a jagged pedestal behind him. She forced open his secret storage space, causing backlash that made him seize violently. She plucked a glowing orb—a rare relic bound with sword qi and refined intent—and vanished, leaving behind nothing but pressure and bleeding stones.
But the boy didn't die.
He twitched.
Refused to exhale.
Jalen stepped from the shadows, boots brushing fractured glyphs. He studied the young cultivator.
Though faint, the Youngman's body emitted traces of photonic qi—light essence thought rare in the current cultivation cycle. Most dismissed it as weak, reserved for healing and minor support.
Jalen knew better.
Light, in the hands of a master, could slice space and fracture illusions. It could reconstruct fields and ignite spiritual damage more devastating than flame.
Something in the young man's energy also pulsed wrong.
His qi felt like it was trying to flow in two directions at once—light reaching upward, something heavier dragging it down. A dissonance. Subtle, but dangerous.
He crouched beside him.
The boy's pulse was erratic but fighting. Spirit veins throbbed. A faint glow curled across his collarbone before fading into skin. The origin shard buzzed again with excitement; this was a signal that he should save the youth, and Jalen had an idea why it wanted this.
"Alright," Jalen murmured, "you can calm down. I'll help him."
He raised his hand, letting his qi curl along the stone, weaving into the boy's core. Wind threads braided into stabilizing lines—not offensive, but surgical. He pressed energy into shattered channels, holding life together with enough force to tempt fate.
The blood slowed.
The breathing deepened.
But the boy wasn't safe.
Not yet.
Jalen picked up the youth and vanished from the scene before the spirit beast, who was approaching, arrived.