Elder Mai stepped from the cave's mouth, the hem of her silver robe whispering against the stone. A light morning wind, scented with pine and cold mist, tugged at the fabric. She paused, her gaze drifting upward toward the distant peak where her personal estate rested, separate from the main sect grounds. Her hand moved to the silver crane talisman at her waist. With a precise flick of her wrist, it unfolded, not with a flash of light, but with a series of smooth, silent articulations, transforming into a slender, elegant flying artifact that hovered just above the ground, its form etched with faint, shimmering runes.
She stepped onto it without looking back. "I'll ride this," she stated, her voice carrying the finality of a settled fact.
Behind her, Yan Shen remained at the cave's threshold. The trust he placed in this woman was not built on warmth or familiarity, but on a recognition of alignment. Her motives were opaque, but her actions were consistent. She dealt in realities, not platitudes. In this world, that was its own form of integrity.
He looked at the sky, then at the distant platform she intended to reach. The decision was simple. With no fanfare, no gathering of energy, he simply rose.
No talisman. No hand seals. No explosive burst of Qi to defy gravity. He ascended smoothly, steadily, as if the air had simply decided to bear his weight.
Elder Mai, sensing the shift in space beside her, glanced to her left.
Her mind, honed by centuries of observation and calculation, encountered a phenomenon that defied its immediate categorization. A Qi Gathering disciple, mid-stage, was flying. Not leaping, not gliding on a technique: flying. There was no visible expenditure, no spiritual signature of a propulsion art. It was as natural as breathing.
Her expression, a mask of perpetual calm, did not flicker. But internally, a single, silent recalibration occurred, vast and instantaneous. Every assumption about his limits was quietly discarded. Her breath caught once, a minute hitch she would never acknowledge, before settling back into its rhythm.
She said nothing. Questions lined up behind her lips, How? Since when? To what extent? but she let them dissolve unspoken. Some truths were better observed than interrogated. She turned her gaze forward, and together, they let the morning clouds envelop them.
The sparring platform was a circle of polished dark stone set into a private cliff within her estate, ringed by nine monolithic pillars carved with suppression runes. The air here was still, the sounds of the sect muted by powerful boundary formations. It was a place designed for measurement, not spectacle.
They alighted on its surface simultaneously.
Elder Mai turned to face him, her hands resting loosely at her sides. "We will establish a baseline. I will strike you with force equivalent to successive cultivation realms. You will not defend with technique. You will only endure. Indicate when you reach your limit."
Yan Shen gave a single nod. "Understood."
There was no ceremony.
She began.
Mid Qi Gathering. Her first strike was a straight-fingered palm to the center of his chest. It was clean, direct, carrying the concentrated force a diligent disciple at that realm could muster.
It landed. The sound was a soft thump.
Yan Shen did not move. Not a sway, not a tightening of muscle, not an instinctive shift of weight. His body absorbed the impact as a deep lake absorbs a pebble, without ripple.
She withdrew her hand, her eyes noting the complete absence of reaction.
Late Qi Gathering. The next strike was a low, snapping kick aimed at the side of his knee, a blow meant to buckle the joint and break posture.
It connected with the solid thud of flesh meeting something far denser.
His leg did not bend. His balance did not falter. He stood as if the kick had been a breeze.
Body Refinement Realm. She shifted her approach. Three strikes in succession: a knife-hand chop to the collarbone, a driving fist to the solar plexus, a sweeping low kick to the ankle. Each blow carried the tempered, resilient force of a body strengthened by Qi infusion, beyond mere muscle.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
He remained rooted. His collarbone did not notch. His breath did not hitch. His ankle did not turn. It was not that he resisted; it was that his physiology did not recognize the input as a threat requiring a response.
She paused, her analytical mind revising the model of his physical composition. His body was not merely tough; it operated on a different scale of structural integrity altogether.
Early Foundation Establishment. Her movements gained a fluid, economical grace. An elbow shot toward his floating ribs, followed by a pivoting back-fist to the temple, then a rising palm aimed to lift his chin.
The impacts were sharper, more focused. They landed.
No effect. No flinch, no stagger, no reflexive hardening. The force dissipated into him as sound into a vacuum.
Late Foundation Establishment. Now she targeted structural vulnerabilities with precision. A finger-strike to the shoulder socket's pressure point. A heel-drop to the arch of his foot. A spinning elbow to the kidney.
This time, on the final impact, something shifted.
His torso absorbed the force, but his center of gravity adjusted minutely. His right foot slid back half an inch on the polished stone, grinding faintly. It was the first concession to physics he had shown.
He recentered himself instantly, his posture still relaxed. But a line had been crossed.
So, she thought. There is a threshold. It is merely… inconveniently high.
Early Core Formation. She did not announce the shift. One moment she was before him; the next, she was a half-step behind, her presence displacing the air with a soft push of pressure. Her palm, moving without apparent speed, touched the space between his shoulder blades.
The contact produced a sound unlike the others,a deep, resonant thump that seemed to echo in the bones.
Yan Shen did not cry out. He did not fall. But his knees flexed, a wave of concussive force traveling up his spine, demanding acknowledgment. For the first time, a sensation blossomed within him, not tearing pain, but a profound, resonant ache, a signal that a limit of pure sturdiness had been reached.
Alright, he acknowledged inwardly. That one registered.
He drew a breath, preparing to raise a hand and end the test.
Before he could speak, she stepped back, her gaze sharpening. "Now," she said, her voice containing a new, focused intensity. "Use your Qi. Not to attack. Merely to reinforce. I wish to observe you more in detail"
He did not question her. He simply allowed the energy within him to surface.
There was no dramatic eruption. The Qi did not flare around him in a visible aura. Instead, it manifested as a change in the environment's conditions. The air in the immediate vicinity grew heavy, dense, as if the space itself had gained mass. The suppression runes on the surrounding pillars brightened marginally, their glow intensifying in response to the sudden gravitational pressure. The very platform beneath them let out a low, sub-audible groan.
Elder Mai's eyes widened a fraction. She could feel it, a palpable weight that made the light bend subtly around him. His physical presence hadn't changed, but the context of it had. It was no longer just a body; it was a locus of condensed potential.
She moved again. A final, testing strike, delivered with the controlled intent of her Early Core Formation strength, aimed at his upper arm.
Her palm met his shoulder.
The feedback that traveled up her arm was not one of impact against a hard surface, but of impact against a deep one. It was the difference between striking a wall and striking a mountainside. A dull, profound reverberation settled in her own bones, a tactile confirmation of a density that defied his cultivation stage.
She withdrew her hand, lowering it slowly to her side. The silence of the platform was absolute, broken only by the distant cry of a hawk.
"You are certain," she asked, her tone measured, devoid of its earlier casual edge, "that your cultivation base remains at the Qi Gathering Middle Stage?"
Yan Shen nodded once. "It has been stable there for three days."
She studied his face. There was no guile in his answer, only fact. The terrifying implication was that he genuinely did not know what he represented.
"I see," she said after a long pause. She looked down at her own hand, then at the stone where his feet were planted, as if verifying the reality of both. "Then let this be clear. Your natural physical resilience, without Qi reinforcement, is equivalent to the lower threshold of the Core Formation realm. When you circulate your Qi… that defensive threshold rises to a mid-tier Core Formation standard." She met his eyes, ensuring he absorbed the words. "Do you comprehend the statistical anomaly you represent?"
He considered it. He understood the words, the comparison. The full, destabilizing weight of their meaning, how it shattered every known paradigm of cultivation progression, had not yet settled upon him.
But it had settled upon her.
She did not launch another attack. The experiment was concluded. She had tested a Qi Gathering disciple and had found, residing within that frame, a defense that should not exist within a hundred years of his current stage. The implications were not exciting; they were grave. In a world of careful hierarchies and calculated power, an anomaly of this magnitude was not a blessing. It was a target.
She turned and walked toward the edge of the platform, her gaze on the sect sprawling below, its order suddenly appearing fragile. "Do not," she said softly, the warning carried on the thin, high-altitude wind, "float too high too soon. The sky has eyes, and they do not like surprises."