The secret passage opens wider behind the dais, and a cold hush spills out. Jade slips line the shelves in neat ranks, while old bamboo scrolls rest in lacquered trays beside dried herb bundles.
Zhāng Wújì steps inside. The room answers with a faint, layered hum, as if every shelf is holding its breath.
On a central stand lies a cracked jade register. Beside it, a black seal disc rests in a recess, its surface threaded with the same ancient marks as the monument. The air around it feels thin, strained.
Several shelves are marked with body refinement diagrams, meridian routes, and warnings about forced progression. One line is clear even through the old script, each breakthrough opens the next lock.
A deeper vibration runs through the floor, answering the register and the seal disc together. Somewhere beyond the library, something sealed is loosening by the breath.
Zhāng Wújì now sees the cost plainly, every path to stronger cultivation here also feeds the inheritance's hidden pressure, and that pressure is waking Xùn.
✓ Quest Accepted
Achieve the next stage of Primordial body cultivation.
✓ Quest Accepted
Advance to the next stage of Primordial physical cultivation.
“Wújì studies the Primordial Ancestor's original body-cultivation records and initiates the next true breakthrough. He circulates qi through his already-tempered flesh, organs, blood, bones, marrow, and meridians, enduring the complete transformation until his physical constitution crosses into the next stage of Primordial body cultivation.”
SUCCESS (Good Health, rolled -1)
Wújì lowers his gaze to the records, then settles his breath into the old rhythm. Qi threads through flesh, blood, bone, and marrow, and the chamber answers with a deeper, colder hush.
Zhāng Wújì
The method is incomplete, but the structure is clear.
His circulation locks into place. The dense stillness in his frame sharpens, and a faint crack of light runs across the black seal disc.
A thin line of warmth leaves his body with the final surge, and a trickle of blood slips from his nose onto the stone.
The library’s humming wall-rings deepen in tone. Shelved slips tremble, then settle, as if the room has recorded the breakthrough.
The cracked jade register opens itself by a fraction, revealing a gap in the instructions, enough to control the inheritance’s energy only in part.
Somewhere beyond the shelves, green light wavers in the air and a sealed pressure stirs, waiting for the next breath.
Quest Complete
Achieve the next stage of Primordial body cultivation.
Quest Complete
Advance to the next stage of Primordial physical cultivation.