“You’re going where?” Yan Shirong fixed He Yu with a stern look as he planted himself firmly in the path leading east into the forest.

“I’ll be back in a few days. A week at most,” He Yu said.

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“I already told you where I’m going,” he shot back. He really didn’t want Yan Shirong coming along for what he’d decided was his adventure. He’d probably just pocket anything and everything of any worth and leave He Yu with nothing for himself.

“Are you certain you want to go alone?” Li Heng asked. It was a more reasonable way to phrase things, but He Yu still wasn’t about to change his mind.

“I am,” was the only answer he gave.

The three of them had been going back and forth like this all morning. He Yu had long since lost patience for it. Old Guo had taken him away from the others—clear to the other side of the lake—to tell him about the temple. It was obviously meant for him and him alone. Of course, he couldn’t say as much. Even he had enough of a grasp on social conventions to see that.

“There might be danger,” Li Heng said.

“I’ll be fine.” He couldn’t say that for certain but he was stronger now than he’d ever been. He felt as though he had a good enough handle on the lands here, too. Besides King Hao, there wasn’t anything around that was too dangerous. What awaited him at the temple was another matter, but he figured he could deal with that when the time came. Old Guo wouldn’t send him into something he wasn’t prepared to deal with.

Just as Yan Shirong started to object once again, Old Guo emerged from his hut and put an end to the argument himself.

“Let the boy go,” he said. “Li Heng needs to continue the training he missed while he was with me.”

Li Heng grimaced at the mere mention of spending however long chopping Stonewrought Pines, but said nothing. Yan Shirong apparently wasn’t interested in a similar display of good judgment.

“Then Li Heng can chop trees,” he said. “I can go with He Yu.”

“No. You stay here. You’ve your own training to see to,” Old Guo said.

Yan Shirong looked as though he was about to object, but a quick flex of Old Guo’s spirit buried the argument for good. With things finally settled, He Yu left the others behind.

He spent the day headed east, following the directions Old Guo had given him. With the increased qi reserves he’d gained by raising his cultivation base to the middle Foundation stage—along with the strengthening of his wind aspect thanks to Old Guo’s training—he was able to use his movement technique more freely now.

While still a long way away from granting true flight, the bursts of wind qi that propelled his steps when activating the Sky Dragon’s Flight were exhilarating. He ate up the distance as the ground sped by beneath him. When traveling through denser parts of the forest, he leaped from branch to branch and from treetop to treetop. For the first time in his life, he moved like a true immortal.

On that first day away he gave little thought to what he might find when he arrived, simply exulting in the feeling of movement, and the strength and speed his cultivation had granted him these past weeks. Before joining the Shrouded Peaks Sect he’d been weak, frail. Zhang Lifen had said that he’d have a harder time of things until he reached Body Refining, but she clearly hadn’t counted on his good fortune.

Between feasting on meat from Third Realm beasts and the strengthening of both his body and his spiritual presence from Old Guo’s training, He Yu felt as though he’d shed those concerns. But what if he hadn’t? What if this was only the first taste of what he could expect upon breaking into the Third Realm? Zhang Lifen never said that he wouldn't grow stronger with cultivation, just that by the time he reached Body Refining, his initial weakness would cease to matter.

Either way, the mere thought excited him. He was stronger than he’d ever been in his life. Both in raw physical power and in his cultivation base. He’d replaced most of his sleep with meditation, needing only a few hours each night to feel refreshed. He could run for an entire day, with only a short break every few hours necessary to keep going. He couldn’t begin to imagine what the future held.

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Towards sundown on the third day, he caught sight of the temple. The temple was carved into the stone of the mountain itself, high above the tree line. It must have been huge, as He Yu could see the carvings of pillars, statues, and other decorations even from the base of the mountain. He could also see that it was old and in a state of disrepair.

He didn’t know if he’d exactly refer to it as a ruin like Old Guo had, but it was clearly abandoned. For how long he couldn’t say, but if it had been this way since before Old Guo had arrived in the region, it must have sat forgotten and alone for some time.

There was no sense in making the climb now, with darkness setting in. He Yu made a quick camp and settled in to cultivate. The qi in the area was noticeably more dense than the forest and lake that Old Guo had turned into his home. As soon as He Yu began to draw it into his dantian, he learned why the Old Cultivator hadn’t made his home here. The qi carried a strong natural wind and water aspect, similar to what He Yu had grown used to in the Shrouded Peaks.

However, the qi here was markedly different. The environment of the Shrouded Peaks Sect reflected the more calming aspects of both wind and water. A gentle spring breeze, or a cool brook tumbling through a forest. The qi that clung to this mountain was of a more intense sort.

It called forth thoughts of high winds driving rain in a sudden, violent summer storm. He Yu felt a certain kinship with these qualities, more so than he ever had back at the sect. He decided to forgo sleep and spend the night in cultivation. He’d be a bit tired the following day, but now that he was so close to the late Foundation stage, it wouldn’t hinder his ascent up the mountain. This was just too good an opportunity to miss.

As the sun crested the horizon, He Yu began his ascent brimming with excitement. The night’s cultivation had been productive. The stormy qi he’d absorbed into his dantian had somehow resonated with the Cloud Emperor’s Peerless Judgment as he cultivated, and he felt a sense that it fit the art. Perhaps this was what Old Guo had meant when he’d said the art would adapt itself to him.

He felt almost as though he could have broken through to late Foundation right there, but he’d held off. If it was this good at the base of the mountain, it could only be better once he reached the temple.

It took him all morning to reach the temple itself. He moved quickly but made sure not to expend too much qi. There could be anything up there, and he needed to be ready to fight, or run, if he had to. Still, each step he took increased his excitement.

As he climbed, aspects of thunder and heaven joined the wind and water. The feeling of intensity only grew, and by the time he placed his feet upon the temple steps, he could taste the rain on the air, and smell acrid lightning.

Now that he could see the temple up close, it was in far worse repair than he’d initially thought. Rubble was strewn about, and the pillars—once carved into the likeness of whatever god this place had been dedicated to—were so broken that he could barely tell they depicted a figure at all.

The grand double doors leading inside were all but ruined, one of them barely hanging on to its hinges, and the other lay on the paved stone floor in pieces. Still, an aura of majesty hung about this place, aided in no small part by a charge that crackled in the air.

With nothing but rubble and ruin to be seen outside, He Yu approached the entryway. The temple stretched away into the yawning darkness of the mountain. Braziers, cold and unlit lay to either side of the door. Steeling himself for whatever lay beyond, he crossed the threshold.

He Yu moved slowly into the temple. It wouldn’t hurt to be cautious, even though he found no signs of activity. As he moved deeper, he had to push down his growing disappointment at the fact that he couldn’t find signs of, well, anything.

It quickly became apparent that this place had been abandoned for a long time. Peering through the darkness with his cultivator’s senses, he found nothing. Where there might have once been scriptures he found only dust and empty shelves. Where there might have once been treasure, he found only cobwebs and rotted wood. Whatever this place may have once held, it had been picked clean long ago.

As he turned to go, He Yu found himself face-to-face with a spirit. He jumped back, slamming into a pillar. It took everything he had not to immediately summon his guandao from his storage space. He couldn’t risk antagonizing this being—the moment he’d seen it, the spirit must have stopped suppressing its presence. Given the feeling it gave off, it was firmly in the Fifth Realm.

The spirit itself had a form similar to a man. However, it was half again as tall as any man He Yu had ever known, even veritable giants like Ren Huang or Fang Yingjie. He wore robes woven of black silk embroidered with rolling clouds. A bureaucrat’s cap perched upon a head formed of living fog. Two pits of crackling heaven qi pulsed where the spirit’s eyes would be.

The spirit’s presence was everything that its appearance would suggest—a tempestuous summer storm, cracking with thunder and flashing with heavenly lightning. Winds howled around He Yu, and rain pelted his spirit. The presence was every bit as intense as anything he’d felt from either Zhang Lifen or Ren Huang. It was all he could do to keep his wits about him in the presence of a true great spirit.

The spirit formed a mouth that flashed with lightning and spoke in a voice that rumbled with distant thunder. “Welcome, Child of Storms.”