The qi coming from inside the cave was noticeably more potent. Just crossing into the entrance, He Yu felt a tingling sensation prickle his skin. The aspect was mostly mountain, but there were traces of other aspects mixed in as well: water, likely filtering in from outside; traces of metal and earth that hadn’t yet formed into mountain qi; and shadow seeping up from deeper in the cave. At the far end of the chamber, a cleft in the rock led deeper in. While it was too dark to see much of what lay beyond, it appeared to be the only way forward.

“The passage widens out just past there,” Tan Xiaoling said. “It also slopes down pretty sharply. Then it opens up into a larger chamber. That’s where I turned back.”

Tan Xiaoling started towards the cleft, and Li Heng fell in behind her. He Yu, not wanting to wait any longer quickly joined them, while Chen Fei and Yan Shirong took up the rear. The cleft itself was narrow, forcing even He Yu to turn sideways to squeeze through. True to Tan Xiaoling’s word, however, it opened up after only about ten feet. Despite the passage widening again, He Yu quickly began to feel claustrophobic.

The mountain pressed down on him, its weighty embrace crushing him under tons of rock and earth. For the first time since he’d advanced to the Second Realm all those months ago, he felt truly short of breath. Li Heng cast a glance over his shoulder and gave He Yu a sympathetic look.

“I should have thought to warn you,” Li Heng said. “The heaven and wind qi in your presence are clashing with all this mountain qi. I’m doing a bit better than you are, but the water in my own presence isn’t liking this either. Breathe and cycle your qi according to your cultivation technique. That should help.”

Almost as soon as He Yu fell into the familiar breathing pattern of the Cloud Emperor’s Peerless Judgment, the pressure lifted. As his qi followed the pattern through his meridians, he almost began to feel as if there was a bubble of wind and heaven cushioning him from the overwhelming weight of the mountain above.

Tan Xiaoling and Chen Fei were, of course, fine. Tan Xiaoling’s presence combined fire, metal, and earth. She wouldn’t notice any discomfort, given that her own aspects were components of the overwhelming amount of mountain qi. Chen Fei, on the other hand, seemed to be bolstered now that they were inside. She primarily cultivated mountain qi, with bits of earth and metal to support it. This environment was perfectly suited to her.

Yan Shirong seemed to be doing fine as well. Likely cushioned by the shadow-aspected qi that only grew denser the deeper they went.

The slope was indeed steep, and had they all not the coordination and balance of immortals, it would have been treacherous. It was still dark, though. While the darkness didn’t hinder them nearly as much as it would have if they were mortal, by the time they ventured a good way into the tunnel, it was getting difficult for He Yu to see. Just as he was about to speak up about it, the darkness began to lift.

It was slight, at first. Less incremental than on the way in. Mortal eyes wouldn’t have even noticed. But sure enough, each step forward made it just that much easier to see. The colors weren’t quite right—not that there would have been much other than the gray of solid stone—and the light seemed somehow cold. Soon, after following the slope downwards until it began to level out, He Yu saw the source of the light.

The chamber Tan Xiaoling had spoken of was more of a cavern, if he were honest. The floor was rough, but mostly level. The ceiling lay hundreds of feet above. Pillars—quite obviously carved intentionally—rose from the floor and lined the sides of the vast space. Everything was shot through with veins of dimly glowing crystal. Several tunnels along the chamber’s outer wall yawned in the dim light, leading deeper into the mountain.

“Spirit stone,” Yan Shirong breathed as he emerged into the cavern.

“Not worth harvesting,” Tan Xiaoling said. “At least not here. If we could find where these veins led further up, we might manage to find some low-grade stones there.”

He Yu reached out with the Cloud Emperor’s Peerless Judgment and saw what she meant. The veins contained very little qi in any given section. Instead, they directed it upward, acting more like meridians that channeled the flow coming from deep below.

Also, unlike proper spirit stones, the veins didn’t seem to be able to contain the qi flowing through them. Qi seeped out from the veins, filling the chamber—the source of the qi that had drawn them here in the first place, and that had made the waterfall into such a beneficial cultivation spot.

“We should just stay here until the tournament,” He Yu said. “Just think how strong we could become.”

“Not an awful idea,” Li Heng said. “Although we’d have to answer some questions first.”

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“Like what?” He Yu asked.

“Well, who—or what—carved this place out,” Yan Shirong said. Then he pointed to one of the columns. “That didn’t form on its own. And look on the floor there, that isn’t natural either.”

The spot he indicated held what looked to be a long gouge carved from the rock. It was about a finger’s length deep and as Yan Shirong had mentioned, clearly not formed by any natural process.

Tan Xiaoling crossed her arms as she looked down at the gouge. “I suspected I might find something like that. It was why I didn’t want to explore this place on my own,” she said. “Fei, can you tell anything about it?”

As Chen Fei knelt to examine the mark, He Yu considered what Tan Xiaoling had said. She was the top-ranked disciple of all the first years, and she had been dueling—and winning—against second and third-year disciples since her breakthrough. To call her strong was almost an understatement. That someone like her was hesitant to come here alone spoke volumes.

“I’ve never seen its like,” Chen Fei said. “I can’t say how old it is, either. There’s nothing here that would cause it to wear. No water has pooled in it, but the rest of this cavern is pretty dry, too. Whatever made it is big, and likely carries earth or mountain aspect, but that’s sort of a given with where we are.” She shrugged. “Sorry.”

“That’s quite the perception art,” Yan Shirong said.

Chen Fei gave him a sheepish grin. “No, just my eyes. I helped my father with hunting before I joined the sect. Well, everyone in my village helped with hunting, actually.”

After spending months in Yan Shirong’s company, He Yu could tell he wanted to say something. Something that would likely be less than kind. Wisely, he did not. The look Tan Xiaoling gave him—sharp with warning and danger—was likely the reason.

“I see,” he said after the moment began to stretch into awkwardness. “That’s even more impressive, then.”

Chen Fei beamed. Tan Xiaoling smirked.

“Well said, Brother Yan,” Li Heng said, clapping him on the shoulder. “Hopefully we can all use our individual talents to unravel the mystery of these markings.”

“These markings?” He Yu asked.

“There’s more over there,” Li Heng said, pointing to the base of another pillar.

These grooves were shallower and led off into the closest tunnel. Whatever was responsible for them clearly came from deeper in.

“We should come back with a light source and explore the deeper tunnels. I’d rather not try and cultivate here if whatever made those marks is likely to come back,” He Yu said. It was fairly obvious that whatever was responsible for the gouged stone frequented this place. The qi here was strong, and the beast likely came here for its own advancement.

“I can make a light,” Chen Fei said. With a brief flex of her spirit, a single formation character appeared above her head. It lit the cavern almost as though it were full daylight.

In one previously dark corner, far from where the group stood, a massive shape moved. Chitin scraped against stone as a monstrosity uncurled itself from where it had been hiding. The creature stood twice as tall as any of the disciples and had a smooth black shell, segmented into two halves like a beetle.

Its head resembled that of a mantis, and its black eyes glistened like oil on water. A pair of mandibles flexed, clacking together with the sound of snapping wood or bone. Its forelegs were massive bladed hooks. The remaining two pairs of legs were smaller but stocky, supporting the creature’s weight. Despite the size of its back legs, it rushed forward with considerable speed.

The group immediately sprang into action.

Tan Xiaoling’s paired dao fell into her hands, and a sandstorm kicked up around her as her presence surged outward. Her spirit felt like a sandstorm rolling across a parched wasteland while the sun beat down from above. Thousands of tiny shards, each one sharp as a razor, stripped the flesh from all who dared encroach. The flat expanse left all exposed, left nowhere to hide, take shelter, or rest. Even stone would eventually be ground to dust, adding yet more razor shards to the swirling storm that scoured the land.

Li Heng manifested his jian, and even without taking an attack, it gleamed with unnatural brightness. He became a silent snow-covered field. The stars shone quietly down from the blanket of a black sky, and the whole of the land was bathed in the silver light of the moon. The silent, creeping, inevitable cold stole into any gap it could find. All who set foot upon these frozen fields would find their movement sluggish as they struggled to find warmth in that beautiful frozen land.

Yan Shirong practically vanished from sight, becoming indistinct and blending into the shadows now made sharper and more distinct in the harsh light of Chen Fei’s technique. Tendrils that looked almost like smoke rose around him, a dozen throwing knives held at the ready by limbs of darkness given substance. Shadows crept outwards from where he stood, casting darkness onto what should have been illuminated.

Chen Fei grew. The expanse of her qi filled the room, as the mountain of her spirit drew power from the mountain above and around them. She was wholly in her element here, and it showed. She seemed to tower over them all, as her spirit swelled and became a peak that reached past the clouds to the heavens themselves. At the same time, her stance reached deep into the earth, drawing strength and vitality from the very ground she stood upon.

Then there was He Yu. Cradled by the wind, he stood among the clouds. Behind him flickered the distant flashes of a storm on the edge of breaking. With the silent, discerning judgment of a ruler, he surveyed the lands below. The forms suggested by his friends’ presences.

None of them were yet as solid as someone like Old Guo had been, or even Zhang Lifen. But he could see and feel the shape of what they would become. He took a small moment of solace in that—it seemed he might not climb to the heights of cultivation alone, after all.

It was all he could spare, though. The creature was upon them in an instant, its forelimbs gouging stone as though it were nothing more solid than loosely packed dirt.