CHAPTER 225: OPENING MOVES

The soil shimmered faintly beneath my palm.

Threads of qi pulsed just beneath the surface, rising in slow ripples like breath through a slumbering beast. Spirit Soil handcrafted over weeks of experimentation, sealed and preserved within my home to avoid the worst of the violet rain, composted with the flesh of the Black Tiger and other essence-rich refuse, seeded with my own qi through careful infusion. My fingers moved on instinct now, smoothing the surface, spreading it into even beds with the flat edge of a wooden board.

Each layer was firm but soft, dense but breathable. The foundation for what I was about to grow.

I paused to wipe the sweat off my brow with the sleeve of my robe and glanced to my left, where nine sets of prepared seeds lay nestled in folded leaves. I'd organized them before dawn, right after I finished the final formulation in the Manifold Memory Palace.

Five were needed for the quest.

The other four?

They were for the world to come.

I reached first for the ginseng root, infused with the essence of Golden Bamboo and a few other plants. It wasn’t ordinary ginseng, not anymore. Each node pulsed faintly with potential; a stamina booster and body-enhancing medicine all at once.

I planted it carefully, carving out the shape of a broad basin. Then came the lotus, its shell-like seed kissed with jujube essence. Its calming properties now were potent, perhaps enough to even shut down Qi Deviation.

The next, a hybrid between wolfsbane, licorice root, and another shaving of Golden Bamboo, all calibrated to push the body’s qi circulation to its upper limits. It was dangerous. Overstimulating. But if refined into a pill, could be a far more potent cultivation pill than even my Golden Drop. It would also serve as a base for my modified cure to the Amethyst Plague, although it's interaction with the other ingredients would need to be studied once the plant fully matured.

I made a separate bed for it, layered with thinner soil lines.

Then came the moss. Simple spirit moss, once the base of my Healing Hydrosol. Now reborn through willow bark and garlic essence, redirected toward sickness rather than trauma. A temporary shield, a first-response medicine to stave off the early symptoms of the Amethyst Plague. Not a cure. Not yet. But I’d need it soon. For Yu Long. For everyone.

My hands moved automatically to the jadeleaf lily, infused with clarity-aligned herbs and a trace of ghost orchid essence that would sharpen one's mind with just a sniff. The roots were fragile, but it would thrive here.

The Golden Millet followed. Simple. Practical. A food crop with enhanced qi-density. It wouldn’t save lives directly, but it might prevent another kind of death. Starvation. Despair.

Beside it, I planted hybrid kudzu; merged with amaranth for rapid growth and deeper nourishment. Feed for livestock. Reinforced grain. Long-term survival wasn’t just about medicine.

Then the experimental Golden Bamboo hybrid. This one made me pause.

Infused with metal essence, a concept sparked by Wang Jun’s smithing process. I’d watched him use the extracted essences in his process; why not my own? The Golden Bamboo’s natural resilience made it the perfect test subject.

And then...

The final set.

Small, dark seeds, almost black, their surfaces veined like blood vessels. Bloodsoul Bloom.

I stared at them longer than I meant to.

I’d agonized over including them. But I knew what they were. What they could do. And what I might learn.

They shared core properties with Bloodthorn seeds; both capable of breaking down stagnated blood and toxic buildup. But where Bloodthorn worked like a purging poison, the Bloodsoul Bloom unraveled everything. It didn’t cleanse. It cleared, as though stripping the body bare to make room for something else. They fed on the dead. On flesh. On pain. And they grew fast. Too fast. Even now, I could feel the pulse in them. Hunger, disguised as vitality.

My qi would kill them on contact. I knew that already. So I wouldn’t give them qi.

I planted them in a sealed crescent plot, sectioned off by ash and crushed saltroot to prevent leeching.

When the last seed was buried, I exhaled.

The Spirit Soil responded.

Like breath rushing into lungs, a thrum of qi surged outward across the greenhouse. The newly planted herbs drank it in like parched mouths meeting rain, each set pulling at different frequencies, aligned to the essence I’d matched them with.

Two weeks.

That was the window I calculated in the Manifold. Two weeks until full maturity for most, given that I infuse them with qi regularly to support their growth.

A miracle by cultivation standards.

I crouched beside the bed, watching the soil settle. My fingers tingled with exhaustion. My chest ached from the shallow breath I hadn’t noticed I’d been holding.

This was it.

This was the beginning.

My gaze slid back to the Bloodsoul Bloom bed.

Even buried, I could still feel them.

Dormant. But not idle. Like closed eyes in the dark, tracking every motion through slitted lids.

I stood, wiped my hands on my robe, and crossed to the back corner of the greenhouse. There, hidden beneath a tarp, was a clay pot. Heavy. Oily to the touch. I lifted it carefully with both hands.

The contents sloshed thickly.

Rot. Decay.

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The final remains of the Black Tiger. What I hadn’t used in the Spirit Soil; too far gone, too unstable. Bones softening to sludge, flesh gelatinous and reeking. Not fit for alchemy. Not even for compost. Just dead weight.

I carried the pot over, crouched low, and tipped it gently. The mouth of the pot faced the planted bed, a line of decay trailing like black ichor as the remnants slumped forward. The scent hit me hard. Acrid, meaty, and sharp like rusted iron soaked in vinegar.

I waited.

Watched.

Nothing.

The Bloodsoul Bloom didn’t make a sound. Didn’t whisper, didn’t pulse. No request. No resonance.

Just silence.

But not inert. No. I could feel the awareness again. A low, steady hum. Not asking, just… watching.

Waiting.

Then, something shifted.

The patch of earth where I had buried the seeds pulsed like a heartbeat.

I blinked. Leaned forward.

The second pulse followed. Then a third.

A tiny sprout broke the surface. Thin. Pale. Veined like stretched skin.

It writhed.

Slowly, like time-lapsed rot blooming in reverse, the sprout grew. Twisted upward. Then sideways. Toward the pot.

Its motion was unnatural, not like a vine curling toward sun or moisture. It groped, trembling like it wasn’t sure it was allowed to move. Its tip forked, brushing once against the stone rim of the pot.

Then, it latched.

The trembling stopped. It stiffened. Then began to pulse again. Faster now. Hungrier.

The sprout fattened. Swelled. Color deepened from pale white to dull crimson. A second sprout emerged. Then a third.

I stepped back, jaw tight.

The sprout's motion reminded me of old root vegetables forgotten in storage; potatoes sending out pale, gnarled shoots across cold cellars, reaching blindly through the dark. Only now I saw it in real time, clawing its way toward death with a kind of brutal joy.

It went on for a few minutes. Then stopped.

The three stalks curled back to the center, wrapping around each other like sleeping snakes. The soil trembled once, then went still. But the sprout at the center was no longer a sprout.

It was a bud.

Closed. Tense. And brimming with something I couldn’t name.

I hurriedly dragged the pot back, setting it behind a wall of stacked crates. I glanced down at what was left.

Almost nothing. Just a gray smear of dried flesh. Bone dust. The scent had nearly vanished. The Bloom had consumed it all.

And it was still hungry.

I exhaled slowly and stood, wiping the sweat from my neck.

“I’ll need more,” I muttered.

Not of the Black Tiger. The rest were to be used to create more Spirit Soil. But Windy could hunt rodents. Yin Si could gather corpses. Bugs. Pest-beasts. There were ways. Natural ones.

I’d make it work.

But then—a thought.

A terrible one.

I grabbed the Tianqi Duel board by crates and stepped out of the greenhouse, boots squelching softly in the damp soil, and made my way down the beaten path, still damp from the violet rain.

Xu Ziqing sat exactly where he always did.

is eyes were half-lidded, his expression serene in a way that made me feel like I was arriving late to a conversation he'd already had with the world.

He tilted his head slightly as I approached.

“You’re almost late,” he said mildly. “I take it the mission to subjugate the bandits went smoothly?”

“The mission went well,” I said, clipped. I took out

His gaze didn’t waver, although he did raise a brow.

Because the truth was... it had gone well. By every practical measure, every metric of success. Hostages freed. Bandits dealt with. I even brought back medicine and supplies.

But I also saw women who would never sleep the same again. I gave orders that put Tianyi and Windy in the line of death.

And Han Chen... A man who damned himself in the name of brotherhood. Who damaged lives to preserve one. Was I any better?

I wasn’t sure Xu Ziqing needed to ask. He read it anyway. But, as always, he let silence do what words couldn’t.

After a moment, he gestured to the set between us. “Tianqi Duel?”

I nodded. “Sure.”

He unrolled the cloth board on the stone slab, laid out the pieces. A quiet setting of the stage.

“This time,” he said, “you’re the defender. Fortress scenario. I’m the attacker.”

“Got it.”

The first game lasted two hundred moves. Tight, cautious. He broke through with a gambit I’d never seen before; something that cost him dearly on the left flank but let him sever my core two turns later.

The second?

Three hundred and twenty.

A brutal, grinding war of attrition that pushed me so deep into converging tactics I nearly forgot which side I was on. He won again, but it took him longer.

The third game?

Two hundred and seventy-four.

Faster. Cleaner. Riskier. And for the first time, my moves sometimes came faster than his.

I wasn’t beating him. Not yet. But I was no longer chasing him like a dog after a cart. I was breathing on his neck, always at the edge of victory.

He leaned back afterward, folding his arms.

“You’ve changed.”

“Yeah.”

“An awakening?”

I hesitated. “Technically two.”

“Explain.”

“The first was when I hit Essence Awakening in Mind,” I said slowly. “But I couldn’t use it properly—not then. It's the day before we left to deal with the bandits. Too nervous. Too much weighing on me."

I didn't add the fact I was too focused on when Ren Zhi would approach me to start training.

Xu Ziqing gave a slow nod. “And the second?”

“The Manifold Memory Palace.”

His brow arched faintly.

“I used a Technique Token,” I said. “It evolved the Memory Palace. My mindscape... it changed. I don’t just remember faster now. I don’t just store more. I can run two lines of thought. Parallel. Simultaneous. Used it here. One branch to wander bold ideas. The other to refine and critique. Divergent and convergent thinking, looping together.”

For a moment, I thought he’d smile. Or nod. Or challenge me.

But instead, Xu Ziqing blinked. Genuinely surprised.

“You can do that?”

I frowned. “What, you can’t? I thought you had the Memory Palace.”

“I have the Memory Palace,” he said slowly. “But what you're describing... that's not just any skill. I’ve spent decades refining my thought process and only achieved the Memory Palace a few years ago. But I've never heard of something like the Manifold Memory Palace.”

I stared at him.

“So you don’t know what the next stage is?”

He gave a short, dry chuckle. “No. I didn’t even know one existed.”

We both sat in silence for a moment, letting that settle. A silence that tasted more like understanding than discomfort.

“If what you’re saying is true,” he added, “you have a very rare weapon. But like any weapon; it’s only as good as the hand that wields it. A blacksmith who thinks twice as much as an alchemist won’t make a pill. It's why I can steal defeat you.”

I let that sink in.

“So then what should I do?”

He looked at me, serious again.

“Learn more. Refine your method. You don’t need to be the best at everything—but if you're going to divide your mind, both halves better know exactly what they're doing. Otherwise, they’ll just tear each other apart.”

I nodded slowly.

And then, for the first time in hours, I smiled.

Because for once... I wasn’t behind.

I was somewhere new.

The games continued.

Each one harder. Sharper. Tighter.

And although the move counts didn’t climb past that invisible ceiling—three hundred, give or take—it wasn’t because I’d hit a plateau.

It was because the board couldn’t hold more.

There was only so much territory, only so many pieces that could be moved before the end came. Combined with the restrictions in place to avoid a single match lasting for hours, it was clear the limit was defined by space, not by thought.

Which made it all the more telling that I was still improving.

Because Xu Ziqing was no longer holding back.

Every match forced something new out of him. A different tempo. An old strategy with a twist I hadn’t seen before. New shapes to familiar threats.

And I was keeping up.

Not with brute force. But with clarity. With parallel clarity.

One thread in my mind worked on structure. Defense. Stability.

The other danced through chaos; searching, failing, leaping wildly toward victory, then feeding that chaos back into the first.

The Manifold didn’t make me smarter.

It made me two people thinking as one.

But then, right as I reached to begin another game; my vision tilted.

A warm trickle slid from my nose. I blinked. Sniffed. Saw red on my hand.

“Wait,” I muttered.

Xu Ziqing immediately paused, his eyes narrowing as I wiped at the blood, pinching the bridge of my nose.

“You’re straining yourself,” he said simply. "That ability of yours must take a toll, right?"

I nodded, silently ending both thought-streams in my head. The sudden silence that followed was jarring; like stepping out of a storm into dead air.

“I spent hours inside the Manifold planning the garden,” I muttered. “Then came here right after.”

Xu Ziqing didn’t comment. He didn’t need to.

The lesson was already there.

I packed up the board slowly, moving by feel rather than sight, and slung the roll of cloth under my arm.

“Thanks for the matches,” I said quietly.

He gave me a short nod. “You’re walking a sharp path, Kai. Mind the edge.”

I said nothing as I turned to go.

The sun was low when I passed back through the village square, faint streaks of gold threading through cloudcover. People milled about quietly, whispers traveling faster than footsteps. No one stopped me. A few nodded. A few looked concerned. I kept moving.

I stopped at a familiar wooden gate. Pushed it open just enough to see inside.

Elder Ming sat beneath the plum tree in his courtyard, one hand holding a shallow cup of tea, the other resting on his knee. The breeze tugged at the hem of his robes, but he didn’t move. Until his head turned just slightly.

A single brow arched.

“No greeting on your first day back?” he said, voice dry.

I stepped inside and bowed low. “Apologies, Elder Ming. I’ve been… busy.”

His gaze softened, the edge behind it fading. “I know.”

He gestured to the bench beside him without another word.

I sat.

He poured me tea.

We drank.

Silence hung between us, but it wasn’t awkward. Just… gentle. Like the quiet after a storm, when the clouds are still deciding whether they’re done.

He set down his cup. “I finished that book you brought me. A Journey to the North.”

I blinked. One of the texts I’d pulled from the Wandering Wind Press in Crescent Bayt After the Gauntlet. Something about a monkey—or was it a fox? Something about them chasing immortality.

“Oh,” I said. “I haven’t read it yet. Don’t spoil anything.”

Elder Ming smiled faintly. “I won’t. Just... that the main character reminded me of you.”

I frowned. “Why?”

“You’ll see.”

That was it.

And somehow, it made me relax more than any answer would’ve.

Here, there was no burden. No violet rain. No duels. No creeping corruption. Just Elder Ming. Tea. And a soft wind moving through old trees.

But I couldn’t sit still anymore.

Not completely.

Not with this.

I turned slightly, watching the steam curl from my cup. Then looked him in the eye.

“I have a secret,” I said.

He didn’t flinch. Didn’t lean forward.

He just raised his brow again, the same way he always did when I was about to make a mess of things.

I breathed in, steady.

“The Heavenly Interface…” I said quietly. “It started with me.”