We were approaching the end of autumn, and the trees were slowly stripping themselves of their old leaves. Even the air had a crisp sharpness to it, a quiet warning of the winter to come.

    Fu Yating walked with her eyes on the ground, watching the fallen leaves crunch beneath her boots like she was deep in thought. She had grown her hair out recently. It suited her. Wu Yan, on the other hand, didn’t seem to care about the dead leaves or the cold. Speedy lumbered beside us, his towering green form cutting a strange figure through the pale autumn colors, wholly unfazed by the changing season.

    Technically, there was a fifth member of our group… though he hadn’t been born yet. I still carried the egg, tucked away somewhere safe thanks to some very convenient arrays.

    Normally, with autumn ending, I’d be worried. Winter wasn’t kind to wanderers in the wilderness. Cold nights were not that bad, and scarce food was not that much of a problem. No one to rely on but yourself, now that was a bit of a problem. But the biggest problem was the monstrous beasts.

    But this winter, I wasn’t planning to stay out here.

    Soon, I would return to the Blazing Sun Sect. But not before I broke through to Foundation Establishment.

    And no, I wasn’t rushing it.

    Not even after what I’d learned about Song Song.

    Even with the looming fear that her father, or whoever was really behind that mask, might take over her body, I wasn’t going to throw my cultivation off track just to panic.

    Song Song and I had an understanding. We cared about each other in our own way. But we would never sacrifice our cultivation for one another.

    Risk our lives? Sure.

    Throw away the cultivation we’d worked so hard to build? Not a chance. I think to the both of us, cultivation means much more than our lives.

    After the initial panic, after stumbling out of the Serpent Bone Hall with my thoughts screaming and my heart hammering. I’d calmed down.

    Panic wouldn’t stop her “father” from taking over her body.

    And honestly? I might still be wrong. But everything I knew, everything I’d seen, pointed toward that kind of nightmare scenario. So I prepared for the worst.

    The sun hung directly above us, mid-day light filtering through the bare branches. It wasn’t much, but it was enough.

    I stopped walking.

    “We’re taking a break,” I said.

    “Another one? So soon?” Fu Yating raised an eyebrow.

    I hadn’t told her about what I’d figured out regarding Song Song. Not yet. Maybe because I wasn’t sure she’d take it well, or worse, maybe she’d start scheming. And I wouldn’t blame her. After all, if there was a side backed by an immortal… wasn’t that the smarter bet?

    “I need to rest. And I’ve got some experiments to finish,” I said simply.

    I crouched down and placed my hand against the wet, leafy ground. Closed my eyes.

    Below, I could feel the life squirming in the soil, writhing worms and burrowers crawling just beneath the surface, brought closer by the softened, rain-soaked dirt.

    "House Array," I muttered under my breath.

    The moment the words left my lips, the earth beneath us trembled. The surrounding trees shuddered as if startled awake, and the carpet of fallen leaves scattered in all directions as the ground began to shift. From beneath the soil, rounded mounds rose like breathing lungs, pushing away debris to reveal the raw, pulsing earth underneath.

    Then the roots broke through.

    They surged upward in tangled knots, thick and sinewy, latching onto one another with the urgency of an office worker facing a deadline. Drawing on the natural Qi from the land, the roots expanded rapidly, twining and braiding themselves into walls, beams, and frames. Their movements were impossibly fast, snapping into place with precision, cracking, stretching, forming the skeleton of a structure as if they had been waiting for this command all along.

    Within sixty seconds, it stood completed: a two-story wooden cabin, alive one moment, perfectly still the next. Thick root-wood formed its sturdy walls and support beams, polished smooth by the natural energy coursing through them. A wide balcony wrapped around the second floor, and the windows were open holes with fitted wooden shutters to block out the coming cold.

    Then, just as suddenly as they had surged, the roots stopped. They had drained their lifespan growing so fast, so suddenly. Their glow faded, their once-pulsing surfaces going still. What remained was a solid, unmoving cabin, normal-looking at a glance, if a little too large for casual use and far too perfect for something that had just grown itself out of the earth in under a minute.

    The forest calmed again as if nothing had happened. Except now, a house stood where there had been none.

    Despite the House Array having the relatively useless function of making a house, it was notoriously difficult to cast. Technically a Level 3 Array, but with casting difficulty closer to a borderline Level 4.

    Depending on the land, it could outright be considered a Level 4 array. And if there wasn''t natural Qi nearby, it could drain a huge chunk of my reserves. No wonder nobody bothered passing it down to newer generations.

    It was the poster child of outdated arrays.

    Wu Yan and Fu Yating entered the house without a second thought, and Speedy napped by the front door. We''d done this enough times that it had become a routine.

    I followed them inside and did the usual checks, making sure the structure wouldn''t collapse on us in our sleep. The foundation was solid, as always. I was past the stage where these things collapsed the moment I opened the front door.

    My first few creations? One caved in. One exploded. And one grew upside-down. We''ve come a long way.

    “C’mon, you just need to hold onto the ring, that’s it. You won’t even have to use any Qi. You can wear it as a necklace, a wristband, or just keep it in your pocket,” Fu Yating said, trying to convince Wu Yan of something.

    Wu Yan shook her head.

    “But I plan to use this storage ring to store all the cute clothes I’ll buy in the next big city,” Fu Yating tried again, attempting to reason with her. “It doesn’t have to be just my clothes, your clothes too.”

    Wu Yan relented and nodded, too polite to refuse.

    I, on the other hand, had zero interest in their conversation. I was more preoccupied with admiring my creation. The wooden house was actually gleaming, its walls smooth and polished.

    The way the House Array worked was by supercharging the growth of plants into the shape of a house and then killing those same plants to freeze the structure in place. Sёarch* The N?vel(F)ire.nёt website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

    Whoever made this array was clearly just messing around and having fun. Honestly, they were a lot like me when it came to things like this.

    Not long after their talk about storage rings, everyone began choosing their rooms.

    “Hey, can we get the big room this time?” Fu Yating asked.

    “Why?” I said.

    “Well, Wu Yan and I are planning a sleepover,” she said.

    I turned toward Wu Yan, silently asking if she was actually on board with this, and the masked girl gave a small nod.

    I was glad Fu Yating spent time with Wu Yan. It kept the latter from spending all day in silence. If nothing else, Fu Yating was chatty.

    “Sure, you can have the big room. Just don’t be rowdy tonight. I’ve got things planned,” I said.

    Wu Yan nodded quietly. Fu Yating, on the other hand, narrowed her eyes like she was analyzing a hidden message in my words.

    “Wait, was that directed at me? Wu Yan doesn’t really make noise.”

    She really was like a hunter for insults, and even when none existed, she’d find one.

    “No,” I said. “Just don’t make noise in general.”

    It was nice having someone to brainstorm ideas with. But she was also a heavy person to be around sometimes. Always overthinking, always assuming.

    She narrowed her eyes again. But then Wu Yan grabbed her hand and pulled her away before she could say anything else.

    Fu Yating pushed her recently grown long hair behind her ear as she turned.

    How old was she again? Nineteen? Same age as me, probably. If she was younger, it couldn’t have been by more than a year. Still too old to act this whiney.

    Most of the time, she meant well. But sometimes, I wished she’d let things be.

    With a quiet sigh, I entered one of the smaller rooms. It was decently sized, and though there was wooden furniture, most of it was fused to the floor.

    I pulled a futon from my storage ring, spread it out on the ground, and sat down cross-legged.

    Then, I took a deep breath.

    Then, I took out another storage ring from the inner pocket of my jacket. It was black, covered in a couple dozen array inscriptions I had carefully grafted onto it.

    With a thought, the dark marks and etchings began to peel away, drifting from the ring like ash on the wind. They burned as they fell, ink spilling like blood until the true form of the ring revealed itself, a deep, crimson gleam pulsing from its surface.

    Immediately, a chilling, burning aura filled the room. Each breath released a cloud of mist. Even my tears began to freeze, and I had to blink rapidly to keep my eyes from stiffening up.

    Yet, despite the cold, a bead of sweat formed on my brow. The heat that came with the cold was suffocating, like standing between a glacier and a volcano. Normally, you couldn''t feel both extremes at once. Unless, of course, you were naked in space or holding something from this weird-ass world.

    Storage rings couldn''t store living things or anything with violent Qi. But as a Level 4 Array Conjurer, I could bypass that. As long as I stayed in contact. I''d designed an array specifically to trick the ring''s internal logic and keep a semi-living thing alive, but in deep sleep, sealed away within.

    With a thought, the flower appeared in my hand.

    The Hearthfire Ice-Stem Flower.

    Its seven ghostly petals shimmered with icy, fire-blue light. Three petals were missing. At its core was a flickering knot of liquid yellow fire pulsing like a second heart. The stem felt like spider silk, weightless, frail, and yet it burned my fingertips while freezing the rest of my hand solid.

    It was beautiful. Dangerous. A miracle in bloom.

    But it was still a flower and likely wouldn''t last longer than three more months.

    I''d waited until I reached the seventh stage of Qi Gathering to use it. It had taken time, but I''d made it during our travels. And during that time, I''d tested and studied the Hearthfire Ice-Stem Flower in every way I could think of.

    Disappointingly, I hadn''t uncovered nearly as much as I wanted.

    Maybe I''d try my hand at alchemy after Core Formation. Three hundred years to kill, give or take. Might as well pick up a new hobby.

    The petals had proved useful in small doses. They were a diluted version of the stem''s power but still potent enough to experiment with.

    I gave one to Fu Yating just to see if it would help with her condition. It elevated her Qi a little but didn''t really solve anything.

    Wu Yan, on the other hand… was like tossing a pebble into a black hole. No reaction. Nothing.

    I tried one on Speedy too. His Qi improved slightly, but I didn''t dare give him more. Too much, and it might shift his elemental alignment. Monstrous beasts usually chose their best element by instinct. I didn''t want Speedy becoming an ice-type turtle. That just didn''t suit him.

    Without hesitation, I plucked the petals one by one and tossed them into my mouth like they were Cheetos. Each one sent a sharp chill and dryness down my throat, like the start of a nasty sore throat.

    A cold sensation swept through me as I swallowed, like gulping ice water after spending a scorching day under the sun. My brain short-circuited from the sudden shift for a moment, but the petals'' Qi flowed smoothly, threading through my body like silk in water.

    Before my body could adjust, I grabbed the stem of the Hearthfire Ice-Stem Flower and sucked it like a straw, draining every last drop of energy from its core. The fiery heart slid down my throat like a heavy pill, dry, bitter, and somehow blistering and freezing all at once.

    Inside my body, the ice and fire Qi didn''t clash.

    They balanced.

    It wasn''t harmony. It was mutual suppression, a standoff rather than a partnership. But the effect was stable.

    I began analyzing the way the energy spread through me, trying to track its influence. My conclusion was simple: the icy part of the flower, like the petals, would''ve been far more effective on female cultivators with ice-aligned techniques. The fiery core clearly leaned toward males with a fire element.

    If there had been a cultivation technique that let two cultivators, one fire and one ice, share medicinal effects between them, this flower would''ve been a cheat code. Especially if they chose fire and ice as their Foundation Establishment elements. I could say with confidence that even someone with mediocre talent could make it to Core Formation with this thing.

    Beyond that? I had no idea. Nascent Soul cultivation was still a fog to me. A theory. An idea. I had very little information about what it required to reach that level.

    I couldn''t help but imagine what a really powerful alchemist, a Tier 6 or 7, could''ve done with a treasure like this. Pills usually beat herbs in terms of effect. A proper refining process might have turned this into something mythical.

    But I didn''t have a mythical pill. I had the raw deal.

    So, I went with the method I''d read about.

    I wrapped the ice and fire Qi in layers of my own Qi, guiding it carefully through my meridians. Every pathway warmed and cooled in turn from the tips of my fingers to the top of my head. Then I gently ushered it all toward my dantian, letting it settle like molten metal in a forge.

    And just like that… I felt it.

    A shift.

    The chill spread across my skin. The Qi transformed and fused into my own.

    Not explosive. Not volatile.

    Just… efficient.

    Eight-Star Qi Gathering.

    Nine-Star.

    Fo–...

    I stopped the breakthrough cold.

    No way I was rushing into Foundation Establishment without careful planning. Not after all this.

    I needed time. A month or two, at least. Time to settle, to absorb, to properly attune my element. If I broke through now, I''d risk locking in a fire or ice element. Or worse, some weird unstable hybrid of both.

    But I could feel it beneath my skin.

    It was there.

    Waiting.

    The next step was mine to take. Anytime I wanted.

    Heavenly treasures… damn.

    They really were something.

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