Chapter 296 — The Clouds Gather

CHAPTER 296

The Clouds Gather

The first thing he ate was the Thunderhide's heart.

It was still warm, which it shouldn't have been after weeks in oiled cloth. The Physique took it like a starving beast, and the lightning inside the heart ran through his meridians in white threads. The Ledger spoke once, in its flat voice.

[Devoured: Thunderhide heart | Gain: large | Note: more than the vessel can hold]

The heart didn’t fill him as much as he’d hoped. Its Golden Core-grade power exceeded what he could use before forming a core. Most of that strength settled in his bones, waiting instead of vanishing.

The days passed without voices or footsteps outside. Shi Feng rested only when the circulation demanded it, then returned to the same posture. He had no new trick to try, only the three materials and the foundation he’d already filled. On the ninth day he opened the cracked jars. The Thunder-Calming herbs tasted bitter, then their effect spread through his meridians. The violent thunder in his blood finally settled.

[Devoured: Thunder-Calming herbs | Gain: moderate | Note: bitter, then quiet]

On the seventeenth day he started the ore, swallowing it piece by piece over three days. He remembered the slag and braced for pain. None came. Shi Feng thought, My body’s learned to take this. At least the earlier stomach ache did some good.

[Devoured: Thunder-Marrow ore | Gain: large | Note: no ache. It was a good ore]

Between meals he circulated qi through 365 meridians, rested, and began again. He’d followed that routine since Qingliu Lane. The smell of rain grew stronger each morning. On the twentieth day, water beaded on the walls and ran down in steady trickles. Another Ledger line appeared.

[Core: 0% | Note: nothing to fill yet]

Nothing to fill. He liked the honesty.

On the thirtieth night the runes on the door changed from blue to white.

Shi Feng opened his eyes. The air in the chamber was heavy, and every hair on his arms had risen. A faint hum ran through the floor, through the stone pillow, through his teeth. The drip from the walls had stopped, as if the water had gone to listen.

“It’s time,” Shi Feng said quietly, listening to the hum in the stone.

He stood up, stretched his shoulders once, and picked up the empty cracked jars so that nothing would be left to break. It was a small habit. Somebody would have to pay for the jars otherwise.

Then he sat down again and waited for dawn.

Outside, Zhu Liu had been awake for two days.

He sat at the foot of Thunder Cliff on a folding stool, with the receipt book across his knees and Old Soot asleep beside his shoe. Behind him, half the outer court had arrived before sunrise. Wu Qiang had set up the pool table. The pool board now read Lives: 6 to 1, because the cliff had stayed quiet for a month, and quiet sounded hopeful.

“Look at the east,” a girl said.

At the edge of the range, the sky was turning dark.

Violet clouds rolled over the far ridge. The air turned cold, and the birds on the Pagoda roof fled west. The disciples stopped watching the cliff and stared at the spreading darkness. This was far larger than an ordinary storm.

“Is that for him?” a boy asked.

“It's just a Golden Core cloud,” another said. “They look like that.”

“A Golden Core cloud covers the cliff,” He Zhen said.

The elder had come up quietly with his brush case under his arm, and nobody had noticed him. He stood very straight, looking east, and his voice was low.

“A hundred paces across. Perhaps two hundred. That's a Golden Core cloud,” He Zhen said, pointing. “That one has crossed Thousand Forge Peak already. When the mountain rain is about to come, the wind fills the tower.”

The violet lid rolled on. It reached the outer workshops. It reached the Pagoda. It reached the far ridge behind them, and then the next, and the sun went out over Artificer Hall like a lamp snuffed by a thumb.

“That's the whole range,” someone said.

“Forty li,” another voice said. “The cloud is forty li across!”

“Impossible. He's a Foundation Establishment disciple!”

“Where's the tribulation cloud for a Foundation Establishment?”

“…”

On the far ridge to the west, four grey figures had stood up from their ledge.

Lin Langtian stood at the cliff's edge with no joke on his lips. Beside him, Li Changyuan held his broom upright, like a spear, and watched the sky roll over his sect.

Neither of them said a word. Then Li Changyuan spoke, very low, and only one person was near enough to hear.

“Seven in ten,” Li Changyuan said.

“You said that already,” Lin Langtian said.

“I wanted to hear if it still sounded true,” Li Changyuan said.

Above them, deep in the violet, something began to turn.