Gen managed to slip from Madame Su's healing grasp, escaping the room with a final, grinning protest. "She really wants me to wear another one of those disturbing, fitting robes? No way! I prefer this one!" He plucked at his own simple, loose white robe. "It's light. It's comfortable."
Finding Varja in the Salvaged Peaks wasn't difficult. After asking a few servants—who all seemed to know exactly who he was and where to send him—Gen was directed to a secluded pavilion complex higher up the mist-wreathed slopes. They had been in the Li Family's care for a week already, the time it had taken for Lia to secure proper healing for Liang and for the family's protocols to allow visitors. All that time, Gen and the others had been separated into different recovery pavilions. He had no idea where Lorel or Chubbs were at the moment.
Thinking of the fight with Kirin, and what he had said to Lorel in the heat of it, a small pang of guilt pricked at him. He had been very harsh in that moment.
But then, his stubborn, self-justifying side seized control. *It was her fault anyway. She wasn't decisive enough at the time. Luckily, she managed to act correctly later.* Just like that, the fleeting idea of apologizing vanished into nothingness. He was Gen Jiang. She would surely forget, and things would be back to normal in no time. That was how it always worked.
A maid at the entrance to a large, isolated pavilion bowed deeply as he approached. "Young Master Jiang. Please, follow me."
Gen felt a strange twinge at the excessive respect—the last time he'd felt like this was in the Jiang Mountain, where the entire world seemed to breathe just for him. He didn't know if this was intentional deference from the Li Family or simply their extreme hospitality, but he couldn't deny he liked it. He simply nodded and followed her inside.
The main pavilion was open on three sides, overlooking a dizzying drop into mist-filled valleys. In the center of the vast, empty wooden floor stood Varja.
The Pillar was moving.
It wasn't a martial form Gen recognized. It was a series of slow, impossibly deliberate motions—a shift of weight from one foot to the other, a turn of the hips, a raise of a scarred forearm. Each movement was performed with such absolute, focused slowness that it seemed to pull at the fabric of the world around him. The air itself gathered and whispered in protest around his imposing frame, as if being gently, irresistibly parted by a mountain sliding through a lake.
He was clearly practicing something. Gen had no idea what.
The maid bowed again, her voice a reverent whisper. "Esteemed Pillar. This is Gen Jiang."
Then she left, sliding the door shut, leaving them utterly alone.
Varja did not stop. He did not acknowledge Gen's presence with so much as a flicker of his placid, stone-calm eyes, which remained open but unfocused, gazing at some internal horizon.
Gen waited a moment, then moved around to stand more directly in Varja's line of sight. "I'm here," he called out, his voice echoing slightly in the vast, quiet space. "I wanted to say thank you. For your family's hospitality."
Varja's eyes were open, but he did not answer. He simply kept practicing, his body a study in glacial, monumental motion.
Gen's brow furrowed in frustration. *Are they all this aloof?* He remembered when he first met Black-Green Wood—the old Pillar hadn't even bothered to look at him either. Varja wasn't any different.
"What's the point of asking me to come here if you don't want to talk?" Gen asked, a note of annoyance creeping into his voice.
Still, no answer. Only the silent, whispering drag of air around Varja's movements.
Annoyed, Gen decided to get closer. Maybe the man was just hard of hearing, or lost in concentration.
He took a step forward onto the open floor.
The air changed.
It wasn't a wall or a barrier. It was a **thickening**. As Gen moved closer to the orbit of Varja's practice, the world itself seemed to grow heavy, resistant. He took another step. His own movements felt… sluggish. Not from weakness, but from a profound, external **density**.
*What the hell is this?*
Gen stopped, amazed. He was three paces from Varja now. He could see every minute detail of the Pillar's shifting muscles, every pale scar. He could see the dust motes in the air, hanging as if suspended in honey, moving with infinite slowness. He could see the individual threads of his own white robe, the subtle weave. Time hadn't stopped. It had been **compressed**, stretched thin like molten glass.
He didn't know how. He didn't know why. But his body, trained in adversity and attuned to energy, reacted on instinct.
His eyes slowly closed.
His figure, standing in that syrup-thick air, coiled smoothly down into the familiar lotus position right there on the wooden floor.
And he began to meditate.
He guided his Qi, not in its usual vibrant circuits, but with immense, deliberate care. From the deep, bone-white reservoir of his **Jingdao **, he pushed the energy into the mercurial channels of **Shidow**. But here, in this dense field, his **Shidow** couldn't manipulate anything external. The air was too solid, too *real*. Instead, he used it to manipulate the flow *within himself*, to ensure his own energy moved cleanly against the incredible, silent pressure.
He stayed like that. Unmoving. Qi circulating with painstaking precision within the fortress of his own body, while Varja, a living mountain, performed his silent, world-slowing dance beside him.
Time lost meaning. The afternoon light faded. Night fell over the Salvaged Peaks, revealing a sky of shocking clarity. The daytime mist flowed away like a retreating tide, leaving the heavens exposed—a vast, star-strewn tapestry. Magnificent, sharp-edged shadows from the towering peaks were cast by the moonlight onto the wooden frames of the pavilion, painting the scene in stark monochrome.
Hours slid by.
Gen's awareness was a single point of focused will in a sea of dense, quiet power.
Then, as subtly as it had begun, the slowing effect vanished. The air returned to normal, the strange pressure lifting like a curtain rising.
At the exact same moment, Varja stopped moving.
His imposing frame came to a final, absolute rest. He stood perfectly still, facing the moonlit valley, his placid eyes now clear and present. He took a single, deep breath that sounded like stone settling.
Gen slowly opened his eyes.
The world felt… different. Lighter, yes, but also less *substantial*. As if he'd just put down a weight he hadn't known he was carrying.
He looked up at the unmoving Pillar, the thank you forgotten, the annoyance gone, replaced by a deep, wordless awe and a thousand questions he didn't know how to ask.
Varja smiled. It was a small thing, a slight shifting of the stone-like planes of his face, but it carried immense weight. "So," his voice rumbled, calm yet dense enough to vibrate in Gen's bones, "you are the little thing who goes around saying the 'Unbreakable Varja' is a fool."
Gen's face darkened. He almost tipped backward from his seated position. Though Varja's voice was quiet, it contained an incredible, inherent pressure, causing a cold sweat to instantly trickle down Gen's temple. This was a different type of presence—the same disturbing, **inherent** pressure he had felt in front of Black-Green Wood. It wasn't an active aura; it was the simple, terrifying fact of their existence, like standing at the base of a cliff that had decided to notice you.
Gen cupped his hands and stood, offering a deep bow. "Thank you for the help you provided for my friend, Liang."
Varja waved a massive, scarred hand, the gesture dismissing a continent. "It was nothing." He turned and walked to sit on the wide, polished wooden steps of the pavilion, gesturing for Gen to join him.
Gen looked around, slightly hesitant, but then followed, sitting a respectful distance away. "I did not mean that the Unbreakable Varja was weak," he said, choosing his words carefully. "But at that time, Lio Kai was disrespectful to my father. So I…"
Varja let out a short, genuine laugh that sounded like rocks tumbling in a deep cave. "I quite like your personality. The number of people who will dare say such a thing to me can be counted on one hand." His placid eyes held a glint of amusement. "But you are right on one thing. Lio needed a lesson. I am grateful you taught him one. If only my own progeny could be a little more like you, it would be good."
Gen seized the opening, his curiosity overpowering his awe. "Esteemed Pillar… what were you doing all this time? And what just happened? I felt… as if I could almost comprehend what you were doing, but I could not put a name to it."
Varja's eyes sharpened. The gaze that turned on Gen was no longer merely placid; it was piercing, like twin daggers of condensed intent. Gen felt petrified, a small animal pinned under a predator's stare. He gulped.
Varja reached out and tapped him gently on the shoulder. The touch was light, but it carried the weight of a falling monolith. "Very good," he rumbled, approval in his tone. "You must have been to the Tower of Wonder. Surely."
Gen nodded, the tension easing a fraction. "I was indeed there. But… what is the relationship?"
Varja settled back, looking out at the starry abyss. "All those who have reached the 45th level of the Tower have certainly met it. The challenges going up to that level vary each time. But the challenge of the 45th level itself… never changes. The Alter Ego."
Gen nodded, his expression turning extremely serious. He still remembered the phantom's words, the mirror of his own frustrations, the hollow anger he'd felt leaving that place.
Varja continued. "The Tower of Wonder gives a mark. It can be a curse or a blessing. That is what we call the 'Alter Ego.' It is its gift to those who reach that place. It allows a cultivator's understanding of certain Wheels to… drastically increase. It is like allowing you to see life through a new, often uncomfortable, lens. However, the exact way that mark manifests for each cultivator is extremely different. Many might not even notice they have it until much later."
Gen smiled, a genuine smile of awe. "The Tower of Wonder is really special. At first, I thought I hadn't gotten anything from it. But it looks like I was wrong." His mind raced. *Meaning Liang, and all the others… they all have something from it too. But are they aware of it?* He couldn't wait to go and tell them.
Varja then stood up, his silhouette blocking out a swath of stars. "I would not mind you coming here to learn," he said, his tone shifting back to absolute, uncompromising directness. "But do not mistake me. I will not be *teaching* you anything. You will have to learn on your own."
Gen blinked, confused.
"In exchange," Varja stated, as if outlining the terms of a trade, "you are to be the fire that forces the Kai siblings to grow. I want you to grow so bright, so undeniable, that it gives sufficient motivation for my children to want to surpass you. This is what I have taught them their entire life."
Gen was slightly surprised, and then he remembered. The thing Lia had first told them that day at the fountain. *Lio wasn't looking for Gen for no reason, just to prove he was stronger. It was something engraved into their minds since they were young.* Such that unless the Kai siblings somehow managed to surpass Gen, they might not even grow.
*How harsh,* Gen felt, a cold understanding settling in his stomach. But he dared not voice it aloud. If Varja did this, it was definitely not because of *Gen*. It was because Gen was the son of the Immortal Jiang. When Jiang was alive, that would have been the ultimate, unmatchable motivation. Gen was now the living, accessible shadow of that benchmark.
Varja looked down at him. "You can leave."
He waved a dismissive hand. "The Li Family has many secret arts you can learn. They have fully opened the Salvaged Peaks this year. Do not thank me. And tell the Kai siblings to make good use of this opportunity. Now, get out of here."
Gen opened his mouth. He wanted to ask, *Why not tell your kids yourself?* But then he noticed it—the subtle, immense loneliness in the way Varja stood there, alone on the pavilion steps overlooking the infinite night. He was leaving them to find their own path, their own motivation, even if it was a cruel one. *Why?* Gen had no idea.
So he didn't ask. He simply nodded, bowed respectfully once more, and turned to leave.
As he stepped off the wooden platform and back onto the misty path, the weight of the Pillar's presence lifted, replaced by the lighter, but now more complicated, weight of his purpose.