Qin Jinzhe and Song Hechen were already gone when Gu Yanshu turned back from the gate.
He could still feel the shape of their exit in the air.
Not because they had made a scene. They had not. That was the annoying part. They had left with too much control, too much quiet, too much of that fake calm people used when they wanted to look like they were leaving on purpose while actually holding onto the shape of revenge in their chest.
Gu Yanshu did not chase them.
He didn't need to.
If they wanted to plan his death, then let them plan. A plan was still just a plan until a person had the strength and timing to act on it. Most people failed somewhere between the idea and the hand. He had seen that enough times to know it.
He walked back into Origin Sect with the same calm face he'd worn when they left.
The courtyard was already alive with the sound of training. The seven tools were moving in different corners now, each one still carrying the memory of the punishment from before. The bleeding had stopped for the most part, but the lesson had not. They were different now. A little more careful. A little more aware of the room around them.
Good.
Gu Yanshu crossed the training ground and looked up at the old sect sign above the entrance.
Origin Sect.
He stared at it for a second and then frowned slightly.
It wasn't the name itself that bothered him.
It was the feeling that it was too ordinary.
Too clean.
Too easy to ignore.
A sect name had to do something. It had to make people pause. It had to stick a little in the mind. It had to sound like it meant movement, pressure, and a place people would remember after they left. Origin Sect was fine. But fine was not enough if he wanted more people to come in without needing to drag them by the collar.
He turned to the seven tools gathered nearby.
"I want to change the name."
They all looked at him.
Qiu Weiran blinked first. "Change it?"
"Yes."
Lan Wuge folded her arms. "Why?"
Gu Yanshu looked back at the sect sign.
"Because people won't join if the name sounds too flat."
The others didn't answer right away.
That was fair. A sect name was not just decoration. It was a flag, a promise, a threat, and sometimes a lie. If the name sounded weak, weak people would come. If it sounded too loud, strong people would come looking for trouble. He wanted something in the middle. Something that had shape.
Zhao Renhui stepped forward and looked up at the sign too.
"What kind of name are you thinking?"
Gu Yanshu didn't answer immediately.
He was already feeling the shape of the replacement in his mind, but he let them speak first. That was how he liked to do things sometimes. If the people around him gave him the raw material, he could see whether they were thinking properly or just talking to fill the air.
Finally, Zhao Renhui said, "Maybe something like… Clock Family."
Qiu Weiran turned his head sharply. "Clock?"
Zhao Renhui shrugged.
"It keeps time. It has weight. It sounds like a place with rules."
Shen Tiaoran looked thoughtful for once. "It's not bad."
Gu Yanshu repeated it in his head.
Clock Family.
He glanced at the sign again and then gave a small nod.
"Not bad."
That was enough.
He stepped toward the sect entrance.
The old plaque was still there, carved into the frame with the previous name. Gu Yanshu did not bother removing it cleanly. He took Xu Cangyuan's sword and held it for a moment, letting the blade settle in his hand.
Then he cut.
Not with violence. With precision.
One stroke across the old name. One stroke across the center line. The old words broke apart and fell into dust and splinters.
Then he carved the new name into the stone and wood above it.
Clock Family.
Simple. Clear. Hard to forget.
When he finished, he stepped back and looked at it for one breath.
Then he jumped.
Not high at first.
Just enough to land from the terrace edge back to the ground below.
When his feet hit, the stone cracked.
A deep mark spread out under the landing point, like the floor itself had decided to remember where he stood. Dust lifted in a small ring around him. The impact wasn't a show. It was a statement. He stood there for a second, looking at the mark in the stone, then at the people watching him.
He turned to Zhao Renhui.
"You choose names well."
Zhao Renhui straightened a little, looking almost proud.
"I know."
Gu Yanshu's mouth twitched. "You really think so?"
Zhao Renhui didn't hesitate.
"I'm good at fighting."
Then, after a short pause, "And good at naming."
Qiu Weiran made a face like he wanted to laugh but also didn't want to be punched again.
Gu Yanshu gave Zhao Renhui a look. "That answer is dangerously confident."
Zhao Renhui only nodded.
"Confidence is useful."
"Yes," Gu Yanshu said. "Sometimes."
He turned and stepped inside the sect.
The name was changed now.
That meant the place had crossed another line. It wasn't just a temporary base anymore. It had taken on a new face. New identity. New weight. People would hear the name and understand something was being built here, even if they didn't yet know what shape it would become.
He moved past the outer hall and into the training area.
The seven tools had followed him in, and he could already tell they were waiting for something. Not just orders. Something more serious. Something to make the sect feel like a real body instead of a shell.
Gu Yanshu stood in the center of the training hall and looked at them.
"Today," he said, "we fix your technique."
That got their attention immediately.
The room quieted.
He continued, "Yesterday you were too loud. Too eager. Too stupid in the wrong places."
Qiu Weiran scratched the side of his face and looked away a little.
Wen Zhaolin stayed still.
Gu Yanshu kept speaking.
"If you want to fight properly, then you need a sword skill that works fast. Not some slow fancy form. Not something you wave around for show. Something simple. Something that ends the fight before the other side has time to think too much."
Shen Tiaoran's eyes sharpened. "A finishing technique."
"Yes."
Lan Wuge shifted her weight. "What kind?"
Gu Yanshu looked at the sword in his hand.
Then back at them.
"A close-range one."
He let that sit for a second.
"You don't give the enemy time to settle. You don't let them get pretty with their hands. You take away their rhythm first, then their footing, then the fight ends."
The seven tools listened carefully now.
They weren't just being lectured. They could tell. He was shaping something for them. Something that would actually matter later.
Gu Yanshu held the sword up and began to demonstrate.
Not in an ornate way. No sweeping flourish. No useless elegance.
Just a short sequence.
Hand line first. Then the lower line. Then the body center. Then the throat line.
The point was simple: break the enemy's ability to continue fighting as fast as possible. Not because he wanted them to become brutal for the sake of brutality. It was because a person who hesitated in a true fight was often the one who ended up dead. Fast pressure. Fast end. Clean enough to survive. That was all.
He showed them the timing step by step.
"The first cut is the hand line," Gu Yanshu said. "If the enemy cannot control the weapon, then his next move gets worse. The second cut breaks the lower line, so he cannot keep his balance. Then the center line opens, and if the fight still has to end, you take the neck line."
Zhao Renhui's eyes narrowed a little as he watched the motion.
Lan Wuge nodded once.
He Mulin stayed quiet but his gaze sharpened.
Qiu Weiran muttered, "That's nasty."
Gu Yanshu looked at him. "It's effective."
Qiu Weiran shut up after that.
Gu Yanshu did not go into unnecessary detail. He didn't need to. The whole point of the technique was efficiency. The tools were already smart enough to understand the structure if he gave them the frame. That was enough.
He handed the first imitation to Zhao Renhui.
"Try it."
Zhao Renhui stepped forward and moved his qi through his arm. A sword of qi formed faintly in front of him, not fully solid yet, but enough to show the structure. Then he made the motion once, twice, and again. The sword line was clean, not flashy, but it carried force.
Gu Yanshu nodded. "Better."
Zhao Renhui's face loosened a little.
Then Lan Wuge tried.
Her version was shorter, tighter, more direct. The movement came in smaller cuts, less wasted motion. Very clean.
He Mulin followed and made it almost invisible at first. That was more dangerous in its own way. The strike appeared at the last second, which meant an enemy would have less time to react.
Qiu Weiran, naturally, rushed his version a little too much and nearly lost the flow.
Gu Yanshu punched the back of his shoulder once and Qiu Weiran straightened with a hiss.
"Slow down."
"I am slow."
"No, you're loud."
Qiu Weiran grumbled something under his breath and tried again.
Shen Tiaoran's version was the most interesting after Lan Wuge's. He added a linking movement after the lower line, which made the technique chain more naturally into a second strike. Gu Yanshu noticed it and gave a small approving nod.
Yu Cheng built a guard step into the technique so the user could shift out after the final cut without standing there open.
That was useful too.
By the time they had all tried it once, they had already started changing it.
That was good.
Very good.
A technique was better when disciples could adapt it and still keep the spirit of it. If they copied it exactly forever, they'd stay weak. If they broke the structure too much, they'd ruin it. But if they learned the logic behind it and built from there, then the sect could actually grow its own fighting style.
Gu Yanshu watched them work and said nothing for a while.
Then the qi in the room shifted.
Not from him.
From them.
The seven tools had started creating swords out of qi itself.
At first it looked unstable, thin, half-shaped.
Then stronger.
The blades formed in each of their hands with different textures. Zhao Renhui's was broad and dense, like it wanted to hit through anything. Lan Wuge's was narrow and quiet, almost delicate. He Mulin's looked like it would disappear if you blinked wrong. Qiu Weiran's was wild at first and then settled into a cleaner edge. Shen Tiaoran's was compact and well-balanced. Yu Cheng's was thin but controlled. Even the seventh one, whichever version of the sword they each preferred, started to show a real shape.
They were learning to make weapons from their own qi.
Gu Yanshu stood aside and watched with quiet interest.
This was how a sect grew useful.
Not by giving people strength. By teaching them how to build it into something repeatable.
He watched Zhao Renhui swing first.
Then Lan Wuge. Then He Mulin. Then Qiu Weiran. Then Shen Tiaoran. Then Yu Cheng.
The training hall filled with pressure lines and short bursts of qi-sword movement. They were practicing the new sword technique he had shown them, testing how fast it could be used, how it felt under real control, how it could flow from one motion into the next.
Gu Yanshu stayed still and watched them all.
Then he quietly said to himself, "They really are getting stronger."
It was not praise. It was observation.
And that observation made him more certain than before.
These tools would be useful later.
Very useful.
He stood there while they continued to train, then turned and left the training hall without interrupting them.
There was still more to learn.
The Library of Learning waited.
The same room with the 795,000 books still stood quiet and patient on the east side of the sect. Gu Yanshu entered it again and moved to a shelf that felt right for the next layer of understanding. He did not wander randomly. He already knew enough now to begin reading the things that sat underneath the first five books.
He pulled one volume free and opened it.
The title was written in old ink:
On the Making of Beasts and the Hands Above the Sky
Gu Yanshu's eyes sharpened immediately.
He began reading.
The first few pages were not about beasts the way ordinary people would think of them. They were about design. Pattern. Selection. Upper influence. The text claimed that beasts were not always born naturally. Some were cultivated. Some were shaped through pressure, environmental force, spiritual command, and the intervention of those above the ordinary land.
Those above the ordinary land.
The words sat there for a second.
He turned the page.
The next section explained that the upper order, the beings who lived higher in the world system, were called the Men of Creating. They did not just rule. They made. They built structures, pressure lines, living forms, and sometimes whole systems of trial and reward to shape the lower world under them.
Not all were openly righteous. Not all were openly cruel.
That made them harder to read.
The text did not say to hate them. It said not to underestimate them.
Gu Yanshu kept reading.
The beasts, according to the record, were often kindled by a higher will. Not created from nothing. Created from material, will, and the pressure of the people above. Some were made to guard. Some were made to test. Some were made to destroy. The chambers, the route lines, even the family systems, could all be tied to a design chain that started above the visible sky layers.
That was the part that mattered.
Above.
Not in the city. Not in the families. Not in the chambers.
Above.
Gu Yanshu leaned back a little and let that settle.
So the beasts were not just wild things.
That meant the beast lands were part of a larger system.
That meant the sect materials he had gathered were not just raw goods.
That meant the White Chamber, Yellow Chamber, and Area 905 routes might all be tied into a design that came from a higher plane or a higher authority than most people ever talked about.
He read more.
The next page explained that some Men of Creating behaved like benevolent architects. They made methods, roads, and cultivation frames that helped lower cultivators grow. Others shaped the world more harshly, using tests and beasts to filter who deserved to rise. Most were a mix of both, which made them even harder to judge.
That was the exact kind of thing Gu Yanshu disliked.
Not simple evil. Not simple good.
A mix.
People like that always believed they were justified.
He kept reading the first seven pages, then the next few after that because now it was getting interesting enough to matter. The book described how sects themselves were sometimes inspired by upper design logic. Not direct command. Pattern imitation. How the strongest surviving groups in the lower world often copied the structures that the upper creators had already used.
So a sect was not just a group.
It was a reflection.
That thought stayed in his mind longer than the others.
Gu Yanshu closed the book slowly and sat in the quiet library for a while.
The training sounds from outside had faded a little.
The morning had moved on.
And now he understood something deeper than before.
If the Men of Creating really existed in the sky above the city, then the whole world was not simply standing on its own. It was being arranged. Shaped. Pressured into forms that looked natural if you never looked too far up. That meant one day he might need to deal with those upper hands too.
Not today.
But one day.
For now, the Clock Family was growing. The sect was learning. His tools were becoming stronger. And the library was giving him pieces of the world he had not known to look for yet.
He stood and closed the book in his hand.
Then he went back toward the training hall, already thinking about what part of this knowledge should be used next and what should stay hidden until the right moment.
Because in a city like this, knowing something early was almost as dangerous as not knowing it at all.Gu Yanshu opened the next page and kept reading.
The paper was older than the last one. Thinner too. It carried that dry brittle feeling books got when they had been copied too many times and still refused to die. The title line at the top was scratched in a narrow hand.
On the Upper Men and the Limits of Mercy
He stared at that for a second before moving on.
The first few lines were blunt in a way that made the whole page feel colder.
The Upper Men, the book said, were not supposed to be misunderstood as simple rulers. They were not the kind that sat on thrones and only watched. They were the kind that could erase almost everything below them if they decided the lower world had become a threat. The text said that if they ever moved with full intent, they could wipe out ninety-five percent of humanity without much trouble.
Gu Yanshu stopped there.
Read it again.
Ninety-five percent.
The number sat in the middle of the page like a stone dropped into a pond. Not because it sounded dramatic. Because it sounded measured. The writer had not guessed. He had been warning.
Gu Yanshu turned the page slower after that.
But the next line changed the weight of the whole thing.
They did not do it.
Not because they could not. Because they chose not to.
The book described that choice as kindness.
Not soft kindness. Not the kind that smiles and gives gifts. More like a hard, dangerous mercy that still kept the lower world alive even while it held the power to crush it. The Upper Men were righteous, the text said, but righteousness in them was not gentle. It was the kind that could cut just as easily as it could protect.
Gu Yanshu rested one hand on the table and kept reading.
So that was the shape of them.
Not gods. Not demons. Something in between, maybe worse than both if you got too close.
He read the next section, and the page became even stranger.
The Upper Men were not created naturally either.
They had been made.
By the Mans of Power.
Gu Yanshu's eyes narrowed a little.
That part he read twice too.
The Mans of Power, according to the record, were above the Upper Men in origin, but not in appearance. They were the source line. The ones who had made the Upper Men because they had grown tired of doing everything themselves. They had wanted a shorter form. A cleaner version. A helper shape. So they made the Upper Men to improve the world and carry out the heavy work.
That was the logic of it.
Create something to extend your own hand. Make it capable enough to work. Make it righteous enough to survive. Make it dangerous enough to be respected.
Gu Yanshu leaned back slightly in the chair.
That explained a lot.
Too much, maybe.
The world did not become simpler when he found a higher layer. It only became more layered. More structured. Each step up was another kind of pressure, another kind of hand, another kind of logic pretending to be natural while actually being designed.
He kept reading.
The book then shifted from the Upper Men themselves to the things that helped them.
Not all the helpers were flesh. Not all of them were made in the same way. Some were systems. Some were entities. Some were tools given shape.
The first one listed was Data.
Gu Yanshu paused.
That name was too clean to be accidental. Too plain too. The page described Data as a living record force, a being or system that knew what had happened, what was happening, and what was likely to happen if the lines stayed steady. It did not fight with fists. It fought with memory. It tracked everything the Upper Men needed, organized it, and made the world easier to control.
The second one was NATO.
That made Gu Yanshu stop for a moment longer.
The text explained NATO as a binding protection force. A structure that linked the Upper Men to their control routes and defense layers. It was not human. It was made. Artificial, but strong. It held things together where they might otherwise split apart. The book said it worked as a guard against internal collapse and outside pressure both.
The third one was the Upper Demon.
That one was stranger.
The page said the Upper Demon was not a demon the way lower creatures understood the term. It was an artificial pressure-being created to test, balance, and sometimes punish. It served as a correction force when the world's movement became too chaotic. It was dangerous because it had no natural restraint beyond its assigned role.
Gu Yanshu's finger moved down the page.
Then came Seed.
The book called it the first kindling source. A foundational artificial life pattern used by the Upper Men to begin creation lines. Seed could be used to grow, shape, or initiate structures, beasts, and in some cases entire routes of development. It was described as quiet but deeply unstable if mishandled.
Then Cedar of Heavens.
That one sounded almost beautiful.
The text said Cedar of Heavens was a stabilizing tree-like force, but not a tree in the ordinary sense. It held vertical pressure lines, connected layers of sky support, and gave form to some of the higher structures the Upper Men relied on. It was a support pillar disguised as a living being.
The last one on the page was the Metal of Power.
Gu Yanshu read that line and let out a slow breath.
Metal of Power.
That sounded exactly like something dangerous enough to build a world around and break a world with.
The book described it as a hard artificial principle, one that gave force to tools, weapons, chambers, and structural systems. It was not just metal. It was a law of force made usable. The Upper Men used it where strength had to become stable enough to last.
Gu Yanshu sat still after reading that section.
All of them were artificial.
All of them were made.
That was the part that mattered.
The world above was not just stronger than the world below. It was designed. Built. Shaped by lines that had been created for a reason. The Upper Men did not grow naturally. They had been made by the Mans of Power. And all the tools around them—Data, NATO, Upper Demon, Seed, Cedar of Heavens, Metal of Power—were also made things.
Not natural. Not random. Not holy in the easy sense.
Constructed.
That meant they could also be studied.
And maybe understood.
Gu Yanshu turned the page again.
The next section was short, but it hit harder than the others.
The Mans of Power lived in the void of space.
Not in the city. Not in the districts. Not in the chambers.
In the empty void itself.
The page described them as people of complete stillness and complete authority, beings who did not require the lower world to survive. They were not demonic. Not cruel by nature. Not even especially dangerous in the emotional way the book described the Upper Men. Instead, they were righteous. Severe in a clean way. Large future competitors, the text said, if the lower world ever grew far enough to matter to them.
Gu Yanshu stared at that line for a long time.
So they were not monsters.
That was almost worse.
Because monsters could be hated. Systems could be opposed. But righteous beings in the void, the kind that were kind rather than cruel, those were the hardest to fight. They would believe themselves correct even while destroying you. They would not think of themselves as evil. They would think of themselves as necessary.
The book did not say to fear them. It said to remember them.
Gu Yanshu's eyes moved back to the earlier pages.
Power had made the Mans of Power. The Mans of Power had made the Upper Men. The Upper Men had made the structures below them. And the structures below them had made the chambers, the beasts, the pressure lines, and the districts.
It was a chain.
A long chain.
Which meant the world he stood in was not isolated at all. It was only one layer of a much bigger design.
He kept reading.
The next page explained why the Upper Men had chosen to make beasts at all. It said beasts were useful because they could be placed in zones that tested cultivation, guarding, route access, and material gathering. They also gave the lower world an enemy it could understand. Something direct. Something the lesser cultivators could struggle against without needing to know the full shape of the higher order.
That was clever.
Of course it was clever.
The book said the Upper Men could have created a better world if they wanted to, but better was not always the goal. A world that was too clean would lose pressure. A world with no struggle would stop producing useful growth. So the Upper Men kept danger alive on purpose.
That part made Gu Yanshu's mouth tighten slightly.
Kindly demonic.
Exactly.
The book seemed almost amused by it too, like it knew the contradiction and didn't care.
The next page went deeper.
The beast bodies themselves were not always grown from nothing. Some were shaped from the Metal of Power and fed with Seed. Some were guided by Cedar of Heavens if they needed to become route guardians or chamber guardians. Some were tracked by Data, bound by NATO, and corrected by the Upper Demon when they grew too unstable. The whole system was so layered it almost felt alive in a different way.
Gu Yanshu closed his eyes for half a second.
So the White Chamber. The Yellow Chamber. The Stone Core Tyrant Beast. The hidden controllers. The family systems. The route pressure.
All of it might be part of a larger arrangement.
Not random survival structures.
A design chain.
He opened his eyes again and turned to the margin notes. There was one comment written in old faded ink, likely by some earlier reader.
"The lower world is not the only place being tested."
Gu Yanshu read that once.
Then again.
That line stayed with him.
Because it changed the meaning of everything he had seen so far.
Maybe the chambers were not only testing him. Maybe the districts were not only testing families. Maybe beasts were not only testing strength.
Maybe the world itself was a trial that reached upward too.
He glanced up from the book and looked toward the library ceiling as if he could see through it.
The ceiling did not answer.
But the thought stayed there.
If the Mans of Power lived in the void, then the Upper Men were just one layer of response beneath them. And if the Upper Men were kind but dangerous, then the Mans of Power were likely even more severe in a different way. Not evil. Not mindless. Just strong enough to make their own righteousness dangerous for everyone lower down.
That was a future problem.
A large one.
The kind that would not matter to most people until it was already too late.
Gu Yanshu looked back down at the page and then at the next section, which spoke about the "future competitor" problem directly. It said the void rulers did not currently consider the lower world worth erasing, but that could change if the lower world began producing its own serious structures. Sect systems. Family systems. Chamber systems. Anything that began to reflect higher patterns too well could eventually attract attention from above.
That made Gu Yanshu sit very still.
Because Origin Sect was now one of those things.
It was small. Still raw. Not even fully stable yet.
But it had structure.
It had a name. It had walls. It had pressure lines. It had people learning how to fight properly. It had a library. It had memory.
That was enough to become interesting if someone above was watching.
He smiled faintly, but not in a happy way.
Good.
Let them watch.
If the world above was a future competitor, then the worst thing he could do would be to ignore it. The best thing would be to understand it early. Not worship it. Not panic about it. Just learn enough that when the time came, he would not be standing in front of some righteous thing from the void acting surprised that it had claws.
He turned the page again.
The next part of the book made him pause harder.
It explained that the Mans of Power did not build the Upper Men all at once. They built them in a cycle. One generation of structure. One generation of testing. One generation of correction. Each new layer becoming a cleaner, shorter form of the one before it. That was how they kept the lower world from collapsing under too much direct control.
It also meant the Upper Men could be replaced or refined if needed.
That was another dangerous thing to know.
Gu Yanshu set the book down and leaned back in the chair.
The quiet of the Library of Learning felt different now.
Not safer.
Just more honest.
Outside, the sect was still moving.
His tools were still training. The Clock Family, or whatever form it became later, was still growing. The world above was still out there, far away and quiet and probably righteous in the exact kind of way that made people die stupid if they misunderstood it.
Gu Yanshu looked at the book again and then at the rows of shelves around him.
He had already learned enough from five books to know the shape of the lower world.
Now he had learned enough from this one to know the shape of the upper chain too.
Mans of Power. Upper Men. Artificial helpers. Beasts. Chambers. Districts. Families. Sects.
All of it linked.
He stood and closed the book carefully.
Then he reached for the next one, because stopping now would be a mistake.
A world that large could not be understood from one page, or even one book. But the first cut had already gone deep enough for him to see the shape underneath.
And somewhere far above the sky, in the empty void where the Mans of Power lived, the future was already sitting there quietly, waiting for the lower world to become worth their attention.Gu Yanshu closed the book and let out a slow breath.
So that was the end of it.
He looked down at the pages one more time before sliding the book back into the shelf where he had taken it from. The cover was worn, the spine cracked, the title half faded like somebody had already tried to forget the story once and failed.
500 years in the past.
Noke.
Lok Baby Seven.
A reincarnator born in a village, then thrown into one life after another like the world was testing how much humiliation one person could carry before the soul finally snapped. The first life had already been ugly enough. Lazy, useless, then suddenly cornered by five people and beaten down because the world did not care whether he felt ready or not. After that came the reincarnation into the lower world, then the embarrassment, then the pathetic life, then death again, then another return, then another failed revenge, then thirty-five years passing in one old body, then another death, then another rebirth, and still the same cycle kept turning.
It was not even a heroic story.
That was the strange part.
It was just suffering with no clean ending.
And the worst thing was the way the book described it.
Not as tragedy. As experiment.
The Man of Power had chosen him.
Not because Lok Baby Seven was strong. Not because he was special in the ordinary sense. But because he was available for something bigger.
A test.
A first attempt.
A first reincarnated thing on earth.
Gu Yanshu's fingers rested on the shelf for a second after he put the book back.
That one had hit deeper than the others.
Because it meant the world did not only have Upper Men and Mans of Power and a higher chain above the sky. It meant the lower worlds themselves may have been seeded with trials long before anyone knew why. Reincarnation. Repeating souls. Failed revenge cycles. A person being pushed through life after life until the shape of the soul itself became useful for someone else's purpose.
He turned away from the shelf and started walking out of the Library of Learning.
His face was calm, but his mind wasn't sitting still at all.
Lok Baby Seven had been used like a rough prototype. That much was clear. A first reincarnation experiment. An attempt to see whether a man could be broken and remade enough times to become something that could survive higher pressure. Maybe the Man of Power had wanted a superman. Maybe something cleaner than a human. Maybe something useful for the void layers above.
But the attempt had gone wrong.
Not fully wrong. Just ugly.
Too much repetition. Too much humiliation. Too much failure. Too much self-destruction.
A tool that keeps breaking on the same road is still a tool, but it stops being elegant.
Gu Yanshu walked out of the library door and the morning light hit him again.
He stopped at the threshold and looked up at the new name above the building.
Library of Learning.
Good.
It fit now.
The place was not just storing books. It was teaching him how the world moved from layer to layer. That was more dangerous than any martial instruction.
He stepped outside and closed the door behind him.
Then he looked across the sect.
The disciples were awake now.
Not all of them. But enough.
The training ground was alive with motion. A few of them were sitting up in the shade, still finishing the tail end of their rest, while the others had already begun moving through the early forms he'd taught them earlier. Their qi was already flowing different than before. Cleaner in some places. Sharper in others.
Gu Yanshu walked toward them.
They saw him coming and straightened almost at once.
Wen Zhaolin was the first to speak.
"Gu Yanshu."
He gave a small nod.
Then he looked over the group.
"Your technique?"
Wen Zhaolin answered first, but not before glancing at the others.
"Mostly complete."
Gu Yanshu raised an eyebrow.
"Mostly?"
Lan Wuge stepped in, calm and practical as ever. "A few are still training. The shape is there. Some still lose the rhythm if they push too hard."
Qiu Weiran, who looked like he had probably been one of those people, rubbed the back of his neck and muttered, "We're trying."
"Trying is not the same as done," Gu Yanshu said.
That made the group quiet.
Then he walked past them and looked at the ones still sitting on the floor of the training area.
Two had actually fallen asleep from exhaustion right in the middle of the practice hall. Their bodies were sprawled near the edge, one leaning against a support post, the other half curled on a mat with one arm over his chest.
Gu Yanshu looked at them for a long second.
Then he sighed a little.
Not angry. Just a little disappointed in the way someone gets when his own people are too tired to keep up with what they promised.
"Let them sleep," he said.
Wen Zhaolin looked at him. "You're not angry?"
Gu Yanshu glanced over. "Should I be?"
"No," Wen Zhaolin said quickly.
"Then no."
He looked around again and saw the way the others were standing now. More orderly than before. More aware that the training hall was not a place for noise now. That was good. His earlier punishment had done what it needed to do.
He turned to the ones still moving through the sword forms and watched them a little longer.
They had learned fast.
Not perfect. But fast.
The qi swords they created now were steadier than before. The shapes still varied from person to person, but the motion around them looked less careless. They were beginning to understand that power was not only force. It was control. Timing. The decision of when not to strike.
That mattered.
Gu Yanshu saw something else too.
Their faces had changed.
Not all the way. But enough.
The punishment, the work, the training, the fact that he had made them stand still and take their mistakes directly had started to reshape them. They were less like seven separate people trying to prove themselves and more like a sect that could actually learn to grow in the same direction.
Good.
Very good.
He folded his arms and watched one of the newer techniques come together.
He hadn't named them before, but now he saw them properly.
Zhao Renhui's body-based sequence had turned into Stone Turn Step, a heavy foot pattern that let him anchor his weight before striking. It made him hard to knock back and gave his body force like a ridge line.
Lan Wuge's qi flow routine had become Thread Current Flow, a quiet method that kept her energy moving in narrow layers so her attacks didn't waste much pressure.
He Mulin's movement style had settled into Shadow Knee Slash, a short concealed step used to close distance suddenly and hit from a blind line.
Qiu Weiran's explosive attack pattern had become Burst Fang Drive, which was still messy but now at least useful.
Shen Tiaoran had built Linked Seal Turn, a sequence that made his strikes chain together and trap an enemy's movement line.
Yu Cheng had refined Cross Wind Guard into a smarter defensive redirection form, where he could pull enemy pressure aside and return it from another angle.
And the seventh, the one who kept watching all of this with the most patient eyes, had created something small but useful too, a technique called Still Needle Step, which let him remain still until the exact moment the strike began.
Gu Yanshu stayed near the edge of the training ground and watched them invent.
That was the part people missed.
He was not just teaching them.
He was letting them build.
If they made a technique and understood why it worked, they would keep getting stronger even without him there every second. That was the kind of tool worth having. Not obedient in a useless way. Useful in a way that lasted.
He let himself stand there and observe for a while longer.
Then the thought from the book came back.
Lok Baby Seven.
The first reincarnator.
A man of power trying to create a superman and ending up with something that lived and died and returned and repeated itself over and over, each life carrying failure as if it were part of the body.
Gu Yanshu looked at his disciples again.
That was the opposite of what he wanted.
Not a loop of humiliation. A loop of learning.
He let the idea sit in his head.
If the higher beings really thought in cycles like that, then a sect like his could become useful in a way they would not expect. Not by being loud. Not by declaring war. By becoming harder to break with each turn. Each mistake corrected. Each failure remembered. Each lesson built into structure.
That meant Origin Sect had value beyond its current size.
Gu Yanshu turned and started walking back toward the Library of Learning again.
But he did not enter.
He stopped at the side wall and looked out at the sect yard instead.
More people had started gathering near the gate.
Not disciples yet. Not all the way in.
But enough to matter.
A few were standing on the road outside the sect, looking over the walls and watching the movement inside. They were not bold. Just curious. Hungry for safety or opportunity or both. They had probably heard that Origin Sect had beast materials, a strong leader, and a library. Those things spread faster than most people admitted.
Gu Yanshu watched them.
Then he walked to the outer gate.
Wen Zhaolin noticed and followed at a respectful distance. Lan Wuge and the others kept training but their eyes were moving too, tracking the newcomers. The sleeping ones were still out cold, which was fine. They would wake when their bodies were ready.
At the gate, the first group of outsiders stepped back a little when they saw him approach.
One woman with a cracked wrist brace spoke first.
"We heard this sect takes people who can fight."
Gu Yanshu looked at her calmly.
"We take useful people."
The woman swallowed and nodded.
Gu Yanshu looked at the others.
Two men. One older cultivator with tired eyes. One younger person carrying a wrapped staff. A thin girl with a half-torn robe and too much caution in her face. A pair of brothers maybe. Or just two people who moved like they had been through too many places where loyalty had cost them more than it should.
He could already tell enough.
They were not all strong. But some of them were probably useful.
Then he saw two faces at the back of the group.
His expression changed only slightly.
But the air around him did.
Qin Jinzhe and Song Hechen.
Again.
Of course.
They had come back.
Not inside the sect. At the edge.
Watching.
Their expressions were calm enough to fool most people. Qin Jinzhe's was composed, almost bored. Song Hechen's had that sharper edge again, the one that said he was already imagining how things would look if he got the upper hand.
Gu Yanshu looked at them and knew immediately they had not come just to ask for entry.
They were testing him.
Maybe hoping he'd changed his mind. Maybe hoping he'd made a mistake. Maybe hoping his sect had already become too visible and they could use the crowd around the gate to force an opening.
He let them stand there a moment.
Then he spoke to the whole group.
"If you want to enter, state your reason."
The outer people looked at one another, confused for a second.
Qin Jinzhe took the first half-step forward.
"We're here because your sect is starting to get attention."
Song Hechen's eyes flicked toward him.
A tiny movement. But Gu Yanshu saw it.
There it was again. The old tension. They still could not stand being in the same space without measuring each other's position. That made them dangerous. Not because of strength alone. Because any room they entered would start bending around their unresolved rivalry.
No.
He didn't need them.
And he certainly didn't need them inside Origin Sect.
Gu Yanshu's voice stayed flat.
"Attention is not a reason."
Qin Jinzhe narrowed his eyes a little. "You're turning down useful people."
"Useful people don't stand at the same gate and try to compete in silence."
That hit them both.
Song Hechen's mouth tightened. Qin Jinzhe's posture stiffened.
Gu Yanshu looked at the rest of the group and then back to the pair.
He already knew this was going to end the same way as before.
If he let them in, they would become a fracture. If he rejected them, they would become an outside threat.
He chose the cleaner option.
"You two are not joining."
The air went quiet.
The outer group looked startled.
Qin Jinzhe stared at him. "You're serious."
Gu Yanshu didn't blink.
"Yes."
Song Hechen laughed once, not quite happy. "You still think we're a problem."
Gu Yanshu looked at him.
"You are a problem."
That made Song Hechen's expression tighten hard.
Qin Jinzhe stepped forward slightly, and for a second it looked like he might say something sharper, but he didn't. He just held Gu Yanshu's gaze, pretending to be calmer than he was.
Gu Yanshu could see the calculation behind both of them already.
If they couldn't get into Origin Sect through the front, they would likely try another path later. A hidden one. Or they'd wait and strike when they thought the sect was vulnerable.
Fine.
Let them.
He was not careless enough to let them in and become poison from inside.
Gu Yanshu turned away from them first.
That was the important part.
He didn't need to watch them leave to know they were angry.
He could feel it.
And if they were angry enough to plan, then so be it.
The sect gate stayed closed behind them.
Gu Yanshu returned to the center yard and looked at the seven disciples again.
They were still training.
Still improving.
Still building.
That was the right direction.
He thought about the book he had just read and the cycle of Lok Baby Seven. Reincarnation. Failure. Revenge. Humiliation. Repetition. The world trying to force a soul into a shape it never agreed to.
Then he looked at Origin Sect.
No.
Not here.
Here, every failure would be used. Every technique would be improved. Every mistake would be corrected. And every rival who tried to turn the sect into a battlefield would be left outside the gate.
Gu Yanshu stood there quietly, watching his people move in the early light, and knew the next part of the sect's growth would not be about books alone.
It would be about what kind of enemies the sect made when it stopped being easy to ignore.