The manual was water-damaged in its final quarter.
He read what was readable that evening in his room with a single lamp.
The second practitioner had a name: River Stone. A woman, based on the writing style's direct references. She had reached the tower three hundred years ago — two hundred years after Broken Dawn, one hundred years before Shao Wei.
Her notes were different from what the stone archive had contained. More personal. Less systematic.
The readable sections:
"The entity is not aware of my existence until I practice both techniques simultaneously. When I practice them in sequence or alternation, there is no reaction from the detection field. The combination must be actively integrated — the Question Fist and the Pale Flame running as a single unified circulation — for the entity to locate the signature.
I have practiced separation for six years. In six years, the entity has not found me. The cost is that I cannot develop the integration fully. I am stuck at Core Formation because the full development of either technique requires the integration to progress naturally.
There is a third option I have not yet tested. The Void Body technique described in Broken Dawn's materials — a way of making the integration invisible to the entity while continuing to develop it. I have not found the complete method. Broken Dawn's materials on this point were apparently removed or destroyed."
He looked up from the page.
The Void Body. Broken Dawn's partial solution. River Stone had known about it but couldn't find the complete method.
He did not have the complete method either. He had the description from the stone archive's first layer.
But the description was enough to start.
He read on.
"I am writing this as a record because I expect to be found eventually. I have been pushing the integration in controlled bursts — brief activations followed by immediate suppression. The entity responds to sustained signatures, not brief ones. Brief integration is like a candle flame in a bright room. A sustained integration is a lantern."
Brief integration. Controlled bursts.
He had been running the Pale Flame continuously and the Question Fist in active practice. Both active simultaneously, constantly, for weeks.
He had been a lantern.
He closed the manual.
He sat in the quiet of the inn room and thought carefully.
The Tiger's proximity was a protective factor. But the Tiger was on the east ridge a mile away. Not close enough to create the full qi shadow.
He needed to change his practice method.
Integrated bursts instead of sustained circulation.
He had developed the integration over weeks. Pulling it back to controlled bursts would feel like holding the breath — technically possible, deeply uncomfortable.
He set his hands flat on his knees and tried it.
Pale Flame suppressed to minimum. Question Fist passive. Both present but not integrated.
Forty seconds.
Then a brief integration pulse. Two seconds. Full combination. Then suppressed again.
The pulse was intense and immediately satisfying — like fully breathing after forty seconds of controlled minimal breath.
Then suppressed.
He sat with the discomfort.
This was the path River Stone had found. Not development, exactly. Stability while developing.
A knock at the door.
He suppressed everything to baseline.
"Come in."
Cai Rong opened the door. His expression was the careful version.
"There is someone in the common room asking about you," he said.
"Description?"
"Clear Sky Hall uniform. Level Five. Asking the innkeeper if a young cultivator with a distinctive qi signature had checked in recently."
Clear Sky Hall. The same sect he had seen in the Cloud Peak valley. The one with the strongest position.
They had been at Cloud Peak when the plateau was found. They had seen him and his companions enter the secondary entry from the east approach.
They had sent someone north to find where he had gone.
"What specifically did they ask?" Wen Dao said.
"Distinctive qi signature with an unusual read-pattern." Cai Rong paused. "The innkeeper said she didn't know anything. But the man left a contact token at the front desk. Said there was a standing offer for information."
He was quiet for a moment.
"They don't know I'm here specifically," he said. "They know someone with a distinctive signature passed through and want to identify them."
"The market demonstrations," Cai Rong said. "You demonstrated in front of a hall full of students. Word moves fast in cultivation circles."
He had known the demonstrations carried risk. He had accepted the risk for the resources.
"How long has the man been here?"
"He arrived two hours after you demonstrated at Guo's hall." Cai Rong looked at him. "Time to leave?"
He thought about the three sessions of assessment he'd agreed to with Guo.
First session already complete. Two sessions unpaid.
One hundred sixty stones outstanding.
He thought about the Clear Sky Hall cultivator one floor below him.
He would collect the payment tomorrow at the hall session. That was already scheduled. The Clear Sky Hall man would be watching the inn. If he moved at night, it would look like fleeing. If he attended the session normally, he blended into the city's ordinary movement.
"Stay," he said. "Nothing changes. Tomorrow's session proceeds normally."
"And the Clear Sky Hall man?"
"Let him follow the demonstration if he wants to. What he'll see is a young cultivator doing contracted educational work." He paused. "The question is why Clear Sky Hall cares about a distinctive qi signature at Cloud Peak."
Cai Rong looked at him.
"Maybe they found something on the plateau," he said.
"Or they noticed the secondary entry was sealed when they found the plateau." Wen Dao looked at the manual in his lap. "Which means they know someone else was there before them. And they want to know who."
He set the manual aside.
"Sleep," he said. "Tomorrow is a regular day."
Cai Rong went back to his room.
Wen Dao lay down but did not sleep for several hours.
He ran controlled integration bursts.
Brief. Bright. Then dark.
Brief. Bright. Then dark.
Learning to be a candle instead of a lantern.