— ✦ —
Three days in Stone Bridge City.
He moved through the resource market on the first morning with a specific list.
Iron Vein Root — a cultivation material that accelerated meridian expansion at the Level Four to Six transition. Rare but not impossible to find in a major trading hub.
Hollow Crystal — used in formation-reading practice. His Pale Flame sense had been developing organically, but the stone archive's information suggested a structured formation-reading practice using hollow crystal resonance could triple the sense's precision in one month.
And Third-Level Spirit Stone. Not the basic level he'd been using. Third-level stones carried enough structured qi to support sustained heavy cultivation without depleting the ambient environment.
All three were expensive.
He had twenty-seven spirit stones between them and the sect points from Iron Mountain converted to credit — roughly forty stones equivalent.
The Iron Vein Root alone was priced at thirty stones per unit.
He needed three units minimum.
He stood in the market's cultivation materials section and did the arithmetic.
Not enough.
"You're making the face," Cai Rong said.
"What face?"
"The face that says you've identified a problem and are about to solve it in a way that I'll find alarming."
"There is an assessment hall on the east side of the market," Wen Dao said. "They pay for demonstration cultivation assessments — practitioners who demonstrate unusual techniques are compensated for the educational value to the hall's students."
"How much?"
"Depends on the technique's rarity and the demonstration quality."
He had two techniques descended from a six-hundred-year-old source that very few people in this territory knew existed.
"That is either very profitable or very risky," Cai Rong said.
"I'll demonstrate only the Question Fist applications. The Pale Flame stays internal." He paused. "The Question Fist's advanced forms are not publicly known here. They were Ren Long's private development."
"And if someone recognizes the lineage?"
"Then I learn something useful about who in Stone Bridge City knows the tower techniques' history."
Cai Rong thought about this.
"That reasoning is extremely double-edged," he said.
"Most useful reasoning is."
The assessment hall was run by an older man named Master Guo with the careful bearing of an educator who had seen everything and was difficult to impress.
He was difficult to impress.
Wen Dao demonstrated three applications of the Question Fist's advanced qi form — the probe-strike, the disruption technique, and a combined form that integrated both into a reading-plus-redirect sequence.
Master Guo watched without expression.
At the end, he was quiet for ten seconds.
"Where did you learn this?" he said.
"From a master's notes," Wen Dao said. True.
"What was the master's name?"
"Ren Long," Wen Dao said. Also true. Ren Long was deceased and his lineage was obscure. There was no network to trace it through.
Guo looked at him.
"Ren Long died twelve years ago," Guo said.
"Yes. He left notes."
"You are Qi Condensation Level Four."
"Yes."
"Using advanced qi integration techniques that practitioners twice your level struggle to execute."
"Yes."
A pause.
"The assessment fee for this demonstration quality is eighty spirit stones," Guo said.
Wen Dao looked at him.
"Eighty stones for a single demonstration?"
"The Question Fist's advanced forms have not been publicly demonstrated in this region in fifteen years. The hall's students will benefit significantly." Guo paused. "I would like three sessions. Paid per session. Eighty stones each."
Two hundred forty spirit stones.
He bought the Iron Vein Root that afternoon.
And on the way back through the market, he passed a stall selling old cultivation manuals in poor condition.
One title stopped him.
He picked it up. Faded cover. Old script. The title read: NOTES ON THE ENTITY — SECOND PRACTITIONER'S ACCOUNT.
Second practitioner. One of the three who had reached the tower.
His hands were very still.
He asked the price.
The stall owner quoted thirty stones.
He paid without negotiating.
— ✦ —