The second night in the academy dormitories.
Through the thin wooden partitions, Mo Jue could hear the gasps of his peers desperately trying to refine the Eye Phantom Shards.
To them, it was a slow and agonizing process. The shard's icy soul energy fought back.
They followed the academy's method: feeding droplets of soul essence to the shard to coax it into a state of compliance. It was basically diplomacy.
This is a process designed for safety, intended to prevent a Reliquary Overload.
To Mo Jue, it was a waste of time.
He sat cross-legged in the corner of his room, the Eye Phantom Shard floating an inch above his palm. In the pitch blackness, the shard glowed menacingly.
The violet eyeball suspended inside the crystal rolled lazily, its pupil scanning the room as if searching for a way out.
A day have passed. Mo Lin, fueled by his father's Soul Jades, has reached 60% refinement. If Mo Jue wish to claim the 30 Soul Jade bounty, he must conclude this before dawn.
Mo Jue closed his eyes. He utilized a technique from his own memories of the: A Void Siphon Technique.
He didn't push his essence out; he created a vacuum. Inside his Reliquary, the Howling Shadow sensed the opening and let out a low ratting roar.
Mo Jue didn't suppress the Shadow this time. Instead, he channeled its hunger, using the Slaughter-type Phantom as a predator. He allowed a strand of the Shadow's dark essence to coil around the Eye Shard.
The shard, a mere Rank 1 fragment, found itself caught between the 2000-year-old will of a demon and the starving maw of a beast. The pupil inside the shard widened in terror.
This was not a negotiation. It was an execution.
The crystalline exterior of the shard began to fracture, shedding flakes of skin that dissolved into smoke.
Then, the eyeball was eaten in a single bite by the Howling Shadow.
With it fully consumed, an eyeball manifested in the Howling Shadow. Similarly, a vertical slit appeared in Mo Jue's forehead. Supplement phantoms of this kind were designed to bind directly to the body.
The refinement was swift. It felt as though a spike of ice had been driven through his skull and into the very center of his brain. Mo Jue's body didn't flinch. His heart rate remained steady. He calmly watched the integration, treating the neurological pain as nothing.
Mo Jue opened his eyes, all three of them.
The world had transformed. The darkness of the room was replaced by a very colorful world of various signatures and essences. He could see the heat radiating from the sleeping students in the next room. He could see the iron ore veins in the walls with its low-level magnetic frequency.
"The resolution is acceptable," Mo Jue whispered, the third eye on his forehead blinking in sync with his natural ones.
---------------
The next morning, the fog over Black Silt Ridge was particularly dense. The students gathered in the courtyard, many having dark circles under their eyes.
The Academy Elder stood on the stone podium. "Two days have passed. Many of you have been baptised by Phantom Shards. This is the first lesson of the Grafter. Power is a parasite. It can take more than it gives."
He scanned the crowd, his eyes lingering on Mo Lin. "Mo Lin, step forward. Your essence signature is fluctuating. Have you made progress?"
Mo Lin stepped out, a look of exhausted triumph on his face. He held up his hand, and a film of light covered his palm. "The eye is partially refined, Elder. I can manifest it for ten seconds. I will have full integration by tonight."
A ripple of hushed awe went through the Seedlings. Ten seconds of a manifestation was enough to cut through a man's throat. For a B-grade talent, this was a stellar achievement.
"Impressive," the Elder nodded. "To manifest it before the third day is a sign of—"
"It is a sign of inefficiency."
The voice carried a weight that seemed to dampen the morning air. The students parted like a receding tide as Mo Jue walked towards them.
He wasn't wearing a bandage. He didn't look tired. His face was indifferent. As he stopped before the Elder, he tilted his head slightly.
The vertical slit on his forehead snapped open.
The violet eyeball within didn't just glow; it radiated a piercing, cold light. It wasn't just a partial refinement. The pupil was fully dilated, the iris swirling with a complex pattern that suggested full refinement.
"Manifest Sight," the Elder breathed, his voice cracking. "You didn't just refine the shard... you achieved a Perfect Sync. In this short amount of time?"
"The shard was compliant," Mo Jue said, his tone suggesting he was bored by the conversation. "I believe the thirty Soul Jades are mine."
The silence in the courtyard was absolute. Even the birds in the spear-bamboo seemed to stop their chirping. Mo Lin stood frozen, his hand still glowing with its pathetic, flickering edge. His progress, which felt like a mountain he had climbed, was now nothing more than a molehill at Mo Jue's feet.
"This is impossible," Mo Lin hissed, his face turning a mottled purple. "Elder! He must have used a forbidden supplement! No!"
Mo Jue turned his third eye toward Mo Lin. The boy felt a sudden, sharp pressure behind his own eyes, a psychic weight that made his knees buckle.
"Your failure to grasp it does not constitute a crime on my part, Mo Lin," Mo Jue said.
The Academy Elder reached into a chest behind him. He has a growing sense of unease. He handed a clinking leather pouch to Mo Jue.
"Thirty pieces of Soul Jade," the Elder said. "Use them to stabilize your foundation, Mo Jue. But be warned: the taller the bamboo, the more the wind seeks to break it."
Mo Jue took the pouch, feeling the refreshing feeling of the Soul Jades.
"The wind is only a problem for those who intend to bend," he replied while turning and walking away.
Mo Jue didn't return to the dormitory. Instead, he headed straight for the village market.
With thirty Soul Jades, his options had expanded. The local merchants were mostly clan-affiliated, selling supplies to the guards and laborers. But there was a sub-sect of traders who dealt in illegal or semi-legal materials scavenged from the wild.
He found a stall tucked into an alleyway. An old woman with a veil covering her lower face sat behind a counter.
"I need three vials of Bitter Root Extract" Mo Jue said, placing two Soul Jades on the counter. "And a handful of Lead Silt."
The woman looked at the Jades, then up at the third eye on Mo Jue's forehead. She didn't ask questions. She reached under the counter and produced three glass vials filled with a murky, brownish liquid that smelled of fermented concoction.
"The Silt is extra," she rasped. "Five jades."
Mo Jue paid without haggling. Lead Silt was a heavy, spiritual powder. This is very popular item for hiding people's presence from wild phantoms.
He spent the rest of the day in the library, ostensibly studying the History of the Ridge, but actually cross-referencing the Blight Walker's known combat patterns with the local topography.
The Blight-Walker's primary technique involved Movement. He wouldn't just hide. The Hidden Leech was his utility Dao Phantom. It fed on Soul Pale.
As he read more, Mo Jue found more clues. The Northern Ravine has a high concentration of iron ore. Iron ore veins can act as a natural conduit for Soul Pale. If the Leech is feeding there, the nest must be within its radius.
As night fell, Mo Jue felt the Howling Shadow within him grow restless. The integration of the Eye Phantom had provided the Shadow with a lens. It could now see the world more clearly, and its hunger had sharpened accordingly. It is extracting more Soul Energy from him.
"Soon," Mo Jue whispered to the darkness in his gut.
He slipped out of the village once more. This time, he didn't head for the marker. He headed for the highest point of the Northern Ravine—a jagged cliff known as The Fingers of Fall.
From here, with the Eye Phantom active looked around. He poured the Bitter Root Extract into a rag, then sprinkled the Lead Silt in his clothes and body.
The Extract would draw the Leech out; the Lead Silt would help in hiding his presence from the Phantoms.
He waited. The moon reached its zenith, casting a sickly, pale light over the ridge.
The soil at the base of the cliff began to churn. It wasn't a slow movement. It was a violent, rhythmic thumping—the sound of a foot stomping against the earth from below.
The Hidden Leech emerged. In the pale moonlight, it looked even more grotesque. It was a mass of white, calcified bone shaped like a severed human foot, roughly the size of a dog. Instead of toes, it had dozens of tiny, wriggling feelers that tasted the air.
It hopped. Thump. It hopped again, heading straight for the scent of the Bitter Root. It was moving with a terrifying, jerky speed, covering ten feet in a single leap.
Mo Jue watched through his third eye. He saw the thread of essence connecting the Leech to the earth. It was a thin, pulsating line of violet energy.
Probability of the Walker's Cave being directly beneath the Leech's origin point is very high.
Mo Jue didn't strike. He followed.
He moved like a shadow, his Lead-Silt-covered boots making no sound. The Leech led him deep into the Ravine, past the areas cleared by the clan patrols, and into the Deep Miasma.
Here, the trees were twisted into agonized shapes, and the air was thick enough to taste.
The Leech stopped at the base of a waterfall that ran with black, oily water. It hopped onto a flat stone and began to drink the vapors rising from the pool.
Mo Jue's third eye flared. Behind the waterfall, hidden by a layer of illusion was a crack.
"Found it," Mo Jue murmured.
Suddenly, the Howling Shadow within him screamed in warning.
A bolt of pale, cold light shot from the trees, slamming into the stone where the Hidden Leech was. It did not hit the leech, and the leech vanished into the water.
"I'd follow you, Mo Jue!"
Mo Lin stepped out from behind a twisted spear-bamboo, his face illuminated by the flickering, unstable light of his own Eye Shard. He was breathing heavily, his clothes torn by the briars. "What is that thing? A special Phantom? I won't let you have it. I'll take whatever treasure you're hunting!"
Mo Jue didn't look at the waterfall. He turned slowly toward Mo Lin. This kid has a very high affinity at courting death.
His third eye was glowing with a cold, murderous intensity.
"You have a remarkable talent for suicide, Mo Lin," Mo Jue said. "You have interrupted my hunt."
"Why should I care?" Mo Lin raised a Lunar Dagger Phantom. This is a tool phantom specializing in assassination. Tool phantoms require far less effort to wield than most phantom types.
"I'll kill you here and tell the Elder you were corrupted by the Miasma. No one will ever know!" Mo Lin added.
Mo Jue exhaled a puff of gray mist. The Howling Shadow began to leak from his pores, turning the air around him into a swirling vortex of darkness.
"Then let us test the quality of your resolve," Mo Jue said. "Show me if you can survive."