Age 7. Three weeks after the Void Crawler incident.
The first system mission appeared on a Tuesday.
Míng Xīn was finally eating breakfast properly, without interruption, when the notification arrived with the calm certainty of sothing that had decided waiting was no longer necessary.
Mission activated. Title: Take Out The Trash. Objective: Remove Elder Councillor Fang from his position within the Eternal Courts by any ans that does not involve direct violence. Reward: Shop access unlocked. 500 system points. Ti limit: Nine years.
Míng Xīn read it twice.
Nine years, he said internally.
You are seven, the system said. I am being generous.
He finished his breakfast and said nothing to anyone and began that sa afternoon.
Age 8. The first breakthrough.
It happened by the clan tree. Not during training. Not during ditation. During an argunt with Liàng, who was four years old and had strong opinions about where his outer robe should be hung and was expressing these opinions at considerable volu for soone her size.
The Sovereign Void Lineage cracked open another layer entirely while he was trying to explain to her, calmly, that the robe location was not an ergency.
She disagreed.
The breakthrough energy knocked three leaves off the clan tree and briefly turned the courtyard an interesting color.
Liàng looked at the leaves. Looked at him. Pointed at the robe.
Your breakthrough, the system said, was triggered by a robe.
It was triggered by sustained mild irritation, Míng Xīn said.
A robe, the system said.
He hung the robe where she wanted it.
Age 9. The first system shop purchase.
He spent forty seven minutes examining the shop before buying anything. The system provided comntary throughout.
That technique is not for your level.
That bloodline would conflict with the Hollow Soul Lineage.
That item is interesting, but you have nowhere to use it yet.
That one, yes. That one is useful.
He bought a basic hollow energy refinent technique that accelerated ridian expansion by thirty percent. The system approved.
Good choice, it said.
You helped choose it, Míng Xīn said.
I guided you toward a good choice, the system said. There is a difference. One builds character.
Age 10. Elder Fang makes his second move.
He submitted a formal petition to the inter faction council requesting that the Eternal Courts tournant entry criteria be anded to require minimum cultivation levels, specifically Vein Breaker level, which was precisely what Míng Xīn had not yet reached publicly.
Míng Xīn read the petition the sa afternoon it was filed, through channels he had spent three years developing access to, and added it to the file he had been building since age seven.
The file was substantial now.
You are smiling, the system said.
Slightly, Míng Xīn said.
You smile when he makes mistakes, the system said. He thinks he is being clever. He does not know you have been waiting for each move.
He has been playing the ga for forty years, Míng Xīn said.
Yes, the system said. But he taught it to the wrong student.
Age 11. Liàng's first day as official maid.
His grandfather had arranged it, citing compound administrative restructuring. Liàng had been inford that morning.
She arrived at his door at the first hour carrying three things she had decided were essential for the role: a schedule she had written herself, a list of his habits she considered problematic, and the hollow stone.
She placed all three on his desk with the efficiency of soone who had been planning this for so ti.
"I made adjustnts," she said, pointing at the schedule.
Míng Xīn looked at the schedule. His entire day had been reorganized around al tis, which appeared seven tis in twelve hours.
"This is not—" he began.
"You forget to eat," she said. "I have observed this for four years. It is a problem. I have solved it."
She looked at him with her large calm eyes that had developed, over four years of compound living, an additional quality that had not been there before. Still calm. Still observing everything.
But now also completely certain that whatever she had decided was correct.
Threat assessnt, Míng Xīn said internally.
Higher than Elder Fang, the system said imdiately. As always.
She made a schedule, Míng Xīn said.
Yes, the system said. I respect it.
Age 12. The clan tree speaks.
Not in words. In a way that was older than words, through the pulse that had been running from the deep hollow rock into his palms since he was seven years old.
He was sitting at the tree's base at midnight when it happened. The pulse changed quality. Beca directed. Beca, unmistakably, communication.
Not a ssage. An acknowledgnt.
Sothing in the deep dark below had co close enough to reach the tree's roots and was using them the way a person uses a letter, to say one thing across a distance.
What it said had no translation into language.
What it ant was: we see you. We are coming. We are not a threat.
Míng Xīn sat with his palms against the bark for a long ti afterward.
What are they, he asked the system.
You are not ready for that answer, the system said.
You say that often, Míng Xīn said.
Because it is often true, the system said. When you are ready I will tell you imdiately. I do not enjoy withholding information. I find it inefficient. But so foundations must be built before certain weights can be placed on them.
How will I know when I am ready, Míng Xīn said.
You will ask a different question, the system said. And I will know.
Age 13. His father embarrasses him in public for the first ti.
It was at the quarterly assembly. Míng Xīn had just completed a public cultivation demonstration that produced a response from the audience that ranged from stunned silence to visible discomfort, which was the standard response to anything he did publicly now.
His father stood up from the senior cultivators' section.
"That," Tiān Yǔ Chen said, with the volu of a man who had decided that the room's acoustics were a feature rather than a consideration, "is my son."
Nobody in the assembly hall said anything.
"I am ntioning it," his father said, "in case anyone was unclear."
He sat back down.
Míng Xīn looked at the ceiling.
Your father, the system said, is extraordinary.
He just announced my parentage to a room that already knew my parentage, Míng Xīn said.
Yes, the system said. Extraordinarily.
Age 14. The shop reveals sothing unexpected.
He was browsing the shop on a slow afternoon when a new section appeared that had not been there before. Locked. No price displayed. No description.
Just a na.
Bloodline: Unknown Origin.
This bloodline, the system said before he could ask, was not in the shop before today.
Where did it co from, Míng Xīn said.
Soone put it there, the system said.
Who.
Soone who knew you would find it, the system said. Soone who wanted you to know it exists without telling you directly.
Míng Xīn looked at the locked bloodline for a long ti.
My mother, he said.
The system said nothing.
Which was, from sothing that always had sothing to say, the loudest possible answer.
Age 15. Elder Fang makes his final mistake.
He submitted docuntation to the Purity Committee, reconvened after eight years of inactivity, arguing that the inter-faction tournant should be restructured to exclude participants with unverified dual lineage, language specifically and carefully crafted to apply to exactly one person in the hidden civilization.
Míng Xīn read the docuntation the sa day it was submitted.
He added it to the file.
The file was complete now.
He had been waiting for this specific move for eight years, since age seven, since a Tuesday morning when a mission notification appeared over breakfast with a nine year ti limit.
Mission update, the system said. Objective status: Ready for completion.
Not yet, Míng Xīn said.
The tournant is in one year, the system said.
Yes, Míng Xīn said. I want him to watch.
A pause.
I, the system said, in a tone that was several things simultaneously, have been inside you for fifteen years.
Yes, Míng Xīn said.
And you, the system said, are still the most interesting thing I have encountered in a hundred thousand years of existence.
That, Míng Xīn said, seems like an overstatent.
It is not, the system said simply.
Outside the compound the hollow light did its amber morning thing and the clan tree stood in its ancient patience and sowhere below the civilization sothing vast and patient had been moving toward the surface for eight years and was nearly there now.
Míng Xīn closed the file, ate the breakfast Liàng had left outside his door with a note that said EAT THIS OR I WILL TELL YOUR FATHER, and began preparing for the tournant.
He was fifteen years old.
He was ready.
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