Hearing the na, Lin Mu halted.
The man who spoke had the easy confidence of a Core Disciple used to the rhythms of this place. He closed the distance with the casual step of soone greeting a comrade.
"How is it that you have co out from seclusion so soon?" the disciple asked, surprised and cheerful. "I thought your practice would keep you locked inside for months."
Lin Mu smiled and let the borrowed voice follow the borrowed face. "I felt like taking a walk," he said, voice steady and untroubled. "The halls felt closed. A bit of air seed right."
The other disciple relaxed.
He clapped Lin Mu lightly on the shoulder in the friendly way of fellows who trusted one another. "You could do worse than visit the libraries. They have new scrolls from the last batch of scouts that returned.
Oh, also the Fourth Elder has been free lately and he is taking lessons. He teaches early in the morning and his insights are sharp. If I were you I would take advantage while he has ti to spare."
Lin Mu registered the na with a small, polite nod.
The advice had two uses. It kept him moving where others expected him to move, It offered a plausible reason for him to approach a particular wing of the Grand Pavilion, and also gave him a path into knowledge and away from scrutiny.
He thanked the disciple and allowed him to go on his way, already folding the suggestion into his plans.
The central plaza felt like a theater where every actor wore a script of habit.
ssenger disciples walked through with sealed parcels. So disciples practiced forms in small groups beneath the watchful eyes of Senior Disciples acting as instructors. A line of alchemist assistants carried boxes and trays full of ingredients to the residences of the elders.
The overall mood was complacent order, the kind that cos from generations of practiced routine. This was what Lin Mu needed to see. The lack of hidden hostility only made the quiet more telling.
He moved toward the auxiliary wing the young disciple had nad.
The library stood against the inner wall of the plaza, attached to the Grand Pavilion by a suspension bridge ringed in barely humming arrays. Its entrance was an elaborate facade of wood and rune-etched glass. Lanterns burned along its approach, though the glow seed to keep to polite distances, as if wary of disturbing the scrolls within.
He entered without raising alarm.
The library’s interior slled faintly of old paper and resin. Shelves rose in terraces, each ledge labelled with neat characters marking centuries and categories. More than re books, so shelves held sealed cases that humd when touched. Manuscripts wrapped in silk lay under glass dos.
The silence of the place was warm, tended, like a garden trimd for thought. As much as Lin Mu would like to read the books and docunts here, he knew it was not the ti for it.
Lin Mu slipped behind a stack of shelves near the center and vanished into the ground. He activated Phase, feeling the hidden arrays within the floor of the library pass through him harmlessly.
Below the mundane surface of the library, the old arrays humd. Many arrays were harmless, intended to catalogue the movent of books and to record what texts were taken out.
Others kept the rarest scrolls from decay.
Lin Mu slid between the array’s gaps like ink flowing between brush strokes, careful to touch nothing that would lead the keener sensors to asure abnormal pressure. He could feel the flow of the library’s minor formations like the bones of a sleeping animal.
A jade communication slip vibrated on his waist. Elyon’s voice ca, appearing direclty within Lin Mu’s mind.
"Report," the wolfkin said.
His tone was laced with an alert curiosity. "What are you seeing?"
Lin Mu’s lips curved. He moved deeper, ghosting along the south wall where the elders’ reading rooms clustered. "They truly have settled into hibernation," he replied quietly. "They have stored supplies for cultivation and concentrated most of their efforts inward. Their outward defenses are minimal if this is how open they allow movent. The central pavilion’s arrays are focused inward, not outward. It seems they believed concealnt would suffice."
Elyon’s breath ca soft through the jade. "And the people? Any sign of fanaticism or corruption?"
Lin Mu considered, forming his observations with care. "No overt corruption. They behave like n and won who prefer the quiet life. They debate mundane matters in public, they train in open fields. Their temperant appears governed by tradition more than malice. That may be a genuine state or a practiced performance."
There was a pause long enough for him to hear a distant footstep in the library corridors. Then Elyon’s tone changed, edged with surprise. "You think we should strike directly?"
Lin Mu passed through the solid ground like a fish in water and soon reached a location adjacent to a reading hall where the Fourth High Elder often taught.
He transmitted his voice through the jade slip. "Not a broad ambush," he said. "A precise strike. We do not know the full depth of their networks yet. We do not know if there are any Ephera Sect mbers present here or even other experts that might be coordinating.
By striking precisely at the heart, either the Patriarch or the control nexus of the array itself, we can collapse their arrangents before they have ti to call upon allies."
Elyon made a small sound of disbelief, barely more than a whisper. "You are suggesting to eliminate their leadership and then take the field? That would require crossing deep into their inner sanctum. If you are discovered in such a place, there might be complications."
Lin Mu’s reply was soft but certain. "I know. That is the risk. But a surgical strike, with the right timing, offers us the greatest chance to end this with minimal loss. Their force is consolidated and complacent.
If their elders survive and escape, their sect will dissolve into a thousand nests. If their elders die at once, their hidden contracts and allies will lose coordination. Removing a head can send the system into paralysis."
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