Lin Yi asked, "What’s your level?"
"Fifty-nine," she said. "Most of our active core mbers are between fifty and sixty-three. Our highest is sixty-five."
He looked at her. "The gap between your lowest active mber and my level is more than ten."
She held his gaze. She had not expected that specific answer from a first-year. He could see the recalibration happening behind her expression. "How far above sixty-five are you?"
"Far enough that party leveling wouldn’t work for either of us," he said.
She was quiet for a mont. "That’s." She stopped. "That’s not a number I expected to hear from a first-year student."
"No," he agreed.
She looked at him for several more seconds. Then she smiled, and it was genuine rather than perford. "The invitation stands regardless," she said. "The score distribution still functions. The resource priority access still applies. And frankly, having soone at your level in the sect, regardless of the leveling chanics, changes what we can accomplish in combat assessnts." She leaned forward slightly. "Crimson Vanguard’s resource access alone would accelerate your developnt in ways that solo expedition scoring can’t match."
"I know," Lin Yi said. "And I’m still declining."
She held his gaze for a long mont. "For now, or permanently?"
"For now."
She nodded once, slowly, with the acceptance of soone who understood the reasoning without needing it explained. "I respect that," she said. She stood up. "The invitation remains open. If you change your mind before or after the expedition, co find ." She moved toward the door, then paused. "And Lin Yi." She looked back. "Whatever level you’re actually at. That’s remarkable."
After that, She left.
Lin Yi sat in the room for a mont. He thought about the offer the way he thought about most offers. Honestly, without sentint. Crimson Vanguard’s resource access was real. The score distribution advantage was real. Xie Yanran herself was clearly competent in ways that extended beyond her combat capability.
None of it changed the calculation.
He heard the commotion in the corridor approximately three minutes later.
He opened his door. Four of Crimson Vanguard’s mbers were in the hallway, apparently having waited for Xie Yanran to deliver the invitation and now expressing their collective opinion of the outco. One of them, a tall second-year with the Vanguard insignia and the energy of soone who had never been told no on behalf of his sect before, was speaking at a volu that suggested he had decided the corridor was an appropriate venue for this.
"A first-year," he was saying, to his companions rather than to Lin Yi’s door specifically, "turned down Crimson Vanguard. A first-year. Does he understand what that is? Does he understand what he just said no to?" He shook his head. "The arrogance. That’s what it is. Pure arrogance."
"Senior Xie was kind to him," another said. "She went personally. She never goes personally."
"And he even lied to her, to be above level 65? As a first year? What bullshit!"
Lin Yi stood in his doorway and looked at them, his figure frad quietly by the dim light behind him. They beca aware of him at varying speeds, so turning imdiately, others a heartbeat too late. The tall one who had been speaking turned and t his gaze without backing down.
"You have a problem with how I run my own decisions?" Lin Yi said.
The tall one looked at him with the specific expression of soone who was angry enough to push sothing further and smart enough to realize, just barely, that pushing it further was probably not the correct move. His jaw tightened slightly, fingers curling at his sides before relaxing again. The silence stretched, lingering for several seconds longer than necessary, thick enough to be felt. Then he turned and walked away, the others following without a word, their footsteps uneven as they retreated down the hall.
Lin Yi watched them go for a mont longer, his expression unchanged, before he went back into his room and closed the door with a quiet, final click.
...
Five days passed.
The morning of the expedition, the academy’s departure plaza filled with students in expedition gear, sects assembled in groups, solo participants distributed among them. The atmosphere was different from the Dragon God Tower. Less formal anxiety. More the specific readiness of people who were about to do sothing they were trained for.
Wang Hao found Lin Yi near the equipnt check station and fell into step beside him. "Solo?" he said.
"Solo," Lin Yi confird.
Wang Hao nodded. He had registered as a sect participant, and after his own calculations about the current level situation of the monsters in the Grade 6 zone, as soone below Level 10, he managed to find a sect filled with individuals which happened to be below level 20, but their numbers enough to compensate, which produced a much better option he found fully satisfying.
"The Mountain Range," he said. "Grade 6 zone." He looked out at the other students gathering in the plaza. "For most, including , this is going to be genuinely difficult."
"Yes," Lin Yi said.
Wang Hao smiled at that. He then looked at the mountains visible in the far distance beyond Celestial City’s outer walls, the jagged line of the Mountain Range catching the morning light.
"Six hours," he said. "Let’s see what this place has."
The convoy began to move. Students, sects, and solo hunters, all heading in the sa direction, into the sa wilderness, for the sa six hours. But into entirely different experiences depending on what they brought with them, and what they were truly capable of handling once the safety of the city disappeared.
Lin Yi walked with the group until the city gate fell behind them, its towering structure shrinking in the distance with each step. Then the wilderness opened ahead, wide and unrestrained. The Mountain Range rose against the horizon, vast and indifferent, full of things at the level that suited him exactly, as if the terrain itself had been waiting for soone like him to arrive.
He had been waiting for this since the sester started, for the mont when preparation gave way to action and theory beca sothing real.
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