The token from the Disciplinary Hall gleamed with cold iron in the morning light. Lin Yi gripped it until his knuckles turned white. The front bore the characters "Outer Sect · Menial," while the back carried freshly added ink—"Mentor: Mo Chen (Mute Master)." The ink had not yet dried, its edges bleeding slightly like some ill omen. He drew a deep breath, filling his lungs with mountain mist and the clean scent of vegetation, yet it did nothing to dispel the stagnation clogging his chest. True Person Xuanyin's words—"Report to the Law Enforcement Hall on the first day of every month"—still echoed in his ears, an invisible chain cutting into flesh. Now there was another. The rear mountain forge lay in a remote location, hidden behind several withered old pines. The stone steps were covered in moss, wet and slippery beneath his feet. Lin Yi walked slowly, deliberately steadying each step. The wound on his right shoulder had torn open under the pressure of the Heart-Questioning Hall; though now bandaged, dull pain still pulsed beneath the wrappings. He needed to stay clear-headed. Needed to judge. Needed to know what Mo Chen—that Mute Master who had shielded him from True Person Xuanyin's interrogation with "sect law" in the Heart-Questioning Hall—truly wanted. At the end of the stone steps, the view opened abruptly. Not the dwelling he had imagined, but a massive grotto half-embedded in the mountainside. The entrance gaped open, doorless, with only a thick stone beam overhead, blackened by smoke and fire. Waves of heat rolled out, striking his face with the acrid smell of burning metal and something else... a sweet, rusty odor of iron. Lin Yi halted at the entrance. His knees went slightly weak, as if he might kneel at any moment. Not fear. Instinct, his body resisting this environment of searing heat, noise, and chaotic spiritual energy fluctuations. He clenched his fist, nails digging into his palm, using the clear pain to suppress that weakness. Then he stepped inside. The light plunged into sudden dimness. The grotto's interior ran deeper than it appeared from outside. Several waist-high furnaces lined the rock walls, their chambers blazing with fire that cast flickering ghost-shadows across the stone. Heat distorted the air; everything in sight seemed to waver slightly. In the deepest part, a figure squatted with his back to the entrance, beside a cold furnace. Mo Chen. He held a palm-sized copper hammer, striking a piece of dark red metal on the furnace platform again and again. The hammer blows were not loud, yet unusually muffled—each one like driving into a solid wooden post. Thud. Thud. Thud... The rhythm was steady to the point of coldness. The metal deformed slightly under the blows, edges sparking with scattered embers that fell to the stone platform, hissing into white smoke. Lin Yi stopped three zhang away. Heat wrapped around him, instantly soaking through his outer garment. Sweat rolled from his temple, sliding past his brow bone and into his eye, stinging until he squinted. He did not move, did not wipe it away. He waited roughly ten breaths. Mo Chen did not turn around, did not even pause. The hammer rose, fell, rose, fell. That dark red metal slowly changed shape beneath his hands, like some living creature being tamed. Lin Yi raised his voice. "Disciple Lin Yi, by order of the Disciplinary Hall, reporting to Elder Mo Chen." His voice echoed through the empty grotto, striking the rock walls before being swallowed by the continuing hammer blows. Mo Chen's motion paused for an instant. Only an instant. Then the hammer fell again, heavier than before. *Clang!* A brilliant spray of sparks erupted from the dark red metal's surface, illuminating his withered wrist and the dark, crack-like patterns above the wrist bone, resembling crazed porcelain. "Corner." A hoarse, breathy sound squeezed from his throat, nearly drowned by the hammering. "Sinking Abyss Chamber." Lin Yi followed his gaze—if it could be called that—to the left corner of the grotto. There stood a stone door, darker than the surrounding rock, nearly ink-black. It was shut tight, surface bare of decoration, bearing only water stains accumulated over countless years. "Three days." Mo Chen struck again. *Clang!* "Make a dead thing speak." He paused, hammer suspended mid-air. "Fail. Leave." The words fell, and the hammering resumed. Thud. Thud. Thud... As if those few sentences had been merely noise leaking between blows, beneath notice. Lin Yi stood in place. Heat licked at his cheeks; sweat ran down about the Chamber of the Abyss, about "dead things speaking," about Mo Chen's intervention in the Hall of Heart-Questioning, about that dark-red metal, about the cracks on his wrist, about what purpose lay behind it all. But he didn't ask a single word. He wouldn't get answers even if he did. Mo Chen's attitude had made everything clear—this was not instruction, not even a trial. It was a one-sided, ruthless culling. Pass, or get out. And right now, he didn't have the qualification to "get out." True Man Xuanyin's eyes were still watching from the shadows. The monthly reports on the new moon, the mountain gate confinement—these shackles gripped him tight, forcing him to seize any straw that might change his situation, even if that straw itself might be poisonous vine. Lin Yi turned and walked toward the stone door in the corner. The closer he got, the lower the temperature dropped. The heat waves from the furnace broke off near the stone door, as if there were an invisible boundary. Chilling dampness radiated from the door, mixed with a stale, metallic reek of rust. He reached out to push. The stone door was heavier than he'd expected. It was ice-cold to the touch, its surface rough and slick with that particular wetness found deep underground. He put his shoulder into it. The hinges groaned dully, and it swung slowly inward. Darkness poured out. Not pure black, but a thick, light-devouring gloom. By the faint glow of the furnace light seeping through the doorway, he could barely make out an enormous cavern inside, far deeper and wider than the smithy outside. And,piled mountain-high. Piled mountain-high. Metal wreckage of every shape—broken blades, shattered armor plates, twisted framework of magical artifacts... layer upon layer, from the floor all the way to the cavern ceiling, a silent mountain range built from death and discard. They radiated chaotic, decaying, even faintly malicious spiritual fluctuations, clashing and canceling each other out, forming a turbulent "field" in the air. Lin Yi's breath caught. He looked back. Mo Chen still had his back to him, copper hammer rising and falling, utterly indifferent to everything behind him. "Elder." Lin Yi asked one last time, his voice pressed very low, "How should this disciple..." Before he could finish, an invisible force struck his back—not strong, but extraordinarily precise. Lin Yi stumbled a step and fell into the darkness. Immediately after, the heavy stone door thundered shut behind him. The last thread of furnace light was severed. Absolute darkness descended. Silence. No, not complete silence. When sight was stripped away, the other senses magnified. He heard his own slightly rapid breathing, echoing in the empty cavern. Heard the faint roar of blood rushing past his eardrums. Heard... an extremely subtle, continuous hum. Like countless fine needles scraping across metal surfaces. Like some kind of whisper. Lin Yi stood in place, motionless. The darkness wrapped around him like cold tides from every direction, soaking through his clothes, seeping into his skin. The cavern's temperature was far lower than outside; yin-cold earth qi rose from below, climbing up his leg bones. He closed his eyes, then opened them again, trying to let his pupils adapt, but the darkness was too thick—there was almost no difference. Only in the distance did occasional points of extremely weak, multicolored spiritual light flicker. Spontaneous glows from the discarded artifact remains—green, purple, ghastly white... like will-o'-wisps over wild graves, flashing and dying in an instant. He slowly raised his hand and groped in the darkness, touching the nearest object. Ice-cold, rough, its edge broken into saw-like teeth. Like half a sword hilt. "Speak..." Lin Yi repeated the word in a low voice. Make a dead thing open its mouth and talk? Absurd. But Mo Chen hadn't seemed to be joking. Every word from that man was ice-quenched, carrying no excess emotion, only naked demand. So this "speaking" must mean something else. Not talking with a mouth. Then what? Residual intent? Fragmented memory? Or... the echo of some obsession? Lin Yi released the hilt and rubbed his fingertips against his clothes, wiping away that layer ofthe cold, damp air. He began to walk forward, his steps very light, the soles of his boots treading on the piled metal wreckage, producingtiny, grating, tooth-grating friction sounds. In the darkness, that mountain of abandonment pressed down upon him. Not physically—some kind of spiritual weight. Countless artifacts had died here, carrying their masters' blood, battle will, unwillingness, or pure destruction. Their "corpses" piled together, the aura He drew that wisp of spiritual energy from the depths of his dantian, guided it through his meridians to his fingertips, then lightly pressed them against the broken sword hilt from before. The instant his spiritual energy touched the metal surface— It vanished. Not dissipating, not being neutralized, but like a drop of water falling onto parched sand, swallowed without warning. Not even a ripple remained. Lin Yi's fingertips went numb. Not pain, but a strange sensation of being *hollowed out*, as if that small thread of spiritual energy had never existed. At the same time, his palm registered an extremely faint, almost imperceptible heat. The contract rune. The dark-blue rune didn't manifest in the darkness, but that familiar burning sensation when it was tugged—he knew it. He immediately withdrew his hand and stepped back half a pace. His heartbeat quickened by several beats. Spiritual energy devoured... the rune stirred... These discarded artifacts in the Chenyuan Chamber were indeed no simple matter. They weren't dead things, at least not completely dead. They still retained something, something capable of "devouring," something capable of resonating with the contract rune. Lin Yi stood in the darkness for a long time. Until his breathing steadied again, the numbness in his fingertips faded, and the heat in his palm dissipated without a trace. He turned and set off in a different direction, continuing his exploration. Time lost all meaning in absolute darkness. Perhaps a quarter-hour had passed, perhaps half a shichen. Lin Yi tried every method he could think of: lightly touching different remains with his fingertips, speaking to them in low tones, even attempting to perceive those subtle hums through "listening." None succeeded. Most touches yielded no response, only the cold roughness of metal. A few times, his spiritual energy was again "devoured" in small threads, accompanied by a slight burning pain in his palm's rune. Once more, he touched a half-melted shield fragment, and a sharp stabbing pain shot through his fingertips, followed immediately by a blurred image flashing through his mind—a massive shield twisting and melting in fierce flames, and behind the flames, the silhouette of its bearer screaming soundlessly. The image lasted only an instant. But the impact made Lin Yi's forehead break out in cold sweat, his temples throbbing violently. That wasn't a memory, at least not a complete one. It was some kind of emotional fragment, intense *despair* and *burning pain*, like a red-hot needle stabbed into his consciousness. He gasped for breath and slid down to sit against the piled remains. Exhaustion seeped out from the marrow of his bones. His shoulder wound began to ache in the cold environment, throbbing with each pulse to tug at his nerves. The mental toll was even greater—the unrelenting darkness, the chaotic spiritual field, one failed attempt after another, and those occasional flashes of negative emotional fragments, all wearing down his will. He closed his eyes and buried his face in his palms. Beneath the skin of his palm, the outline of the dark-blue rune faintly surfaced, carrying residual warmth. "Speak..." He murmured to himself. What exactly should he do? Mo Chen's "figure it out yourself" wasn't perfunctory—it was the only clue. This man wouldn't give answers, only conditions. The conditions had already been given: the Chenyuan Chamber, discarded artifacts, three days' time. The rest, he had to find the method himself. But what was the method? Lin Yi recalled those moments when his spiritual energy had been devoured. Devoured... the contract rune stirred... Was there a connection between these two? The rune had been carved by Mo Chen, related to the "Heavenly Dao Chains," capable of devouring memories as its price. And these discarded artifacts could also devour spiritual energy. Devouring. Absence. The things he had lost... Lin Yi's eyes snapped open. In the darkness, his pupils contracted slightly. "*Listen with what you have lost.*" Mo Chen hadn't spoken these words in the Wenzhen Hall, yet at this moment, they surfaced in his mind with perfect clarity. Not as a voice, but as an intuition, an inference based on his understanding of Mo Chen's behavioral patterns. That man didn't waste words. Every action, every word, pointed toward some purpose. So what was "what you have lost"? He had lost too much. His spiritual root, his cultivation, his family, his status, his memories... And something more fundamental, something eroded through by the "Heavenly Dao Chains" and marked by the contract rune. That sense of hollowness. That feeling as if a piece of his body was forever missing, forever faintly *hungering*. Lin Yi slowly straightened his posture. He no longer tried to " close his eyes. To let his consciousness sink completely into that "absence," to amplify that sense of *hunger* until it became the sole channel of perception. At first, there was nothing. Only the cold of metal, and the instinctive, subtle burning of the rune in his palm. Then— An extremely faint *prickling* came from his fingertips. Not a physical pain, but an emotional one, as if a slender needle had pierced the surface of his consciousness. Immediately after, a blurred, fragmented scene crashed into his mind. No color, no sound—only intense *sensation*. A cultivator, face indistinct, was wielding this flying sword, slashing at some colossal entity. The sword light was fierce, unflinching. But the creature was too strong. At the moment of impact, the flying sword snapped in two. The cultivator did not retreat. Instead, he poured every remaining drop of spiritual energy into the broken blade, unreservedly, for one final strike. Resolve. Unwillingness. And... something akin to martyrdom, a kind of *burning*. The scene cut off abruptly. Lin Yi jerked his hand back, gasping for air. His forehead was drenched in cold sweat, the clothes on his back soaked through. Not from exhaustion—the emotional fragments had struck too hard, like taking a punch to the face, his internal organs trembling. But what made his heart race even more was the sensation that followed. The already meager thread of spiritual energy within his body had diminished by a small portion. Not *devoured*, but *drawn away*, silently, only noticed now. At the same time, the burning pain in his palm rune grew distinct, burning low and continuously, like a branding iron slowly cooling beneath his skin. He had succeeded. He had *heard* it. What remained in that broken sword was not words, but the final moments of *resolve* and *unwillingness*—the obsession the cultivator had poured in before death, lodged in the fracture of the blade, become an eternal, undispersing *resonance*. This was "speaking." This was what Mo Chen wanted. Lin Yi leaned against the cold stone wall and slowly slid to the ground. He raised his hand, staring at his palm in absolute darkness. Though he could not see, he could feel the deep-blue rune growing slightly hot, like a living thing awakened. The price had been paid. Spiritual energy drawn away. The rune stirred. His spirit struck. And all of this was only the beginning. Mo Chen's "first lesson" was not instruction at all, but a dangerous experiment. Testing whether he could perceive *resonance*. Testing whether the contract rune would resonate with these discarded artifacts. Testing how much abnormality still lurked in this body, eroded through by the "Chains of Heavenly Law." Lin Yi closed his eyes, the corner of his mouth pulling into an extremely faint, nearly self-mocking curve. So that was it. He was not a disciple. Not even a tool. He was a test subject. In the darkness, another faint glimmer of spiritual light flickered in the distance, greenish and pale, like a watching eye. Lin Yi did not move. He simply sat in stillness, feeling exhaustion surge over his limbs like a tide, feeling the dull pain of his shoulder wound, feeling the burning of the rune in his palm, feeling the hollowness after that thread of spiritual energy had been drained. And... a strange calm. Fear remained. Doubt deepened. His situation grew more dangerous. But at least, he *knew*. Knew Mo Chen's purpose. Knew his own "ability." Knew the shape of the price. That was enough. Enough to keep walking. Enough to find his next foothold in this world filled with malice and probing. He adjusted his posture, letting his back settle more comfortably against the wall, then closed his eyes and began to regulate his breathing. Not cultivation—merely the simplest inhalation and exhalation, letting his disordered breath settle, letting his overtaxed spirit find a moment of respite. In the darkness, time passed silently. He knew not how long. Perhaps one hour. Perhaps two. Lin Yi suddenly opened his eyes. Not because he heard sound. Not because he saw light. But because he *felt*—someone had appeared beside him. An extremely faint presence, like a feather falling upon snow, almost weightless. But in this absolute darkness and silence, any anomaly was clear enough. He turned his head. Mo Chen stood one zhang to his side, silent and still, as if he had been there from the very beginning. Still impossible to make out his features—only a blurred outline, darker than the darkness itself. Between them, only silence. And the occasional ghost-fire glimmer from Not light, but something even fainter—amid the mountainous heaps of broken magical artifacts in the distance, occasional glimmers of ghostly blue or dull red would flash, like the final breath of a dying firefly. One flicker, then darkness. Another spot of gray-green would ignite somewhere else. Rising and falling, utterly without pattern. The air was thick with the mingled stench of ancient dust and oxidized metal. And something deeper still—spiritual energy, but not living, not flowing. Shattered, chaotic, jagged fragments of power, like countless shards of glass suspended in the darkness, ready to slice anything that drew near. Lin Yi's fingertips tapped unconsciously against the outer side of his thigh. He chewed on those words. Absurd, yet there was no jest in Mo Chen's tone. It was a cold, almost cruel statement of fact. Can't do it? Get out. Three words, severing all retreat. He drew a deep breath. The frigid air flooded his lungs, carrying the faint sweetness of rusted metal and something else... the lingering scent of scorch. He began to move. His foot came down on something. Hard, with a curve. He crouched, groping. It was a severed knife hilt, the wood rotted through, the metal ice-cold to the touch. He tried injecting a thread of spiritual energy. The energy vanished like a drop of water falling onto parched sand. No response, no ripple—only a pure, greedy *devouring* sensation. He immediately severed the connection, a faint numbness spreading through his fingertips. He changed direction, finding a damaged round shield. Its surface was pitted, its edges curled. This time he was more cautious, sending out only a single wisp of divine sense, thin as a hair, to lightly brush the shield's face. From deep within the shield came an extremely faint ringing, like a metal plate trembling. Lin Yi's spirit surged. But in the next instant, that wisp of divine sense was seized by something and violently dragged deeper into the shield. He grunted, forcibly tearing the connection free. A sharp, stabbing pain lanced through his head, like being pricked by a needle. A price. Every attempt exacted a price. In absolute darkness, time lost all measure. Perhaps a quarter-hour had passed, perhaps half a shi. Lin Yi tried seven times. A broken sword, a tattered banner, half a jade hairpin, a damaged heart-protecting mirror... each time, his spiritual energy or divine sense was ruthlessly consumed. Some artifacts gave no response at all; others emitted brief, chaotic hums or flashes of light, only to fall silent immediately, leaving behind only deeper emptiness and depletion. Cold sweat began to seep down his back. Not from heat—the Abyssal Chamber was as chill as a cellar. From anxiety. Time was passing, and he had nothing to show for it. Mo Chen's face emerged in the darkness—that face forever placid, unfathomably deep. Was he watching? Just on the other side of this stone door, silently waiting to see how Lin Yi would struggle, how he would fail? Lin Yi slid down to sit against a pile of cold, broken armor fragments. Weariness surged over him like a tide. The interrogation in the Hall of Heart-Questioning, the pressure exerted by True Person Xuanyin, his still-unhealed injuries... everythinglayered together，weighing heavily on his shoulders。He closed his eyes，steadying his breath。must not panic。panic means defeat。 Dead things. These artifacts were indeed "dead." Their spiritual nature completely lost, their runes collapsed, leaving only physical remains. But Mo Chen had used "speak," not "glow," not "tremble." To speak meant expression, meant something had something to *say*. Lin Yi's gaze—meaningless though it was in the darkness—swept across those occasional flickering points of light. Were those glimmers fragments of "words"? Broken, incomplete, filled with obsession... residual echoes? He reached out again. This time, he chose not to inject spiritual energy. Instead, he pressed his palm gently against a flying sword thrust diagonally into a scrap heap, its blade nearly snapped in two. The wrapping on the hilt had long since rotted away; the metal blade was covered in dark red rust. He closed his eyes, completely abandoning any attempt to "see." He simply felt. His fingertips registered the cold of the metal. The rough rust scraping against his skin. Then... an extremely faint warmth, different from his own body heat, seeping from the point of contact. Not real temperature, but more like the ember of an emotion—*reluctance*. So strong that even after being worn down by the passage of years, it still clung stubbornly to the broken edge. He maintained Not light in the visual sense, but a "contour" of perception. He "saw"—not with his eyes—the moment the sword shattered: a cultivator whose face he could not discern, drenched in blood, pouring every last drop of spiritual power, every vestige of life force, every unfulfilled resolve into the flying sword in his grasp. The blade flared with blinding white light and slashed toward something so vast it blotted out half the sky, something beyond description. Then, the metal screamed, and the sword broke. The white light burst into billions of fragments, swallowed by darkness along with the cultivator's life. Only that "reluctance" remained, like a final breath, stubbornly lodged in the broken edge. This was the "opening." Not language, but obsession frozen at the instant of death, the final shape of spiritual power before it scattered. He had touched it. Beneath the rust of that broken sword, something like an extremely faint glimmer seemed to flow for an instant. And Lin Yi felt a chill within his body—a stream of pure spiritual power, beyond his control, drawn from his dantian, flowing quietly through the point of contact in his palm and into the blade. No, not drinking. Devouring. The sword transmitted a greedy, instinctive sensation of sucking. Lin Yi tried to pull his hand away, but found his arm somewhat stiff. Worse still, thatghostly blue contract seal in his palm began to burn without warning. Not agony, but a clear, warning heat. As though a sleeping serpent had been startled, raising its head, flicking its tongue. He jerked his hand back with such force that he knocked over several damaged armor plates beside him, sending them clattering in a chaotic cascade. In the darkness, he gasped for breath, lowering his head to look at his right hand. In his palm, the lines of theghostly blue seal were slightly clearer than usual, emitting a faint heat barely visible to the eye. And within his body, that sliver of stolen spiritual power left a genuine emptiness, as though a small piece had been suddenly gouged from his stomach. His mind reeled with it, the darkness before his eyes seeming to spin half a circle.