Chapter 135
The team moved through the Sky Empire at a relentless pace, their figures blurring across the landscape as they maintained one hundred meters per second for hour after hour.
Ethan led the formation with his wind magic smoothing the air before them, reducing resistance and allowing the others to conserve their strength.
Austin ran at his right flank, his fire mana contained but simmering beneath his skin like a banked furnace waiting to be stoked.
Kaya moved at Ethan's left, her lightning body flickering with arcs of blue-white energy that crackled softly in the rushing wind.
Lucas brought up the rear, his silver hair streaming behind him, his Eyes tracking the terrain ahead and the mana signatures of his teammates with equal precision.
They crossed rivers and plains, skirted the edges of towns whose inhabitants never knew they had been passed, and climbed through mountain passes where the air grew thin and cold.
When night fell, they did not stop. When dawn broke, they continued. It was only after a day and a half of continuous travel, when their mana reserves had dipped low and their bodies had begun to protest the sustained exertion, that Ethan finally raised his hand and called for rest.
They settled in a narrow valley between two ridges, sheltered from the wind and hidden from any eyes that might be watching from above.
A stream ran through the valley's center, cold and clear, and they drank from it and refilled. Kaya sat with her back against a boulder, her eyes closed, her breathing already slowing into the rhythm of cultivation as she replenished her depleted mana.
Ethan studied a map he had unrolled across a flat stone, his finger tracing the route they would take when they resumed their journey.
"We have half a day before we leave the Empire," Ethan said, not looking up from the map. "Rest while you can. We move again at dusk."
Lucas had separated himself from the others, settling beneath a twisted pine tree at the edge of the valley where the slope began to rise toward the ridge. He sat cross-legged with his hands resting on his knees and his eyes closed, but he was not cultivating in the traditional sense.
His attention had turned inward, past the flow of mana through his meridians, past the steady pulse of his enlarged core, to the deeper structures that made him what he was.
He studied the architecture of his own body with the same analytical precision he applied to his research.
His mana core, expanded to ten times the size of any normal cultivator at his stage, did not simply hold more mana.
It processed mana differently, drawing it in with an efficiency that bordered on gravitational.
His pathways, opened through the Sanguine's Eight Pathways technique to the Third Level, had been widened and reinforced by the tempering fluids and the natural methods he had developed.
His muscles, his bones, his organs—all of them had been strengthened beyond what should have been possible for someone of his age and rank.
But these were not separate systems. They were connected, and the connection itself was what interested him now.
He traced the flow of mana from his core to his pathways, from his pathways to his muscles, from his muscles back to his core.
He observed how his Mana Eyes influenced every stage of the process, not merely controlling the energy but becoming one with it.
The thought that had first occurred to him during his meditation on the soul returned now with new clarity: if his body was unique, if his mana core was unique, if his connection to mana was unique, then the cultivation techniques he used should be unique as well.
The techniques he had learned were designed for normal cultivators with normal cores and normal pathways.
They worked for him because his Mana Eyes compensated for their inadequacies, smoothing over the inefficiencies and forcing the mana to behave. But if he could create a technique that was built specifically for his body—for his oversized core, for his opened pathways, for his unnatural control—then his cultivation speed would increase beyond anything he had yet achieved.
The difficulty was that no one had ever done this before.
The cultivation techniques of the Hidden Cities had been developed over centuries, refined through generations of trial and error.
Creating a new technique from scratch, one that was uniquely suited to a single individual, would require an understanding of mana theory that went far beyond what even the most learned scholars possessed.
But Lucas had something no scholar possessed.
He had his eyes. He could see the flow of mana in ways that no one else could, and he could use that sight to map the interactions between his core, his pathways, and his body with a precision that should have been impossible.
He began to sketch the outlines of what such a technique might look like—not on paper, but in his mind, tracing the flow of mana through theoretical pathways and observing how his body responded to each variation.
The sound of footsteps broke his concentration. He opened his eyes.
Austin stood a few meters away, his expression hesitant in a way that Lucas had rarely seen on him. His black yes, usually sharp and focused, seemed clouded, distant. He gestured vaguely at the ground beside Lucas.
"If my presence is making you unable to focus, I can leave," Austin said.
Lucas shook his head. "It is okay for you to stay."
Austin lowered himself to the ground and sat with his back against the trunk of the pine tree. He did not speak for a long moment, and Lucas did not press him. The silence stretched between them, filled only by the rustle of wind through the pines and the distant murmur of the stream.
Lucas studied his friend's face.
"If your eyes are that hollow, and your drive has disappeared, the chances that you get yourself injured or one of us injured in this mission are high," Lucas said. "Get yourself up."
Austin stared at him for a moment, and then he laughed. It was a short sound, barely more than an exhale, but it was genuine. "You could try to be comforting about it."
"I am not here to comfort you. I am here to make sure you do not get us killed."