Training began at dawn the next day.
Lin Mei led me to a private courtyard deep within the refuge, surrounded by formation arrays that hummed with contained power. The space itself felt different,reality seemed thinner here, more malleable.
"This is the Causality Training Ground," she explained. "The formations weaken the bonds between cause and effect, making it easier to practice Fate Weaving without accidentally rewriting something important."
"Accidentally rewriting reality. That's a comforting thought."
"It should terrify you. Fate Weaving isn't like normal cultivation where mistakes cost you qi or time. Mistakes here can unmake causality, create paradoxes, or worse,rewrite you out of existence entirely." She gestured to scorch marks on the courtyard walls. "Three people have died in this training ground. All from pushing too hard, too fast."
[TRAINING GROUND: CAUSALITY TRAINING COURTYARD]
[SAFETY RATING: MODERATE]
[DEATH COUNT: 3]
[RECOMMEND: EXTREME CAUTION]
"What's the first lesson?"
"Understanding the difference between seeing fate and manipulating it." Lin Mei sat cross-legged in the courtyard's center, gesturing for me to join her. "You've been using Fortune Foundation techniques,sensing probability threads, making outcomes more or less likely. That's surface-level work. True Fate Weaving requires deeper perception."
She held up her hand, and suddenly I could see something I'd never noticed before—threads of causality extending from her fingers into infinity. Not just probability, but actual chains of cause and effect, connecting every action to every consequence across space and time.
"Every choice creates threads," she explained. "Every action spawns consequences. Fate Weavers can see these threads, trace them forward and backward, understand how reality is constructed moment by moment."
"I can see probability threads already."
"Probability is what might happen. Causality is what must happen given current conditions. Learn to see the difference." She gestured at a small rock on the ground. "Look at that stone. Tell me what you see."
I extended my fortune sense, examining the rock. Probability threads swirled around it,the chance it might be kicked, might erode, might be used in construction. But beneath those threads, I began to perceive something else.
Deeper connections. The stone's weight pulling on the earth. Its molecules bound together by fundamental forces. Its position influenced by gravity, by the courtyard's formation, by the air currents around it.
These weren't possibilities. They were certainties. Causal chains that linked the stone's existence to everything around it.
"I see it," I breathed. "The stone isn't just sitting there. It's connected to everything. Its presence causes effects that ripple outward infinitely."
"Good. Now manipulate one of those causal threads." Lin Mei's voice was careful, controlled. "Not probability,actual causality. Make the stone's weight not pull on the earth. Sever the cause-effect relationship between mass and gravity."
"That's impossible. Gravity is a fundamental force."
"Gravity is a causal relationship. Mass causes gravitational attraction. Fate Weavers can break that cause, sever that connection, make reality function differently." She met my eyes. "This is what terrifies the Celestial Court. We don't just get lucky. We make the fundamental rules of existence negotiable."
I focused on the stone, perceiving the causal thread connecting its mass to gravitational pull. The thread was thick, ancient, reinforced by billions of years of consistent reality. Breaking it should be impossible.
But the inheritance knowledge whispered techniques, showed me methods, explained how to cut causality itself.
I reached out with my will, infused with LP, and pulled.
[ATTEMPTING: CAUSALITY SEVERANCE]
[TARGET: GRAVITY-MASS RELATIONSHIP]
[COST: 50 LP]
[DIFFICULTY: EXTREME]
The thread resisted. Reality itself pushed back, unwilling to allow such fundamental manipulation. But I pushed harder, spending LP to make the impossible merely improbable, then making the improbable inevitable.
The causal thread severed.
The stone lifted off the ground, floating in defiance of gravity. Not pushed by any force—simply existing in a localized pocket where mass no longer caused gravitational attraction.
[CAUSALITY SEVERANCE: SUCCESSFUL]
[CURRENT LP: 1,797]
[ACHIEVEMENT: FIRST TRUE FATE WEAVING TECHNIQUE]
[WARNING: LOCALIZED REALITY DISTORTION DETECTED]
"Excellent," Lin Mei said. "Now let it go."
I released my hold on the severed causality. Immediately, reality reasserted itself. The causal thread reconnected, and the stone dropped back to the ground with a soft thud.
"Fate Weaving is exhausting because you're fighting reality itself," she explained. "Every manipulation requires constant effort to maintain. Let your focus slip, and causality corrects itself violently. Keep too many manipulations active simultaneously, and you'll burn through your LP in minutes."
"So it's powerful but limited by resources and concentration."
"Exactly. Which is why experienced Fate Weavers choose their manipulations carefully. We don't rewrite everything—we identify critical causal threads and sever only those. Make minimal changes that create maximum effects."
She demonstrated by pointing at a leaf falling from a nearby tree. "Watch."
The leaf drifted down normally at first. Then Lin Mei's eyes flashed silver, and something changed. The leaf's descent slowed, not because of air resistance, but because she'd severed the causal connection between gravity and the leaf's mass—just like I'd done with the stone.
But she didn't stop there.
She severed the connection between the leaf's movement and air resistance. Then between the leaf and light, making it invisible. Then between the leaf and time itself, freezing it in midair while everything else continued normally.
"Four simultaneous causality severances," she said, breathing slightly harder. "This is advanced work. Most Fate Weavers max out at two or three before concentration fails."
[LIN MEI'S TECHNIQUE: ANALYZED]
[SIMULTANEOUS CAUSALITY MANIPULATIONS: 4]
[SKILL LEVEL: EXPERT]
[ESTIMATED LP COST: 200+ PER MINUTE]
She released the manipulations, and the leaf completed its fall naturally.
"Your turn. Pick a target and practice basic severance. Start with simple causes—gravity, friction, momentum. Master those before attempting anything more complex."
For the next six hours, I practiced.
Severing gravity from a stone. Success.
Severing friction from a rolling ball, making it continue indefinitely. Partial success—lost concentration after fifteen seconds.
Severing the causal connection between my footstep and sound, creating silent movement. Success.
Severing the connection between a thrown rock and momentum, making it stop mid-air. Failure—the thread was too complex, too reinforced by velocity and energy conservation.
Each attempt cost LP. Each success felt like wrestling reality itself. Each failure reminded me how dangerous this power could be.
[TRAINING SESSION 1: COMPLETE]
[LP EXPENDITURE: 847]
[CURRENT LP: 950/3,000]
[SKILL IMPROVEMENT: SIGNIFICANT]
[CAUSALITY SEVERANCE: BASIC COMPETENCY ACHIEVED]
By noon, I was exhausted mentally and spiritually, though my body was fine. Fate Weaving drained the mind more than the meridians.
"That's enough for today," Lin Mei said. "Any more and you'll start making mistakes. Mistakes in Fate Weaving create paradoxes, and paradoxes kill."
"What kind of paradoxes?"
"The dangerous kind. Example: a student once tried to sever the causal connection between his own birth and his parents' meeting. Wanted to see what would happen."
"What happened?"
"He ceased to exist. Reality adjusted itself so he'd never been born. The formations preserved his body as evidence, but causally, he'd never existed. His name vanished from records. His memories faded from people's minds. Only we Fate Weavers, who exist slightly outside normal causality, remembered him at all."
I felt cold. "He erased himself."
"He tried to create a paradox, and reality resolved it by removing the paradox—him." Lin Mei's expression was grave. "That's why we train carefully. Why we start with simple, localized severances. Why the Celestial Court fears us so deeply. We can unmake not just lives, but existence itself."
[WARNING ACKNOWLEDGED]
[FATE WEAVING: EXISTENTIAL THREAT TO CAUSALITY]
[RECOMMENDATION: PRACTICE CAUTION AT ALL TIMES]
Yun Xia found us as we left the training courtyard. "How'd it go?"
"He successfully severed gravity six times, friction three times, and sound twice," Lin Mei reported. "That's exceptional progress for day one."
"It felt like wrestling angry gods," I muttered.
"That's accurate. You are essentially fighting the universe's immune system. Reality doesn't like being edited." Yun Xia gestured toward the main hall. "But you'll want to hear this—we have news. Bad news."
We followed her to the strategy room, where a map of the continent sprawled across a large table. Red markers dotted the map, each one representing a destroyed Fate Weaver bloodline.
There were twelve red markers. Yesterday, there had been nine.
"Three more clans," Lin Mei said quietly, absorbing the information. "In one night. The Court is accelerating faster than we predicted."
"Liu Clan of the Eastern Marshes, Feng Clan of the Northern Wastes, and" Yun Xia's expression tightened, "the remnants of the Chen Clan."
My blood went cold. "What?"
"Enforcer Liu returned to Azure Peak City with reinforcements yesterday. They purged every Chen Clan member with even trace Fate Weaver bloodline. Killed forty-seven people total." She met my eyes with sympathy. "Your parents are alive,they apparently don't carry active bloodline markers. But your extended family... I'm sorry, Wei Chen."
[CHEN CLAN: PURGED]
[CASUALTIES: 47 FAMILY MEMBERS]
[SURVIVORS: CHEN TIANLONG, LIN YUHUA]
[EMOTIONAL IMPACT: SEVERE]
I gripped the table edge, knuckles white. Cousins. Aunts and uncles. Extended family members I'd grown up with, laughed with, trained alongside.
Dead. All dead because the Celestial Court feared what I represented.
"How much time do we have?" I asked, my voice surprisingly steady despite the rage building in my chest.
"Before they find the refuge?" Lin Mei studied the map. "Hard to say. They're working systematically, but they don't know this valley's location. The formations hide us from detection, and we've been careful about contact with the outside world."
"Best estimate."
"Two months. Maybe three if we're lucky. They'll eliminate every known bloodline, then start investigating rumors and possibilities. Eventually, someone will talk, or they'll stumble onto the formations, or a refugee will be tracked here."
"Not enough time," I said. "I need ten thousand LP to reach Fortune Core Formation. At my current rate, that's impossible in three months."
"Which is why we accelerate the timeline," Lin Mei said. "We execute the vault heist within two weeks. Steal everything we can carry. Use the artifacts' accumulated fortune to push you toward breakthrough."
"Two weeks? That's insane. I barely know basic Fate Weaving."
"Then you learn fast." Her eyes were hard. "Because the alternative is hiding here while the Court systematically eliminates every Fate Weaver bloodline in existence. Eventually, we'll be the last ones. And then they'll find us, and we'll die like all the others,cornered, desperate, extinct."
She was right. The Celestial Court's strategy was working. Each destroyed clan meant fewer Fate Weavers to resist. Each purge made the survivors weaker, more isolated, less capable of coordinated response.
"Tell me about the vault," I said. "Location, defenses, what we're up against."
Yun Xia pulled out detailed schematics. "The Celestial Court maintains their primary artifact vault in the Capital,a city three hundred miles east. The vault itself is underground, protected by ninety-seven formation arrays, guarded by fifty Core Formation cultivators minimum, and overseen by a Nascent Soul realm vault keeper."
[VAULT HEIST: INITIAL ASSESSMENT]
[LOCATION: CELESTIAL CAPITAL]
[DISTANCE: 300 MILES]
[DEFENSES: EXTREME]
[GUARDIAN: NASCENT SOUL REALM]
[SUCCESS PROBABILITY: 0.002%]
"Point-zero-zero-two percent," I read from my System interface. "Those are terrible odds."
"They are if you're thinking of this as a standard heist," Lin Mei said. "But we're not standard thieves. We're Fate Weavers. We don't need good odds,we need to make our success inevitable and their defense improbable."
"How?"
"By using every advantage we have. You have Fortune Foundation cultivation—you can manipulate probability directly. I have advanced Fate Weaving,I can sever critical causal connections in their defenses. Yun Xia knows the Court's protocols from the inside. Together, we don't fight through their defenses. We rewrite the causality that makes those defenses effective."
She traced a path on the schematics. "The vault's formations are powerful, but they're old—three thousand years old. They operate on fixed causal chains: intruder detected triggers alarm, alarm triggers response, response eliminates threat. But what if we sever the connection between detection and alarm?"
"The formations would detect us, but no alarm would sound," I said, understanding dawning.
"Exactly. And what if we sever the connection between the vault's location and physical space? Make it temporarily not-here while we're inside?"
"It would still exist, but causally separate from the rest of reality. Inaccessible to reinforcements."
"Now you're thinking like a Fate Weaver." Lin Mei smiled. "This heist isn't about power. It's about finding the right causal threads to cut. Make the vault defenseless not by overpowering its protections, but by severing the causality that makes those protections function."
[VAULT HEIST: REVISED ASSESSMENT]
[APPROACH: CAUSALITY MANIPULATION]
[SUCCESS PROBABILITY: 8%]
[STILL TERRIBLE BUT SIGNIFICANTLY BETTER]
"Eight percent is better than point-zero-zero-two percent," I admitted. "What about the Nascent Soul guardian?"
"That's where you come in," Yun Xia said. "Your Fate Severance sword can drain fortune, yes? Make opponents unlucky?"
"Yes, but a Nascent Soul cultivator's fortune reserves are enormous. I'd burn through all my LP trying to make them even slightly unlucky."
"You don't need to make them unlucky. You need to sever one specific causal connection,the connection between them and the vault. Make it so they causally can't be in the vault while we're there."
"Is that possible?"
"With advanced Fate Weaving? Yes. With your current skill?" Lin Mei paused. "Not yet. Which is why you have two weeks of intensive training. We're going to push you harder than any cultivation regimen in history. By the time we attempt this heist, you'll either be competent enough to succeed, or you'll have killed yourself trying."
"Encouraging."
"I'm past the point of encouragement. The Celestial Court just murdered forty-seven members of your clan. They're hunting us systematically. We're out of time for gentle training." She met my eyes. "I need to know: can you handle intensive Fate Weaving instruction? Can you push yourself to the edge of consciousness collapse and keep going? Can you risk existence itself for a chance at revenge and justice?"
I thought about my parents, alive but broken by grief. About my cousins, dead because tyranny feared what they might become. About the Wang Clan boy, about the Liu and Feng families, about the systematic extinction of everyone who shared my bloodline.
About Elder Feng and Liu Yue and Zhao Ming, still alive and unpunished.
About the Celestial Court, sitting in their capital, confident that their genocide was righteous.
"Yes," I said. "Push me as hard as necessary. Break me if you have to. But make me strong enough to hurt them back."
"Good answer." Lin Mei stood. "Training resumes in four hours. Eat, rest, meditate. You'll need every scrap of mental energy you can muster."
She left, Yun Xia following after giving my shoulder a sympathetic squeeze.
Alone in the strategy room, I stared at the map with its twelve red markers. Twelve extinct bloodlines. Hundreds of deaths. Centuries of accumulated knowledge and power, erased because tyranny couldn't tolerate alternatives.
I placed my finger on Azure Peak City, where my parents still lived.
"I'm coming back," I whispered. "Not as the weak son you buried. Not as the ghost haunting the shadows. But as something the Celestial Court actually needs to fear."
[DETERMINATION: MAXIMUM]
[MOTIVATION: ABSOLUTE]
[TRAINING COMMITMENT: CONFIRMED]
[PERSONAL QUEST GENERATED: AVENGE THE CHEN CLAN]
[OBJECTIVE: MAKE THE CELESTIAL COURT PAY]
[REWARDS: UNKNOWN]
[DIFFICULTY: IMPOSSIBLE]
[PROGRESS: 0%]
Two weeks of training.
Then the heist.
Then war.
The Celestial Court had made their choice when they murdered my clan.
Now I'd make mine.
And I'd ensure their regret was inevitable.