Day three of intensive training nearly killed me.
Not through combat, not through spirit beast attacks, but through attempting something that should have been theoretically impossible: severing my own causal connection to pain.
"This is advanced work," Lin Mei had warned. "Most Fate Weavers wait years before attempting self-targeted causality manipulation. The risks"
"Are acceptable," I'd interrupted. "If I can sever the connection between injury and pain sensation during the vault heist, I can fight through wounds that would cripple normal cultivators."
"Or you could sever something critical and die instantly. Self-targeting is dangerous because you're both the manipulator and the target. One mistake, and you might sever your connection to consciousness, to existence, to causality itself."
I'd done it anyway.
The technique required identifying the causal thread connecting nerve damage to pain perception, then carefully severing just that connection without disrupting anything else. Like cutting one specific string in a tapestry without touching adjacent threads.
[ATTEMPTING: SELF-TARGETED CAUSALITY SEVERANCE]
[TARGET: PAIN PERCEPTION]
[DIFFICULTY: EXTREME]
[RISK: CATASTROPHIC IF FAILED]
I'd extended my fortune sense inward, perceiving my own causal structure. Thousands of threads connecting body to mind, present to past, existence to reality. Finding the specific thread for pain perception was like identifying one specific grain of sand on a beach.
But the inheritance knowledge guided me, showing patterns, highlighting the subtle differences between sensation threads.
There—the connection between nerve signals and conscious pain awareness. A thick, ancient thread reinforced by millions of years of evolution. Pain was survival mechanism, warning system, critical feedback loop.
Severing it was fighting biology itself.
I'd spent 200 LP and nearly an hour of concentrated effort to cut that single thread.
The moment it severed, Lin Mei had stabbed me in the shoulder with a practice knife.
I'd felt the impact, felt the blade pierce flesh, felt blood run down my arm. But no pain. Just awareness of injury without the accompanying agony.
"How long can you maintain it?" she'd asked.
"Maybe five minutes before the thread reconnects automatically. Reality doesn't like—"
The thread had reconnected violently, three minutes early. Pain from the stab wound hit me all at once, amplified by the sudden restoration of severed causality. I'd collapsed, screaming.
[CAUSALITY SEVERANCE: FAILED]
[PREMATURE RECONNECTION]
[BACKLASH DAMAGE: SEVERE]
[LP WASTED: 200]
"That," Lin Mei had said while healing my shoulder, "is why we practice carefully. You tried to maintain the severance too long. Reality fought back, and you lost."
That had been yesterday. Today, I was trying again.
"Shorter duration this time," I told her. "Two minutes maximum, then I let it reconnect naturally."
"And if it reconnects early again?"
"Then I spend another day recovering from backlash." I extended my fortune sense inward, finding the pain perception thread faster this time. "But I'm learning each attempt. Understanding the resistance better. Eventually, I'll be able to maintain it long enough to matter."
[ATTEMPTING: SELF-TARGETED CAUSALITY SEVERANCE (SECOND ATTEMPT)]
[COST: 150 LP]
[DURATION TARGET: 2 MINUTES]
[CURRENT LP: 2,247/3,000]
The severance came easier this time. The thread cut cleanly, and I held the disconnection with less strain. Lin Mei stabbed me again—different shoulder, same lack of pain.
"Status?" she asked.
"Stable. Holding at low effort. I can maintain this for" I checked my internal sense, "ninety seconds comfortably. Maybe two minutes if I push."
"Don't push. Let it reconnect at eighty seconds."
I held the severance for exactly eighty seconds, then released my grip. The causal thread reconnected smoothly, naturally. Pain from the fresh stab wound flooded back, but manageable—not the amplified backlash from premature reconnection.
[CAUSALITY SEVERANCE: SUCCESSFUL]
[PAIN DISCONNECTION: 80 SECONDS]
[NATURAL RECONNECTION: ACHIEVED]
[TECHNIQUE COMPETENCY: IMPROVED]
"Better," Lin Mei acknowledged. "You're learning. But eighty seconds isn't enough for extended combat. You need to maintain self-severances for at least five minutes to be useful during the heist."
"Then I keep practicing."
"Not today. You've severed and reconnected the same causal thread twice in two days. Do it again and you risk permanent damage,creating a paradox where your pain perception exists in superposition, both connected and disconnected simultaneously."
"What would that do?"
"Best case? Chronic pain that never stops because reality can't decide if you should feel it. Worst case? Your entire nervous system becomes causally unstable, and you die screaming as every nerve fires randomly." She gestured toward the courtyard exit. "Take the afternoon off. Rest your causal structure. We'll resume tomorrow with different techniques."
I wanted to argue, to push harder, to practice until I mastered the technique. But Lin Mei's expression brooked no disagreement. She'd lost students to overtraining,people who'd pushed causality manipulation too far and unmade themselves.
I left the training courtyard and wandered the refuge, my shoulders throbbing from fresh stab wounds. The healing would take hours even with my Fortune Foundation regeneration. Without cultivation, they'd take weeks.
The refuge was busier than usual. More refugees had arrived over the past three days—survivors from the purged clans, people who'd escaped by luck or desperation. The population had swelled from three hundred to nearly four hundred.
Wang Jun, the young survivor from the Wang Clan, was helping new arrivals settle in. He spotted me and hurried over.
"Senior Wei Chen! I heard you're training in causality severance. Is it true you disconnected your own pain perception?"
"For eighty seconds, yes."
His eyes went wide with admiration. "That's amazing! I've been practicing basic fortune sense like you suggested, but I can barely perceive probability threads. How did you advance so quickly?"
"By dying, resurrecting, and spending three weeks courting death in the Crimson Vale." I softened my tone at his crestfallen expression. "Wang Jun, I advanced quickly because I had no choice. The Celestial Court wanted me dead, so I had to grow strong enough to survive. You're fifteen,you have time to develop properly."
"But my family didn't have time. The Court killed them in one night. If I'd been stronger, if I'd known Fate Weaving techniques"
"You'd have died with them," I interrupted gently. "You survived because you ran when your parents told you to. That took more strength than fighting."
"It felt like cowardice."
"Survival is never cowardice. It's the foundation everything else builds on." I gestured at the training yards where other young Fate Weavers practiced. "Join the basic instruction groups. Learn fortune sense properly. Master probability manipulation before attempting causality severance. If you rush like I did, you'll kill yourself or worse,unmake yourself causally."
He nodded reluctantly and headed toward the training yards.
Yun Xia found me as I was leaving the residential area. "Got a minute? There's something you need to see."
She led me to the refuge's intelligence room, where Feng Ming,the information broker who'd helped create my Wei Chen identity,stood over a table covered in reports and maps.
"Wei Chen," he greeted. "Your timing is good. We've confirmed something disturbing about the Celestial Court's purge pattern."
He pointed to the map, where red markers showed destroyed clans. "Initially, we thought they were hitting clans randomly or by opportunity. But look at the geographical distribution."
I studied the pattern. The destroyed clans formed a rough circle, with the innermost ring already eliminated and the purge working outward.
"They're searching," I realized. "Systematically clearing regions, moving outward from... where?"
"The Celestial Capital," Feng Ming confirmed. "They started at the center and are expanding outward in concentric circles. Twelve clans destroyed so far, all within two hundred miles of the capital. The next ring—clans two hundred to four hundred miles out,that's where we are."
[WARNING: PURGE PATTERN IDENTIFIED]
[FATE WEAVER REFUGE LOCATION: 287 MILES FROM CELESTIAL CAPITAL]
[ESTIMATED TIME UNTIL SEARCH REACHES THIS REGION: 3-4 WEEKS]
"Three weeks," Yun Xia said grimly. "Maybe four if we're lucky. Then they start searching this region systematically. Even with the formations hiding us, they'll eventually find anomalies, investigate rumors, track refugees."
"Which means the vault heist timeline is actually generous," I said. "We're not racing to steal artifacts before they discover I'm alive. We're racing to steal them before they stumble onto this refuge and kill everyone here."
"Exactly." Feng Ming pulled out detailed schematics of the Celestial Capital. "Which is why I've been gathering updated intelligence. Guard rotations, formation maintenance schedules, vault access protocols. Everything we'll need for the heist."
I studied the schematics. The vault was deep underground, accessible only through the Court's main administrative building. Ninety-seven formation arrays protected it, fifty Core Formation guards patrolled it, and a Nascent Soul cultivator oversaw it all.
"This is impossible," I said flatly.
"For normal cultivators, yes," Lin Mei's voice came from the doorway. She entered the room, her expression intense. "But we're not normal cultivators. We're Fate Weavers planning to do what we do best,make the impossible merely improbable, then make the improbable inevitable."
She placed several jade slips on the table. "I've been working on the heist plan. It requires three stages, each more dangerous than the last."
STAGE ONE: INFILTRATION
"Getting into the Celestial Capital is easy,it's an open city, merchants and cultivators come and go constantly. Getting into the Court's administrative building is harder but doable with forged credentials. Feng Ming can provide those."
"Already working on it," Feng Ming confirmed. "I have contacts who can forge Court bureaucrat identities. Cost is steep—five hundred gold taels for three complete identity packages—but they'll pass casual inspection."
"Stage one is mostly logistics," Lin Mei continued. "We enter the capital as traveling merchants, bribe the right people, establish our bureaucrat covers, gain building access. Timeline: three days."
STAGE TWO: VAULT ACCESS
"Here's where Fate Weaving becomes critical. The vault has ninety-seven formation arrays, each one a causal chain: intruder detected → alarm triggered → guards respond → threat eliminated."
She pointed to specific formations on the schematic. "We don't destroy the formations. We sever specific causal links. Array thirty-seven detects spiritual pressure,we sever the connection between detection and alarm. Array sixty-two scans for spatial distortions,we sever the connection between scanning and recording. Array eighty-nine monitors time flow,we sever its connection to the external clock."
"Death by a thousand cuts," Yun Xia observed. "Each formation still functions, but none of them communicate with each other or trigger responses."
"Precisely. And because we're not breaking anything, just temporarily disconnecting causal chains, the formations won't register as damaged. No alerts, no emergency protocols." Lin Mei smiled coldly. "We walk through ninety-seven layers of security by making them causally irrelevant."
"What about the guards?" I asked.
"Guards follow patrol patterns based on schedules, communication with command, and response to alarms. We sever the causal connection between 'patrol time' and 'guards present.' Make it so they're causally obligated to be elsewhere when we're there."
"That's... is that even possible?"
"With advanced Fate Weaving? Yes. With your current skill?" She paused. "Not yet. Which is why you have eleven more days of intensive training. You need to master self-severance, environmental severance, and temporal severance before we attempt this."
[HEIST REQUIREMENTS UPDATED]
[SKILLS NEEDED: SELF-SEVERANCE (80% COMPETENT)]
[SKILLS NEEDED: ENVIRONMENTAL SEVERANCE (40% COMPETENT)]
[SKILLS NEEDED: TEMPORAL SEVERANCE (0% COMPETENT)]
[TRAINING TIME REMAINING: 11 DAYS]
STAGE THREE: THE VAULT KEEPER
"The Nascent Soul guardian is the real problem," Lin Mei admitted. "Vault Keeper Shen—Nascent Soul 3rd Layer, six hundred years old, expert in defensive formations and artifact preservation. Even with causality manipulation, we can't just make him not-exist."
"Can we sever his connection to the vault?" I asked. "Make him causally unable to be present?"
"That's the plan. But it requires enormous LP expenditure and perfect execution. You'll need to identify his causal anchor to the vault,the thread connecting his duty, his presence, his authority,and sever it completely. Cost will be at least 500 LP, maybe more."
[CURRENT LP: 2,247]
[ESTIMATED HEIST LP COSTS:]
[FORMATION SEVERANCES: 800 LP]
[GUARD MANIPULATION: 300 LP]
[VAULT KEEPER SEVERANCE: 500-800 LP]
[EMERGENCY RESERVES: 500 LP]
[TOTAL NEEDED: ~2,600 LP]
"I'm close," I said. "Another week of training, maybe some spirit beast hunting to generate more LP, and I'll have enough reserves."
"Assuming nothing goes wrong," Yun Xia added. "If even one causality severance fails during the heist, if one formation triggers properly, if one guard doesn't follow the manipulated pattern,we're dead. Probably tortured first, then dead."
"Then we make sure nothing goes wrong," I said. "Lin Mei, what's the success probability with perfect execution?"
She calculated silently for a moment. "Twelve percent."
"Twelve percent is better than the zero percent chance we have if we do nothing and wait for them to find the refuge."
"True. But Wei Chen, you understand what we're really attempting here? This isn't just robbery. This is declaring war on the Celestial Court. Once we steal their artifacts, they'll mobilize everything. No more hiding. No more running. We'll be the Court's primary target."
"Good," I said, surprising myself with the vehemence. "Let them come. Let them mobilize their armies and their Nascent Soul cultivators. I'm tired of hiding. I'm tired of watching them purge bloodlines while we cower in secret valleys."
I looked at each of them—Lin Mei, Yun Xia, Feng Ming. "The Celestial Court has spent three thousand years hunting Fate Weavers. They've killed thousands. They just murdered forty-seven members of my clan. They think they've won, think we're broken, think they can eliminate us with impunity."
I drew Fate Severance, feeling its power resonate with my Fortune Foundation cultivation. "Let's prove them wrong. Let's steal their treasures, reclaim our artifacts, and show them what happens when probability itself turns against tyranny."
Lin Mei studied me for a long moment, then smiled. "You're really committed to this. To becoming the nightmare the Court fears most."
"They created me when they murdered Chen Wei. Now they get to live with the consequences."
"Then we proceed." She rolled up the schematics. "Eleven days of training. Then we leave for the capital. Three days infiltration, two days preparation, then the heist itself."
"What happens after? Assuming we succeed and survive?"
"Then you use the stolen artifacts' accumulated fortune to breakthrough to Fortune Core Formation. Advance from Foundation Establishment equivalent to actual Core Formation equivalent. Become strong enough to fight Nascent Soul cultivators instead of just running from them."
"And then?"
"Then we stop running entirely. We gather every surviving Fate Weaver, build an actual army, and challenge the Court directly." Her eyes blazed with fierce determination. "Three thousand years of hiding ends. One way or another."
[QUEST UPDATED: THE VAULT HEIST]
[TIMELINE: 16 DAYS TOTAL]
[TRAINING: 11 DAYS]
[INFILTRATION: 3 DAYS]
[PREPARATION: 2 DAYS]
[HEIST EXECUTION: 1 DAY (PROBABLY)]
[SUCCESS PROBABILITY: 12%]
[REWARD: MASSIVE LP GAIN, FORTUNE CORE FORMATION BREAKTHROUGH, WAR WITH CELESTIAL COURT]
We spent the rest of the afternoon planning details—escape routes, emergency protocols, contingency plans for when things inevitably went wrong. By evening, we had a workable strategy that had maybe a one-in-eight chance of success.
Terrible odds for normal people.
Perfect odds for a Fortune Foundation cultivator whose entire cultivation path was built on defying probability.
I returned to my quarters that night, exhausted mentally and spiritually. My shoulders still throbbed from Lin Mei's training stabs. My causal structure felt strained from repeated severance practice.
But I was progressing. Learning. Becoming dangerous.
I pulled up my status, reviewing everything I'd accumulated since resurrection.
[CURRENT STATUS: CHEN WEI / WEI CHEN]
Realm: Fortune Foundation 6th Layer
LP: 2,247/3,000
Equivalent Power: Foundation Establishment 1-2 Layer
Techniques Mastered: Fortune Sense, Luck Severance, Fortune Strike, Probability Step/Shield, Fate Glimpse, Probability Cascade, Basic Causality Severance
Techniques Learning: Self-Severance (80%), Environmental Severance (40%), Temporal Severance (0%)
Weapon: Fate Severance (Fortune Weaver Artifact)
Allies: Lin Mei, Yun Xia, Feng Ming, 400+ Refuge Residents
Enemies: Celestial Court (Primary), Liu Yue, Zhao Ming, Elder Feng
Goals:
Short-term: Master Fate Weaving, Execute Vault Heist
Medium-term: Fortune Core Formation Breakthrough (10,000 LP Required)
Long-term: Challenge Celestial Court, Avenge Chen Clan
Eleven days until everything changed.
Eleven days to become skilled enough that twelve percent odds felt survivable.
Eleven days to transform from Fortune Foundation cultivator into something the Celestial Court would actually fear.
I closed my eyes and sank into meditation, absorbing ambient fortune from the refuge, feeling my LP slowly regenerate.
The dead man was learning to rewrite reality.
The ghost was sharpening its fangs.
And in eleven days, the Celestial Court would discover that some ghosts bite back.
[STATUS UPDATE:]
Training Progress: 3/14 Days Complete
Causality Severance: Improving Rapidly
Vault Heist Timeline: 16 Days Total
LP Reserves: Adequate But Not Comfortable
Motivation: Absolute
War Preparation: Beginning