Beijing had already adapted.
That was the dangerous part.
A month ago, the Golden List had detonated like a thunderclap. Forums crashed. Families panicked. Institutions scrambled to reassess their hierarchies. Every name on that list had been dissected, argued over, praised, feared.
Now?
Now the shock had cooled.
People believed they understood it.
They believed they understood him.
"Rank One doesn't mean invincible."
That sentence had quietly become consensus.
At the Huaxia Special Affairs Bureau, Fang Ze's file had been reviewed so many times that the edges of the digital dossier had been annotated with assumptions rather than data.
Cultivation Estimate: Late-stage Qi Gathering
Combat Style: Suppression-oriented, high control
Threat Profile: Dangerous to peers, avoid reckless engagement
Conclusion: Not yet a destabilizing force
Director Zhao Mingyuan stared at the screen for a long moment before closing it.
"Still no breakthrough signals?" he asked.
"No," an analyst replied. "No abnormal energy spikes. No Foundation-level resonance.
Monitoring arrays near Chaoyang have been stable for weeks."
Zhao nodded slowly.
Too stable.
But stability was comforting. Comfort bred confidence.
And confidence bred mistakes.
At Beihang University, Murong Jing stood in the combat hall, sleeves rolled up, aura brilliant and unrestrained. His Qi surged openly as he finished a sparring match, the opponent collapsing backward under overwhelming pressure.
Applause followed.
Someone laughed. "As expected of the Murong family."
Murong Jing accepted the praise with a faint smile. His thoughts, however, drifted elsewhere.
Fang Ze.
Rank One.
Still in high school. Still "Qi Gathering."
Murong Jing exhaled quietly.
"Strong control," he admitted inwardly. "But control has limits."
He wasn't in a hurry.
If Fang Ze stayed at that level, then the distance between them would only grow.
Elsewhere in Beijing, subtler movements unfolded.
Zhuo Tianming sat inside a private workshop filled with half-finished constructs and weapon cores. Spiritual circuits glowed faintly along the walls. His hands moved with precision as he engraved a stabilizing array onto a compact blade prototype.
"Yan Heitu rushed things," Zhuo said calmly, not looking up. "Power without refinement always breaks."
An assistant hesitated. "And Fang Ze?"
Zhuo paused for half a breath.
"Dangerous," he said. "But not unreachable. Not yet."
He resumed engraving.
The blade hummed softly.
That same night, in a quiet residential district, Fang Ze returned to the bookstore.
The front lights were off. The street was calm. Inside, the air was still.
Too still.
The old spirit stirred faintly from the depths of the shelves, its presence subtle, restrained.
"You're late," it said.
Fang Ze closed the door behind him. "I wanted to make sure no one followed."
The spirit chuckled softly. "They won't. They think you've already peaked."
Fang Ze did not respond.
He moved to the back room and sat cross-legged, Eclipse Veil laid carefully across his knees. His breathing slowed—not drawing Qi aggressively, not circulating publicly.
Instead, he folded inward.
What no monitoring array could detect was already complete.
The Foundation had been laid days ago—quietly, flawlessly, without shockwaves or instability. Tonight was not a breakthrough.
Tonight was sealing.
Qi flowed inward, compressing, aligning, locking into place. His dantian was no longer a reservoir—it was a core. Dense. Stable. Silent.
Peak Foundation.
Not a single ripple escaped the room.
The old spirit watched, expression unreadable.
"So," it murmured, "you've decided.
"Yes," Fang Ze replied calmly. "Let them misjudge."
Outside, somewhere beyond the alley, faint spiritual fluctuations brushed against the district—careless, probing.
Someone was testing the water.
Fang Ze opened his eyes.
"They think I'm still within reach," he said.
The spirit smiled thinly. "And you?"
"I'll let them come close enough," Fang Ze replied, standing. "Then they'll see."
He concealed everything.
Aura. Pressure. Depth.
By the time he stepped back into the quiet night, he was exactly what the world believed him to be.
A dangerous Qi Gathering prodigy.
Nothing more.
And that was the mistake that would cost them.