The three days Heishan Rong had granted began to vanish from the very first night.
Lin Yuan slept only a few hours. Before dawn he was already moving along the eastern slope with Jian Mu and Han Yue, marking changes in height, large stones, poor cover, natural cracks, and secondary paths. He was not looking for a glorious battlefield. He was looking for a place where a smaller force could break the rhythm of a larger one.
Jian Mu studied the terrain with that attention of his that seemed to come from somewhere older and harder than his age. Han Yue, by contrast, wanted to test the ground with his feet, measure charging distance, and imagine the exact moment when a weak formation or a careless enemy would let him drive his spear through.
"Here," Han Yue said, pointing to an open strip between two boulders. "If we let them come through this pass, I can shatter the first row."
"And then the second row buries you for being overexcited," Lin Yuan replied.
Han Yue clicked his tongue.
"You always ruin the best part of my ideas."
"Your best ideas last less than a good ambush."
Jian Mu spoke without raising his voice.
"That pass works. But not to stop them. To split them."
Lin Yuan followed the route the boy indicated. If a confident enough group climbed through there, the narrowness would force Heishan Clan's formation to break into two currents. It would not be enough to win, but it would be enough to make numerical superiority inconvenient.
"Well seen," Lin Yuan said.
Han Yue snorted, though the annoyance faded quickly. He was not so arrogant that he could not recognize a useful idea.
When they returned to the main clearing, Bai Lian was placing jars of water, clean cloth, and small bundles of dried herbs in a corner of the hall. Her face was calm, but her movements were too precise, betraying tension.
"I counted everything three times," she said when Lin Yuan entered. "If the fight isn't too long, it will be enough. If it drags on..."
She did not finish the sentence.
"We aren't going to let it drag on," Han Yue said at once.
Bai Lian held his gaze for several seconds.
"That depends on more people than you."
Han Yue opened his mouth, but Lin Yuan raised a hand.
"Mo Qian."
The young man emerged from a patch of shadow beside the door as if he had been there the whole time.
"What poor manners. Not even a 'good morning,' not even a 'thank you for risking your neck spying on horrible people.'"
"Did you learn anything?"
"Yes. And I don't like it."
He sat on the table without asking.
"Rong didn't lie when he spoke of territorial control. Heishan Clan has enough people to block small routes and collect money through fear. They're not refined, but they're not stupid. If they return intending to take the vein, they'll bring the brutes in front and two or three decent cultivators behind to prevent surprises."
"How many?" Lin Yuan asked.
"Twenty to thirty if they want to crush us safely. Fewer if they still think we're a joke. More if someone tells them there's something under the mountain besides ore."
Bai Lian looked at Lin Yuan.
"Then it's not just a threat anymore."
"No," he said. "Now it's a timetable."
Gu Tian entered just in time to hear that.
"Timetables are annoying. They force even lazy old men to act."
Han Yue turned.
"Then stop acting old and tell us what matters."
Gu Tian glared at him.
"I matter. That's what matters."
Mo Qian gave a short laugh.
"The old man's confidence is one of our few stable resources."
Lin Yuan let the comment pass and braced both hands on the table.
"Let's be clear. If they return with thirty men and two stronger cultivators, we cannot beat them head-on. The best we can do is wound them enough to make the cost irritating. We need another advantage."
"The formation," Bai Lian said quietly.
Everyone looked toward Gu Tian.
The old man took his time before answering.
"Yes. The formation."
Han Yue stepped forward.
"Then fix it."
Gu Tian slowly turned his head toward him.
"Boy, if I could 'fix it' with a gesture, I would already have done it and spared us the embarrassment of watching you think."
Han Yue's nostrils flared.
Mo Qian leaned back on the tabletop.
"Please don't spare him that. It's one of our few cheap entertainments."
"Say one more thing and I'll use your mouth to test the traps myself," Han Yue growled.
Lin Yuan spoke before the exchange could become pointless.
"What exactly can the buried formation do if we awaken it further?"
Gu Tian stared at the ceiling for a moment as if speaking to the rock itself.
"That depends on which part you wake. What you have now is only an echo: basic qi gathering, a weak defensive frame, resonance with the hidden core, and limited response to your presence as founder. If we add the right piece, we could get false paths, minor terrain shift, partial suppression of spiritual perception, or reinforcement of the outer barrier."
"Which of those is most useful?" Jian Mu asked.
The old man's smile was nearly invisible.
"You see, Lin Yuan? The child asks better questions than the adults."
Lin Yuan ignored the comment.
"Answer."
"Any of them would help," said Gu Tian. "But none of them comes free. The formation needs specific materials to awaken. Not common ore, not ordinary spirit stones, but things capable of conducting and stabilizing old patterns."
Mo Qian reclined in his chair and crossed one foot over the other.
"Translation: strange things we don't have."
"Exactly."
Bai Lian looked at Lin Yuan.
"Can they be bought?"
Gu Tian barked a dry laugh.
"With what money, girl? And even if we could, not in a normal market."
Lin Yuan narrowed his eyes.
"Tell me what."
Gu Tian was silent for a moment, studying him.
"Spiritual vein sand, fragments of old sealing stone, formation iron essence, or any residual core tied to ancient structures. You don't need a great quantity. But you do need the real thing."
Lin Yuan felt the medallion beneath his clothes, cold and still. And yet the slight vibration from the previous night was still turning in his memory.
"That doesn't exist near the village," Bai Lian murmured.
Gu Tian corrected her, not unkindly.
"Near the village, no. Near this mountain... who knows."
Silence fell over the hall.
Mo Qian was the first to understand.
"You're not talking about markets. You're talking about ruins."
Gu Tian raised the gourd.
"At last someone thinks with the proper degree of bad intention."
Han Yue smiled at once.
"Now that I like. We go into a ruin, take what we need, and come back."
"Put that way it sounds like an outing," Bai Lian murmured.
"Outings kill people too if you handle them badly," Gu Tian replied.
Lin Yuan stepped away from the table and left the hall without explaining. The others followed him with their eyes but did not stop him. He crossed the clearing, walked a little down the northern path, and stopped before a bare wall of stone where the wind always struck diagonally. He closed his eyes.
He did not try to use the system directly. He had already learned that the best answers did not appear just because one demanded them. Instead, he breathed slowly, let qi circulate through his partially repaired meridians, and focused on the medallion.
At first nothing happened.
Then, faintly, he felt a mild warmth spread across his chest.
Lin Yuan opened his eyes.
The sensation pulled toward the northeast. Not a physical force. More a resonance, a direction engraved somewhere deeper than ordinary perception.
When he returned to the hall, they were still waiting.
"There is a ruin," he said.
Mo Qian raised his brows.
"And how do you know?"
Lin Yuan held his gaze.
"I know."
Mo Qian smiled. He did not insist. That was one of his most valuable qualities: he knew when to question and when to save a doubt for later, if it remained profitable.
Gu Tian, however, watched Lin Yuan more closely.
"Where?"
Lin Yuan pointed northeast.
"Not too far. Close enough to go and return before the deadline if we move quickly."
Han Yue picked up his spear.
"Then we go now."
"Not all of us," Lin Yuan said.
The young man frowned.
"Why not?"
"Because if we all leave to look for materials, Heishan Clan might test our defenses before the deadline. I need people here."
Jian Mu nodded immediately.
"I stay."
Han Yue turned toward him, nearly offended.
"You stay? Right now?"
"I don't go into ruins," Jian Mu said. "I guard the sect."
There was no arrogance in his words. Only simplicity. The simplicity of someone who had already decided what he belonged to.
Lin Yuan felt a small satisfaction buried beneath the overall pressure. Jian Mu was no longer just a child saved from hunger and violence. He was beginning to think from inside Primordial Firmament.
"Bai Lian stays too," Lin Yuan said. "Han Yue... you come with me."
That was enough to erase the displeasure from Han Yue's face.
"Good."
"Mo Qian, you too."
"Naturally. Someone has to make sure you don't all die for lack of social intelligence."
"Gu Tian," Lin Yuan continued. "I need you to come."
The old man put a hand to his chest.
"How touching. The founder is beginning to understand my worth."
"If you don't come and we die activating something badly, I'll have to haunt you in the afterlife just to insult you."
"That does sound like family."
The meeting continued for another hour. They defined watches, routes, signals in case Heishan Clan tried the mountain early, and the minimum provisions for the expedition. Bai Lian prepared bandages, salves, and dried food. Jian Mu reinforced the narrowest entrances with stakes. Han Yue walked the eastern pass twice, memorizing where he wanted to fight if things went wrong.
When night fell, Lin Yuan climbed once more to the eastern ridge.
The village lights barely flickered in the distance. The main road vanished among shadows and stone. Behind him, Primordial Firmament Sect half-slept with one eye open and one hand near a weapon.
Gu Tian appeared beside him without warning.
"You have the face of an underpaid founder," he said.
Lin Yuan did not smile.
"If I fail, we'll lose the mountain."
"If you do nothing, you'll lose it too."
Silence stretched between them. After a moment the old man spoke again.
"Don't fool yourself, boy. This isn't only about an ore vein or the pride of refusing to bow. What's at stake is habit. If Heishan Clan learns it can tear something from you whenever it wants, it will come again and again. And if your disciples learn that the first threat is enough to make you retreat, the sect will be born crooked."
Lin Yuan let the wind cool his face.
"I know."
"Then stop thinking like someone who only wants to survive until tomorrow."
Lin Yuan turned to him.
"And how do you think I should do it?"
Gu Tian studied him with tired, very old, very sharp eyes.
"Like someone who wants this mountain to remember his name a hundred years from now."
The old man left without saying more.
Lin Yuan remained alone on the ridge, hands behind his back, the medallion cold beneath his clothes.
The sect was still small.
Poor.
Awkward.
Incomplete.
But it was no longer an idea.
It was not a temporary shelter.
It was not a fantasy born from humiliation.
It was a place with people who depended on him. Disciples who had begun to call a pile of ruins home. A mountain that finally answered, however faintly, to the name they had given it.
He could not let Heishan Clan break it into pieces before it learned to breathe.
At dawn, they would leave in search of materials.
Not for glory.
Not to become stronger in some elegant way.
Only to obtain, before the three days ran out, the one advantage capable of turning a weak sect into prey with fangs.
And if the medallion lied, if the ruin contained nothing useful, if time ran out... then they would fight anyway.
But they would fight knowing they had tried everything.
And on a road like his, that was already another kind of vow.