Chapter 18: The Fortieth Bottleneck
Renyu reached level forty three days after Chen Xin left the academy.
He noticed it in the training hall before dawn, not in some dramatic surge of light or sudden revelation, but in the simple, unmistakable resistance that met his soul power when he pushed it further. The circulation remained smooth. The converter crystal answered cleanly. The three spirit rings remained stable.
But the path ahead would not open.
Not without a fourth ring.
He exhaled once and opened his eyes.
Cold morning air drifted in through the high lattice windows. Outside, the academy was still quiet. Somewhere in the distance, a bell sounded once, thin and clear over the mountain.
Level forty.
A bottleneck for ordinary spirit masters. A threshold for him.
Renyu lowered his gaze to his hand.
For an instant he imagined Amenohabakiri again—the blue crystalline armor, the sword hum, the pressure of song settling into the body. Then behind it, deeper and more hidden, he felt the locked structure of Symphogear itself. Seven forms. Seven roads. And beyond the first three rings, the unopened places still waiting for power to reach them.
First ring of 1k+ years old.
Second ring of 5k+ years old.
Third ring of 10k+ years old.
Fourth ring will need to be at least 20k+ years old.
He did not know yet what beast would give it shape, only what he wanted from it were spirit ring that have stability under pressure, force dampening, a defense that could survive the sort of power his build would inevitably continue attracting.
Which meant the hunt could not be careless in choosing the beast. He do not need to worry about what type of spirit beast the ring coming from, the important is that the years of spirit beast and stability of it.
Qin Ming arrived at noon.
The message had come first, formal and brief with the Board approval granted. Field expedition sanctioned. Prepare for departure by tomorrow morning.
Renyu had expected there will be supervision.
He had not expected to see Qin Ming himself step into the residence courtyard with the calm expression of a man who had already accepted the inconvenience and intended to make everyone else do the same.
He was taller than Renyu remembered from a distance, broad-shouldered without looking heavy, and carried himself with the ease of someone who had long ago settled into authority without needing to announce it.
"Renyu," Qin Ming said.
"Teacher Qin."
Qin Ming gaze moved over him once, quick and efficient. "I got the message that you're at the bottleneck?"
"Yes."
"Good." A pause. "It would be irritating if the Board had approved this for rumor instead of fact."
That sounded enough like Xue Qinghe dry style of approval that Renyu nearly smiled.
Nearly, of course.
"Who else is going?" he asked.
Qin Ming did not answer immediately. Instead, he stepped aside.
Four figures entered the courtyard behind him.
Yu Tianheng first.
Of course.
He remember seeing them when touring around the academy trying to see what this academy have. Whenever team one of Heaven Dou passed by, many student will gather.
Even without formal introduction, it can be seen that he carried captaincy too openly to mistake. Straight-backed, broad through the shoulders, expression controlled but not too gentle. The heir of the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan looked at Renyu the way someone looked at a person that might be or not become their teammates.
Dugu Yan came next, all sharp eyes and sharper bearing, her gaze direct enough that it felt like being weighed by a venomous thing deciding whether it needed to strike.
Ye Lingling followed without drama, pale and quiet, face composed in a way that healers often were when they had already seen enough injury to stop wasting emotion on posturing.
And last—
A man Renyu did not know.
Mid-twenties, perhaps a little older. Dark travel clothes with no clan insignia. Lean rather than broad. The kind of face that would disappear in a crowd if not for the eyes, which were too alert to belong to anyone ordinary. He carried no weapon visibly, which only made him more suspicious as this indicate that he is a spirit master.
Renyu looked at him once, then at Qin Ming.
Qin Ming expression did not change. "This is Lin Su. He will act as route scout and field spotter."
That was the public line.
No one in the courtyard commented on it.
No one needed to.
Renyu understood at once. So did Yu Tianheng, judging by the tiny shift in his gaze. Dugu Yan mouth curved almost imperceptibly, not quite mocking, not quite dismissive. Ye Lingling simply accepted the information and moved on, which was perhaps the wisest response of the four.
Lin Su bowed once. "Young Master Renyu."
That title did not belong to the academy.
It belonged to the crown prince side of the world.
Renyu said, "Senior Lin."
Nothing else.
Nothing needed.
Qin Ming let the silence hold just long enough for everyone to understand that the arrangement would not be discussed openly.
Then he said, "Our destinations will be Sunset Forest. We gonna leave at first light."
No one objected.
Why would they? Sunset Forest lay close enough to Heaven Dou City for a supervised academy expedition to make sense, while still remaining dangerous enough that only fools treated it lightly. Close did not mean safe. It only meant the empire could pretend it had some degree of order over what happened there.
Qin Ming continued, "Publicly, this is a field-training hunt for a level-forty breakthrough. Privately, it is exactly the same thing, except I expect more honesty from all of you than the academy would tolerate in a written report."
That brought the first true reaction out of Dugu Yan.
"And him?" she asked, flicking her gaze toward Renyu. "Are we there to protect him, evaluate him, or watch him become insufferable after a fourth ring?"
Renyu looked at her.
She looked back without apology.
Qin Ming answered before anyone else could. "All three are possible. Your task is to make sure only one happens."
Yu Tianheng let out the faintest breath through his nose.
Not a laugh.
Close enough to notice.
'Good,' Qin Ming thought. Let they clash here now. Better here than in the forest.
Ye Lingling spoke for the first time then, voice soft enough that everyone had to actually listen.
"What is the target range?"
"Four thousand to five thousand years," Qin Ming said.
That quieted the courtyard more effectively than a shout could have.
Renyu did not react outwardly.
Inside, however, his thoughts sharpened.
Higher than the ordinary standard for a fourth ring, but not absurd for him. Not after the first three. Not after the body strengthening, the training, and the way his spirit ignored normal compatibility logic.
But—
Four thousand to five thousand. Look like they still underestimate him. Now that he thought about it, he never show the people except for the seven treasure glazed tile clan people his third black spirit ring.
Still—
He let them be, let they thought for themselves. No need for him to explain.
When he look at Lin Su, the man give a nod. Look like Xu Qinghe or the emperor already give the instructions on what kind of spirit ring that he might want to find.
Yu Tianheng looked at Renyu again, this time with less skepticism and more direct appraisal.
"You think you can take that?" he asked.
Renyu answered honestly. "I think I can survive it."
Dugu Yan snorted softly. "That isn't the same thing."
"No," Renyu said. "It usually matter."
That earned him the first flicker of real interest from her.
Qin Ming folded his arms. "Good. Then let hear the rest now, because I will not repeat it in the forest. We move as a unit until I say otherwise. Lin Su scouts ahead but does not disappear far enough that we might lost sight of him. Ye Lingling will stays center. Dugu Yan do poison the first thing that annoys you, probably the spirit beast. Yu Tianheng does not try to solve every obstacle by hitting it harder. Renyu—"
He stopped there.
Renyu waited.
Qin Ming gaze sharpened.
"—you do not treat this as your private hunt. If I say withdraw, you withdraw. If I say wait, you wait. If I judge the target wrong for your fourth ring, then it dies and you do not absorb it just because it looks impressive. Understood?"
"Yes," Renyu said.
That answer was immediate.
Because beneath everything else—beneath the politics, the Team One implications, the crown prince silent hand in the background—Qin Ming had just made himself very clear.
He was not here as ornament.
He was here as the man in command.
'Good,' Renyu thought.
Better he thought that way.
The expedition assembled before sunrise the next morning.
Mist still clung to the lower mountain paths when they left the academy. Horses carried them only part of the way; after that, the road narrowed enough that travel became slower and quieter. No banners. No imperial insignia. No obvious sign that Heaven Dou Imperial Academy had sent some of its best students and one of its most important teachers into a nearby forest on state-adjacent business.
Only a small group moving under discipline.
Only a hunt.
By midday, the mountain roads had softened into forest ground.
Sunset Forest waited ahead, green-dark and damp beneath its tangled canopy, close enough to Heaven Dou City to feel almost insultingly near, and yet carrying the same quiet law that all monster in the forests carried.
Enter prepared. Or do not enter at all.
They stopped once at the tree line.
Qin Ming dismounted first. The others followed.
Lin Su crouched by a patch of disturbed soil, touched two fingers to it, and looked up without expression. "Fresh movement. At least three separate trails. None large enough to concern the whole group yet."
Publicly a scout, Renyu thought.
Privately a shield.
He wondered, not for the first time, how many orders that man had been given before joining them.
Qin Ming nodded once. "We can go in."
Yu Tianheng rolled one shoulder and glanced toward the trees. "Finally."
Dugu Yan looked irritated already, which seemed to be her natural state whenever something interesting had not happened quickly enough.
Ye Lingling adjusted the strap of her medical pouch and said nothing.
Renyu looked into the forest.
At level thirty-nine he had entered the academy as the crown prince cultivated genius. Then he had drawn the Board, Ning Fengzhi, Chen Xin, and Ning Rongrong into his orbit. Now, at level forty, with a fourth ring waiting somewhere ahead in Sunset Forest, another threshold had opened.
Not in politics.
Not in reputation.
In danger.
He stepped forward with the others as the first line of shadow swallowed them.
Behind him, Heaven Dou Imperial Academy remained a place of stone courts, noble resentment, and measured advancement.
Ahead lay wet roots, monster tracks, wrong sounds in the brush, and the kind of truth no academy ranking could soften.
And before the sun had fully tilted west, Sunset Forest would offer the expedition its first answer.