The Grand Council Room of the Outer Sect was an imposing, circular chamber forged from dark obsidian and lit by floating spirit-pearls. This was the beating heart of the Crimson Nimbus Sect’s economy, where the fate of thousands of disciples and mountains of resources were decided.
At the head of the crescent-shaped mahogany table sat Madam Shen.
Draped in her crimson robes, silver-black hair pinned with a jade hairpin, she radiated the terrifying aura of a Qi Gathering Level 9 Matriarch. To the two dozen deacons and supervisors seated around the table, she was the untouchable Head Manager of the Resource Hall — ruler of their logistics, their budgets, their livelihoods.
Beneath that umbrella sat several sub-divisions: the Alchemy Pavilion, the Herb Gardens, and the highly lucrative Artifact Pavilion. Madam Shen oversaw them all. Her power, however, was not without its challengers.
"Head Manager Shen," a shrill, oily voice broke the respectful silence.
Deacon Liu rose from his seat near the middle of the table — a middle-aged man with a sharp, rat-like face, dressed in the dark green robes of a senior deacon. His eyes glinted with unconcealed ambition.
"If the monthly reports for the Herb Gardens are concluded, I wish to bring forth an urgent matter regarding the Artifact Pavilion," he announced, his voice deliberately loud, drawing every eye in the chamber.
Madam Shen’s expression stayed as calm as a frozen lake, though a dangerous glint flashed behind her eyes. "Speak, Deacon Liu."
With a dramatic sweep of his sleeves, he signaled two attendants at the door. They carried in a heavy wooden crate and dumped its contents onto the polished table.
Clang! Crash!
More than a dozen broken flying swords and shattered crossbows piled up before the council. Burnt-out spiritual arrays, snapped beast-tendon bowstrings, blunted edges beyond repair.
"These," Deacon Liu sneered, jabbing a finger at the wreckage, "are the standard-issue weapons produced by our Artifact Pavilion this trimester. Garbage. Every last piece of it."
Whispers broke out among the deacons. Some looked genuinely shocked. Others — clearly members of Deacon Liu’s faction — nodded along in rehearsed agreement.
"Last month, three squads of our Outer Disciples were slaughtered by demon beasts in the Dark Mist Forest!" His voice climbed, dripping with false sorrow. "Their swords shattered against thick hides. Their bowstrings snapped mid-draw. Head Manager Shen, the Artifact Pavilion falls under your authority — and under your oversight, it is killing our own disciples."
Madam Shen did not flinch. Her fingers rested calmly on the table’s edge. "The Artifact Pavilion operates on a fixed budget, Deacon Liu. The profound iron allocated to us by the Inner Sect grows more impure by the season. Degradation in combat is unavoidable when the raw materials themselves are flawed."
"A convenient excuse." He clapped his hands again.
His attendant brought forward a narrow box lined in red velvet. Inside rested a single longsword, radiating a faint blue aura sharp enough to seem to cut the air around it.
"A Blue-Edge Spirit Sword, forged by the Inner Sect’s Fire-Forged Peak," Deacon Liu declared, holding it aloft. "My backers have graciously offered to supply our disciples with weapons of this caliber — at barely more than our current cost."
He leaned across the table, eyes fixed on her. "Your management of the Artifact Pavilion has failed, Head Manager. I move that its budget and operational control be stripped from your office and transferred to mine. I will see that our disciples stop dying for your incompetence."
The room erupted. This was a naked power grab. The Artifact Pavilion alone controlled nearly forty percent of the Outer Sect’s total wealth. If Deacon Liu carved it away, Madam Shen’s grip on the Resource Hall would be crippled beyond recovery.
Her heart hammered against her ribs, though her face stayed carved from ice. She knew exactly what he was — a pawn sent by Inner Sect backers to bleed the Outer Sect dry from within.
Worse, losing the Artifact Pavilion meant losing the scrap metal, the damaged weapons, the spillage quotas she quietly funneled to her Sovereign. She would not let that happen.
"Deacon Liu." Her voice cut through the noise like a blade of ice, silencing the hall instantly. "You claim your imported swords surpass anything forged in our own pavilion?"
"Not a claim, Head Manager. A fact." He smirked. "Unless you can produce a weapon here that outmatches the Blue-Edge Spirit Sword?"
"The Outer Sect Weapon Exhibition is in five days." Madam Shen rose from her seat, her Qi Gathering Level 9 pressure forcing him half a step back before he caught himself. "In five days, the Artifact Pavilion will present a new standard-issue weapon. If it fails to break your imported toy, I will hand you the pavilion’s seals myself."
She let the silence stretch before finishing. "But if my weapon proves superior, you will kneel before the Artifact Pavilion in public and resign your post."
Greed overrode whatever caution flickered in Deacon Liu’s eyes. He knew the pavilion’s old crafters — stubborn, slow, decades behind Inner Sect forging techniques. Five days was nothing.
"Deal," he sneered. "I look forward to your resignation, Head Manager."
***
An hour later, the doors of the Special Supervisor’s private courtyard slid open.
Madam Shen stepped inside, and the icy mask she wore in council melted the instant the wards sealed shut behind her.
Lin Tian sat cross-legged on a stone platform at the courtyard’s center, bare-chested, his muscled frame gleaming with sweat. A storm of golden Yang Qi swirled around him, condensing back into his Dantian as he closed out his cultivation cycle.
He opened his eyes at the sound of her footsteps, his gaze locking onto her.
"You’re carrying tension, my Queen," he said, his voice a low rumble that eased something tight in her chest. "Did the rat finally make his move?"
She crossed the courtyard and sat beside him, her thigh pressing against his, her head dropping onto his shoulder with a tired sigh.
"He did, Master." Her strict bearing dissolved into the softer voice she kept only for him. "Deacon Liu challenged my control of the Artifact Pavilion in open council. I accepted a bet — a weapon exhibition in five days. If we lose, I lose forty percent of everything I funnel to you."
Lin Tian’s hand curled around her waist, pulling her closer, his thumb tracing slow circles against her hip.
"You did the right thing," he said, his voice carrying a dark certainty that steadied her nerves. "Letting him dig his own grave in front of witnesses means his backers can’t quietly save him when it collapses."
She looked up at him, worship and worry tangled together in her eyes. "Five days, Lin Tian. The old refiners in the pavilion still engrave the same runes their masters taught them thirty years ago. They have no vision for anything new."
"They won’t need vision." His eyes narrowed into calculating slits. "Only steady hands. The design is already finished."
He withdrew a glowing jade slip from his spatial pouch and passed it to her. She channeled a thread of Qi into it, and a three-dimensional blueprint bloomed in the air between them — a heavy crossbow with no bowstring at all. In its place, the firing chamber sat hollow, packed with dense runic circuits.
"The Spirit-Fire Repeating Crossbow," he said.
"No bowstring," she murmured, studying the projection. "Where does the firing force come from?"
"Compressed wind," Lin Tian said simply. "A string of Wind-Gathering Runes forms a closed Wind-Compression Array inside the chamber. A single Spirit Crystal at the base draws power from a cultivator’s Qi, pulls in the surrounding air, and crushes it into that sealed space. Pull the trigger, and the trapped tempest tears free — that’s your driving force. No tendon to snap, no spring to fatigue. Ten bolts, one breath, fired in a single unbroken cycle."
Madam Shen’s managerial mind seized on the elegance of it instantly. "It bypasses every weakness of a standard crossbow entirely. It will tear Deacon Liu’s sword to shreds."
"That’s the intention," Lin Tian said. "But the array inside that chamber is unforgiving. Hundreds of runes, engraved without a single flaw, or the compressed wind turns inward and shatters the whole weapon from within. I need someone who won’t botch it — an expert the pavilion has already thrown away."
Understanding lit up her face. "I know exactly who you need. Aunt Lin — a widow, forty-two, buried in the oldest corner of the pavilion. Her hands are the steadiest in the Outer Sect, but she has no backing, no faction, nothing. Deacon Liu’s people pushed her into repairing scrap years ago."
A dark, satisfied light passed through Lin Tian’s eyes. A skilled hand, discarded and unseen — exactly the kind of ally worth cultivating.
"Perfect," he said, sliding his hand up to cup her cheek, thumb brushing her lower lip. "Tomorrow, take me to her. We’ll set up a private workshop, sealed from prying eyes."
"I’ll arrange everything, Master," she murmured, leaning into his touch, her will folding easily into his.
Lin Tian’s gaze drifted to the night sky beyond the courtyard walls. Deacon Liu thought he was playing sect politics. He had no idea he had just stepped into the sights of a predator armed with a fusion no cultivator in this world could hope to understand.
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