Finishing the last measurement of the twelve upright silver strips inside the upper stairwell door frame, Seyun fitted the two halves of Master Uren’s gray stone tablet back into his padded satchel. He tucked his charcoal stub into his vest pocket, and stood up on the frost-rimed granite.
He had spent less than an hour in the upper beehive vault of the Listening Crown. He hadn’t touched a single one of the thirty-six star-fallen iron needles or received a drop of fifth-realm qi from the seated woman.
In the stories told by traditional students in Oran and Ash Reed. That young fighter discovered a hidden senior in a mountain vault was supposed to kneel before the elder’s array, receive a century of passed essence into his dantian, and walk back down the steps glowing with borrowed power that skipped three realms of work.
Seyun stood by the bronze stairwell door with his twice-burned palms wrapped in linen and his wool coat stiff with dried river mud. He carried zero borrowed power in his channels.
If anything, his own Flame-realm breath flow felt smaller and plainer than when he had climbed the stair. Tested against the crushing, five-stranded weight of a real Crown fighter holding up a cracked mountain ridge, his Returning Step was no wider than a single candle flame in a winter gale.
