After leaving for Ash Oasis, the household returned to Seven-Tower to coordinate the altar defense. During 210 hours of preparations, Kaelen spent his martial reserve after five hours, brewed emergency medicine after sixty-eight, and examined the city’s safety diagrams after ninety; each action restarted only its own track. The untouched cultivation track continued throughout.
The hemp hammock creaked under Kaelen Vance as an autumn draft rattled the bamboo wind chimes.
A dry gust swept over the tiled rooftops of Seven-Tower Alchemy City. It carried the crisp scent of roasted chestnuts, dried star-anise, and distant furnace smoke. Kaelen pulled his quilted wool blanket up to his collarbones and turned a dog-eared page with his thumb.
He was deep into the eleventh pamphlet of The Bandit King’s Secret Bride.
On page sixty-four, the dashing bandit commander had disguised himself as an itinerant pig merchant to infiltrate the Grand Marshal’s autumn ball. The plot had three gaping legal loopholes and made no tactical sense. Kaelen found it entirely delightful.
Beside his swinging elbow, a faint silver outline shimmered against the courtyard air.
[The Fallow Slate — Stage 4: Quad-Track Split] [Track 1 (Cultivation Vessel): 210h 00m -> 211x] [Track 2 (Martial Combat): 205h 00m -> 206x] [Track 3 (Alchemy): 142h 00m -> 143x] [Track 4 (Dao & Array Comprehension): 120h 00m -> 121x READY!] [Current State: True Fallow State]
