From the ridge the forest had looked like one solid thing.
Inside it the structure broke apart into rooms. Dense undergrowth opening into clear ground under canopy so high that nothing grew beneath it. Then undergrowth again. A gully. A long slope carpeted in something pale grey that turned out to be warm when he crouched and pressed his palm into it.
He ran Appraisal.
Name: Warmweave
Type: Ground Plant — Low Qi Affinity
Notes: Non-toxic. Generates mild warmth. Used as bedding by small beasts in this region.
"I slept on bare rock last night. And there's a plant that generates warmth right here."
He pulled up a section, tested the density, and tucked it under his arm. He wasn't going to make that mistake twice.
He ran Lightning Sense in short bursts as he walked, always stopping first, keeping the window tight. Three to five meters, no wider. Trying to extend further just produced noise. But at close range, held carefully, something was developing. A stationary creature registered differently from a moving one. Something underground gave a different kind of pressure than things above it. The distinctions were small and real.
"It's not getting stronger. I'm just learning to read what's already there. That's probably the actual skill."
He rounded a tree and almost walked into a round-eyed animal sitting on a root.
The size of a large squirrel, pale grey fur, with the calm slightly offended expression of something that owned this root and had decided not to move. It watched him adjust his course around it without any concern.
He ran Appraisal.
Name: Ridge Watcher
Type: Small Beast Cultivation: None
Fate: Lives another three years. Dies of old age.
Three years. Old age. He stood there for a moment, looking at it.
"This thing has been in this forest its entire life. It's not running. It doesn't find me threatening. Whatever makes this place dangerous to people like me, this animal has lived through it without a scratch and it has three more years ahead of it. That's worth noting."
The animal flicked its tail and was gone.
He kept moving. More appraisals as he passed things, building the habit of reading the world rather than just moving through it.
Pale fungi in a ring at the base of a fallen trunk:
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Name: Stillbreath Fungus
Type: Plant — Trace Wood Affinity
Notes: Non-toxic. Mild Qi absorption effect when dried and prepared.
"A random fungus on a random log has a cultivation application. And I'd walk past it my whole life without knowing. That's what this function is actually for."
A dark-shelled insect on a broad leaf, motionless:
Name: Ironback Crawler
Type: Small Beast
Fate: Survives another two seasons.
Four appraised. The quest needed five.
The river smell reached him before the trees thinned. Cold air with a mineral edge. He followed it to the bank and stopped.
Wide. Thirty meters at least. Clear water over dark stones, fast through the center, calmer at the banks. The treeline pulled back on both sides, open flat ground, long sightlines in both directions. The light was better here than anywhere he'd been since landing.
He appraised the water.
Name: Eranth River Water — Flowing Source
Type: Natural Resource
Notes: Safe. Low Qi content. Mild body-tempering effect with extended daily contact.
QUEST COMPLETE: ?
Objective: Appraise 5 living things or natural resources
Reward: 5 Codex Fragments → Collected
Codex Fragments: 8
He knelt and drank. Cold enough to ache. A brief warmth followed that had nothing to do with temperature.
"Body-tempering. Every day I'm at this river it accumulates. That's not nothing. That's exactly what the Sutra said to look for."
He sat back on his heels and looked at the water properly. Old forest, ambient Qi, moving water. He'd found this place because it sat between the ridge and the south smoke, not because he'd been looking for it. That was the part that gave him pause.
"I got lucky with the location. Don't start thinking luck is a method."
He opened the Summon Interface.
The scroll sat in his inventory. Fragment cost waived, one use, two-star potential available. Eight fragments in the bank and a normal cost of 150. The scroll changed that math entirely.
The decision wasn't really about fragments. It was about whether he knew enough yet to be useful to whoever arrived.
"They'll wake up here with no past and no context. The least I can do is understand the ground first. One more day. I know more after another full day here than I do right now."
He spread the Warmweave near the bank, sat down, and pulled the Sutra out.
He ran the breathing technique at the water's edge where the ambient density was highest, working the triple-trace, trying to hold it longer than he had on the ridge. The Sutra's second section described what the first successful pathway circuit felt like. A warmth moving at a specific pace through a specific route. He hadn't felt it yet. He kept trying. Between sessions he ran Lightning Sense in ten-minute blocks, steady, not rushing the hour count.
Around late afternoon the quest completed.
QUEST COMPLETE: ?
Objective: Use Lightning Sense for 1 cumulative hour
Reward: 2 Codex Fragments → Collected
Codex Fragments: 10
He closed the Sutra as the light went golden.
Two large things had passed north of the camp at different points during the afternoon. Neither had come to the water. Lightning Sense had given him direction and rough size. Nothing readable beyond that.
"They're avoiding the open bank. Either they have their own water source, or they don't like the exposure here. Either way they know something about this stretch of river that I don't yet."
He made camp at the base of a wide tree twenty meters from the bank and lay down with his eyes open for a while, watching the canopy darken.
Tomorrow.
End of Chapter 4
