Li Wei kept walking.
He stayed on the same heading, weaving through dense pine and uneven ridges. The terrain shifted gradually underfoot—less soft moss, more brittle soil, blackened rock protruding through the undergrowth in splintered veins. Sunlight filtered down in thin bars, and the deeper into the forest he moved, the quieter it became.
By the time the light began to shift toward evening again, he reached the edge.
The perimeter of the crater rose before him—steep, jagged, unnatural.Black stone jutted from the earth like broken ribs, some sharp and vertical, others sloped into unstable shelves. The rim was broad enough to walk along, but one misstep could send a body tumbling dozens of meters. Climbing out looked possible, but it would be obvious, exposed.
Li Wei approached the crater rim cautiously.
From up close, the scale was more imposing. The wall wasn't uniform—some sections curved in sharply, forming narrow alcoves or tight passes. Others stretched flat, like sheer cliffs pitted with erosion. He saw no clear exit. No stairs. No path. Just raw stone, cut clean into the earth like something had gouged it open.
A faint heat clung to the rock. Not warmth from the sun, but something old, soaked into the basalt itself.
He scanned the wall, taking his time. If he could find a place to dig in nearby—close enough to the edge to monitor movement, far enough not to draw attention. He'd walked two days. He wasn't wasting this.
Li Wei crouched near the base of the black stone wall.
"Two days from the centre," he muttered. "That puts the radius around a hundred and sixty li."
He glanced back into the forest, then up toward the basin's jagged rim. His path hadn't been straight, but the direction had held.
"If it's circular, then the full perimeter's over a thousand li. Maybe more, depending on terrain."
He touched the tooth necklace lightly. It had shaved a good margin off his time. Without it, the trip might've taken him half a day longer.
Most wouldn't come this far. Not yet. Too far from the centre. Too much effort for too little reward—at least for now. That meant less foot traffic. Fewer prying eyes.
The stone wall loomed in front of him, jagged and dark. Up close, the reason for its impassability became clearer.
The surface wasn't just steep—it was fractured, glassy, and layered in fine, splintered edges. The black stone had a vitrified sheen in places, scorched by unimaginable heat long ago. When he pressed a hand to it, it offered no real grip—just hard, flaked edges that shifted under pressure. Climbing it would be suicidal. Even a Foundation Establishment cultivator would find his hands shredded, his footing unstable. One misstep, and the rock would shear skin from bone.
Worse, Qi didn't hold here properly. Li Wei tested it, pulsing a thread into the stone—it scattered.
Li Wei crouched low, brushing his fingers across the jagged wall again. He frowned, then pulled a thread of bone sand from his pouch and sent it crawling up the face of the stone.
It stuck.
Not perfectly—there was still some scatter where the surface turned glassy—but with careful control and dense layering, he could get enough traction. The bone sand worked like a rope anchor, spreading wide and pressing hard into the smallest fractures and edges. It wasn't elegant, and it wouldn't hold if he moved too fast, but it was workable.
He raised an eyebrow.
The temptation to scale it fully rose for a moment—then passed.
No way the sect would allow someone to climb out of the Reaping grounds.That much was obvious. If the terrain didn't stop you, something else would. Maybe elders watching. Whatever the case, leaving wasn't an option.
But he could go halfway.
He fixed the sand in place, layering it slowly, bracing it like footholds. Then he ascended—cautious, methodical. The bone sand bore his weight with some effort. Eventually, he made it high enough.
Li Wei paused, back to the stone, and looked out over the basin.
The crater stretched out below him in a wide crescent—dense pine forest blanketing most of the terrain. The central clearing where the disciples had first gathered was faintly visible in the far distance, like a scar through the trees.
Closer, though, something caught his eye.
Two rocky outcrops.Natural ones—uneven boulders and shallow ridges protruding from the forest floor, each ringed by sparse undergrowth. Both nestled in the treeline, not far from the crater wall, but tucked just enough into the trees to avoid easy sightlines from above.
They weren't symmetrical. One rose sharp and narrow, the other broader, flatter. Between them was a natural dip—shadowed, uneven terrain. Probably nothing. But maybe something.
Li Wei memorised their location, then turned and climbed back down.
Li Wei didn't linger up the crater wall. it made him visible. Even if few people were likely to be at the edge this quickly. He didn't take chances.
He descended, retrieved the bone sand, and returned to the treeline with brisk, quiet steps.
It took longer than expected to reach the outcrops on foot. From above, they'd seemed closer. But the ground here sloped unevenly, with soft ridges and gullies tangled beneath thick pine underbrush. But eventually, they appeared—just as he'd seen them.
The two rocky outcrops. One narrow and jagged, rising like a broken tooth. The other lower, broader—its surface split into fractured layers like a peeled root. Around both, the pines grew dense but not suffocating. Just enough coverage to obscure a silhouette. Undergrowth clustered in dry bunches, not thick enough to hinder movement, but enough to conceal.
Li Wei stopped between them.
From the outside, nothing seemed noteworthy. Just rocks. Shadows. A small clearing with uneven footing and a slight dip in the centre.
He walked the perimeter once. Crouched near the ridges. Checked the angles.
Perfect. Exactly as he envisioned.
The sightlines were obscured just enough. It was near the crater edge—low foot traffic. The two outcrops gave structural cover, and the terrain made it inconvenient to pass through quickly. No spring, no strange trees, nothing obvious to draw attention.
Li Wei circled the lower outcrop again. Its structure was broader and less vertical—good for stability. The surface was layered and cracked.
He chose the shadowed side, where the light didn't quite reach. A shallow recess had already formed near the base, like something had once clawed at the stone, then given up. He decided to start there.
Bone sand poured from his storage pouch in a thin, deliberate stream. It gathered in a mound by his feet, then rose—solidifying into tapered spikes. Li Wei directed them forward, using angled force to strike, shear, and grind.
The process was slow.
The outcrop wasn't like the forest floor. The hard stone had no give, no softness. Every inch resisted. And while the bone sand could shape itself into digging tools, it wasn't ideal for sustained impact work. Each motion required precise modulation—pressure, rotation, pullback. He kept at it regardless, switching between raking layers and grinding spirals.
Hours passed.
Progress came in flakes. Dust and small chunks. His wrists ached. Even with mental control, fine manipulation wore on the mind.
The next layer of stone was tougher—dense, veined, and slow to yield. Li Wei pressed the bone sand harder, guiding it in tight spirals. Progress slowed to a crawl.
Then, without warning, a section cracked.
Not the smooth flake he'd hoped for—this was a sudden, sharp fracture. A wedge of hardened stone snapped free, it struck the lip of the indent first, bouncing once with a dull clink clattered to the floor to the right of his feet.
Li Wei exhaled. He let the bone sand spill out loosely on the ground and stood up, stretching his shoulders. The strain was building. A short break wouldn't hurt.
After a few minutes, he crouched again and moved the bone sand together, pulling it into shape for another round of tapered drilling spikes.
Then paused.
Something was different.
Some of the loose grit and fragments from the shattered rock had been pulled into the condensing bone sand—swept up as he shaped it. The tapered spike that formed was still white, but darker flecks ran through the tip. He hadn't done it deliberately. The material had simply go caught up in the formation.
Curious, he directed the spike toward the stone wall and pushed.
The impact was cleaner. Deeper. More force per pass, and less deformation. The added weight at the front end of the spike gave it bite.
Li Wei stared at the spire.
If I'd known this earlier… Li Wei exhaled through his nose, guiding another spike forward.
The reinforced bone sand carved with far greater efficiency now.
Li Wei worked methodically, testing spike after spike as he hollowed out the stone. As before, he let the bone sand pool at his feet, then shaped it into tapered, narrow spikes. Only now, each formation drew up fragments of the broken rock he'd dislodged earlier—dense shards pressed in among the grains. He couldn't control the stone directly, but packed into the bone sand, it moved as one. Blended by force and shape.