The training courtyard was a wreck.
Scorch marks from the morning's fight. Cracked stone. Blood drying in the afternoon light. Someone had dragged the unconscious Wolf fighters away but nobody had cleaned anything else.
Xin stood in the center of it and breathed.
His new cultivation was extraordinary and terrifying in equal measure. The two halves of Longwei's core had merged into something that did not feel like Second Gate anymore. Master Zhou had checked him twice and both times gone quiet in a way that communicated more than words.
"What Gate am I at?" Xin had asked.
"The normal Gates do not quite apply to you anymore," Master Zhou had said carefully.
That was either very good or very bad.
He did not have time to find out which.
"Stop standing there looking dramatic," Mei said
