Chapter 6: Walking Through the Training Grounds
Owen Chen woke to the sound of Elder Zhao screaming.
This was not unusual. Elder Zhao screamed the way other people breathed — constantly, involuntarily, and with the assumption that everyone around him wanted to hear it. What was unusual was the content.
"WHO DID THIS?"
Owen opened his eyes. The ceiling formation was still dead. The room was lit by grey morning light that filtered through the curtain and illuminated a thin layer of white dust on every surface. The dust was not ordinary dust. Ordinary dust was the product of erosion, time, and the general entropy of existence. This dust was the product of spiritual energy being removed so thoroughly that the plants it had once animated simply gave up and disintegrated.
Fatty Wang was eating a steamed bun. He had a second one in his left hand and a third balanced on his stomach like a dinner plate.
"How long have you been awake?" Owen asked.
"Since the screaming started. Twenty minutes, maybe." Fatty Wang took a bite. "Also, there are six maintenance workers outside our window, two elders, and someone is crying."
Owen sat up. Through the curtain, he could see movement — shadows crossing the moonlit dust that had been the herb garden. The white powder lay across the garden beds like snow, perfectly level, perfectly dead. Where Silverthread Sage and Spirit Lotus had once grown in fragrant, luminous rows, there was now a flat expanse of mineral residue and one very angry elder.
Elder Zhao stood at the center of the garden. He was holding a stalk of what had once been Thousand-Year Ginseng. It was now a brittle white twig that crumbled in his fist. His bald head caught the morning light. His robes were wrinkled. He had not slept. Owen could tell because the vein on Elder Zhao's temple was pulsing at a rate that suggested either extreme rage or a medical emergency, and with Elder Zhao, those were often the same thing.
"This garden," Elder Zhao said to the maintenance workers, "was planted by Sect Founder Yun himself. Two hundred years ago. The Thousand-Year Ginseng alone took sixty years to mature. The Silverthread Sage was transplanted from the Southern Cloud Mountains at the cost of three inner disciple missions." He held up the crumbling twig. "And now it is powder. White powder. Every single plant. Reduced to—" He crushed the twig. It dissolved. "—this."
A maintenance worker raised his hand. "Elder Zhao, the damage pattern is concentric. It radiates outward from—"
"I can see where it radiates from!" Elder Zhao spun toward the dormitory building. Toward Owen's window. "SECOND FLOOR! EASTERN WING! ROOM FOURTEEN!"
Room Fourteen. Owen's room.
"Fatty Wang," Owen said, very quietly.
"Yeah?"
"Is there a back door to this room?"
"There's a window."
"We're on the second floor."
"Then there's a very effective back door." Fatty Wang finished his bun and reached for the third one. "Also, I should mention that Elder Zhao is coming up the stairs. I can hear his footsteps. They sound like someone stamping on a floor they personally resent."
The footsteps grew louder. The door rattled. Then it opened — not with a knock, but with the particular energy of a man who had abandoned politeness as a concept.
Elder Zhao filled the doorway. He was not a large man, but anger had a way of making people occupy more space than physics allowed. His eyes swept the room: the dead formation, the white dust on the windowsill, the hole in the wall from Fatty Wang's sleep-punch, and Owen, sitting on his bed with the expression of someone who had just been caught in a rainstorm and wanted to explain that he had not ordered the rain.
"Chen Baijiu."
"Owen Chen."
"I don't care what your name is!" Elder Zhao stepped inside. The maintenance workers clustered behind him like a small, frightened flock. "The herb garden has been destroyed. Every plant — every single plant — reduced to spiritual dust. The damage originates from this room. From YOUR window. Explain."
Owen opened his mouth. What came out was: "The formations are old."
Elder Zhao blinked.
"The garden plants," Owen continued, because his mouth had apparently decided to operate independently of his brain's quality control department, "were probably due for replacement anyway. Two hundred years is a long time for ginseng. And the eastern wing's spiritual infrastructure hasn't been upgraded since — what, the last maintenance cycle was eight years ago? The formation arrays are outdated. The Qi cycling system is probably—
"Are you—" Elder Zhao's eye twitched. "Are you lecturing me about INFRASTRUCTURE?"
"No! I'm just saying that systemic failures—
"SYSTEMIC FAILURES?" Elder Zhao's voice hit a pitch that made the maintenance workers wince. "Three people collapsed during my lecture because of you. TEN YEARS of my cultivation vanished because you were STANDING NEARBY. And now an irreplaceable herb garden has been reduced to DUST — dust that radiates from YOUR window — and you want to talk about INFRASTRUCTURE?"
Owen said nothing. This was the correct response. He had learned, over three days of catastrophic social interactions, that silence was the only defense that Elder Zhao could not interpret as a personal attack.
Elder Zhao stared at him. The vein on his temple was now pulsing in a rhythm that Owen suspected could be measured in Hertz.
"Effective immediately," Elder Zhao said, "you are reassigned to supervised cultivation. You will train in the open training grounds, in full view of all senior disciples and instructors, where your... condition... can be monitored." He pointed a finger that trembled with restrained violence. "If one more thing breaks, one more plant dies, one more disciple so much as SNEEZES in your vicinity, I will personally escort you to the sect gate. Do you understand?"
"Yes, Elder Zhao."
"Good." He turned to leave. Stopped. Looked at the hole in the wall. "What happened to my wall?"
Fatty Wang raised his hand. "I punched it. In my sleep."
Elder Zhao stared at the hole. Stared at Fatty Wang. Stared at the hole again. "In your sleep."
"Yes, sir. I've been doing that apparently. It's new."
Elder Zhao left. The sound of his footsteps descending the stairs was the sound of a man composing a formal complaint in his head.
The training grounds of Azure Cloud Sect occupied a wide stone terrace carved into the hillside below the elder peaks. It was the social heart of the outer disciple community — a place to practice forms, spar with peers, and pretend to be meditating while actually gossiping. On a normal morning, two dozen disciples would be scattered across the terrace, punching air and ignoring each other.
Today there were eight. They stood in clusters of two and three, well apart, and they were all looking at Owen.
This was not the kind of looking that meant interest or admiration. It was the kind of looking that meant a person had arrived at the scene of a disaster and the disaster was walking toward them with its hands in its pockets.
Owen crossed the terrace. The eight disciples parted around him like water around a stone — not aggressively, not even consciously, but with the fluid, instinctive movement of people who had heard the rumors and believed every word. Three collapses in Lecture Hall C. Ten years of Elder Zhao's cultivation, gone. The herb garden, destroyed overnight. Walking Disaster. Void Boy. Trash Disciple.
Owen had learned several names for himself in the past three days. None of them were compliments.
He found an empty corner of the terrace and stood there. The training grounds were open air, surrounded by practice formations, weapon racks, and a row of spirit-reinforced posts for impact training. The morning was clear. Spiritual energy was visible in the air as a faint shimmer, concentrated around the formations and posts where Qi pooled naturally.
Owen could feel it. Not with any technique or skill — he had neither — but with the awareness of a person standing next to a fire. The energy was warm, present, alive. And his dantian was hungry.
He took a breath. The dantian pulsed.
On the far side of the terrace, three senior outer disciples were practicing combat techniques. They were good — or at least, they were better than Owen, which was a category that included every sentient organism in the sect and possibly several of the plants. Their names were Hao Jun, Liu Fang, and Zhang Wei, and they had been practicing together for two years with the disciplined focus of people who intended to rank up at the next examination.
Hao Jun launched a Palm Strike at a practice post. His Qi flared, visible as a blue-white glow around his fist. The post cracked. Good strike. He grinned.
Owen was twelve meters away.
The shimmer in the air dimmed. Not everywhere — just in a localized radius centered on the quiet new kid who was standing with his hands in his pockets, thinking about breakfast.
Hao Jun drew back for another strike. His Qi flickered. Flickered again. He threw the Palm Strike anyway — and his fist passed through the post with roughly the force of a firm handshake.
The post did not crack. Hao Jun's knuckles met stone without the spiritual reinforcement that was supposed to cushion the impact. Pain shot up his arm.
"What the—" He shook his hand. "My Qi just dropped."
Liu Fang, mid-kick, stumbled. Her foot hit the ground instead of the target because the spiritual energy that had been supporting her levitation technique simply wasn't there anymore. She caught herself on the practice ring's railing.
"My reserves are down," she said. "Something's wrong with the ambient energy."
Zhang Wei, who had been channeling a sword form, felt his Qi congeal and thin. The visible glow around his practice sword — a cheap spirit-infused loaner — went from bright blue to pale grey in the space of three breaths. He lowered the sword and stared at it.
"I just lost half my reserves," he said. "Standing still. How do you lose reserves standing still?"
They looked around. The terrace was wide, the formations were active, and spiritual energy should have been abundant. But it wasn't. In a specific, roughly circular area centered on the southeast corner of the terrace, the air had gone thin and dead, like a pocket of high altitude in a sea-level landscape.
In the southeast corner, Owen Chen was wondering if the cafeteria served breakfast this early.
╔══════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║ MISSION 6 AVAILABLE! ║
║ ║
║ Mission: Make eye contact with a stranger ║
║ for more than 5 seconds without looking ║
║ away. ║
║ ║
║ Difficulty: Hard (Social anxiety detected) ║
║ ║
║ Reward: +15 Composure ║
║ (Composure has been needed since Day 1) ║
║ ║
║ Penalty for failure: +50 Embarrassment ║
║ Penalty for failure: Public hiccups ║
║ Penalty for failure: You owe the System ║
║ 4 favors. (Total: 7) ║
║ ║
║ Time limit: 60 seconds ║
║ ║
║ NOTE: This mission was originally designed ║
║ for someone with social skills. ║
║ We apologize for the mix-up. ║
╚══════════════════════════════════════════════╝
Owen read the mission. He was already failing it — his eyes were on the System interface, not on any stranger. The timer had started.
He looked up, trying to find someone to make eye contact with. Every disciple within line of sight was actively avoiding his gaze. It was like trying to lock eyes with a flock of startled pigeons.
The timer hit forty seconds. Owen spotted a disciple near the weapon rack and tried to stare at him. The disciple noticed, panicked, and pretended to be deeply interested in a sword he was holding backwards.
Twenty seconds. Owen looked at the maintenance worker crossing the terrace. The maintenance worker, who had heard about Lecture Hall C, suddenly needed to be on the other side of the terrace. Urgently.
Ten seconds.
The timer hit zero.
MISSION FAILED.
+50 Embarrassment applied.
Public hiccups activating in 3... 2...
ERROR: Hiccups module crashed.
Falling back to: Mild Indigestion.
Enjoy.
Owen felt a slight pressure in his stomach. That was it. The System's punishment, reduced by its own incompetence to a mild inconvenience.
He looked up from the interface.
A girl was standing in front of him.
She was maybe seventeen, with the kind of composed, efficient posture that suggested she had been trained to walk correctly before she had been trained to fight. Her outer disciple robes were bright white — freshly laundered, Qi-infused, the mark of someone who took the sect's dress code seriously. She held a small jade tablet in one hand and wore the expression of a person who needed directions and was not going to let any amount of social awkwardness stop her.
"You're in the southeast corner," she said.
Owen considered this. "Yes."
"The southeast corner is designated for Qi Condensation practice. You're blocking the practice formation."
Owen looked behind him. A faintly glowing circle was carved into the stone — a basic Qi-gathering formation that was supposed to help disciples absorb ambient energy. It was not glowing faintly anymore. It was not glowing at all. Where Owen stood, the formation had gone dark, its carved lines grey and lifeless.
He stepped aside. The formation did not reactivate.
"The formation is dead," the girl observed.
"Formations do that sometimes," Owen said.
"Formations don't just die. They're maintained by the sect's core arrays. They last centuries." She crouched and examined the carved lines. Placed her palm against the stone. Frowned. "There's no residual Qi in the formation at all. It's been completely drained."
"Probably old infrastructure."
She stood up and looked at him. Her eyes were sharp — the eyes of someone who was accustomed to noticing things other people missed and being right about it. "What's your name?"
"Owen Chen."
"I'm here on behalf of the Training Grounds Supervisor. She wants to know who was assigned to the southeast corner this morning."
"Me, apparently."
"You're the one who drained Lecture Hall C."
"I didn't drain anything. I was trying to cultivate."
"You destroyed the herb garden."
"I was sleeping."
She studied him for a moment. Then she looked down at her robes.
The bright white fabric was flickering. Not in the way formations flickered — slowly, predictably, with a pattern. This was fast. Stuttering. The white was jumping to dull grey and back to white, like a candle flame in a draft, except the draft was spiritual energy and the flame was the Qi woven into the fabric of her cultivation robe.
She noticed.
She looked at her sleeve. The white was holding now — mostly — but the hem had gone grey. Not dirty-grey. Not stained-grey. The particular flat grey of fabric that had been Qi-infused and was no longer Qi-infused, because the Qi had been removed by something standing within arm's reach.
"What—" She touched the hem. Rubbed it between her fingers. "My robe. It's—"
"Cheaply made," Owen said immediately, because his brain had identified a problem and generated the most helpful response it could, which was not very helpful at all. "The Qi-infusion on the hem must have been a rush job. You should complain to the supply office."
She stared at her robe. Then at him. Then at the dead formation behind him. Then at the dead formation behind where he had been standing before he moved.
"The formation died," she said slowly. "My robe lost its Qi infusion. Both happened while you were standing here."
"Coincidence."
"You think?"
"I think that the sect's maintenance has been declining for years. The herb garden collapsed last night. Formations are failing. Robes are degrading. It's all connected." Owen nodded, because he believed this. He genuinely believed this. The evidence pointed to it, if you looked at the evidence from a specific angle, in specific lighting, while ignoring several key pieces of it. "The sect needs to invest in infrastructure."
She looked at him for a long time. Then she looked at her robe one more time, where the grey had spread from the hem to the mid-thigh.
"I'm going to report this," she said.
"Report the robe?"
"Report all of it." She turned and walked away, one hand on her robe's grey hem, the jade tablet pressed against her chest.
Owen watched her go. His dantian hummed, content, full of stolen energy from a dead formation, three practitioners' reserves, and the Qi from a stranger's clothing.
He looked at the dead formation at his feet. He looked at the three senior disciples across the terrace, who were examining their empty Qi reserves with the expressions of men who had just been robbed. He looked at the grey hem of a girl's robe disappearing around a corner.
Something was wrong. Something was obviously, catastrophically, undeniably wrong, and it was centered on him, and it was getting worse.
But Owen Chen's dantian was crippled. Everyone said so. His cultivation level was ERROR: VALUE OVERFLOW. He had no technique, no talent, no spiritual root worth mentioning. He was a trash disciple with a broken core, assigned to a sect that was clearly in need of better maintenance.
The dead formation beneath his feet was someone else's problem.
The grey robe was a laundry issue.
The three empty disciples were having a bad morning.
And Owen Chen walked off the training grounds to find breakfast, because the cafeteria might not serve this early, but Fatty Wang kept emergency buns under his pillow, and Owen was starting to think that emergency food was going to be a recurring theme in his life.
Behind him, in the shadow of the practice posts, a girl with sharp eyes opened a leather notebook and wrote in small, precise characters:
Entry 4: Training Grounds, Southeast Corner. Formation drained. Three senior practitioners lost measurable Qi reserves. One disciple's robe lost Qi-infusion in real time. All incidents within 10 meters of Owen Chen. Pattern continues. Hypothesis revised: he is not suppressing energy. He is not hiding talent. Something is extracting spiritual energy from everything near him — and he has no idea it's happening.
She paused. Added one more line:
He told her the robe was cheaply made. He is either the most oblivious person alive, or the greatest actor I have ever seen.
She closed the notebook and tucked it into her sleeve. Lily had always believed in thorough observation. And what she was observing did not make sense — which meant there was more to see.