Elder Mo's brows furrowed. "The grove's instability must be spreading. Faster than we thought."
The City Lord took a long, weighted breath and slammed his palm gently onto the table.
"Then we have no time to waste," he declared.
He turned toward the side of the throne hall and motioned. A bell was struck—deep and resounding. Its echo rolled through the palace like a war drum.
"Send word," the City Lord barked. "To every faction within Blueflame City. To the Sect Alliance. To the Bladebound Circle. To the roaming masters and retired cultivators hiding in shadow. I want everyone—every qualified master and elder, gathered here by the next cycle."
Guards immediately sprinted into action.
A steward stepped forward. "Shall we alert the market lords as well?"
"Yes," the City Lord said. "Many of these materials require coin as much as courage. If there's a mine or a lost ruin that might hold even one of the required ingredients, we'll need trade influence to reach it."
Victor remained quiet as he watched the mobilization unfold in real time.
Messengers flew out on crane beasts. Runes lit up along the palace pillars, transmitting coded pulses across sect-controlled areas. The urgency was no longer hidden, it became the city's heartbeat.
The City Lord turned back to Victor.
"We're doing this in parts," he said. "These materials aren't simple herbs or basic ore. We're talking about spiritbound bark from the Ashen Timberlands, heavenly clay from the Moss Valley Grave, crystal talismans crafted from the feathers of star-ranked beasts."
Victor raised an eyebrow. "All found in places we probably shouldn't be visiting, huh?"
"Correct," the City Lord said. "That's why we'll be dividing them. Each of the cultivators who answer the call will be assigned a recovery task. These are dangerous zones and some... even forbidden. Sending low-tier cultivators would be suicide."
Elder Mo added, "But by spreading the work across all the experts, we stand a chance. We recover what's needed faster. We act before the seal tears open completely."
Victor glanced down at the scroll.
The chains drawn on it were now terrifying... not just for their complexity, but for how fragile they appeared under this new light.
"So what do I do?" he asked. "Wait around until they're gathered?"
The City Lord shook his head. "No. You'll be training."
Victor straightened.
"Training?"
"You're the only one who can enter the Hollow Verdant," Elder Mo stated. "You're also the only person the grove didn't reject due to having the void emperor bloodline.That makes you the key to reestablishing the seals when the time comes."
Victor nodded slowly. "You want me to… actually reinforce the seals?"
The City Lord nodded once. "And for that, you'll need to master Seal Reinforcement Techniques. Your bloodline alone isn't enough. These seals were forged using a mix of array theory, rune carving, talismanic embedding, and spirit-path resonance. You'll have to learn all of it."
Victor didn't flinch. "How long will it take?"
"Normally? Years," Elder Mo said. "But we'll compress it. You'll train under specialists who've spent their lives studying these crafts. Round-the-clock guidance. You'll stay here in the palace during that time."
Victor nodded. "Let's do it."
Tarkos clapped a hand against his shoulder. "You're doing good, kid."
Victor smirked faintly. "Just trying not to die. Again."
The City Lord waved for one of the scribes. "Prepare the west wing's internal cultivation chamber. Victor will need food, ink, supplies, and every sealed scroll we have on reinforcement techniques. Pull from the archives if you have to."
The scribe bowed and vanished into a hallway lined with golden flame motifs.
Victor stared at the timer again...
Two months.
Two quests.
He just had to finish this one first to have enough time to return to Lingyun Town.
---
Hours later, as the sun dipped below the horizon and the sky was drenched in violet light, Victor stood alone in the chamber he'd been assigned.
Scrolls were stacked on every shelf. Diagrams of seals floated around the walls via projected illusions. Runes circled above a worktable of spirit paper, carving tools, and bone needles.
A training robe had been set out for him, and a meal tray steamed nearby.
Victor exhaled slowly.
"Guess I'm a sealsmith now."
A scroll floated in front of him with a glowing title:
> "Pillars of Dimensional Locking: Layered Talisman Weaving & Soul Stabilization through Runes."
"Wow," he muttered. "They really don't believe in small titles."
He rolled up his sleeves.
And started reading.
...
...
Victor spent the next three days fully logged into Ascendant Realms, committed entirely to learning seal reinforcement.
His days began at dawn, inside the west wing of the City Lord's palace, where countless scrolls awaited him, projected across floating disks and layered over practice chambers.
Each scroll was packed with cryptic diagrams with knotwork lines etched into phantom chains, binding arrays overlaid with talisman channels, annotations scribbled in ancient dialects that required secondary scrolls just to interpret.
By day two, Victor had already gone through four practice talisman rolls, two ink stones, and at least seven spiritual focus sessions.
The act of reinforcing a seal wasn't just about laying lines or copying patterns. It required spiritual stability and intention.
Each brushstroke fueled by qi that had to be delivered in a specific rhythm, attuned to the seal's original resonating frequency.
Tarkos visited twice to monitor his progress. Elder Mo oversaw his first live simulation and nodded approvingly when Victor successfully re-inscribed a mock sealing array on a glowing crystal plate.
Still, the pressure mounted.
Every mistake resulted in backflowed qi shocks. Every misaligned rune forced a reset. And by the end of the second day, Victor's hands ached from repeated strokes and his fingertips were permanently stained in arcane ink that glowed faintly in the dark.
Victor was deep into his third day of seal reinforcement training, hunched over a wide scroll where thin runes and delicate binding chains glimmered faintly.
Each stroke of the brush needed to be precise. His focus was steady and honed like a blade. He barely blinked.
So when the training room's doors flew open for the third time that day, his eyebrow twitched.
A lilting and annoyingly familiar voice drifted in.
"You really aren't going to visit me, are you?"
Victor didn't look up. "Xuan Qing…"
"I see," she said before stepping inside uninvited. "You've decided that this room, full of paper and dust, is more important than the only daughter of the man keeping you in this palace."
He finally looked up with a flat stare.
Xuan Qing stood at the edge of the chamber with her hands on her hips. Dressed in an airy silk robe with violet embroidery that complemented her beautiful eyes.
She looked entirely out of place among the scent of ink and ash. Her long black hair trailed behind her like midnight caught in motion.
"You know," Victor spoke while setting his brush down, "most people knock."
"I'm not most people," she said breezily, but her voice lacked its usual bite. "You haven't come by once."
Victor raised a brow. "I told you I was training."
She folded her arms under her chest. "So? You still could've said hello. I even waited on the terrace yesterday with two cups of sweet lotus tea. One of them went cold."
He sighed while rubbing his temples. "You seriously want me to leave ancient rune training and go drink tea while the world's collapsing?"
"Yes," she answered without hesitation and then spoke with a softer tone; "But I know you won't."
Victor stared at her.
Xuan Qing huffed and looked away, brushing her hair back. "You're so mean to me lately."
"Because I told you to stop barging into my room."
She pouted but didn't argue. Instead, she walked over to the side of his desk and leaned just enough to peek at the scroll he was working on.
Her voice lowered a little. "Your talisman spacing's improved. You're not using brute force like the first day."
Victor blinked at her. "Wait. You've been paying attention?"
She rolled her eyes. "I've watched you mess up five times this morning alone. Don't act surprised. I'm not blind."
There was an awkward pause before Victor muttered, "…Thanks."
She turned to him fully with a blank expression for a moment.
"I just thought," she voiced quietly, "maybe you'd want someone to talk to. Since everyone else here is just trying to make you save the world." Sёarᴄh the NovelZone.fun website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.
Victor frowned.
Then he spoke, softer this time. "When I'm done with the first phase of reinforcement studies, I'll stop by the terrace. But only if there's sweet lotus tea."
Xuan Qing's eyes lit up for just a moment before she covered it with an over-the-top scoff.
"Hmph. Don't act like you're doing me a favor."
But she was already backing toward the door, visibly satisfied. Just before she stepped out, she added without looking back, "Don't forget. I'm keeping the tea warm this time."
Then the doors shut with a quiet snap.
Victor stared at the rune scroll for a long second before murmuring, "She really is something else…"
And for the first time that day, he smirked.