They made camp half a kilometer east of the settlement in a hollow between two fallen trunks. Cover on three sides, open to the south where the ground dropped away and gave them thirty meters of visibility before the trees thickened again.

  Edric took first watch without being asked.

  Cael sat with his back against the larger trunk and opened the Codex. Not looking for anything specific. Just reading what they actually had.

  Name: Cael Ardis

  Cultivation: Unawakened

  Affinity: Lightning / Space / Void

  Potential: ★★☆☆☆

  Skills: Lightning Sense ★☆☆☆☆ · Void Step ★☆☆☆☆

  Codex Seal: 1 of 9 Active

  Codex Fragments: 10

  Unawakened. No Qi stored. Void Step sitting at non-functional. Lightning Sense giving him noise beyond five meters and a headache if he held it too long.

  He pulled Edric's panel.

  Name: Edric

  Cultivation: Mortal Awakening — Early

  Affinity: Earth

  Potential: ★★☆☆☆

  Skills: Stone Sense ★☆☆☆☆ · Steady Foot ★☆☆☆☆

  Early stage. Stone Sense reading ground contacts at distance, useful for scouting, not useful when Harren was already inside arm's reach putting someone through a frame.

  "This is what we have. One person who can't fight at all yet and one who can but not against anyone in that settlement. The third summon arrives unawakened same as I did. No amount of planning closes a three stage gap."

  He looked at the quest log. The system had rewarded firsts consistently. First night survived. First appraisal. First use of Lightning Sense for a full hour. First summon. Every time he did something new the Codex noticed and paid out.

  "It's been tracking what I haven't done yet. Which means there are unlocks I haven't hit because I haven't done the things that trigger them. The system has been ahead of me this whole time and I've only seen the surface of it."

  He looked at the Codex seal status.

  Codex Seal: 1 of 9 Active.

  Eight seals still closed. He had no idea what was behind any of them or what opened them.

  "We don't even know how this world's power actually scales. Early, Mid, Late — the labels exist but what does that mean in practice? How much stronger is Harren than Edric right now? Not on paper. In an actual fight. We've never seen Edric tested against anything real."

  That was the problem underneath the problem. They were planning around numbers they didn't understand yet. Dorath was Late stage and that sounded dangerous but he had no reference point for what Late stage actually felt like from the receiving end.

  "We need to find out what Edric can actually do before we make any decisions about that settlement. And the only way to find that out is to put him in front of something and see."

  He closed the Codex and settled in to sleep.

  He woke to Edric's hand on his shoulder. One press, firm, then nothing. The signal for close and quiet.

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  Cael was upright before his eyes had fully adjusted. He pushed Lightning Sense out instinctively, tight, no wider than five meters.

  There. Four meters north, slightly east. Not moving. Breathing slow and deliberate. Something large that had found their hollow and stopped at the edge of it to decide what they were.

  He killed the sense before the headache built and held up two fingers toward Edric. Then pointed north-northeast.

  Edric had already shifted his weight. Blade drawn, not raised. Watching the dark between the trunks.

  Whatever it was moved.

  Not fast. One step, then another, coming around the eastern trunk rather than over it. Unhurried. The particular patience of something that had decided these two were manageable.

  It came into the broken moonlight through the canopy.

  Cael ran Appraisal before he thought about it.

  Name: Grey Wolf

  Type: Forest Wolf

  Cultivation: Mortal Awakening — Early

  Potential: ★★☆☆☆

  Fate: Uncertain.

  Fate visible. He hadn't expected that — Harren and Voss had come back obscured, Dorath fully locked. But the wolf's Fate line was right there, open.

  "Fate is showing. Dorath and his men came back locked. This one didn't. Maybe it has something to do with how much of a threat something actually is. Maybe not."

  He filed that and moved on. Early stage. Heavier than it looked, low to the ground, built like something that wrestled prey down rather than ran it out. Grey-black coat that had been invisible in the dark until it decided otherwise. Eyes holding the faint moonlight amber.

  It was looking at Cael.

  Not at Edric. Not at the blade. At Cael, the smaller one, no weapon visible, standing slightly behind.

  The wolf lunged.

  Edric was already moving. He stepped into it rather than back, blade angled low, and caught it across the shoulder as it came through. The wolf hit him and took him off his feet but he kept the blade between them the whole way down. They went to the ground together and Edric got a knee up into its chest, pushing it off, rolling clear before it could pin him.

  He was back on his feet before Cael had taken two steps.

  The wolf circled. One foreleg dragging slightly where the blade had opened the shoulder. Still coming forward, still functional, just slower now and angrier.

  Edric waited for it to commit. When it lunged again he sidestepped and hit it clean across the base of the skull with the flat of the blade. The wolf dropped to one knee. Shook its head. Tried to stand and couldn't get the back legs fully under it.

  Edric moved in to finish it.

  The Codex flared.

  NEW QUEST

  Objective: Land the killing blow yourself

  Reward: Unknown

  Note: This cannot be completed by another.

  "Wait," Cael said. "Give me the blade."

  Edric stopped and looked at him.

  "Let me finish it," Cael said. "It'll help us."

  Edric held the blade out handle first without asking further.

  Cael took it. The weight was different from what he expected — balanced toward the tip, made for someone who knew how to use it. He crouched over the wolf. It was on its side, breathing in short pulls, one eye still tracking him. Still alive. Not for long on its own.

  He put the blade to its throat and pushed.

  The Codex pulsed.

  QUEST COMPLETE

  First Blood — Solo Kill Seal 2 of 9 Broken

  New Function Unlocked: Devour

  Devour — Passive Upon killing a living target, absorbs a portion of the target's residual Qi directly into the cultivation base. Absorption rate scales with the target's cultivation level. Cannot be toggled off.

  He read it once. Then closed the panel.

  It had already started.

  A warmth moving through his chest, slow and deliberate, like something being poured into a container it had been searching for. Not painful. Pressure. The kind that sat at the edge of something giving way, deep in the center of his torso, a point he couldn't locate exactly but could feel clearly, straining slightly against what was coming in. Like a door being pushed from the other side for the first time.

  Then it settled. The pressure eased. The warmth stayed.

  Something was different inside him than it had been thirty seconds ago. Not much. But real.

  "You alright," Edric said. There was a cut along his forearm from the first exchange. He hadn't mentioned it.

  "Yes," Cael said. He looked at Edric's arm. "You?"

  "Fine." Edric wiped the blade clean on the grass and held it out handle first.

  Cael handed it back. He sat down against the trunk.

  Edric wrapped his forearm with a strip of cloth, settled into his position, and went back to watching the dark.

  Neither of them spoke again.

  End of Chapter 8