Two months had passed.
The cauldron sat silent, its last fire long cooled. Twenty successful pills now rested in jade containers, tucked safely into his storage pouch.
Jian Wuxin leaned against the stone wall of his room, arms crossed, body tired but tempered.
Then, the whisper came.
Not urgent. Not hungry.
Calm. Focused.
> "You've worked well, thief. Now you are ready for something greater."
His eyes opened.
"The banner," he muttered.
It pulsed in his storage pouch.
> "There is a realm inside me. A sealed space soaked in Qi—a battlefield, a graveyard, and a furnace of rebirth."
Jian sat up.
"You have a pocket world?"
> "No… not a realm made by formation or tool. It is the soul-space of the weapon itself. A domain formed from the essence of one I consumed long ago."
The banner's voice darkened, but not with menace—with memory.
> "A Nascent Soul elder. One who fled death… but could not escape me. His Qi lingers within me still. His mind is shattered, but a sliver sleeps—hidden deep within the folds of my silk. His death enriched me… and now, it can enrich you."
Jian Wuxin was silent for a moment.
"You're saying I can cultivate inside you?"
> "Yes. Physically. Enter my fold with your full body. To others, I will become invisible and intangible—you will vanish without trace. Hidden. Untouchable."
"And the soul fragment?"
> "Sleeping. Dangerous if awakened. But useful. If you raise a puppet to Golden Core, and anchor that fragment inside it… you may revive his knowledge, his memories—his techniques."
Jian's breath caught.
> "A Nascent Soul elder as a puppet..."
> "...Or a master you command."
He didn't speak for a while.
Then the banner added, slower, more calculating:
> "Also—know this. If you place a Qi-Gathering Formation within your quarters, I can absorb its excess Qi from here. I am capable of absorbing all forms of Qi—pure, elemental, spiritual. Anything that flows, I feed from."
Jian Wuxin's eyes narrowed. "And then?"
> "If you plant herbs within me… or embed ores… I will transform them slowly. They will become Ghostly Herbs, Ghostly Ores—twisted echoes of their natural forms, infused with soul essence. Stronger. Stranger. But they take time."
He stood up, heart pounding now.
"How much time?"
> "Time within me is not equal to time outside. For every month outside… nearly three months pass within me. You have ten months of freedom remaining—use them here, and it will feel like over two years of cultivation."
Jian Wuxin stood in still silence, mind racing.
A world that fed him Qi. A space that warped time. A sleeping Nascent Soul. A forge of Ghostly power.
"Then show me."
The banner uncoiled in his hand, silk unraveling with a hiss of wind and soul.
He stepped forward.
And the instant he touched the core...
His entire body vanished.
---
He awoke standing—feet on dark mist, mountains floating above, rivers of soul-light flowing around him.
Chains of silk twisted through the sky. Broken puppets floated in the distance. And at the center of it all...
A sealed coffin, wrapped in spiritual chains and leaking golden-red Qi.
Even sealed, its aura pressed against him like a collapsing world.
> "That… is the fragment," the banner said. "You are not ready to touch it yet. But cultivate here. Feed your spirit. Grow."
Jian Wuxin looked around.
And for the first time, stood fully within the battlefield of power buried inside his own weapon.
---