chapter 18 “The Mysterious Crystal”
The fire crackled, sending faint embers into the still air. Lu Yan sat cross-legged near the flames, the scent of roasted meat thick in the air. Across from him, the spirit beasts watched in silence, their glowing eyes reflecting the firelight.
They ate together.
Not as master and servant. Not as enemies forced into uneasy truce.
But as something else.
The largest of them, the one that had first acknowledged him, tore a piece of its hunt with a single snap of its fangs. The bones cracked effortlessly between its teeth, the sound echoing through the quiet cave.
Lu Yan took a bite of his own portion—cooked, unlike theirs, but the act was the same. A shared meal. A moment of silent understanding.
The days passed in a rhythm both strange and natural.
The beasts hunted.
When night fell, they rested near the fire, their breathing deep and steady. Not quite sleep. Not quite wakefulness. Just watching.
The land around them never settled. The world was restless, shifting in ways that made no sense. Some nights, the horizon stretched endlessly. Other times, jagged cliffs rose where there had been open land before.
But the beasts did not care.
They survived.
It was in these quiet days that Lu Yan saw it—the truth of this place.
Not in battle. Not in struggle. But in the small, unspoken details.
The land was not just wild. It was abandoned.
There were ruins half-buried in the earth, remnants of something old, something forgotten. He saw the outlines of buildings, stone foundations covered in thick roots, crumbling walls swallowed by the mist.
The beasts were not just rulers of this place.
They were its last survivors.
Lu Yan ran his fingers along a broken wall one evening, the rough stone cool beneath his touch. Faint carvings marked the surface—symbols he could not read, names lost to time.
He exhaled.
A village. A home. Something had stood here once.
And now, it was dust.
That night, as he sat by the fire, watching the beasts, he understood something else.
They did not just hunt for food.
They hunted because there was nothing else left.
No crops. No trade. No life beyond the endless hunt for survival.
A kind of poverty that went deeper than hunger.
A land that had forgotten what it was to thrive.
The largest beast lifted its head, meeting his gaze across the fire. There was no question in its eyes. No expectation.
Just understanding.
But it wasn't just that drew his attention.
It was a mysterious glow.
Further in, where the darkness should have been absolute, something shimmered.
Lu Yan's eyes narrowed.
Spirit Crystals.
Raw, unrefined, brimming with Qi so dense he could feel it vibrating in the air. Embedded into the walls, scattered across the ground in jagged shards, pulsing with an energy so pure it sent shivers down his spine.
The beasts didn't touch them.
They weaved around the crystals, careful, reverent. As if they understood their worth—or feared what they contained.
Lu Yan crouched, picking up a small shard. It was warm against his fingers, the energy thrumming beneath his skin. He had seen Spirit Crystals before, but these… these were different. The usual ones were pale, their glow faint.
These?
Deep blue. Almost alive.
His Qi stirred at the contact, drinking in the energy instinctively before he forced himself to stop. This wasn't the time. He had to stay sharp.
And then—
His gaze snapped further into the cave.
There, half-buried beneath the dust and time, something stood. Something wrong.
It was not stone. Not crystal.
It was metal.
Lu Yan's heartbeat slowed.
A Crystal.
And not one from his old world and the abyass.
He rose to his feet, his steps measured as he approached. The spirit beasts watched him, their glowing eyes unblinking, their tails still. They sensed it too—this thing did not belong here.
He reached out, brushing away the thick layer of dust and sediment.
The metal beneath was smooth. Black. Not rusted, not corroded by time.
His fingers traced the edge of it—a hilt.
A weapon.
The moment he made full contact, his vision shifted.
A battlefield.
The air thick with the scent of blood and ash.
Shadows moving, clashing, dying.
And above them all—a single figure. Wielding this.
The sword pulsed in his grip.
Lu Yan ripped his hand away.
The vision shattered, the cave rushing back into focus. His breaths were sharp, controlled. His hand tingled, his Qi disturbed.
The beasts let out low, rumbling growls, shifting uneasily.
They knew.
This relic… it was not supposed to be touched.
Not by him.
Not by anyone.
And yet—
[ERROR: ITEM RECOGNIZED]
Lu Yan froze.
The notification shouldn't be there.
His system—has been silent, had just spoken.
The text flickered, lines of unreadable script flashing for a split second before stabilizing.
[UNREGISTERED CRYSTAL IDENTIFIED]
[ORIGIN: UNKNOWN]
[BINDING PROCESS—]
The screen glitched.
Flickered.
Then—
[ACCESS DENIED.]
Lu Yan's fingers clenched.
Denied?
By what?
This wasn't normal. Even when his system was damaged, it had never refused information before. If it couldn't process something, it simply remained silent.
This…
This was different.
The Crystal hummed softly, as if amused. As if waiting.
Lu Yan exhaled, forcing himself to release the hilt. Not now. Not yet.