The moment we materialized back in the Core Palace gardens, Qing Yu ambushed me.

"Fight. Now."

I barely had time to process her appearance before her hand clamped around my wrist with lightning-enhanced grip. Emma and Nyx's laughter echoed behind me as I got dragged toward the palace arena.

"Wait, I just got back from—"

"No excuses." Her sharp eyes held that familiar predatory intensity. "I just reached Meridian Opening eighth layer. Time for a rematch."

She'd improved dramatically over the past months, but Spirit Awakening gave me advantages she couldn't comprehend yet. Spiritual sense alone changed everything.

Emma's amusement rippled through our imprint. (Have fun.)

Traitors. Both of them.

The arena materialized around us, five hundred miles of dirt stretching beneath dual moons. Qing Yu released my wrist and moved to the opposite end, her black and crimson armor flowing into place. The twin chakrams appeared in her hands, lightning already crackling across her body.

I summoned my coat and Phantom Sword, nine copies shimmering into existence. But this time, I extended my spiritual sense outward in a ten-foot radius, subtle threads of consciousness mapping the battlefield with precision my eyes alone could never achieve.

She launched forward before the barrier finished activating.

Lightning surged through her meridians as she closed the distance, chakrams spinning with deadly precision. Her opening combination targeted my liver and throat simultaneously—the same attack she'd used in our last three matches.

I sidestepped with Void Step, but my spiritual sense tracked her adjustment mid-charge. She redirected instantly, both chakrams carving toward my new position before I finished materializing.

My sword met her weapons, deflecting with minimal movement. The spiritual threads showed me her weight distribution, the tension in her shoulders, the micro-adjustments in her grip. I read her next three strikes before she committed to them.

She attacked with brutal efficiency, chakrams blurring through combinations refined across months of practice. Each strike carried explosive power backed by lightning vital energy. Each movement flowed with martial arts principles perfected through countless arena deaths.

I parried everything, spiritual sense giving me awareness she couldn't match. Her feints registered in my consciousness before her muscles finished the motion. Her killing intent projected fractionally before each genuine strike.

Frustration built behind her controlled expression.

I pressed forward, Temporal Echo making my sword strike at three perceived timings. She blocked too early, muscle memory betraying her. My blade slipped past her guard, connecting against her ribs. The armor absorbed most impact, but I felt the hit land.

She hissed, lightning surging brighter. Her chakrams became silver blurs, attacking from angles that would overwhelm most opponents.

My spiritual sense tracked both weapons simultaneously, reading trajectories my eyes couldn't follow. I deflected the right chakram, redirected the left, and caught both on my blade in a twist that should have disarmed her.

Her fingers tightened, lightning flooding her arms to maintain grip.

We separated, circling. Her sharp eyes studied me with increasing intensity, cataloging the changes in my fighting style. She couldn't see my spiritual sense, but she recognized something had shifted.

She attacked again, this time abandoning her usual patterns. Pure improvisation backed by combat instinct, trying to overwhelm predictive ability with chaos.

It almost worked.

My spiritual sense struggled with genuine randomness, the threads unable to predict movements she hadn't decided yet. Her chakram grazed my shoulder, cutting through fabric before my armor's inscriptions deflected the blade.

I responded with Spatial Echo, my sword appearing to strike from three different locations. She blocked the wrong one. My blade connected with her wrist, spiritual energy disrupting her grip.

The chakram flew from her hand, spinning through air before embedding in dirt thirty feet away.

She didn't hesitate. The second chakram came at my throat with redoubled intensity, her free hand forming lightning-enhanced strikes. Pure hand-to-hand combat woven between weapon attacks.

I dismissed my Phantom Sword, meeting her on equal terms. Fist against fist, palm against elbow, knee against thigh. Jihasti's millennia of martial experience flowed through my movements, reading her Bajiquan patterns, countering her Wing Chun deflections.

We grappled, trading positions in rapid succession. Her lightning made her fast, but my spiritual sense showed me openings before they fully formed. I caught her wrist, twisted, used her momentum to drive her face-first into the dirt.

She rolled, her remaining chakram slashing toward my hamstring. I jumped, spiritual threads tracking the blade's arc. My foot came down on her weapon hand, pinning it against the ground.

She released the chakram, both hands free now. Lightning surged as she tried bucking me off, pure physical strength enhanced by vital energy.

I dropped my weight, knee pressing against her spine, hands catching her wrists. My spiritual sense mapped every muscle in her body, showing me exactly where to apply pressure to immobilize her completely.

She squirmed, trying to escape the pin. But her armor's high-quality beast fabric made her body surprisingly soft as she wriggled beneath me. Heat flooded my face as I realized how intimate this position had become.

I started backing off, not wanting Emma to misunderstand through our imprint—

Qing Yu twisted her head, lightning-fast movement bringing her lips against mine.

The kiss lasted maybe half a second before she spoke against my mouth.

"I yield."

The rescue formation activated, spatial energy wrapping around her body. She dissolved into white light, leaving me kneeling alone in the dirt with my face burning crimson.

Emma's shocked amusement exploded through our connection, followed immediately by Nyx's feline laughter.

What the hell just happened?

By the time I left the arena, Qing Yu was already gone. What the hell was that kiss for?

I replayed the moment in my mind, analyzing it with the same precision my spiritual sense had tracked her combat movements. The kiss had caught me completely off-guard, but my instincts had screamed trap. I'd been half expecting it to be her way of distracting me—some clever ploy to catch me vulnerable before a secret counterattack. So I'd paid less attention to the kiss itself and focused my senses on the rest of her, spiritual threads monitoring every muscle for the slightest hint of deception.

But then she'd yielded, and the fight was over. No hidden blade. No lightning surge. Just surrender and spatial teleportation.

I stepped through the arena exit and found Emma waiting, Nyx perched on her shoulder in panther form. I braced myself, half expecting Emma to express her anger. The kiss had been brief, but our imprint meant she'd experienced every detail.

Instead, she laughed.

"That was completely one-sided." Her amusement rippled through our connection, genuine and unbothered. "She didn't stand a chance. Spiritual sense is such an unfair advantage."

I blinked, searching our imprint for any trace of jealousy or hurt. But she barely registered the kiss as anything important—just another detail in a combat match she'd found entertaining.

'As long as she's not unhappy, it doesn't matter.'

I relaxed slightly. I could only just move on, take it as my negligence for not anticipating Qing Yu's... unconventional surrender tactics.

But then I looked at Nyx.

The panther's silver-violet eyes held distinct displeasure, her tail lashing behind Emma's neck. Before I could ask what made her angry, she shifted to human form mid-leap, landing in my arms with surprising weight.

Her lips pressed against my cheek in a quick, possessive kiss.

"No fair!" Her pale face flushed crimson as she spoke. "As your second wife, the second kiss should have been mine!"

I thought to myself, 'Okay, but I've had girlfriends before Emma, so the second kiss happened a long time ago.' But of course, I didn't voice that nor share it through my imprint. Some truths were better left unspoken.

Right after her declaration, Nyx shyly dove into Emma's shadow space, disappearing like smoke. I stood there with my arms still raised from catching her, having no idea what to do.

I coughed awkwardly, half expecting Emma to be mad at me again.

She felt my expectation through our imprint. "What?"

Her expression showed genuine confusion, completely oblivious to whatever reaction I'd anticipated. The contrast between my anxiety and her casual demeanor almost made me laugh.

"Nothing." I lowered my arms, still processing the last five minutes. "Just... wasn't expecting today to go this direction."

"You mean the kiss?" Emma grinned, stepping closer. "Qing Yu's been obsessed with strength since forever. You dominated her completely. That was probably her way of acknowledging you're worthy."

"Worthy of what?"

"Who knows?" She shrugged, taking my hand. "Maybe she'll challenge you to a rematch tomorrow and explain. Or maybe she'll pretend it never happened. Either way, you're overthinking it."

Through our imprint, I felt her complete lack of concern. The kiss genuinely didn't bother her. Which somehow made the whole situation more confusing.

Nyx's muffled voice emerged from Emma's shadow. "Still not fair."

Emma leaned in, her lips meeting mine in a soft kiss that lingered far longer than Qing Yu's surprise attack. Through our imprint, I felt her affection and amusement in equal measure.

"I need to go practice with Nyx." She pulled back with a smile. "We're working on a duet for the next concert. Her debut as my singing partner is going to break the internet."

A muffled sound of agreement emerged from her shadow.

"Good luck." I squeezed her hand before releasing it.

She walked toward the palace interior, her midnight blue dress flowing behind her. I watched until she disappeared through the doorway, then turned toward the gardens.

 After Emma left, I found an empty cultivation chamber and sealed the door behind me. The quiet space gave me room to work without interruption.

I reached through my connection to the world bead, pulling several chunks of Void Essence Ore from where we'd left them on Spatium. The dark gray material materialized in front of me, its surface warping space with subtle distortions that made my eyes water if I stared too long.

Nyx had been forced to abandon her collection after discovering the ore couldn't enter her storage ring or follow her into Emma's shadow space. She'd only agreed after I promised the Heavenly Dao would deliver a piece to her palace room later. The connection she shared with me gave her limited access to communicate with the world bead's consciousness, enough to make small requests like that.

I summoned my low quality spiritual furnace, setting it on the chamber floor alongside various supplementary materials. Thermal Copper. Quicksilver Iron. Condensation Jade. Everything I'd need to craft a world ring.

Different from a storage ring, the space inside a world ring was real. Time flowed normally. Plants could grow. Living creatures could survive. Storage rings froze everything in temporal stasis, perfect for preserving food or keeping items unchanged. But world rings offered something storage rings could never provide—a private dimensional pocket suitable for cultivation gardens or beast companions.

Technically, I didn't need one. The world bead provided infinitely better space. But I wanted to craft a world ring anyway, if only to prove I could. Even Jihasti hadn't owned one. They were that incredibly rare.

I could use the Void Essence Ore's natural pocket dimension directly, but refining it into a proper artifact would improve functionality dramatically. First, I could layer standard storage ring inscriptions over the world ring's true nature. Anyone examining it would see an ordinary storage ring unless they were blood bonded to it. Second, a properly refined world ring could enter the body like my divine sword and other blood-bonded artifacts. Normal storage rings and simple artifacts couldn't do that—they were too crude, lacking the refinement needed for internal storage.

Of course, a world ring qualified as a medium quality spiritual artifact. That made all the difference. And all the difficulty.

Medium quality artifacts required precision and strength far beyond my current capabilities. The inscriptions needed to be perfect, the materials balanced exactly, and the vital energy had to be stronger.

But I had the world bead.

I reached through our connection, requesting assistance. The Heavenly Dao's response came as a warm pulse of acknowledgment. It would supplement the strength I lacked, guiding my hands and stabilizing the energy flows during critical moments.

I selected the smallest chunk of Void Essence Ore, roughly the size of a marble. The pocket space contained within this one was only about ten feet—too small to be very useful, but it would serve as good practice.

The furnace hummed as I activated its inscriptions, multiple flames appearing within the chamber. Heat retention formations kept every degree of temperature contained while my sensory inscriptions fed information directly to my spiritual sense.

I placed the Void Essence Ore inside, watching as space warped around the material. The furnace's heat wouldn't melt it like normal ore—Void Essence couldn't liquify. But extreme temperatures could soften it enough to mold into proper shape.

The trick was maintaining precise control. Too much heat and I'd collapse the pocket dimension entirely, destroying the ore's value. Too little and the material would resist shaping, forcing me to apply physical pressure that could crack the dimensional structure.

This would take time.

I settled into meditation, monitoring the furnace while simultaneously circulating vital energy through my meridians. The ore would need hours to reach the proper temperature before I could begin actual refinement.

The world bead's consciousness touched mine, offering patient encouragement.

I smiled slightly, closing my eyes.

MyselfYourself

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