Ultimate Magus in Cultivation World

Tian Lei rose in one fluid motion, the hem of his robe whispering across the stones. He sheathed his blade with a soft click that seemed to punctuate the morning air.

"We leave within the hour," he said, voice like still water—calm, but carrying weight.

Yuxin lounged back against the bench, tilting her head so sunlight pooled like gold along her veil. "Such urgency," she murmured. "One might almost think you enjoy our death-defying schedule."

"I enjoy completing objectives."

"Mm." Her eyes curved with quiet amusement. "Cold efficiency. So comforting."

Tian Lei ignored the jab as he unrolled the next mission slip, a ribbon of crimson paper marked with the Sect's silver seal. The characters gleamed faintly as spiritual light threaded across them.

Mission — The Weeping Vale

Objective: Exorcise the spirit haunting the moonwell shrine.

Hazards: Hostile phantoms, spiritual corrosion, emotional resonance anomalies.

Yuxin's brow arched delicately. "Emotional resonance anomalies. That sounds… delightfully vague."

"It means the spirit feeds on grief," Tian Lei said, folding the slip again. "Contact with it may trigger emotional projection."

"Oh," she said lightly, "so it's a melancholy ghost. How poetic. Perhaps it just wants a hug."

"Then you may offer it one."

"Mm. I'll let it cry on your shoulder. You have the emotional range of a particularly stoic boulder."

He did not reply—which, in fairness, only supported her point.

—

They departed the city soon after, the crane's wings beating a steady rhythm as it bore them southward. The landscape rolled past in shifting hues: green paddies glittering with morning dew, scattered villages still cloaked in cooking-smoke, then on into wild country where the forests grew dense and silver mist crawled low across the ground like drifting breath.

By dusk, they saw it:

The Weeping Vale.

A sunken hollow cradled between two black cliffs, the trees warped and pale as bone. Thin rivulets of water bled constantly down the rock faces, as though the cliffs themselves wept. At the center lay the moonwell shrine—a small stone pavilion half-collapsed, its lanterns long-dead, its reflecting pool dark and still as obsidian.

The moment they stepped off the crane, the temperature plummeted. Their breath fogged white. No birds sang. Even the wind seemed reluctant to touch this place.

Yuxin adjusted her veil with deliberate grace, though her voice was softer than usual. "…Cheerful little oasis."

Tian Lei's gaze swept the shrine. "Soul Sense detects no living presence."

"That," she said, "is not comforting."

They approached the moonwell. The water's surface mirrored the darkening sky—but the reflection lagged, just slightly behind their movements, like watching a memory of themselves.

A ripple stirred.

And a figure rose silently from the water.

A woman—or what had once been one. Her form was little more than tattered wisps of mourning silks trailing from a skeletal frame of pale spirit-light. Where her face should have been was only a smooth hollow mask, from which endless tears of black water streamed. Her voice came as a layered whisper, overlapping itself, echoing from nowhere and everywhere.

"Leave… or drown… in what you cannot forget…"

Yuxin's fingers tightened on her sword hilt, yet her eyes gleamed with quiet focus. "Ah. So not the hugging type."

The spirit's wail struck like a shockwave—grief made sound, a crushing tidal pull that clawed at their hearts. Memories surged unbidden: Yuxin's mind flooded with the ghost of a funeral she had never attended, faces she had never known. Tian Lei saw a battlefield of ash, nameless corpses falling under his blade.

He exhaled once. Then his Soul Qi surged like a thunderclap, snapping the illusions like spider silk.

"Anchor your mind," he said.

Yuxin's laugh was thin, sharp-edged. "Oh, certainly—just give me a moment to barricade my psyche."

The spirit lashed out, tendrils of mourning-silk whipping like scythes. Tian Lei met them head-on, sword flashing arcs of silver light that scattered the dark mist. Yuxin flowed around the strikes, her movements a blur of silk and shadow as she wove sealing charms in the air, golden sigils flaring like fireflies.

The spirit shrieked. The well's water churned violently, reflecting shattered images of the moon as though trying to pull them all down into grief.

"Bind it!" Tian Lei's voice cut through the storm.

"Working on it," Yuxin hissed, snapping her final thread of light into place.

The charms ignited. A lattice of glowing runes collapsed around the spirit like a falling star-net. She wailed once—long, shuddering, and heartbreakingly human—before dissolving into motes of pale light.

Silence fell.

The moon's reflection smoothed. The air warmed.

Yuxin exhaled, lowering her blade. "Well," she said faintly, "that was… emotionally exhausting."

Tian Lei stood motionless, blade at his side, staring at the well's calm surface. "It is done."

"Mm." Her lips curved, tired but sincere. "And you didn't even cry."

"I do not cry."

"I know." She smiled behind her veil. "It's terribly impressive."

Tian Lei finally turned from the moonwell, his expression as unreadable as the stone cliffs hemming the vale. He wiped his blade once on a clean cloth—ritualistic, methodical—before sliding it into its sheath with a soft, final click.

"Mission complete," he said simply.

"Such poetry," Yuxin murmured, brushing phantom frost from her sleeves. "One day, your post-battle debriefs will move me to tears."

"I thought you were exhausted."

"I am." Her eyes glimmered like dark wine beneath her veil. "But sarcasm replenishes me."

—

The crane bore them away from the Weeping Vale as the moon climbed high, casting the cliffs behind them in bone-white glow. The night air grew warmer as they left the cursed hollow, stars scattering across the sky like a spilled jar of diamonds. Yuxin lounged sideways across the saddle, head tipped back to watch them wheel above.

"Do you think," she mused softly, "that ghosts like her… ever remember who they were?"

Tian Lei's gaze stayed forward. "If they do, it only deepens their suffering."

"Mm." A faint smile curved her lips, wistful at the edges. "Perhaps it's better to forget."

"Perhaps."

The crane glided through the clouds, wings whispering against the wind. For a long while, silence reigned—a comfortable one this time, soft as midnight silk.

—

They reached the nearest city well past midnight. Its outer lanterns still glowed faintly, guarding the gates like weary sentinels. The streets were hushed, save for the distant clatter of a lone watchman's staff and the muted splash of water from the central fountain.

Yuxin half-floated off the crane when they landed, stretching languidly. "Beds," she declared. "Sheets. Pillows. Entirely unnecessary fripperies that I will indulge in shamelessly."

"You may rest," Tian Lei said, dismounting. "We report at dawn."

"Oh, you'll love this—" she twirled, veil swirling like moonlight, "—but I am filing an official complaint about your obsession with dawn."

He did not dignify that with an answer, which she counted as a small personal victory.

They secured rooms in a modest but elegant inn near the riverfront, its paper lanterns swaying gently in the breeze. The innkeeper, noting the Sect insignia, all but sprinted to give them the finest suites available.

Yuxin drifted through her door and promptly collapsed into a silken heap, the faintest smile tugging at her lips as her eyes slipped closed.

Tian Lei remained awake a while longer, seated cross-legged by the window. Moonlight washed across the floorboards. He watched the river flow silently beneath the bridge outside, the ghost's final wail still echoing faintly at the edges of his mind like the aftermath of thunder.

For just a heartbeat, his eyes softened.

Then he rose, extinguished the lantern, and let the night close in around him.

Dawn pried its pale fingers across the sky, smearing the horizon in strokes of rose and gold. Bells chimed softly from some distant temple as the city began to stir—carts creaked, shutters rattled open, and the smell of fresh bread tangled with the cool river mist.

Tian Lei was already awake, naturally—his robe straightened, hair bound, blade polished, every line of him precise as a calligraphy stroke. He stood in the courtyard of the inn, the faint morning breeze stirring the crimson tassel at his sword's hilt.

Yuxin emerged some time later, gliding through the doorway like an apparition of sheer languor. She had changed into fresh traveling silks, pale as early blossoms, her veil trailing like the last wisp of a dream. She stifled a yawn behind one graceful hand.

"You meditate, I hibernate," she announced softly, "and yet somehow you look like you slept. Deeply unfair."

Tian Lei inclined his head a fraction. "We depart."

"Of course we do," she sighed, the corner of her eyes curving in weary amusement. "Wouldn't want to risk… enjoyment."

They crossed the awakening city with quiet efficiency, stopping only at the local courier hall to transmit their mission report. The Sect seal flared once with silver light as Tian Lei pressed it to the parchment, then dimmed—formal closure, clean and clinical.

Yuxin watched him, head tilted. "You always look vaguely relieved when bureaucracy happens."

"It restores structure," he said simply.

"Mm." Her laughter was soft. "How very on-brand."