The training area in the Cauldron was larger than the one in the Farm. Busier, too. Even now, with dinner barely over, more than half the cells were occupied by fighters sparring or running drills. It made sense. Everybody here had either some amount of martial pedigree from before their incarceration, or they'd worked their asses off in the Farm to climb. Either way, the Sparks took their training seriously.

When he'd arrived at the Farm, he truly felt like a chicken that had wandered into the wolves' den. To be suddenly surrounded by Martial Souls after a life time in mortal circles was intimidating. However, time and experience had made that sensation fade. He'd begun to realise that, in many regards, the Farm was the bottom of the barrel as far as the Martial Path went. There were obviously outliers like Han, but most of the rest were just people trying to get by. They didn't have the discipline or drive to truly progress. This was true even for those like Yutaro who had some corporate background. If they'd been particularly talented or dedicated, they'd likely never have wound up in Spiritlock in the first place, and they certainly wouldn't have lingered long in the Farm.

But up here, it was a different story. These people had all proved themselves in one way or another. For the first time, he was truly amongst the wolves.

Glancing over to the side, Rix could gaze through into the Farm side of the area where he could see Master Zhen training another student. The man seemed to sense eyes on him, because he turned momentarily, the sides of his mouth quirking up ever so slightly as he caught sight of Rix. They nodded to one another. Though not many people in the Cauldron needed his advice — most were working with some form of corporate style — nothing actually prohibited the stronger inmates receiving guidance. Rix had already told his teacher that he wished to continue his education, though it would need to wait until he was fully recovered.

He and Luna fetched training weapons, but the truth was they were in no condition for real practice. They just needed to not look out of place.

"You okay?" she asked as she methodically moved through one of her katas.

Rix was doing the same. "Depends on your definition of okay. I see now why people talk that way about the tank."

Luna paled slightly. "Yeah. That was not what I'd call a 'fun time.'"

Rix dropped his voice lower, until it was just a whisper. "Thank you for not saying anything."

"About what?" she asked, a hint of a smile playing at the edges of her lips. "I just told them the truth. I didn't see anything. Far as I know, Han just tripped and fell on his own spike."

Rix chuckled. "What do they say? The simplest explanation is often the right one?"

"Simple endings for simple men," Luna replied.

Rix's mirth fell away. "I wonder how Wing and Huan held up. I figured you wouldn't break—"

"Because it would be terrible bodyguarding," she agreed.

"—but I wouldn't have blamed them if they did."

"They're fine," Luna replied. "Better than us, I'm pretty sure. Before you arrived, I asked Karn if he'd heard anything and he said they were released a bit before me. Apparently, they caught wind that we were scooped up, and they managed to snatch a few supplies from their stash before they were grabbed too. Took the edge right off the box, I'm told."

Rix's eyes widened slightly. "And here I was thinking I just inspired overwhelming loyalty in people."

"Nope, it was drugs," Luna deadpanned.

Rix laughed. "Well, I'm glad they didn't suffer too much." He frowned. "Not that I like the idea of any amount of suffering happening on my behalf."

Luna made a dismissive sound. "Pretty sure Wing would consider it a small price to pay for total control of the Farm."

"You know, you might be right."

"That does raise an interesting question though," Luna said. "Why did they stop? Sho talked to me twice, mostly trying to get me to give you up. I was settling in for the long haul. But eventually they just released me without saying anything."

"Apparently we have a guardian angel," Rix said.

She looked at him quizzically.

"Someone high up in Ironguard basically told them to let us go."

"Why?" Luna asked.

"I'm not sure. I do have one idea though..." Rix's eyes strayed once again over towards Master Zhen. The man had mentioned that despite the First Master's feelings towards him he did have other friends in high places. Rix had been wracking his brain trying to make sense of their release, and the Weaponsmaster was the only ally that could possibly have intervened.

Luna followed his gaze and raised an eyebrow. "Old grumpy?"

Rix shrugged. "Not like anyone else in here gives a damn."

"Fair," Luna replied. "Well, I guess we're out of the woods then."

Rix grimaced. "Not exactly."

He filled her in on his last discussion with Sho.

"They have people that can look into your mind," Luna asked. Her expression was one of deep discomfort.

"Apparently," Rix replied. "The good news for you is that they're only going to do that to me. The bad news is that my mind is full of everyone else's secrets. If they get to asking the right questions…" He didn't need to finish the sentence.

Luna gave a grim nod. "How long do we have?"

"A few months."

She exhaled sharply. "Well, then. I guess we need to get to work. What's the plan? Are we digging our way out of our cells at night?"

In truth, Rix wasn't sure how they were supposed to get out. Beyond the fact that surviving Han had occupied most of his attention, it had been difficult to make any kind of concrete plan before they'd actually got to the Cauldron. Now that they were here, the idea suddenly seemed impossibly complex.

"We need to talk to Kokuryu," he said. "That's step one. Once we work out what kind of assistance he can give us, we can start working out what else we need to think about." He reached up to touch his tether. "Whatever we wind up doing, I suspect we're going to need a solution to these. If you were hoping to stop working on your bloodline now that you've left Wing behind, I think you might be out of luck."

Rix expected her to object or make a pointed comment, but instead she actually managed a tiny smile. "Luna's blood to the rescue once again, hey? Sure, I'll keep playing with it."

He doubted that she'd completely worked through her feelings about her bloodline, but it was nice to see her talk about it without making it sound like the bane of her existence.

"The other problem is our…mutual friend," Rix said.

Luna nodded. She understood he was talking about Breaker. "Are we going to tell him?"

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Rix let out a sigh. It was a tricky situation. He didn't want to abandon the man, but the reality was that he didn't really have a choice. Whether they escaped or simply waited for the Truthseeker, the outcome was the same — in a few months their time in the Fractured Realm was over. Worse, if they questioned Rix, they'd almost certainly learn of Breaker's existence. So, if anything, by running they'd be doing him a favour. And yet, when Rix thought about confessing their plan, he didn't think Breaker would take it well.

"I think for now we keep it to ourselves."

"Probably smart," she replied. "Maybe we can find a way to help him before we go."

"Maybe." He didn't think it likely, but it was worth investigating.

They spent several minutes in silence finishing their katas. Though it was far more taxing than it should have been, there was something satisfying about moving his body through those familiar rhythms after a week in the tank. And despite the toll that experience had taken, he could still feel the improvements that had been imparted by his tier-up. Everything he did felt crisper and more precise than it had when he was just a Whisper. Every strike of the kata was a little more powerful, despite being fed by roughly the same amount of effort.

As they were wrapping up, someone spoke from outside their cell. "Two new faces from the Farm in one day. I'm not sure that's happened in my time here."

Rix turned to find Goro — the Spark who had warned him about Xu Sho when they were chatting in the arena — looking in at them.

"Not a lot of people like the idea of starting again at the bottom of the pecking order, it seems," Rix replied, a little warily. He'd generally got a friendly vibe from the man in their limited interactions, but there had always been a layer of security between them in the past. Now, nothing separated them save an unlocked gate. In Spiritlock, people were often friendly, until they weren't, and if that was the case now, he and Luna were in a lot of danger. Judging by the arena, Goro was possibly the strongest Martial Soul in here.

"Ah, the comfortable cage," Goro replied. A twinkle appeared in his eyes. "But that doesn't appeal to the two of you…"

"Comfortable is just another word for boring," Luna said, stepping up next to Rix and raising her practice blade casually out in front of her. It wasn't exactly threatening, but the message was clear — she was far from overawed. "Besides," she added, her voice full of challenge, "where's the fun in a bunch of fights you already know you can win?"

Goro laughed. "Oh, I knew I was going to like you." Rix hadn't been certain whether he knew Luna from her escapades in the arena, but that settled it. Likewise, she seemed to recognise him.

Goro turned his sparkling eyes back to Rix. "Last we spoke, you were staring daggers at a certain dragon. I told you to be careful about that sort of thing."

Rix met his gaze, keeping his expression neutral. "I remember."

"Do you? Because the whole Cauldron is whispering about how the dragon decided to stare back. Word is, you two were guests in the tank for a week. And that your host was none other than Xu Sho himself."

Rix's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. "Rumours travel fast," he said.

"They do," Goro agreed, a hint of his theatricality returning. "They also say his son had a tragic accident in the realm." He paused, letting the insinuation hang. "A terrible shame." His tone was light, but his eyes were sharp.

"Was it?" Rix asked, smothering a grimace. Did the entire prison know what he'd done? These were supposed to be hardened criminals, but they gossiped like fishwives. The appeal of his newfound infamy was already wearing thin.

Goro laughed again. "Perhaps not. I only knew him by reputation. In any case, whatever — or whoever — killed him must have been really punching above their weight."

"I guess so," Rix said.

Goro studied them for several more seconds. To the casual glance, he looked amused, but there was a deeper shrewdness beneath his gaze that Rix found vaguely unsettling. He'd once again managed to catch the eye of the most powerful person in his new environment, and in record time, too. The only solace he could take was that Goro's attention wasn't laced with nearly so much malice as Han's had been. At least, not yet.

Eventually, the man clapped his hands. "Well, I just wanted to extend an official welcome. I'll leave you to your training." He made a show of turning to leave, before glancing back over his shoulder. "By the way, a word of friendly advice: you survived the dragon's stare once. It's not a trick I'd expect you to be able to repeat."

Rix let out a long breath as the man departed.

"I didn't realise you were already making friends," Luna said.

"I'm not trying to," Rix replied. "He's the one that keeps talking to me."

Luna snorted. "It must be your open, approachable personality."

Rix still wasn't sure what to make of the man, but he hadn't immediately threatened to cave in his skull, so that probably counted as an improvement. In any case, for now, he had other things to worry about.

"On another note, something happened while I was in the tank," he said. In a hushed voice he briefly described the moment he'd tried cycling his qi and his meridian walls had torn.

"Hells," Luna replied, when he was done. "What's the damage like?"

"I'm about to find out."

Rix hadn't used either mana or qi since the incident. It felt like if he ignored it, he could pretend the damage had never happened. But you could only bury your head in the sand for so long.

Gingerly, he reached for his mana and pushed it out through his meridians. A dull ache of protest spiked through his network, but it was simply the lingering burn of the array, rather than something more severe.

The first thing he tried was a technique. System-granted techniques were formed by pushing mana into the mind itself, feeding the shape the System provided you. As such, forming the actual technique didn't pass mana through his extremities at all. It was when the technique triggered that he might run into problems. With his breath frozen in his lungs, he called forth [Wind Blade] and pushed his mana into it.

The technique shot down his arms and out into his staff. There was a momentary searing sensation as the mana passed the sites of his injuries, but it didn't slow or falter. Two blades sprung from his staff.

Some of the tension bled out of his body. He'd been terrified he'd never be able to use a technique again; that the mana might simply be drawn into those ruptures before it could pass down into his weapon.

"All good?" said Luna.

"So far." He swung his staff several times, the barely perceptible hum of the technique vibrating through the air. Aside from the overall spiritual soreness, everything seemed to be working as normal.

He let the technique fall away. He'd proved his first fear unfounded, but there was more to test. Steeling himself, he seized his mana once more and this time he guided it manually up his shoulders and down into his right arm. He hissed as it rolled down past the site of the breach. The effect felt like pressing down on a fresh cut — a short, sharp stab — but nothing dramatic happened. Mana flowed past the site and he could pull it back up and into his dantian without issue. Cycling wasn't really part of the Martial Path, as far as he understood it, but he wanted to be thorough in understanding what had happened to him.

He repeated the exercise with his qi, testing his spiritual network from the other side, with identical results. It hurt, but the flow was otherwise unchanged. He let out a sigh of relief. Unlike the Martial Path, cycling was critical to cultivation. He'd be using these meridians a great deal in the future when he tried to open more Soul Gates.

"I think I'm okay," he said.

He hadn't known what to expect. Spiritual injury was not something that was talked about with any authority in mortal circles. All he had to go one were vague stories of crippled Martial Souls, like the poor soul Huan had mentioned who overused a flesh array. But it seemed like Rix had avoided anything like that.

With his fears assuaged, he found his mind drifting back to the moment the injuries had happened, when the array had actually managed to pull his qi into the foreign half of his network. At the time, he'd been so caught up with the potential damage that he hadn't actually considered the full ramifications, but was there a chance this could actually be a boon?

Seizing his qi once more, he began cycling again. As it rolled down his arms, he could feel the wounds there, fissures in his spirit itself, but his qi didn't simply flow in to fill the gap the way a liquid would flow through a crack in a pipe. The two halves of his spiritual network remained independent, as if they didn't quite occupy the same physical space.

But obviously that wasn't true when enough pressure was applied.

Operating mostly on instinct, he tried to shove his qi through one of the newly formed gaps. He staggered and let out a curse as the pain of the wound spiked.

"What's happening?" asked Luna, concern etched on her face.

Rix sucked in a lungful of air through his nose. "I'm experimenting."

Gritting his teeth, he tried again, directing his qi to flow into the site of the rupture. He built the pressure slower this time, gradually applying more and more mental force. The burn grew in tandem with his effort, but the slower pace made it easier to adjust to. For several seconds, the separation between his meridians held, then, with a buckling sensation not unlike when his Mountain Gate had opened, the resistance shattered and qi flowed through.

He gasped.

Luna let out an exasperated huff. "Do you know how infuriating it is trying to work out what's going on just by looking at your face?"

He ignored her. With no array acting upon his qi, now that it had breached, it just sort of sat there in his mana meridians. It felt strange, but not painful.

With great care, he pushed once more. It moved, though sluggishly, like honey flowing through a drinking straw. It almost felt like these mana meridians were too thin to support qi's flow. It was an imperfect analogy, but it was the best he could do. Still, with focus, he could guide it through the foreign half of his network in a rudimentary cycle.

Rix glanced sideways at Luna and dropped his voice low. "There's qi in my mana meridians."

Luna blinked several times. "What?"

"I managed to push some through the breaches between the walls," he replied, a hint of awe entering his tone. "I think…I think the tank might have merged my spiritual networks."

She opened her mouth once, then closed it again. "What does that mean?"

"I don't know," he said.

Luna's expression grew pinched. "Well, what happens if you use it on a System technique?"

Rix cocked his head. "I have no heavenly idea."

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