Lin Xia stood up slowly, the firelight catching the shimmer of unshed tears in her eyes. The silence in the valley was heavy and charged with over a century of unspoken words.

  Jian Xuan stood there, his large hands hanging by his sides, his chest heaving as if he had just sprinted across the continent. He looked terrified, the first time that Li Yu had seen him that scared. The man who charged into battle against impossible odds without flinching was currently shaking because a woman was standing up.

  "One hundred and seventeen years," Lin Xia whispered as her voice trembled. She took a step closer to him. "And seventy-two days."

  Jian Xuan swallowed hard. "I have a good memory for numbers. And... you."

  Lin Xia let out a breath that was half-laugh and half-sob. The elegant mask of the composed Senior Sister cracked, revealing her true thoughts and feelings beneath.

  "You fool," she said softly. "You absolute fool. I am a fool too."

  She closed the distance between them. She reached out and took his large rough hands in her own.

  "I thought..." Lin Xia’s voice hitched. "I thought you only saw me as your Senior Sister. The one who bandaged your wounds. The one who scolded you for bringing mud into the meditation hall."

  She looked down at their joined hands.

  "I am older than you, Jian. I have been stuck at the peak of Core Formation while you soared. You broke through Soul Formation and became a legend of sorts around here. You traveled to another continent against all odds. Then you now return as the Crab Champion. You are a genius of the sword. I didn't want to be the shackle around your ankle. I didn't want my stagnation to drag you down."

  Jian Xuan’s eyes widened in surprise at her thoughts. He had been too obsessed with getting stronger and with his own feelings to see clearly. "Drag me down? Xia, you are the only thing that keeps me grounded! Without you, I would just float away on a tide of bad ideas!"

  "But our paths..." she started to argue, the old fears resurfacing. "Martial siblings... the sect... your future..."

  "My future is nothing if it is empty," Jian Xuan interrupted. He squeezed her hands. "I left this continent, Xia. I went out into the world to find a way to break past the 2nd stage of Soul Formation. I saw wonders. I fought monsters. And do you know what I found?"

  He looked her deep in the eyes.

  "I found my real and true self. And my real self knows one thing for certain: The shell protects the soft parts but a shell with nothing inside is just a hollow rock. You are my heart, Xia. You have been for a long time now. You aren't a hindrance. Being apart from you... lying to myself... that was the true hindrance."

  Lin Xia looked at him, really looked at him and saw the truth in his eyes. The walls she had built for a hundred years. The walls made of propriety, fear, insecurity and many more began to crack and crumble into dust.

  "Jian," she whispered.

  She let go of his hands and threw her arms around his neck.

  Jian Xuan froze for a millisecond, stunned, before his arms wrapped around her waist, lifting her slightly off the ground. He buried his face in her neck, letting out a groan of pure relief.

  They held each other tightly, two souls that had been orbiting each other for a century finally colliding. And then, the world shifted.

  It wasn't a metaphor. The air around them literally rippled.

  As they embraced, the mental block that Lin Xia had nursed for decades. The 'knot' Li Yu had guessed didn't just loosen; it shattered. The spiritual energy and qi she had been accumulating for a hundred years. It was compressed and became denser but was unable to flow. It suddenly found its release.

  BOOOM.

  A shockwave of blue spiritual energy exploded from Lin Xia.

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  At the same time, Jian Xuan’s own aura flared gold. His heart was light. The lightest it's ever been. His mind was clear and his Dao of Self suddenly felt complete. His own cultivation, which had been hovering at the peak of the 4th Stage surged violently.

  They pulled back from the hug, looking at each other in panic.

  "Oh no," Lin Xia gasped, her skin glowing with an ethereal blue light. "My dantian... it's boiling. I can't stop it. The breakthrough... it's happening now."

  "Me too," Jian Xuan said as his eyes went wide. "My shell... it's hardening! Wait, not like that! I mean my spiritual foundation! We're breaking through!"

  Breaking through to initial Soul Formation and the 5th stage was a dangerous and delicate process. It required preparation, seclusion, array formations and protectors. Doing it spontaneously in a wild valley with no preparation was a recipe for Qi deviation or death.

  "We need to stop!" Lin Xia cried as she was trying to suppress her energy but couldn’t control it at all. "It's too dangerous!"

  "Don't try to stop," a calm voice cut through their panic.

  Li Yu appeared right next to them as if he was there the entire time. He didn't look worried or panicked. He looked like a person who had been waiting for this exact moment.

  "The dam has broken," Li Yu said, his eyes glowing with purple light as he scanned their vitals. "If you try to plug it now, the backlash will most likely kill you. You have to ride the wave."

  "But we haven’t had a chance to fully prepare!" Jian Xuan said in his worry. At this time he was more concerned with Lin Xia’s situation than his own.

  "Trust me," Li Yu said with a smile as he placed a hand on Jian Xuan’s shoulder and another on Lin Xia’s. "You are my brother. She is my sister-in-law. Do you think I'd let you fail?"

  Jian Xuan looked at Li Yu. He saw the absolute confidence in Li Yu’s eyes.

  "Trust him, Xia," Jian Xuan said firmly.

  "Sit a bit apart from one another" Li Yu commanded. "Now."

  The two separated slightly and sat down on the grass and were now facing each other. Their auras were already swirling together, a mix of blue and golden. They gave each other a smile. Something within them made them realize they were glad they were facing this situation together. They both soon closed their eyes to focus on their situation internally.

  Li Yu moved with a speed that blurred the eye.

  He flicked his wrists and five array disks flew out. They embed themselves in the ground around the couple.

  Hum.

  A semi-transparent barrier rose up instantly. It was a dual-layered formation: a Spirit Gathering Array to pull ambient Qi from the environment and a Heavenly Concealment Array to hide the massive energy fluctuations that were about to occur.

  For a cultivator breaking through to the Soul Formation stage the most critical resource was soul energy. It required a massive amount of energy to bridge that gap. Usually, a sect would struggle to provide resources for just one Elder to attempt this.

  Li Yu smiled. He wasn't a sect but he had recently stumbled upon a fortune. He was a loot goblin who had just raided the pockets of one of the wealthiest clans in the East.

  "Open wide," Li Yu said.

  He waved his hand. It started as a trickle and then became a waterfall. Thousands of high-grade spirit stones rained down around Lin Xia and Jian Xuan, piling up like snowdrifts. But that was just the appetizer.

  Li Yu pulled out jade boxes from the storage rings he had taken from Cyrus and the others. He flicked the lids open with his Qi.

  He dumped the contents around Lin Xia. Violet Soul-Nourishing Grass. Thousand-Year Spirit Ginseng. Vials of Essence Condensing Pills. Blocks of pure Spirit Jade.

  The air in the array instantly became thick and fragrant. The sheer density of spiritual energy was suffocating.

  Lin Xia’s eyes snapped open for a second. What she saw made her focus waver in shock. She stared at the items surrounding her. These weren't things found in common markets. The herbs were mature, perfectly preserved and radiating potent energy. It was a fortune that could make even established elders weep with envy.

  And Li Yu had just dumped a pile of them around her like they were common garden weeds.

  "Don't stare," Li Yu scolded gently. "Eat. If you feel your energy dipping, grab a pill. If your soul feels unstable, breathe in the essence of the Spirit Grass. The array will handle the rest."

  He turned to Jian Xuan.

  Li Yu took out more items from the storage rings. Amber Earth Crystals. Vials of Golden Body Elixir. Refined Earth Essence. Similar or the same herbs as he had taken out for Lin Xia. After a bit he just started throwing everything he found that was useful out of the storage rings. What wasn’t used up by their breakthrough he would store back later.

  He didn’t take out items that he had already saved for himself. Those were truly valuable items that he needed but he wasn’t stingy either. He piled them high until Jian Xuan and Lin Xia were surrounded by a glowing hoard.

  "You're going for the 5th Stage," Li Yu said. "I just did that hop myself. It’s heavy. You need to reinforce the container before you pour in more water. Absorb the natural essences from these items as your body needs."

  Jian Xuan nodded as he closed his eyes once again. Sweat was beading on his forehead. "Understood, Brother Li."

  Li Yu finally stepped back after dumping a massive amount of wealth around the two. He exited the array but kept his spiritual sense locked on them to make sure things went okay.

  "Begin."