The spiritual aura membrane across Arthur Wen's face was fracturing at a visible rate, like the surface of a frozen lake cracking in the dead of winter. I instinctively reached up to touch my own cheek — the skin beneath my fingertips was thawing from its icy rigidity, and the familiar weariness of middle age crept back across my brow. The disguise technique's countdown timer flashed wildly on the system panel.

"Rookie, your spiritual energy is bone dry! If you don't use a Spirit-Replenishing Pill right now, you'll be reverting to your true face in this secret passage in about one second — and then it's death by a thousand blades for an 'intruder.'" The old system-elder's voice carried an urgency I had never heard from him before. His holographic projection flickered on the bronze ring, and he'd already sloshed half a bowl of Kang Shuaifu pickled cabbage noodles down the front of his "Foundation-Building Joy" pyjamas.

I stumbled against the damp stone wall of the passage, the canvas bag on my shoulder heavy as lead. The meteoric iron anvil section of the Wave-Surge Blade was locked in violent conflict with the baleful energy of the blood-jade thumb ring, dark-gold sigils and black mist wrestling each other inside my sleeve with faint crackling pops. This damned counterfeit thumb ring — a hot potato if there ever was one.

"Alright, alright..." I wheezed, fingers scrabbling through the inner compartment of my backpack. The Spirit-Replenishing Pill bottle from the Foundation-Building Joy Gift Pack was ice-cold to the touch; when I pulled the stopper, a clean, sweet medicinal fragrance rushed out, forming a strange contrast with the stale mildew of the passage. The pill dissolved the instant it hit my tongue, streaming as a warm current down my throat and into my elixir field. The meridians that had been as parched as a dry riverbed were flooded in an instant by a surge of spiritual power.

Ding! Spirit-Replenishing Pill consumed. Spiritual energy restored to 100%.

The moment the system chime sounded, I felt every pore across my entire body cry out in celebration: Now that's the good stuff!

The stone door ahead in the passage trembled faintly under the surge of spiritual energy from the pill. The Eight Trigrams sigils peeling from the lintel seeped a dark crimson light — the residual might of the Four Symbols Demon-Sealing Formation. I recalled what Elder Kai had said: this place had been refined by the founding Bureau Chief using his life-bound treasure, a formation designed specifically to guard the Medicine-Gourd Grotto Heaven. Any cultivator below the Nascent Soul stage who drew near would die on the spot. And yet here I was, at the peak of early Foundation Establishment, about to force my way into this legendary forbidden ground.

"System, pull up the Heaven's Secret Tracking Talisman." I wiped a cold sweat from my temple and held out my palm facing upward.

Ding! Consuming 1,000 Merit Points. Exchange for 'Heaven's Secret Tracking Talisman' successful.

A yellow sheet of talisman paper materialized in my palm out of thin air. The Big Dipper pattern drawn on it in cinnabar was slowly rotating, each star-point blinking like a living thing. This talisman was said to be capable of locking onto the coordinates of anything in existence — at the cost of draining a portion of its owner's spiritual consciousness.

"Remember, it can only be used once."

I drew a deep breath and channelled spiritual energy into the talisman paper. In an instant, the cinnabar star chart erupted in a blinding blaze of light. The paper burned fiercely in my palm, transforming into a streak of luminance that shot skyward, spiralling twice beneath the low vault of the passage before suddenly hurtling toward the northern wall.

Boom!

The moment the light stream struck the stone wall, the entire length of the passage lurched violently. I watched helplessly as the solid stone surface rippled like water, exposing a bottomless darkness behind it. An indescribable pressure surged out from that darkness — as though ten thousand mountains had descended simultaneously upon my heart — and I dropped involuntarily to one knee. The Wave-Surge Blade clattered to the ground with a resounding clang.

"Nascent Soul..." I ground my teeth, the pressure numbing my hands clear to the tiger's mouth between thumb and forefinger.

The warning lights on the system panel strobed frantically: Warning! High-intensity spiritual energy fluctuation detected. Characteristics consistent with Nascent Soul stage! Match rate with 'Medicine-Gourd Grotto Heaven' description: 95%!

The stream of light sketched a hazy vortex outline in the darkness — the embryonic form of a spatial rift. The Tracking Talisman's radiance was growing weaker by the second, its energy nearly spent. I forced myself back to my feet, running the Tide Saint Body Art to resist the pressure while keeping my eyes locked on the centre of the vortex, where the frequency of the spiritual energy was undergoing a peculiar shift.

"System, record the spiritual energy frequency!"

Ding! Analysing... Spiritual energy fluctuations contain the power of the Four Symbols — Azure Dragon, White Tiger, Vermilion Bird, and Black Tortoise — cycling clockwise, forming a counter-resonance frequency against the baleful energy within Arthur Wen's body.

It dawned on me. Arthur Wen carried the Black Armour Token and could pass through unimpeded precisely because the baleful energy within him had struck some subtle equilibrium with the Four Symbols' power. What I needed to record now was the spiritual energy fluctuation frequency at that precise state of balance.

Hmmmm---

The Tracking Talisman extinguished itself as a final ember, and the passage plunged back into darkness. But the complex frequency had already been etched into my mind: Azure Dragon's wood-aligned spiritual energy — three short pulses, one long; White Tiger's metal-aligned energy — rapid as drumbeats; Vermilion Bird's fire-aligned energy — sinuous as a serpent; Black Tortoise's water-aligned energy — deep and rolling as the tide.

"Found it..." I murmured to myself, fingertips lightly tapping the spine of the Wave-Surge Blade, tracing out sigils in the rhythm I had memorised. The blade's water-ripple pattern and the dark-gold sigils lit up simultaneously, forming a thin protective screen that just barely offset a portion of the Nascent Soul pressure.

End of Chapter 61: The Aura Membrane Shatters