The cold in the **Stone Sack** bit like a starving beast, but Xi Ran didn't tremble. He sat cross-legged, his palm with the dried blood from the cut pressed firmly against the cold floor. There, where blood mingled with stone, remained a faint **warm spot**. And within that spot – a **weak point**. He *felt* it after yesterday's breakthrough. Like a pulse beneath his fingers.
***Sight!*** didn't require shouting. It had become his second nature. He *saw* not light, but **tension** – icy, constricting the stone formation surrounding the cell. And at the point beneath his palm – a tiny **weakening**, a slackness in the web of power.
*It can be broken*, he knew. Not the entire wall. But this point. Knock out the stone? Create a crack? There was a chance. Minimal. But a month without food, sustained only on water and the icy flow of **"Needlepoint Cold"**, left only desperate resolve. He gathered all the cold he could hold inside – not for fortification, but for a **strike**. Concentrated it in his fist. His **Early Flesh Bone** physique, tempered by the Sack's hell, strained to its limit.
**THUD!**
His fist slammed into the warm spot with all his might. Pain shot through his knuckles. The stone shuddered. Crack! A quiet but distinct sound. The warm spot widened. A **crack** appeared, thin as a hair.
**THUD! THUD! THUD!**
Xi Ran struck, ignoring the pain, the blood welling anew on his battered knuckles. The icy energy of **"Needlepoint Cold"** amplified each blow, biting into the formation's weak point. The crack grew. Became visible even in the pitch-black to his adapted eyes. Through it drifted... different air. Damp, but not dead. The air of the dungeon.
A few more blows. A head-sized stone **fell inward**, revealing a black void. Narrow, barely wide enough for his shoulders. But an exit! Xi Ran, without hesitation, squeezed through the hole, skin tearing on the sharp edges. He tumbled out into a low, damp tunnel. Where did it lead? Didn't matter. Just away from the stone tomb.
***
That same night, deep in the woods beyond the sect, **Lin Feng** waited, clutching the **purple pebble** and the stolen **scroll** in his sweaty hand. Fear gripped him tighter than any cold. Transferring it to the Shadow Master was always a risk.
The purple flame of the black candle flared on its own. The shadow crawled from the fire.
«Where?» the hissing voice struck his mind.
Lin Feng extended the scroll. The shadow enveloped it, and the scroll vanished.
«Good. The next map fragment is in the **Crypt of the First Leaves**. By the waning moon.» The shadow rippled. «And… the novice. The one in the Stone. Is he alive?»
Lin Feng almost choked. – Alive… for now. In the Sack. A month without food… he won't survive.
«Watch. If he survives… he may be useful. His ability to see falsehood… is unique. Do not kill. Bring him to me. Alive.» The shadow dissolved. The flame extinguished.
Lin Feng was left in darkness, drenched in cold sweat. *Bring Xi Ran to the Master? Alive?* It was worse than killing him. But disobedience meant death. He sank to his knees, choking on impotent rage. All because of that cursed swamp rat!
***
Xi Ran crawled through the tunnel. Dark, damp, narrow. He navigated only by **sensation** – drawn towards slightly less stagnant air. The tunnel led him into a vast underground space – **ancient catacombs** beneath the sect. Collapses, fallen vaults, the smell of mold and time. And… **light**. Faint, flickering torchlight in the distance. Voices.
He crept like a shadow, using piles of rubble as cover. They were **guards**, patrolling the perimeter of some important place – a massive, half-ruined door with faded symbols (**The Dry Leaf Repository?**). Xi Ran's heart hammered. Where to go? Back – to the Sack and death. Forward – towards the guards.
***Sight!*** activated on its own. Not on the guards, but on the **wall** to his left. There, among collapsed masonry, he *saw* a faint **emerald glimmer**. Familiar! Like in the resin! He crawled closer. Behind a pile of rubble gaped a **narrow fissure** in the rock. Fresh air wafted from it. Outside air!
He needed to get past the patrol to the fissure. The guards stood with their backs turned, but turned around every few minutes. The window was short. Xi Ran held his breath, ready to sprint.
Suddenly, from the direction of the sect, a **loud shout** rang out, followed by the boom of a gong. Alarm! The guards by the door snapped to attention, dashed *towards the noise* – away from the fissure.
*Now!* Xi Ran burst from cover. His legs, weakened by hunger, barely obeyed, but adrenaline drove him forward. He dove into the narrow fissure, barely squeezing through. Behind him were shouts, the sect's clamor raised by the alarm. Ahead – **night air**, the scent of the forest and… freedom.
He scrambled out onto a hillside slope beyond the Falling Leaf Sect's walls. An outcast. A fugitive. But alive. He looked back at the sect's lit windows. *Lin Feng... Ji...* Rage churned in his chest. But now, he had to run. Farther. Into the forest.
***
The alarm had been raised by **Du Te**. He was the one who, risking himself, set fire to a shed full of dry hay on the sect's outskirts. A desperate diversion to distract attention and give Xi Ran any possible chance if he'd escaped the Sack. He was caught almost immediately. Now he stood before the furious overseer and Elder Ji, who had arrived upon hearing the commotion and crash from the dungeons (the hole in the Stone Sack had been discovered).
"Why?!" the overseer roared, shaking Du Te.
"I… I couldn't stand it!" Du Te cried, but they were tears of relief. He'd seen the guards run *the wrong way*. So there was a chance. "Bored! Wanted… fire!" He played the fool. Better punishment for arson than death for aiding a fugitive outcast.
Elder Ji watched him with a cold, penetrating gaze. He saw the lie. But he also saw the empty Stone Sack, and the chaos in the sect. And the report of strange **purple energy** detected by ancient sensors near the Dry Leaf Repository a couple of nights prior. The picture was becoming alarming. Xi Ran... Lin Feng... arson... the Repository... Too many coincidences.
"Put him in the Sack. In place of the fugitive. Indefinitely," Ji ordered, his eyes not leaving Du Te. "And the rest – search the surroundings. Find Xi Ran. **Alive or dead.** Especially – **alive.**" His last words held particular emphasis. He suspected more than just the escape of a wronged novice.
Lin Feng, standing among the senior disciples, paled. *'Alive.'* The Elder's order coincided with the Shadow Master's command. But now the entire sect would be hunting Xi Ran. How to get to him first?
Xi Ran, meanwhile, was already disappearing into the dense undergrowth at the foot of the hill. He was free. But he was hungry, weak, in torn clothes, and the entire Falling Leaf Sect, including the lethally dangerous Lin Feng, was now hunting him. His journey was only beginning. And the first goal was clear: **survive**. And then... find the way home. To his father. And discover what power had given him this chance, and why they were so desperate to possess it.