The silence that fell over the marshy basin was heavier and more suffocating than the humid air. Hu Jin, the proud scion of the Raging Tiger Clan, stared at the empty stone pedestal, his face flushed a dangerous shade of crimson. The veins on his thick neck bulged as the reality of what had just transpired settled in.
"AARRGGHH!" He let out a roar of pure, undiluted fury that sent birds scattering from trees a mile away. He spun around and punched a nearby cypress tree, snapping the ancient trunk in two with a deafening crack.
"That… that rat!" he seethed, his voice a low growl. "That Azure Dragon cripple! How?! Did you see him? He shouldn't have the power to cross a puddle, let alone sneak past all of us! He must have some heaven-defying concealment artifact!"
His disciples murmured in agreement, their own faces a mixture of anger and confusion. The narrative of the 'failed prodigy' was known to them all; it had been a source of mockery towards the Azure Dragon Clan for years. For that very person to be the one to so thoroughly humiliate them was a wound far deeper than any physical blow.
Gui Ren of the Black Tortoise Clan did not roar. His fury was a cold, dense thing that emanated from him in waves. His fists were clenched so tightly that his knuckles were white. He wasn't thinking about artifacts. He was replaying the entire event in his mind, analyzing it with a strategist's cold logic. The Azure Dragon disciple hadn't used power. He hadn't used speed. He had used… timing. Perfect, impossible timing. He had appeared at the precise moment their battle had reached a stalemate and their attention was completely focused on each other.
It wasn't a fluke. It was a calculation.
"He observed us," Gui Ren said, his voice dangerously quiet. "The entire time."
Hu Jin rounded on him. "Observed us? We would have sensed him!"
"Would we?" Gui Ren countered, his gaze sharp. "We were so focused on each other's power, on this pointless contest of pride, that a shadow could have danced between us and we wouldn't have noticed. He used our own arrogance against us."
For the first time, a flicker of grudging respect appeared in Hu Jin's eyes for the turtle he so despised. He was right. They had been played for absolute fools. Their epic duel had been nothing but a diversion for the true predator.
"Fine," Hu Jin grunted. "Let's put a pause on our business. That rat is now priority number one. Find him. When you do, cripple his legs and take back what's ours."
Gui Ren gave a slow, deliberate nod. An unspoken, temporary truce was forged in the fires of their shared humiliation. The two most powerful groups in the trial now had a new, singular objective: to hunt down the ghost from the Azure Dragon Clan.
Far away from the marsh, Jian Feng sat cross-legged in his hidden sanctuary behind the waterfall. He calmly sorted his harvest: one Dragon's Vein Token from the viper's nest, one from the marsh. A dozen Shadow-Lotuses. A patch of Nine-Petal Spirit Lilies. His point total had soared past 1700.
He had no illusions about what would happen next. They would be hunting him. He had revealed himself, albeit briefly, and in doing so, had painted a massive target on his back. A predictable response would be to hide or to try and outrun them. Jian Feng, however, saw it as an opportunity.
"Let them hunt," he murmured to himself. "Their attention is a resource to be manipulated, just like any other."
He knew they would search the area around the marsh, assuming he was still nearby. And so, he would do the opposite. He would now traverse the outer edges of the valley, sweeping up the less glamorous, but still valuable, herbs and beast cores that the proud prodigies would have deemed beneath them in their initial rush. He would let their hunt for him create a vacuum in other areas, and he would fill it.
(Jian Qiao's Perspective)
Jian Qiao huddled with the main Azure Dragon group. Jian Liwei had just led them through a grueling battle against a pack of Steel-Hide Hyenas, securing them a respectable 150 points, but leaving two disciples with deep wounds that required immediate attention.
As they were resting, a small, harried team from the Raging Tiger Clan crashed through the undergrowth nearby.
"Have you seen him?" one of them demanded, his face flushed with anger.
Jian Liwei stood up, his hand on his saber. "Seen who? Speak with respect."
"A ghost from your clan!" the tiger disciple shot back, too angry to care about pleasantries. "A silver-haired rat! He just stole a Dragon's Vein Token right from under the noses of Senior Brother Hu Jin and Gui Ren!"
A wave of disbelief washed over the Azure Dragon disciples. Jian Liwei let out a scornful laugh.
"Stole a token from Hu Jin and Gui Ren? Don't be absurd. No one in our clan has that ability, save for myself, and I have been here with my team the entire time. You were likely tricked by an illusion. Now, get out of our sight before you waste more of our time with your fairy tales."
The tiger disciples, seeing they would get no help, spat on the ground and stormed off, their curses echoing through the trees.
The Azure Dragon disciples began to chuckle amongst themselves, mocking the Tiger Clan's incompetence. But Jian Qiao felt a chill run down her spine. A silver-haired disciple appearing like a ghost? A lone operator who achieved an impossible feat while no one was watching?
Her mind flashed back to the clearing with the viper. To the calm, assured voice that had given her the precise instructions for her survival. The story was not a fairy tale. It was real. And she knew exactly who the ghost was.
She looked at Jian Liwei, who was puffing out his chest, completely dismissing the report. She then thought of Jian Feng's quiet, unassuming figure at the back of the group. A profound realization began to dawn on her. The entire clan, the entire trial, was looking at the board, but they were all watching the wrong pieces.