The quiet of the night was shattered by the sound of hooves and neighing. Ten retired cart horses appeared as if from nowhere, galloping frantically around the inside of the fortress walls, startling the soldiers on night watch.
"Javier, Seth — take so n and round them up."
Li Wei's voice cut through the commotion. The fortress erupted into activity. Nobody stopped to wonder where the horses had co from.
The alloy gate swung open. Javier charged out first on his Three-Star Warhorse — after days of training, he could now ride with fluid speed. Natural athleticism, quick reflexes, and the Four-Star Cavalry Card's bonuses made it easier than it might have been.
Seth, Paul, and Jocelyn followed right behind. All Riverside Knights. None of them was going to be outdone. They'd been starving for this — knights without horses was a miserable existence.
"Everyone else stay inside! Don't spook the horses — the four of us are enough!" Jocelyn shouted, waving the other soldiers back. More people would only make things worse.
"Congratulations, Li Wei!"
Thomas walked over. Ten warhorses was no small thing — this was a blatant windfall. The Ministry of Internal Affairs couldn't have arranged sothing this generous.
"Not bad. You're not burning the midnight oil tonight?"
Li Wei teased him. Thomas was a genuine benchmark — the king of relentless effort.
"Ha — I finished my hundred mu already. So I wanted to ask: when can we start planting?"
"Not for a few more days. Wait for the temperature to stabilize. In the anti, take so n north and west to scout for ore veins. You're a Three-Star Miner with Destiny Grid 48 — you should be able to find so decent deposits."
"Li Wei — I don't think I can. I'm genuinely bad at that. Maybe ask Xuanxuan to co do the prospecting?" Thomas looked uncomfortable. Strange.
"Why? You're a Three-Star Miner. Is that Destiny Grid 48 just for decoration?" Li Wei was genuinely curious. Lately, his 6 Perception seed to go completely dead around Thomas — like there was a black hole where the man stood, absorbing all detection.
"I don't know either. Everything feels normal to , but sohow it just doesn't work. Other players have the Stonemason-Miner combination too, but none of them are like this. And for so reason, ever since I bound and activated that Four-Star Farr Card, my Miner Destiny Grid started fluctuating on its own — it's at 49 now. I just feel... more and more like a stone. I'm unsettled, but not really unsettled. I can't describe it. The only ti I feel normal is when I'm working. I—"
Thomas trailed off. He looked like he was straining to push sothing through a wall. In the darkness, his expression was visibly stiffening. He was still talking, still saying perfectly rational things — but there was an unmistakable sense that he was about to turn into stone.
Li Wei had seen sothing like this before.
When Zhao Xuanxuan had broken through, she'd been like this — burning with heat, hormones surging, nearly throwing herself at him.
Thomas was heading in the opposite direction. Where she had erupted, he was contracting. Collapsing inward. Like the spark of life being sealed away.
Li Wei had never seen this before and had no idea how to help. He could only watch as Thomas, mid-sentence, went rigid.
Completely rigid.
"Adai — Adai, wake up. Fly to Aunt Liang right now. Tell her what's happening with Thomas. Ask her what this is."
Li Wei had no choice but to call for outside help.
Adai let out an irritated cry from his sleep, launched himself into the air, and vanished into the night.
Li Wei kept watch beside Thomas, uneasy. It was deeply strange.
Ti passed. Javier and Seth brought all the warhorses back and settled them. Thomas didn't move.
About three hours later, just before dawn, Adai ca streaking back. A round trip of nearly a thousand kiloters — normally four hours for Adai. He'd done it in three.
"Caw!"
Adai landed directly on Li Wei's head and deposited a generous amount of droppings.
Li Wei didn't even react. He quickly untied the ssage scroll from Adai's talon. Liang Yuzhi's urgent voice ca through imdiately.
"That little idiot Thomas is awakening the Dulling Bloodline — he's turning into a stone man. Get him into a pile of stones right now. The better the quality, the better. If you don't have stones, use iron ingots, weapons, anything tal. And do NOT let him see the morning sun — if he does, he'll beco a stone man permanently!"
"What—"
Li Wei's heart lurched. The eastern horizon was already turning pale. That had been close.
He grabbed the rigid Thomas like a sack of rocks and sprinted to the basent. There was a storage room down there — and the high-quality stone blocks that Scar Glenn had once quarried. Fireproof, solid.
The mont he set Thomas down on the stones, there was a cracking, crumbling sound. The solid stone blocks began to fracture and collapse — as if their essence was being absorbed.
"Javier, Seth — quickly! Iron ingots, tal equipnt, anything!"
Li Wei shouted. The whole group scrambled. They managed to stabilize the situation. Thomas let out a guttural roar and began to erge from his rigidity — but inexplicably, his nearly two-ter fra had collapsed and hunched down to less than one ter. He looked like a small stone figure. He couldn't even speak — only made low, guttural sounds.
What in the world?
Li Wei had a thought. He produced a piece of enchanted steel salvaged from the dismantled traps.
"Grrm. Grrm."
Thomas grabbed it like it was a treasure and clutched it to his chest. Within monts, the hard, high-quality enchanted steel had turned into rust-covered scrap.
Right. He didn't need stone. He needed magical energy.
Nothing more to think about — just keep supplying it. There were plenty of trap materials left.
Javier, Seth, and the others went frantic, hauling stones in from outside. Stones worked too — Thomas could absorb those. When the stones ran out, they drove out and brought back concrete construction blocks. That counted as stone.
Li Wei supplied magical materials. The others supplied stone. From dawn until afternoon, nobody stopped to eat. They fed the one-ter Thomas back up to three ters.
He let out a final satisfied roar — and then collapsed into a deep, rumbling sleep.
So that was the breakthrough?
Li Wei felt genuine pain. Nearly five hundred units of enchanted materials — enough to make Two-Star traps — had been consud. In magical energy terms, that was at least twenty units' worth.
Cultivating strong subordinates really was expensive.
That evening, Liang Yuzhi arrived in the Enchanted Chariot with Zhao Xuanxuan. She couldn't stay away.
After examining Thomas, she let out a breath.
"He'll be fine. He just developed too fast — so his Dulling went to an extre. That's not sothing to celebrate. Extres lead to aberration, and aberration ends in Magic Zombie."
"But as long as he survived it, there's no lasting danger. When he wakes up, he should gain a talent skill or Destiny Grid skill — sothing like transforming into a stone giant. He'll make an exceptional tank. Worth noting: the Ministry of Internal Affairs had a player like this once."
"Going forward, let Xuanxuan handle the prospecting here. Thomas should stop farming and stop playing butcher — because for the rest of his life, he'll be locked into the Stonemason and Miner Destiny Grids. Eventually, strip out the Butcher Card and replace it with one of those dropped Four-Star or Five-Star cards. Then just stack his attributes, stack his equipnt, enhance his Code Na, and send him charging into battle without a second thought. He'll shrug off ntal attacks, illusions, poison — all of it, partially or completely."
"And from now on, Thomas will no longer experience strong emotions. Joy, anger, grief — all of it muted. He's not stupid. He's not losing his mory. He understands everything. He just can't express it. He's like a man sealed inside stone. He'll only trust the people he trusted before this happened. This is the cost of power. And it's a road with no return."
"Xiao Wei — don't let us down."
Even Aunt Liang couldn't help but feel the weight of it.
Thomas had made a choice. He couldn't have been unaware of where his Destiny Grid was heading. He could have stepped back, taken a more moderate path. But twenty-so years of endurance and conviction had driven him to see it through to the end.
Li Wei still didn't fully understand the chanics of Thomas becoming a stone man — just as he didn't fully understand the Druid Transformation Card. But it didn't seem to matter anymore.
He had beco the source of everyone's confidence.
Liang Yuzhi and Li Yue treated him as the last safe harbor they could trust with their futures.
Zhao Xuanxuan would follow him to the ends of the earth without hesitation.
Thomas, fearing he'd fall behind and be left behind, had taken the dangerous path — because he believed in Li Wei.
Without noticing, his fate had beco entangled with so many others.
Looking back, that rainy autumn afternoon felt like another lifeti.
There was no going back.
Liang Yuzhi stayed only a few minutes before driving the Enchanted Chariot back. She left Zhao Xuanxuan behind. The main base couldn't be left unguarded. So Neanderthal Cross-Border infiltrators were still unaccounted for — the rough-edged warrior couldn't have hunted down every last one. That wasn't realistic. Any day now, a surprise raid was possible. The odds were low, but not zero, since they couldn't afford to expose themselves too openly.
What was certain was that the Frost Duke's Ability Users would co to harass and disrupt developnt.
If they couldn't hold off the harassnt and use this window to build up forces, next year would be too late.
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