SSS Ranked Awakening: All My Skills Are at Level 100

Chapter 637: The Peak Was Quiet Once

The road to Leon’s personal peak took nearly an hour, and Han Suwen answered questions throughout the climb.

”Can attendants use the combat grounds?” Ira asked less than five minutes after leaving the gate.

”Three of the eleven,” Han Suwen replied. ”The lower western platforms are open to household members and outer disciples. The others require disciple standing or an elder’s authorization.”

”Can I challenge someone?”

”You may not issue challenges to ranked disciples. You may spar with anyone who agrees, and they may refuse without explanation.”

”And if somebody challenges me?”

”You may accept. If you injure a core disciple, you will explain the circumstances to me, and I will record them accurately. That will help you less than you imagine.”

Ira considered the answer.

”That’s fair.”

”It is the rule. Fairness is a separate question.”

Loriel asked about gardens.

Her household token granted access to the outer medicinal grounds and three public cultivation gardens. Restricted gardens, where the medicine court kept its rarer plants, required disciple standing or accumulated contribution.

”So I can earn access,” Loriel said.

”You can. It will take time, and the medicine court is particular about whom it allows to work there.” Han Suwen glanced at her. ”It is also chronically short of people capable of keeping difficult plants alive. Make of that what you wish.”

Vyra’s questions took longer. Han Suwen answered every one without suggesting that the list was excessive: supply accounts, monthly allowances, Palace-assigned staff, residence permissions, mission registration, contribution payments, and library access.

”Who maintains the formations around Leon’s peak?” Seraphine asked.

”The Palace. Four arrays rotate through the formation hall’s maintenance schedule. Two others are your master’s private work, and nobody touches them without permission.” Han Suwen’s expression sharpened slightly. ”Report any faults in the Palace arrays to me. Do not repair them yourself. The last disciple who improved a Palace formation without authorization spent a year hauling stone.”

”Understood.”

Halfway up, the road passed within sight of one of the western training platforms.

Two disciples were sparring with practice spears. Ira’s head turned and remained turned for the next eleven paces.

”You seem deeply unimpressed,” Vyra said.

”Their footwork is wrong.”

”Mm.”

”It is. The taller one plants his rear foot before committing, so the thrust can be read half a beat early.” Ira faced forward. ”I was judging their form. Professionally.”

”Of course.”

Leon’s residence had a staff of nine responsible for the outer paths, delivery court, kitchens, guest rooms, and grounds beyond the inner wall.

They had spent the past month maintaining a residence for one man who was rarely in the building. Now they lined up in the front courtyard and bowed, visibly uncertain what to do with four additional household members.

The inner grounds operated differently.

Leon’s cultivation chambers remained sealed. The women’s quarters stood inside the protected boundary, and no outside staff member could enter without permission. Anything connected to the dimensional world, their Classes, or Leon’s deeper secrets would be discussed only inside those wards.

Vyra requested the staff list, supply records, access tokens, maintenance schedule, and household inventory within twenty minutes.

She found no corruption or sabotage. The residence had simply been established for one secluded disciple and had never been updated for anything else.

”There are two delivery-court tokens, and neither is listed in the residence ledger,” she said. ”The kitchen orders food for one person but has over-ordered rice for three weeks because nobody corrected the standing request. The eastern wall is inspected quarterly despite being the most recently repaired section.”

She turned another page.

”The repair was handled by the same crew responsible for the seam Seraphine noticed at the harbor.”

”Can you fix it?” Leon asked.

”Most of it within a week.” Vyra continued reading. ”Ira.”

Ira had left two of her three bags beside the entrance and was already moving toward the door.

”I’m going to inspect the western platform.”

”We have been inside this residence for eleven minutes.”

”Plenty of time to inspect a platform.”

”You left your luggage in the middle of a walkway. A servant moves it, a servant handles a combat guard’s equipment, and tomorrow I spend an hour explaining to Seraphine why an unvetted person touched your belongings.” Vyra raised her eyes. ”Take the bags.”

Ira collected them, grumbling all the way to her quarters.

She returned three minutes later and left for the platform anyway.

Nobody stopped her.

Loriel discovered the inner garden and disappeared into it.

It was not ruined. It had been planted competently decades ago with species chosen almost entirely because they survived neglect: silver-thorn along the walls, two moon-pear trees that fruited poorly, and a pond kept clean by a basic formation.

Leon found Loriel forty minutes later, sitting on her heels with both palms against the soil.

”The drainage is wrong,” she said without looking up. ”There’s a spiritual vein beneath the eastern corner, but everything was planted on the western side where the ground remains cold. Whoever planned this worked from a diagram and never touched the soil.”

She sat back and looked around.

”It’s mine now. Tell someone.”

”It’s yours.”

”Good.” Loriel studied the eastern corner. ”The fern goes there eventually. Not yet.”

”How long?”

”Months.” She said it without disappointment. ”It has spent too long inside a vessel filled with soil from another world. If I plant it directly in Jade Moon soil, it may shock, die, or root badly enough that it never produces seeds.”

”What will you do?”

”A little of its original soil goes into the new bed. Then some of the new soil goes into its current vessel. I repeat the exchange until the plant stops noticing the difference.”

”And if it notices?”

”Then I lose several months, and the fern remains alive.” Loriel looked up. ”That is the point of doing it slowly.”

Seraphine waited until the residence became busy before finding Leon.

”Sit down,” she said.

Leon sat.

”Your cultivation route.”

”It’s mostly recovered.”

”That is the second time you’ve used ’mostly’ about something inside your own body.” Seraphine took the seat opposite him. ”So I’ll ask precisely. Is the route restored, or has it merely stopped worsening?”

Leon considered lying and discarded the idea almost immediately.

”The tears have closed. The junctions hold ordinary circulation, and I’ve run it clean every day for more than a week.” He turned his cup between his fingers. ”There’s still stiffness in the lower-left route when I force a high volume through it. Ji believes it will fade if I leave it alone.”

”Thank you.”

Seraphine allowed a short pause.

”Now the other matter. You won.”

”I did.”

”Tell me why.”

He did, because she had earned the honest version and because saying it aloud was useful.

”Wei began under Peak Golden Core suppression, which removed most of what made him a Mid Void Immortal. His technique was unfinished. Once it took hold, it trapped him inside the same repeating lunar pattern.”

Leon shook his head.

”After the suppression broke, he was fighting the technique as much as he was fighting me. His judgment deteriorated with his control. The duel also lasted twenty minutes. I don’t tire the way ordinary cultivators do. Every minute after the first ten favored me more than him.”

”And if he had been clear-headed?” Seraphine asked. ”Full cultivation, with proper control?”

”I don’t know.” Leon met her gaze. ”A Mid Void Immortal who changes his pattern when I begin reading it would force me to reveal far more than I did. Even then, I might lose. What happened in that arena isn’t something I can reproduce whenever I choose.”

Seraphine released a quiet breath.

”That’s all I wanted.”

”Not for me to be careful?”

”For you to understand the difference between winning and being stronger—and to tell me instead of deciding I would worry too much to hear it.”

”Understood.”

”Good.”

Seraphine stood. As she passed, she rested a hand on his shoulder for a moment.

”The eastern wall seam is genuinely bad,” she added. ”I’m reporting it to Han Suwen tomorrow through the proper channel, like a well-behaved attendant.”

That evening, Leon sat in the main hall with the doors open and did no work at all.

Vyra’s voice carried from the delivery court as she informed someone that both access tokens would be entered into the ledger by morning. Ira came up the path complaining about a disciple’s back foot. Loriel was asking a bewildered gardener whether the Palace kept river sand. Seraphine walked the inner boundary twice, confirming that no servant had crossed it.

A month earlier, the residence had been quiet enough for Leon to hear the leaves shifting on the plum tree.

He listened to the women filling that silence and found he did not miss it.