SSS Ranked Awakening: All My Skills Are at Level 100

Chapter 639: A Debt Cut in Jade

Wei Shouyuan and Wei Zhaoran arrived later that afternoon.

They came on foot up the mountain path like ordinary visitors.

Leon sensed Wei Shouyuan from a considerable distance, but the old man’s cultivation quickly passed beyond anything he could measure. No spiritual pressure rolled ahead of him. The nearby formations remained undisturbed, and the birds in the plum plum tree continued calling.

He isn’t here to test me.

Vyra received them at the gate with the proper etiquette. Leon waited in the outer hall and greeted Wei Shouyuan as a powerful senior without descending the steps to meet him. As Ji Liansu’s direct disciple, lowering himself too far would disrespect his master’s position.

Wei Shouyuan was tall, with a weathered face and a posture that age had done nothing to weaken. A sword hung at his side.

His gaze travelled once around the hall, taking in the four women and where each had positioned herself, before returning to Leon.

Wei Zhaoran entered behind him and remained standing.

”Say it,” Wei Shouyuan ordered.

Wei Zhaoran was silent for several breaths.

”I brought a technique into a supervised duel that I had not finished learning,” he said at last. His voice was flat and careful, and he did not initially meet Leon’s eyes. ”I knew it was unfinished. I had been warned not to use it under suppression, and I agreed.”

His hands tightened once at his sides.

”When I invoked it, I already understood that I was losing. I told myself I could keep it within the limit.”

He stopped, then forced himself to continue.

”Two exchanges later, I knew my control was failing. I continued anyway. That is the part I have not been able to excuse.”

Wei finally looked at Leon.

”The suppression breaking was not the first failure. The first failure was feeling the technique slip and refusing to stop because stopping meant conceding in front of three hundred witnesses.”

”And afterward?” Wei Shouyuan asked.

”Afterward, I lost the domain entirely. I was no longer in command of myself, and I cannot claim to know what I intended because I was no longer capable of proper intent.”

Wei’s jaw tightened.

”You had already won. Everyone on the terrace watched you force me back before I invoked the false moon, and I will not allow anyone from my line to describe the result differently. When the backlash began, you could have withdrawn. My channels were opening. Another twenty seconds would have damaged my foundation beyond recovery.”

He bowed deeply.

”You held the technique together instead. I have seen the record of what doing so inflicted upon your own cultivation route. I possess nothing that would balance that choice. I can only acknowledge it plainly.”

Leon allowed the silence to remain long enough for the apology to settle.

”Thank you,” he said. ”I accept it. And neither of us is going to repeat what happened.”

”Then—”

”But I want to correct one thing.”

Leon leaned back slightly.

”You’ve had nearly a month to rebuild that duel into something worse than it was. You suppressed yourself to Peak Golden Core. That stripped away most of what made you a Mid Void Immortal. Your unfinished technique trapped you in a repeating pattern, and I found the seams in that pattern.”

Wei listened without interrupting.

”I didn’t overpower the full technique. I unpicked it because you had stopped changing what you were doing. The duel also continued for twenty minutes. That favors me more than almost anyone alive.”

Wei remained still.

”A clear-headed Mid Void Immortal using his full cultivation and adapting when I begin reading him is a different opponent,” Leon continued. ”I don’t know how that fight ends. I would have to reveal considerably more than I did, and I might still lose. What happened in the arena isn’t something I can reproduce on command.”

Some of the strain left Wei’s expression.

”You could have allowed me to believe otherwise.”

”It wouldn’t have been true. You would eventually have learned that in a worse way.”

Wei took a measured breath.

”Then I want a second match.”

”Not now,” Leon said.

”No. Not now.” For the first time, Wei’s voice held something resembling its old certainty. ”When I’ve mastered what I claimed to understand, and when you’ve progressed as far as you are clearly intending to go.”

His gaze hardened.

”A clean match. No suppression. No unfinished techniques. Nobody carrying the other man out afterward.”

”Agreed.”

”Good.” Wei hesitated. ”I was told your recovery was not brief.”

”It wasn’t.”

”Then I’m glad you are standing.”

Wei Shouyuan had allowed the exchange to proceed without interruption. He now set his cup down.

”His discipline has been handled,” he said. ”It was severe, it was mine to administer, and it is complete. I did not come here to ask you to soften the truth for him. I’m pleased that you did not.”

”He would have known.”

”He would.”

Wei Shouyuan studied Leon.

”The debt is separate from the discipline. My descendant’s foundation remains intact because a man he challenged, wounded, and endangered chose to preserve it. I will not leave that unpaid.”

He drew a pale jade rectangle from his sleeve and placed it on the table. It was the length of Leon’s thumb, with one character carved into its face and a narrow line of script along its edge.

”A personal warrant,” Wei Shouyuan said. ”Mine, not my lineage’s.”

Leon examined it without reaching for it.

”Explain it to me. I would rather ask now than assume.”

”Sensible.”

Wei Shouyuan turned the jade so Leon could see the inscription.

”It records one favor owed by me personally. Whoever holds it may present it, state what they require, and I will fulfill the request. Once used, the warrant is spent and the debt is closed.”

”Limits?”

”Three, and they are absolute. It cannot compel me to act against Jade Moon Palace. It cannot override sect law. If you ask me to free someone the Palace has properly condemned, I will refuse and the warrant will remain unspent.”

He touched the final line of script.

”It also cannot require any action that threatens the Palace’s survival. Within those limits, I will not argue over whether your request is important enough. If you spend it on something small, that is your choice.”

Leon lifted the warrant. It weighed almost nothing.

Refusing would not be humility. A properly acknowledged life-debt from a Supreme Elder could not be dismissed without insulting the integrity of the man offering it.

”Thank you,” Leon said. ”I’ll try not to waste it.”

”Waste it if you need to. That is what it is for.”

The visitors remained for another quarter hour, speaking of less important matters, before departing.

Once the gate closed behind them, the tension throughout the residence eased.

Vyra had the warrant in her hands within a minute.

”This is worth more than a vault,” she said. ”A Peak Earth Immortal, obligated once, at a time of our choosing. There is no single treasure in this Palace I would trade it for.”

She turned it over carefully.

”It needs a secure location. Not a drawer. Somewhere that survives the residence burning down.”

”You’ll find one.”

”I’ll find three.” Vyra paused. ”Nobody outside this room should learn we possess it. Its usefulness decreases the moment other factions begin planning around it.”

Ira folded her arms.

”So you’re actually going to fight Wei again.”

”Eventually.”

”After spending more than a week testing a damaged cultivation route.”

”That’s why I said eventually.”

”Hm.”

She did not appear convinced, but she allowed the matter to end.

Seraphine said nothing. She had known Leon’s answer before Wei finished making the request. From her expression, she had already begun considering how powerful both men might be when that rematch arrived.

Loriel spoke last. She stood in the doorway with a trowel still in one hand.

”Whenever it happens,” she said, ”could you arrange to return without any part of you being described as mostly healed? I’ve heard that phrase twice now, and I dislike it.”

”I’ll do my best.”

”That is what you said last time.”

The summons arrived the following morning, three full days after the women entered Jade Moon Palace.

Han Suwen delivered it personally. That was the first indication that it mattered.

The message was sealed. That was the second.

It named all five of them.

Leon. Seraphine. Ira. Vyra. Loriel. Private briefing chamber, fourth mark, today.

Leon read it twice.

His master normally summoned a disciple. If she needed something from the disciple’s household, she expected the disciple to arrange it.

Naming all four attendants meant Ji intended them to hear the same information at the same time.

So this isn’t an errand.