Harem Link Cultivation System-Chapter 67: The Faction War Begins

The night air outside the Outer Candidate Quarters cut like a blade, sharper than any Lin Tian remembered from Cloudcrest. He pulled his plain gray cloak tighter, the coarse wool doing little against the spiritual chill that seeped from the very stones of the Azure Snow Sect. His breath fogged in the air, each exhale a tiny plume of defiance against the frozen silence.

He moved like a shadow, sticking to the narrow alleys between dormitory buildings, his footsteps silent on the packed snow. The maintenance token for the North Peak vents was a cold, heavy weight in his inner pocket, a promise of relief from the black veins crawling up his arm. The curse throbbed in time with his heartbeat, a dull, icy ache he had learned to ignore for minutes at a time.

Just get to the service path. Follow the markers. Don’t be seen.

He rounded a corner and froze.

A figure leaned against the wall ahead, shrouded in the deep gloom between two unlit spirit-lamps. Lin Tian’s hand went to the simple dagger at his belt, his qi coiling tight in his core. The figure pushed off the wall, and the faint light from a high window caught the hard planes of a familiar, scowling face.

Zhao Yuming.

"Going for a midnight stroll, Lin Tian?" Zhao’s voice was low, stripped of its usual mocking edge. It was flat, and serious in a way Lin Tian had never heard. "Or are you finally stupid enough to try running?"

Lin Tian relaxed his stance a fraction, but kept his guard up. "What do you want, Zhao? I’m in a hurry."

"To get yourself killed faster?" Zhao took a step closer, his eyes scanning the empty alley. "Forget your little errand. You need to listen."

"I listened to you on the hunt. It nearly got us all eaten by a serpent."

A flicker of the old irritation crossed Zhao’s face, but it died quickly. "This isn’t about pride. This is about you not being alive next week." He jerked his head toward the deeper shadows of a recessed doorway. "In here. Now."

Against his better judgment, Lin Tian followed. The doorway offered scant cover, but it was out of the direct line of sight from the main paths. Zhao stood with his back to the open alley, watching the approach.

"The preliminary trial list gets posted tomorrow," Zhao said, his words coming out in a rushed whisper. "You’re on it. Everyone in the top twenty is. But you... you’re not just a candidate to them."

"Them?"

"The Frozen Sword Faction." Zhao spat the name like it was poison. "Inner disciples. The ones who think polishing their swords in the outer rankings makes them look humble and diligent. They’re not geniuses who skipped the outer sect, they’re the political ones. Their families have ties. They have agendas."

Lin Tian felt a cold that had nothing to do with the night. "And what’s their agenda with me?"

"You’re a flaw." Zhao’s eyes were hard. "You’re a stain on their perfect, controlled system. A cripple from a backwater clan, engaged to a Core Realm genius they see as a sect asset. You climbed too fast. You didn’t break under pressure. Elder Shen watches you, and that makes you a variable. Variables get removed."

"The trial is supervised," Lin Tian said, but the protest sounded weak even to him.

"The Frostfang Gorge isn’t a dueling arena," Zhao hissed. "It’s a labyrinth of ice canyons, hidden crevasses, and spirit beasts hungry for qi. ’Accidents’ happen every trial. A misplaced step on a slippery ledge. A sudden ambush by a beast that ’shouldn’t have been in that sector’. A fellow candidate ’panicking’ and firing a technique in the wrong direction." He leaned in. "They’ve already chosen their instrument. A guy named Feng Jian. Rank twelve. He’s not the strongest, but he’s clever, and he owes the Frozen Sword Faction for his family’s trade contracts. His job isn’t to beat you in a fair fight. His job is to make sure you don’t walk out of the gorge."

The information landed in Lin Tian’s gut like a stone. He’d known the sect was hostile, that they wanted to separate him from Xueya. But this was cold, premeditated murder dressed up as misfortune. The constant surveillance, the trace, the evaluations—they weren’t just tests. They were the setup. They established his limits, his reactions, so they could plan around them.

"Why are you telling me this?" Lin Tian asked, studying Zhao’s face. "You made it clear you don’t like me."

Zhao looked away, his jaw working. "I don’t. You’re arrogant. You act like you’re above all this petty sect drama." He glanced back, his expression grim. "But you saved my hide from that boar’s tusks. I saw the frost on your clothes from the serpent. You didn’t flinch. You didn’t let the mark go wild." He let out a short, sharp breath. "I pay my debts. Even to people I don’t like. And watching those inner-sector vipers arrange a murder... it leaves a bad taste."

Lin Tian nodded slowly. The warning felt real. The resentment in Zhao’s voice was too raw to be part of a trick. "Feng Jian. Rank twelve. Frostfang Gorge."

"Yeah. The trial starts in four days. They’ll make their move early, when the groups are still scattered and the overseers’ attention is divided." Zhao pushed himself off the wall. "Consider your debt paid. Don’t mention my name. If anyone asks, you never saw me."

He slipped out of the doorway and melted into the darkness of the alley, leaving Lin Tian alone with the pounding of his own heart.

The ache from the curse flared, a sharp reminder of his vulnerability. An ’accident’. In the gorge. He looked up at the oppressive mountain peaks silhouetted against the starry sky. The sect wasn’t just a cage. It was a glacier, and it was starting to calve, threatening to crush him in the icefall.

A hot, unfamiliar anger began to burn through the cold in his veins. He’d spent weeks reacting. To the trace, to the duels, to the elders’ scrutiny. He’d been defensive, trying to prove he wasn’t a threat, trying to be worthy. Where had it gotten him? A death sentence and a curse rotting his arm.

No more.

The thought was clear, and final. He wasn’t leaving the sect. He wasn’t giving up Xueya. And he sure as hell wasn’t going to be murdered in some frozen ditch for the crime of existing.

He abandoned his plan for the North Peak vents. The curse would have to wait. He turned on his heel and walked back to his quarters, his steps no longer furtive, but deliberate and firm.

The door to his room closed behind him with a soft click. The air inside was stale and cold, thick with the feeling of being watched. He could almost feel the invisible pressure of the listening formation in the ceiling corner, a constant, silent itch on his skin.

He sat on the edge of his cot, closed his eyes, and focused inward.

System.

Blue text shimmered into existence behind his eyelids, a familiar interface.

[Harem Link Cultivation System]

[ Status ]

Host: Lin Tian

Realm: Elementary Spirit Realm — Fifth Level

Talent: Heaven Grade

Spirit Roots: Heavan Grade

Physique: Pending

Bloodline: Locked Linked 𝑓𝓇𝘦ℯ𝘸𝘦𝑏𝓃𝑜𝘷ℯ𝑙.𝑐𝑜𝓂

Partner: Bai Xueya (1)

[Harem Points: 1,247]

[Available Missions: Survive Preliminary Trials. Prevent Forced Separation.]

[Shop: Accessible]

He’d been hoarding the points, unsure what to spend them on. Now, he knew.

Open the Shop. Filter: Defensive Arrays. Concealment. High-Level.

The menu shifted. A list of items appeared, their descriptions glowing with promise.

[Mist-Walker’s Shroud (Low-Grade)] - 300 HP. Creates a visual blur for 1 hour.

[Echo-Nullification Talisman (Mid-Grade)] - 700 HP. Suppresses sound in a 10-foot radius for 6 hours.

[Veil of Tranquil Mist (High-Grade)] - 1,100 HP. Establishes a permanent, mobile, low-power array. Masks all qi fluctuations, sound, and spiritual scrutiny below the Heaven Spirit Realm Peak stage.

His eyes locked on the last one. Permanent. Masks spiritual scrutiny. It was expensive. It would wipe out almost all his points. But it was a foundation. A place to think, to plan, to cultivate without a thousand eyes on his back.

Purchase: Veil of Tranquil Mist.

[Confirm purchase for 1,100 Harem Points?]

Confirm.

A warm, tingling sensation flowed from his core down his arms. His remaining points dropped to 147. In his mind’s eye, a complex geometric pattern unfolded—a blueprint of interlocking rings and flowing sigils. The knowledge of how to install it settled into his mind like a memory he’d always known.

He opened his eyes. The room looked the same, but everything had changed.

He got to work. Using a drop of his own blood mixed with water from his drinking bowl, he began to paint the sigils on the floor in the corners of the room, following the pattern in his head. The lines glowed faintly blue as he drew them, then faded to near-invisibility. He moved his cot, carved the central anchor symbol into the floorboards beneath it. He channeled a tiny thread of his qi into the symbol.

A hum, so low it was more a vibration in his teeth than a sound, filled the room. The air shimmered for a heartbeat, like heat haze over stone. Then, a profound silence descended.

It wasn’t the silence of emptiness. It was the silence of a door closing. The constant, subconscious pressure of the listening formation vanished. The faint spiritual chill from the sect’s outer wards seemed to stop at the walls. For the first time since he’d arrived at Azure Snow, the space around him felt like his own.

Lin Tian took a deep, shuddering breath. He hadn’t realized how much energy he’d been spending just to hold himself still under that observation. The tension in his shoulders began to unknot.

He sat on his cot in the center of his newly secured room. The curse in his arm pulsed, a reminder of his physical vulnerability. The warning about Feng Jian and the Frozen Sword Faction echoed in his mind, a map of his immediate danger.

But he wasn’t just thinking about defense anymore.

They want an accident in the gorge. Fine.

He looked at the pale light of the moon beginning to creep through his high window. It glinted off the frost on the pane.

Let’s give them one they weren’t expecting.

End of Chapter 66