The problem with improving quickly was that improvement was visible.
He'd known this from the beginning — the system had warned him, he'd acknowledged it, he'd planned to manage it. But planning and execution were different, and by the end of his fourth week at Master Feng's school, the situation had developed a momentum of its own that was harder to slow down than he'd anticipated.
It started with Tayo, who had become a regular sparring partner and had apparently not been quiet about what he'd observed.
Then the ridge-runner gash on his forearm healed in two days instead of the week it should have taken — someone had noticed.
Then a merchant's guard who had watched one of the afternoon classes had mentioned to his employer that the teaching assistant at Feng's school moved like someone who had been training for a decade, not four weeks.
None of these things were disasters by themselves. Together, they formed a pattern.
The system flagged it on a Tuesday morning.
{A Spirit Sect outer disciple was positioned near Master Feng's school for approximately forty minutes yesterday evening,} it said, while he was eating breakfast. {Based on positioning and timing, observation of you specifically is the most likely purpose.}
Jelani put down his food.
"You're sure."
{I'm projecting from available information. But the outer disciple had no other reason to be in that part of the south district at that hour. Spirit Sect members don't patrol there. He was watching the school.}
He was quiet for a moment, running through the implications. A disciple had been watching him. That meant someone had reported his existence upward — not as a threat yet, most likely, but as an anomaly. A rapidly improving unknown cultivator in the south district with an unusual technique. Worth noting. Worth watching.
{You have approximately Level 8 combat power at current,} the system said. {The outer disciples at the compound are predominantly Level 3 and Level 4. You are not in danger from the disciples themselves.}
"But if they report to someone higher up in the sect—"
{That is the concern, yes. Spirit Sect elders begin at Core Formation. That is a significant gap above your current level.}
He thought about the scar-disciple. He had been watching and waiting and building toward the right moment to move, but the right moment was not going to wait for him indefinitely. If the sect started paying serious attention to him, his window would close.
{I want to caution you against rushing,} the system said, reading — or perhaps simply anticipating — his train of thought.
"I know." He stood, rolled his shoulders, and looked out the small window of the room he was renting near the south gate. "How many of the original group have I confirmed locations on?"
{One: the scar-disciple, regularly stationed near the grain merchant stalls and the north gate. Three others remain unconfirmed as participants in the original incident.}
"I need to confirm the others before I move. If I take down one and the others scatter before I can—"
{Correct. Patience.}
"I hate patience."
{You're quite good at it for someone who hates it.}
He gathered his things for the morning class and thought about the disciple outside Feng's school and decided that patience was only valuable up to a point. Past that point, it became a different kind of risk.
He needed to move. Not today. But soon.