Saturday cleanup. Eight AM.
The river bank in Yeouido.
The fracture network cleanup was complete but Han-Ho had added a post-completion monitoring protocol to the Saturday route. Dragon Vein activation effects on the Earth network needed weekly assessment for at least a month. The equipment team agreed. Ms. Yoon had scheduled it.
So Saturday mornings were still river bank mornings.
The S-Ranks came because they had been coming every Saturday for three weeks and the habit had formed the way habits form when something matters enough to show up for repeatedly.
Jin Tae-Yang brought food.
He had been bringing food every Saturday.
He had adjusted the restaurant order over three weeks to account for the old man's preferences. The old man had mentioned once that the soup was very good. Jin Tae-Yang had noted this. The soup was now always included.
The old man arrived at eight fifteen.
He came from the direction of the Seocho apartment. Had been training there since five AM. The walk from Seocho to the Yeouido river bank took approximately forty minutes at normal human pace.
The old man arrived in twelve minutes.
Nobody asked about this.
He sat on the bank next to Han-Ho.
The S-Ranks were doing their cleanup positions. The monitoring the equipment team had assigned to each of them. The same positions from the original fracture cleanup. The positions had stuck.
Oh Kyung-Soo on the south contamination monitoring.
Baek Sung-Il on the deep sensor array calibration.
Jin Tae-Yang on the east section structural readings.
Song Mi-Rae on the shadow detection extension.
Lee Soo-Bin on the residue monitoring.
Yoo Chae-Won on the Dragon Vein flow rate assessment.
Min-Seo on the central junction point.
Each of them had developed their position over three weeks into something they understood and contributed to. The cleanup was complete but the monitoring required the same skills. They had not been asked to continue. They had just continued.
The old man watched them work.
Han-Ho reviewed the preliminary scan results from the morning's assessment.
After twenty minutes the old man said: "Oh Kyung-Soo."
Oh Kyung-Soo looked up from his position.
"Your south contamination readings," said the old man.
"Yes," said Oh Kyung-Soo.
"The baseline has shifted since last Saturday."
Oh Kyung-Soo looked at his readings.
"Yes," said Oh Kyung-Soo. "Down two point one percent."
"The Dragon Vein activation," said the old man. "The clean energy flow is reducing ambient contamination accumulation rates."
"That is what the numbers suggest," said Oh Kyung-Soo.
"Over time the baseline will continue to drop," said the old man. "The contamination that has been accumulating for twenty years will begin to clear naturally as the ambient mana quality improves."
"How long," said Oh Kyung-Soo.
"Years," said the old man. "Not weeks. The accumulated contamination of twenty years does not clear in a month. But the direction is correct."
Oh Kyung-Soo looked at the readings.
"Less work for Han-Ho eventually," said Oh Kyung-Soo.
"Or different work," said the old man. "As the contamination reduces the remaining work concentrates in the areas that receive less Dragon Vein benefit. The edges of the network."
"The connection points," said Han-Ho, without looking up from his notebook.
"Yes," said the old man.
"Which are the next phase of the work," said Han-Ho.
"Yes," said the old man.
Han-Ho made a note.
The old man and Oh Kyung-Soo exchanged a look.
The look of two people who have separately arrived at the same understanding of someone and find the shared understanding quietly satisfying.
Jin Tae-Yang distributed food at ten AM.
The break was fifteen minutes.
Han-Ho had accepted fifteen minutes without negotiation since Chapter 20 which everyone in the group had noted and nobody had mentioned because some progress was better experienced quietly.
The old man accepted a bowl of soup.
Looked at it.
"The soup is the same as last week," said the old man.
"Yes," said Jin Tae-Yang. "You mentioned it was good."
"It is good," said the old man.
"I noted it," said Jin Tae-Yang.
The old man looked at him.
In ten thousand years people had brought him many things. Tribute. Offerings. Formal gifts. All of them weighted with expectation and hierarchy and the specific energy of someone doing something because they felt they had to.
Jin Tae-Yang had noted that the soup was good and brought the same soup the next week because it was good.
No expectation. No hierarchy. No formal weight.
Just: you liked the soup. Here is the soup.
"Thank you," said the old man.
"Of course," said Jin Tae-Yang.
They ate.
Lee Soo-Bin had been working up to saying something since the old man arrived.
He did it during the break.
"Old man," said Lee Soo-Bin.
Everyone looked at Lee Soo-Bin.
Lee Soo-Bin was twenty six years old and the second most powerful Hunter in Korea and had forty three million followers and was currently sitting on a river bank about to say something to a ten thousand year old Life and Death realm martial artist.
He looked briefly like he was reconsidering.
He did not reconsider.
"My qi," said Lee Soo-Bin. "Since Monday. It has been cleaner. Moving differently through my meridians."
"Yes," said the old man.
"Is that — what does that mean. For cultivation."
The old man looked at him.
"You are not a cultivator," said the old man. "In the martial world sense. You did not undergo formal qi refinement training."
"No," said Lee Soo-Bin. "I Awakened. The skill came with the Awakening."
"But your energy system has the same structure," said the old man. "Meridians. Core. Flow patterns. Different terminology. Same fundamental architecture." He paused. "What you are experiencing is what a martial artist experiences when their cultivation environment improves. The ambient energy is cleaner. The qi that moves through your system is drawing from cleaner ambient energy. The meridians clear of micro-blockages that accumulated from twenty years of contaminated ambient mana."
"Micro-blockages," said Lee Soo-Bin.
"Like the cleaning fees," said Han-Ho.
Everyone looked at Han-Ho.
"The micro-gaps in Hwang Ryeok's technique," said Han-Ho. "The contamination-caused inefficiencies. Lee Soo-Bin has the same thing at a systemic level. Everyone with a mana-based ability does. Twenty years of contaminated ambient mana has left micro-blockages throughout the energy systems of every Awakened person on Earth."
"And the Dragon Vein activation," said Lee Soo-Bin slowly.
"Is cleaning them," said Han-Ho. "Gradually. The cleaner ambient mana flowing through the system clears the micro-blockages the way clean water clears sediment from a pipe."
Lee Soo-Bin looked at his hands.
At the hands that had the second highest mana output in Korea.
At the hands that were going to get cleaner.
Better.
More efficient.
Not through training or breakthrough.
Through clean water in the pipes.
"I am going to improve," said Lee Soo-Bin.
"Yes," said the old man. "All of you are. All Awakened persons on Earth are. At different rates depending on their individual energy system architecture. But the direction is the same for all of you."
The S-Ranks looked at each other.
"That includes the S-Ranks with constellation contracts," said Song Mi-Rae quietly.
"Yes," said the old man.
"Our constellations will feel the change."
"Yes."
"They will have questions."
"Yes," said the old man. "I imagine they already do."
Song Mi-Rae looked at the sky.
Far above in the space between stars her constellation was being very attentive in a way it had not been for years.
She looked at Han-Ho.
Han-Ho was making notes.
Of course he was.
After the break Yoo Chae-Won sat next to the old man.
Not for a brand consultation.
For a question.
"Old man," said Yoo Chae-Won.
"Yes," said the old man.
"The martial world martial artists who will have breakthroughs."
"Yes."
"How significant."
"Depends on the individual," said the old man. "Those who were close to a breakthrough will advance. Those who were far will simply progress faster. A few exceptional ones might advance multiple realms."
"How many is a few."
"Perhaps twenty. Perhaps fewer."
"And those twenty will be significantly stronger than they were."
"Yes."
"Will they come through the Gate."
The old man was quiet.
"Some will," he said. "The Gate is stable now. The Dragon Vein Gate on the rooftop. It will draw martial artists who feel the activation and want to find its source. The way Hwang Ryeok was drawn through accidentally, others will come deliberately."
"Prepared," said Yoo Chae-Won.
"Yes."
"With their new power levels."
"Yes."
Yoo Chae-Won looked at Han-Ho.
"Han-Ho," said Yoo Chae-Won.
"I heard," said Han-Ho.
"The Registry—"
"Needs updated protocols for martial world arrivals yes," said Han-Ho. "I have filed a report. Ms. Yoon is drafting intake procedures."
"The S-Ranks need to know the techniques," said Yoo Chae-Won. "If they are going to be working alongside martial world visitors. The qi reinforcement problem from Hwang Ryeok. If we encounter more of that—"
"I am working on a technique assessment document," said the old man.
Everyone looked at him.
"Major sect techniques," said the old man. "Their strengths. Their weaknesses. How they interact with mana-based abilities." He looked at Han-Ho. "I will provide it to Ms. Yoon by Wednesday."
"Ms. Yoon will appreciate that," said Han-Ho.
"She will file it appropriately," said the old man.
"She always does," said Han-Ho.
The old man and Han-Ho looked at each other with the mutual understanding of two people who both appreciate the value of proper documentation and have found each other.
Oh Kyung-Soo watched this exchange.
Made a mental note.
The mental note said: these two are the same kind of person. Different expressions of the same fundamental approach to existence. Work. Document. Continue.
He did not say this out loud.
Some observations were better held.