After a te breakfast, Tang Xi thanked Kai for his assistah training and bid him farewell with a gentle smile. With the same kindness, she dismissed Ah Tao, allowing her faithful maid to enjoy a rare moment of rest or even dedicate time to her own improvement.

  With steady steps and renewed determination, Tang Xi headed to her meditation chamber, located beside her bedroom. This space ecially designed for her cultivation and spiritual training, equipped with an advanced protective formation and a sed-css Qi-gathering system. For a cultivator at her level, these features made a signifit difference, providing an ideal enviro for tration and progress.

  The meditation chamber was more pact than her bedroom, occupying approximately half the space, but its simplicity made it even more effit. At the ter of the room y a meditation futon, a carefully chosen spiritual artifact. The futon radiated a faint aura of tranquility, helping to calm the mind and facilitate Qi circution in her body.

  The exclusivity and quality of Tang Xi's resources were a direct result of her family's uniqueness. As it was only her and her father, the resources typically distributed among multiple family members were trated betweewo of them. Her father, a strategid pragmati, used his share tthen his team, recruiting casual cultivators and iing in strategic business retionships.

  Iy, the Tang family was widely respected for its ties with hunting teams. Tang Pai, her father, acquired raw materials from these teams and processed them into specialized resources. The refined materials were then sold back to the same teams at petitive prices, creating a solid and mutually beneficial partnership. This business model not only enhahe family's reputation but also ensured a steady flow of allies and resources.

  Tang Xi ehe meditation chamber and closed the door behihe enviro was silent and immersive, ideal for the focus required for cultivation. She walked to the futon and sat ius position. With a subtle gesture, she accessed her ste pouch, where she kept precious resources for her cultivation. However, as she attempted to ect with the device, she was surprised. Something was different. She felt a strange presenething that shouldn't have been there.

  "Another tract? How is this possible? When did this happen? I don't remember anything..." —Her mind filled with questions as she tried to prehend what was happening. Determined, she activated the tract associated with it. In an instant, the room disappeared around her, and she found herself in a pletely new pce.

  The grouh her feet was bck earth that seemed to absorb light, while a dense, uling gray mist surrouhe enviro. Yet, the mist emitted no perceptible aura, which deeply intrigued her. At the ter of the surreal ndscape, a tower stood imposingly, like aernal sentinel of that strange pce.

  Tang Xi was shocked by the se before her but quickly regained her posure. Her gaze swept the area, trying to uand how she had ended up there. She thought of leaving, trating on her will, and in the blink of an eye, she was ba the meditation chamber.

  Her breathing was rapid, but she made a scious effort to calm herself. "This happened when I ected to my e device," she thought, trying tahe events. Determined, she reexamihe devid, to her surprise—but perhaps irely—realized that the phenomenon's in was her ring.

  The ring that had apanied her sihe day her biological mother pced it on her finger. A wave of sadness enveloped her, pulling her mind into old memories—ones she feared revisiting.

  Tang Xi recalled the day of her birth, ahat haunted her in nightmares until she was six years old. Despite being uo open her eyes at the time, she vividly remembered the voices, sounds, aions. Her mother spoke to her in the womb with such love and affe, a everything culminated in sorroain.

  She heard again the loud sounds of the surroundings, her mother's suppressed voice as she pced her, acc to the books Tang Xi had read, in a teleportation matrix. This act, a final effort to protect her, remained a painful mystery to her. The only es she had to her biological parents were a jade pendant with her name engraved on it, which she always wore, and the ring, which remained invisible to everyone.

  Tang Xi believed her parents had cast a powerful prote on the ring, preventing anyone from seeing or stealing it. Even she, for years, couldn't speak of it or mention it in writing. Not even her adoptive father knew of its existence.

  Taking a deep breath, Tang Xi closed her eyes, trying to push away the sadness and the crushi accumuting in her heart. The words of her biological mother echoed once again in her mind—a soft whisper, yet den with meaning:— "It's all here."

  The memory brought a mix of fort aermination. Opening her eyes, she felt her resolve rehe ring that had been with her since her birth held the secrets of her past, and now, more than ever, she was determio uhem. Every step she took seemed t her closer to the answers she sought, even if the path was shrouded in mystery and danger.

  Taking a deep breath once again, Tang Xi decided to return to the strange domain revealed by the ring. Her mind was alert, but her heart still carried a trace of apprehension. With focused thought, she activated the bond with the ring, and in the blink of ahe meditation room vanished, repced by a field of bck earth shrouded in gray mist.

  She observed her surroundings once more—the oppressive vastness of the mist and the imposing presence of the tower at the ter. The tower seemed to call to her, but Tang Xi knew she had to be cautious. She walked to the edge of the mist, her posture tense, carefully examining the terrain.

  To test the safety of the pce, she opened her ste bag, which was sizable enough to hold a variety of items, including food. From it, she retrieved a simple training stick.

  With a hesitaure, she poihe stick at the mist and threw it. The object peed slightly into the fog before boung bading about a meter away. Tang Xi approached to i it, pig up the stick with caution. She then tried poking the mist directly, but no matter how much she moved the object, there seemed to be ion. It was as if the mist was an immutable boundary, impossible to cross by ventional means.

  After a few moments of testing, she gave up on iigating the mist and turned her attention to the tower. Her heart raced with anticipation as she walked toward the structure. With each step, her curiosity grew, and the enviro around her seemed to grow heavier, as if the very bck earth reacted to her approach.

  When she finally reached the tower, she noticed that the surrounding space had a distinct dimension, appearing to enpass about 500 square meters. It was an oddly aerrain, but not hostile. The tower, oher hand, was an awe-inspiring sight. Its surface appeared to be made of polished bck stone, refleg the dim light as if abs the essence of the pce.

  Before the entraang Xi saw something that made her stop. Oower's door, words were engraved in gold:

  "Tower of Tang Harmony."

  The letters glowed intensely, and as she read them, Tang Xi felt a direct impa her mind, as if an invisible force robing her heart aermination. A shiver ran down her spine, and she instinctively lowered her head, sensing the immi danger emanating from that pce.

  Her mind buzzed with questions. 'Why is my name here? Who created this pce? What does 'Tang Harmony' mean?'

  Even in the face of fear trying to take hold, she took a deep breath, fog on her ce. A powerful impulse moved her, and her curiosity outweighed aatioending her hand, she touched the surface of the door with reverence, feeling its cold, firm texture beh her fingers.

  With renewed determination, she tried to push the door.And at that moment...

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