SSS Ranked Awakening: All My Skills Are at Level 100 Chapter 610: The Door to Jade Moon

Chapter 610: The Door to Jade Moon

She offered no details, and Leon did not press.

Her attention had already shifted to the estate.

The outer formations had been altered since her departure. The rear garden entrance was barred, and the guards beside it watched every approaching servant. A storehouse near the eastern wall stood empty. Damage had been cleaned, but not completely concealed from someone who knew what to look for.

"Someone entered this compound," Qingyue said.

"Four people," Yanning replied. "All Void Immortals."

Qingyue turned toward her. Surprise crossed her face, then disappeared beneath focused attention.

They met Shen Yuanhe in the private room beside the family court. The old man summarized the attack himself: four intruders, three permanent deaths, one captured leader, a tracking formation placed on the treasure before delivery, and a local observer manipulated into sending a false success report.

Qingyue listened without interrupting.

"How long will the tracker’s suppression remain believable?" she asked when he finished.

"A few days," Leon said.

"When is the next expected contact?"

"The prisoners gave us a range, not an exact hour. We’re keeping them separate and comparing everything else they say."

"Did the local agent transmit anything before the false report?"

"He began writing a failure report, then burned it after receiving the authenticated message. I waited until his replacement transmission was complete before taking him."

Qingyue gave a small nod. "Good. If you had interrupted it halfway, the receiving jade might have recorded the failure."

"That was my concern."

"Show me the Void Immortal."

They descended to the strongroom. Qingyue stood before the captured leader and extended her senses toward Leon’s restraint without touching it.

The spatial fold did not treat the Ethereal foundation as a nearby object. It controlled the routes through which the prisoner’s manifestation could access that distributed foundation. He remained whole and capable of surviving, but unable to escape through reformation.

Qingyue studied the structure for several breaths.

"You can restrain his connection without damaging the foundation," she said after they returned to the yard.

"Yes."

"Several elders in Jade Moon Palace could do the same. Most Void Immortals could not." Her eyes rested on him briefly. "That explains why he chose to bargain."

She also recognized the notched iron ring.

"Ninefold Ridge is dangerous," she said. "The Qiao clan has no direct dispute with Jade Moon Palace, and the Palace will not begin a regional conflict over an attempted theft from a merchant family. I can confirm what the mark means. I cannot make the clan disappear."

"We didn’t expect you to," Yanning said.

"Good. The false report was the right choice, but it will expire. When the promised contact fails and the treasure never arrives, Ninefold Ridge will send someone more cautious than the first group."

Shen Yuanhe nodded. "We intend to use the time."

Qingyue did not offer an easy solution because none existed. She gave Yanning two names of neutral formation masters who did not work for the city’s four houses, then left the family to continue its preparations.

Less than an hour after her arrival, she and Leon stood on the western wall as sunset colored Moonfall’s roofs.

"You promised me a surprise," Leon said.

"I did."

Qingyue rested one hand on the parapet and looked across the northern quarter. Ore lifts moved between towers while evening lanterns came alive below them.

"Part of the surprise depended on whether you were still here," she said.

"You were testing me?"

"I was checking my judgment. We spent roughly four days close together. That was enough to form an opinion, but not enough to trust it completely."

She turned toward him.

"You could have left Moonfall, taken work in the Desolation, or attached yourself to one of the city’s major houses. Instead, you stayed in a merchant family’s guest wing, learned what ordinary food cost, and protected an old man’s refinement from four Void Immortals."

"I didn’t do that to impress you."

"I know. That makes the decision more useful."

Qingyue straightened.

"Jade Moon Palace is a major sect of the Eastern Jade Sea," she said. "Its archives contain cultivation paths Moonfall’s markets will never sell. Its training grounds, teachers, and private resources draw talented cultivators from across the region. It is the kind of place you have been trying to reach without knowing its name."

She described it without ceremony. The Palace held territories across the islands of the Eastern Jade Sea and drew candidates from far beyond Moonfall. New arrivals did not train beside core disciples or receive rare inheritances merely because they passed through the gate. They were assessed and placed according to talent, cultivation, conduct, and what the sect believed they could become.

"A recommendation means they will not dismiss you as an unknown wanderer with no lineage record," Qingyue said. "It ensures the recruitment elders examine you seriously. Nothing more."

Leon remained quiet.

"I am willing to recommend you as a recruitment candidate."

"On what grounds?"

"Four rare affinities with enough range to support one another. Precise control. A clean foundation and no sign of corruption or demonic cultivation. More importantly, you remain calm when a bad decision would be easier."

She raised a hand before he could answer.

"My recommendation opens the gate. It does not carry you through the assessment. The Palace will examine you, test you, and decide for itself. Several disciples and true heirs in my generation are stronger than you in an open fight, and the sect has no shortage of talented candidates. You may be rejected."

"And if I refuse?"

"Then you refuse. This is not repayment for anything that happened in the Desolation. You owe me and the Palace nothing."

"Would your recommendation make you responsible for me?"

"Only for bringing you to their attention in good faith. If you lie during the assessment, attack someone, or prove unsuitable, the consequences are yours." A faint edge of humor entered her voice. "I am offering an introduction, Leon. I am not adopting you."

Leon looked out over the city.

A major sect offered the knowledge he had spent the last six days gathering one fragment at a time. Its archives might explain this world’s cultivation, its higher ranks, and which resources could benefit the people living inside his dimensional world.

It also meant scrutiny.

Jade Moon Palace would notice that he possessed no normal spiritual root or recognizable circulation method. A serious assessment might discover far more than a market examination ever could.

The Trial Overseer still existed somewhere far above this frontier city. Leon could not prepare for that threat with beginner manuals and guesses.

"When would we leave?" he asked.

"Not tonight, and not tomorrow," Qingyue replied. "The Shens need time to move their vulnerable assets, and both prisoners may still give you useful information. Finish what you need to finish. I will wait."

Below them, fresh guards took their positions around the inner estate. The Qiao clan’s threat had been delayed, not ended. Leon now had access to the Shen trade network, a living resource Loriel might propagate, and an opportunity that could carry him beyond Moonfall.

Qingyue extended one hand, palm upward in the formal manner of this world.

"Come with me to Jade Moon Palace. I cannot promise they will accept you, but I can make certain they look."

Leon glanced once toward the guarded rear estate, then met her eyes.

"That is enough."