SSS Ranked Awakening: All My Skills Are at Level 100 Chapter 640: When Rain Climbs to Heaven

Chapter 640: When Rain Climbs to Heaven

The briefing chamber was small, windowless, and protected by an isolation array considerably better than anything Leon could currently build.

Ji Liansu was already waiting. Han Suwen sat at a side table beside a case of records, a folded map, and three sealed jars.

"Sit," Ji said. "All of you."

She waited until they had taken their places.

"This is an offer, not an order. Your household has existed publicly for three days. If you refuse, there will be no penalty, no mark against you, and no loss of favor. I will offer the assignment to another team."

Ji unrolled the map.

It showed a rough oval nearly sixty kilometers across. The outer regions were recorded in detail, while the center contained large stretches of unfinished terrain.

"Ashen Rain Basin," Ji said. "It lies eleven days away along the northern route, inside territory monitored by Jade Moon Palace. The basin is an impact region. Something struck the continent there a very long time ago, and its geology never fully settled."

Han Suwen placed the first sample jar on the table.

Inside rested a dark glasslike shard crossed by pale branching lines.

"Stormglass," Ji said. "Lightning strikes that basin more frequently than anywhere else on this continent. Where ancient strikes met impact-heated mineral, the two fused. Stormglass holds a charge for an extremely long time and is difficult to refine."

Seraphine leaned forward slightly but said nothing.

The second jar contained grey ore threaded with red.

"Flame vents run beneath the eastern basin. Ore taken from the surrounding rock accepts fire-aligned energy easily. Deeper crystals have been found, but never in enough quantity for proper study."

Ira and Vyra examined the same sample with entirely different expressions.

The third jar contained a thick-stemmed cutting suspended in preservative. A faint glow pulsed beneath its outer layer.

"Mineral springs, heated soil, and unusual ambient energy produce aggressive medicinal growth," Ji continued. "Some species appear nowhere else."

Loriel went still.

"Understand what these are," Ji said. "Raw materials from a dangerous region. None is a finished treasure, and none will grant an effortless breakthrough. After evaluation and refinement, however, they may suit your individual foundations better than whatever the medicine court keeps in ordinary stock."

"That is an honest way to present it," Vyra said.

"I would prefer that you accept for the correct reason—or refuse for one."

Ji turned the map over.

"Now the part that matters."

A route had been drawn across the western side of the basin. Nine markers followed it before stopping abruptly.

"Nine days ago, a survey team ceased reporting. One Late Golden Core deacon, two Early Golden Core disciples, and six Foundation Establishment surveyors. Their assignment was to verify a newly exposed resource region and update the western map."

"No distress signal?" Seraphine asked.

"None. They failed to report at their scheduled daily window and have missed every window since." Ji rested one finger against the final marker. "All nine life tablets remain intact."

Ira leaned forward.

"So they’re alive."

"Their life imprints have not been severed," Ji corrected. "That is what the tablets prove. They may be alive and unable to signal. They may be imprisoned. They may be caught in a condition that has not broken the imprint. Do not claim more than the evidence supports."

"And no team entered after them?" Vyra asked.

"Two Nascent Soul patrols swept the perimeter and tested the outer routes. They found no immortal-level presence, no trace of a large engagement, and no evidence of the basin’s ordinary formations collapsing."

Ji indicated several notes along the basin’s edge.

"No terrain was displaced. No battle residue was found. Nothing outside the missing team’s final survey region indicates that nine people disappeared there."

"Why not send one of those patrols inside?" Leon asked.

"Under ordinary circumstances, I would."

Ji met his gaze.

"I’m offering the assignment to you because you have demonstrated spatial mobility, the ability to survive an unstable domain, and combat strength beyond that of an ordinary Golden Core cultivator. Your household also contains security, combat, formation, and medicinal expertise in a small group."

She folded her hands on the table.

"You are not less valuable than a Nascent Soul patrol, and you are not being sent because you are expendable. You are being considered because your group is better suited to enter quietly, investigate, and withdraw without announcing to every faction watching our northern territory that Jade Moon Palace may have discovered something serious."

"A spatial fold?" Leon asked.

"Possibly. A damaged formation is another possibility. So is an unknown resource affecting the tracking arrays." Ji paused. "Those are theories. We do not yet possess enough evidence to choose among them."

Han Suwen read the safeguards from her list.

Five single-use emergency return talismans, each anchored to a receiving array inside Jade Moon Palace. Fixed communication windows every second day. Updated maps, complete around the basin’s edge and clearly marked where information became unreliable. The missing team’s planned route and record-formation frequencies.

They also had standing authority to retreat.

"If the danger exceeds the assigned classification, you withdraw," Ji said. "You do not remain to verify it. You do not seek additional proof. You return and report."

Her gaze moved across all five of them.

"If you miss a communication window, a stronger response will depart within the hour, whether you want it or not."

"What are the objectives?" Vyra asked, already writing.

Ji listed them.

"Verify the newly exposed resource region. Locate and recover the missing team’s record plaques. Determine why the tracking formations failed. Find and extract the survey team if it can be done safely."

She paused before the last.

"If you confirm an immortal-level danger, withdraw and report. That instruction is not last in importance."

Their roles emerged during the questions that followed.

Seraphine took route security and detection after asking about the patrols’ sweep patterns. Ira would respond when something required direct force. Vyra claimed supplies, communication schedules, record formations, and route management. Loriel would examine the local growth, life traces, injuries, and signs of environmental corruption.

Leon would lead and decide when the group turned back.

"There is one more record," Ji said. "It is the reason this briefing is taking place inside a sealed chamber."

She placed a small plaque on the table and touched its surface.

A grainy projection appeared above it.

Rain fell over dark stone and sparse, hard-leaved trees. Steam rose from cracks in three places. A line of survey markers stretched toward a distant ridge.

A middle-aged man in deacon-grey stood with his back partly toward the recorder, giving routine instructions about marker spacing.

The scene was wet, cold, and unremarkable.

A bead of water trembled on a leaf near the edge of the projection.

Instead of falling, it detached from the leaf and rose in a straight line.

"There," Loriel said quietly.

More droplets followed.

Water lifted from puddles between the stones. At first, it rose in loose drops. Then the droplets joined into narrow silver streams climbing from the ground toward the clouds.

Ordinary rain continued falling. The descending water passed through the rising streams without either changing direction.

One of the surveyors shouted something indistinct.

The deacon turned.

Three members of the team activated tracking formations.

Every needle swung at the same moment.

They did not point toward the Palace route. They did not indicate the survey markers, the deacon, or any of the nine cultivators standing in the clearing.

All three settled upon the same bearing.

Their points aimed toward a stretch of flat, apparently empty ground at the edge of the projection.

"Same bearing on all three," Vyra murmured.

The image distorted around the edges. Water continued rising while the deacon began to speak.

The recording faded before his words became clear.

It ended without a cry, an impact, or any visible attacker.

Ji closed her hand, extinguishing the projection.

"The needles may have been redirected," Vyra said into the quiet. "A damaged tracking formation usually produces inconsistent movement, locks onto an old signal, or fails to settle. Three separate formations agreeing that precisely suggests they were still detecting something."

"Or being made to believe they were," Seraphine said. She looked at the empty space where the projection had been. "Either way, that ground is our strongest lead. It is not yet proof of what happened."

Loriel had not moved.

"The leaves remained in place," she said. "Only the water moved. Whatever caused it was not pulling everything equally, and it began before the surveyors activated their formations."

"A draw rather than an attack," Ira said. Her arms were folded, and for once there was no grin on her face. "Maybe. Nine cultivators disappeared without enough warning for one of them to trigger a distress signal. That’s the part I dislike."

Leon studied the map.

Eleven days away. Nine cultivators whose life tablets remained intact. Materials suited to every member of his household. A Palace response waiting if they missed a scheduled report.

And an empty stretch of ground that three tracking formations had identified while rain climbed toward the sky.

Leon looked at Ji Liansu.

"When do we leave?"