Inside the hall with a proper bow, held correctly. "Greetings, Pope."
Bibi Dong studied with the kind of look that took stock of things methodically — the unusual hair, the eyes that had settled from the bright ceremony-purple into something steadier but no less watchful. There was a moment, brief and quickly controlled, where something crossed her expression. Something that flickered at the surface and was then deliberately pressed back under. She straightened slightly, returned to her default composure.
"Xia Yanran," she said. "Innate soul power ten. Martial soul: Chimera — lion, serpent, horn. Quiet an unique combination. Nana talked about you a lot and even praised you many times. Now that I seeing you, I also think you are more capable then what Nana. So, I was considering something," She took a small break, "Will you accept me as your master?"
The question carried no performance in it. It was genuine.
A kneel, unhurried and correctly executed. "Disciple greets Master."
"Be at ease." The Pope's voice carried the particular quality that comes from decades of commands — the texture where courtesy and authority have stopped being distinguishable from each other because they've become the same thing. "From now on you are my second disciple. Come here and show me your martial soul."
Rising. Approaching. Activating the Chimera — not the full manifestation of the ceremony, which would have been dramatically excessive indoors and served no useful purpose, but the controlled partial form. The right hand changed first: the skin deepened into a blue so dark it sat at the boundary of black, and the nails lengthened and sharpened into something that was functionally a claw rather than a hand. Across the back of the hand and up the wrist, a pattern emerged — not scales exactly, something more like flame captured in dark pigment, a design that shifted faintly even when the hand was held still, as though something within it breathed independently of everything else. The eyes brightened into their ceremony-purple. The rest of the body: entirely unremarkable. No second manifestation, no dramatic pressure, no visible spirit energy beyond the single transformed arm.
Bibi Dong studied this for a long and careful moment.
"A dark and fire type martial soul, dual element" she said. "Except for your hand, there's no other external sign of possession."
Meeting her eyes directly: "Master. My martial soul is the Chimera. It has devouring properties."
The silence that followed occupied a specific quality of its own — not the silence of someone with nothing to say, but the silence of someone managing a significant internal response with considerable practiced skill. Bibi Dong had spent her life in possession of two martial souls, the second of which was the exclusive property and inheritance of Spirit Hall's Pope alone, its nature kept from all but the highest ranks. She knew what devouring properties meant. She knew what they yielded and what they cost and how rare they were — rare enough that in her entire cultivated life she had encountered them only in herself and some evil soul masters.
"I see." Two words, carrying the full compressed weight of considerable surprise held in complete and professional check. "I will take some time to plan your spirit ring pathway properly. Until then, you will begin attending the Primary Spirit Academy and establish your foundational framework." She produced a token from within her robe — dark lacquered, engraved with the Pope Hall's seal, the kind of item that opened doors other disciples didn't know existed. "This grants you library access here. Use it well. Nana will show you to your room tonight, which will be adjacent to hers from now onward." A pause. Something in her expression shifted — a degree of warmth, deliberately understated, that she neither advertised nor entirely concealed. "Yanran. I am expecting a great deal from you. If you need anything inform Nana or come to pope hall to find me."
"I will not disappoint you, Master."
The library of Pope Hall was not the largest library these eyes had ever navigated. It was, however, the most precisely and deliberately organised — the kind of organisation that implied its architect had spent significant time thinking not only about what information should be where, but about what information should be behind additional locks, and who should hold keys to which levels, and why.
The room first. Adjacent to Liena's, as promised — nicer than anywhere lived in the past six years by a margin large enough that spending time dwelling on the comparison served no useful purpose. The small inventory of owned items set down. With some time sitting on the edge of the bed to confirm the reality of the situation.
Then: straight to the library.
Late afternoon. Light entered at a low angle through high windows, turning the drifting dust into something almost atmospheric. Most of the alcoves were empty.
She found a corner and claimed it. A stack of texts assembled — soul beast classification and evolutionary taxonomy, spirit ring compatibility theory, a general survey of cultivation ranks and advancement mechanics — stacked to roughly chin height, first volume opened.
In her right palm, invisible to any hypothetical observer, a small golden cube rotated with slow patience. The Void Archive. One of the four golden pulls from the System, this is one of the divine key in Honkai Impact 3rd universe and was used by Otto Apocalypse. The knowledge it held was vast and encyclopaedic, its full contents still being mapped. But its active function right now was simple: scan, capture, store. Void Archive is currently limited to simple function and will unlock one by one for each soul ring level I cross. And even unlock more Knowledge. As much as I know, this Void Archive is not only limited to knowledge of Honkai universe, it also carries many others and was recorded by previous user of the System, or Void Archive.
Every page she turned, the Void Archive recorded it.
The days settled into a rhythm — sleep, wake, exercise, run, cultivate, eat, read through the afternoon, dinner, cultivate again, sleep.
Then she reached for first chapter on the Ten Great Core Spirit Competencies.
Two paragraphs in, she closed the book.
She slid it carefully to the far edge of the pile, away from everything else, and filed it mentally under a category she'd developed over years of encountering this particular type of material. Accurate enough in its narrow technical claims to sound credible, but built on assumptions that would quietly calcify the thinking of anyone who accepted it as foundational truth rather than as one limited framework among many. The private label she used for this category wasn't polite, but it was accurate.
Rotten apple. No point scanning a rotten apple. It would only contaminate everything stored beside it.
She opened the next text.
She didn't notice the presence behind her until it had been there for a noticeable while — which was mildly irritating in hindsight, a small lapse in the situational awareness that usually served her better. She turned.
"Master. You're here."
Bibi Dong stood at a measured distance from the alcove, close enough to have been observing the reading — and the book that had been set aside — for several minutes. Her expression held its default composed quality, revealing nothing of whatever conclusions she'd drawn.
"I came to check how you were settling in," she said. "You appear eager to begin acquiring your spirit rings."
"I've given it some thought, yes." Yanran set down the current text. "Given the Chimera's nature, its compatibility range is unusually broad — any beast type should function. At my current level, the strongest available options are probably the Blazing Lion for raw offensive power, the Shadow Leopard for speed and assassination, and the Ashfang Panther as a balance between the two. Each would reinforce a different aspect of the base spirit."
Bibi Dong's expression shifted toward something that wasn't quite approval — more the preliminary form of it, the look of someone confirming a hypothesis they'd already formed. "You've thought this through carefully. Though you should know that beast types aren't your only option. Plant-type spirit rings have their uses. Scorching Blood Ivy, Nether Throne Vine — a spirit with devouring properties could potentially make very interesting use of plant-origin rings in ways a conventional beast-type spirit couldn't."
"I understand the logic," Yanran replied. "But Master — isn't it generally true that things closest to their origin are superior? The Chimera's fundamental nature is beast-composite. Feeding it beast rings reinforces that origin directly and cleanly. Introducing plant-derived elements adds a dilution." She paused, searching for the right analogy. "It's the difference between pure milk and milk mixed with water. Both are technically milk. But they are not the same thing, and anyone who has tasted both knows it immediately."
Bibi Dong was quiet for a moment. The particular quality of the silence suggested active consideration rather than disagreement.
"You're not surprised," she said. "That an animal martial soul can absorb a plant-type spirit ring."
"Should I be?" Yanran considered the question genuinely. "Weapon martial souls absorb rings from both beast and plant spirit beasts without difficulty. There are no ten-year or hundred-year weapon soul beasts — weapons have no wild counterpart. The compatibility was clearly never fundamentally about categorical matching. It's about resonance quality and energy compatibility. The categories are descriptive labels for what has been observed. They aren't prescriptive rules for what is possible." A brief pause. "The more interesting question isn't whether cross-category absorption can happen. It's why anyone would choose to do it when better options exist."
This silence had a completely different quality. Bibi Dong's expression had moved beyond assessment, beyond preliminary approval, into territory closer to the unguarded end of her considerable range. Not quite surprise — more the expression of someone who has just discovered that a room they thought they knew completely contains a door they had never once noticed.
"It seems your studying is going well," she said, her voice returning to its usual composed register. "I'll leave you to continue."
She picked up a book and placed it on the table beside Yanran's stack. The cover glimmered — golden characters raised against dark lacquer, shimmering with the embedded quality of something infused with significant soul power at the moment of its inscription.
Ten Great Core Spirit Competencies.
Yanran looked at the book. Then at Bibi Dong. The irony arrived with genuinely impeccable timing.
Her master had personally delivered the rotten apple.
She kept that entirely off her face — six years of practice made it effortless. She received the book with both hands and bowed her head correctly.
"Thank you, Master."
Bibi Dong nodded once, turned, and left.
Yanran waited until the sound of footsteps had faded completely. She skimmed through the whole book again.
Then she placed the Ten Great Core Spirit Competencies at the far end of the table, at a careful and deliberate distance from everything else, and picked up exactly where she had left off.