56 You Would Still Lose

Chen Mo settled into a meditative pose, drawing in deep, steadying breaths as he immersed himself in the rhythms of cultivation. Elemental energies swirled around his corporeal form in an endless, tranquil vortex.

A faint disturbance rippled through the flows - the barest tremor of power from somewhere within the sect's hallowed grounds. Chen Mo's eyes flickered open momentarily as he analyzed the source. Ah, his disciples must be experimenting with their newly bestowed skills.

The corner of his lip quirked upward as his thoughts drifted to Lin Feng's dragon transformation ability. He had meticulously studied the young man's draconic technique, compiling data on his physiology and chi flows while semi-transformed. Running billions of simulated iterations, he'd reverse-engineered the process to essentially recreate Lin Feng's lost heritage from scratch.