Li Meilin hadn’t come alone.
Behind her, Jiang Rui; fire affinity, second year, the one who’d been saying I know what I saw since the main hall. And two others Yuan recognized from the A-rank combat track, both looking like they’d spent the last several hours doing exactly what their rank suggested they could handle, which was more than most students present but less than what the dungeon had been throwing at them.
Li Meilin herself looked the same as she had in the main hall. That was the most disquieting thing about her, the sustained crisis had not visibly diminished her. Her mana output was lower than it had been during the Gargoyle King fight, the reserves spent, but her posture and expression were operating on a completely separate budget from her mana pool.
She looked at the corridor behind Yuan. At the cavern entrance. At Yuan’s hands, which he’d already checked for visible evidence and found clean except for the Crystal Shard residue, a faint luminescence that True Sight could read and standard vision couldn’t.
Standard vision. He didn’t know what Li Meilin’s perception ability was classified as.
"The dungeon stabilized seventeen minutes ago," she said. Not a question. "The mana saturation dropped across all levels simultaneously. The anomaly-sourced monsters began dissipating." Her eyes came back to his face. "You were already down here."
"Yes."
"F-rank support build. Mana Sense." She said it the way you’d read a file aloud — not unkind, just exact. "Explain."
Yuan had been constructing the explanation for seventeen minutes, which was the duration between the stabilization and this moment. He’d built it carefully, the same way he’d been building everything since the awakening — from true components, arranged to tell a specific story.
"The anomaly triggered something," he said. "When the threat level upgraded in the main hall, I was in a side passage. A Shadow Stalker cornered me. I was about to die and something activated, a secondary ability I didn’t know I had. Combat-oriented, movement-based. My Mana Sense was always tracking mana, reading signatures, building tactical pictures. Apparently that foundation could develop into something more active under the right conditions."
"The right conditions being near-death."
"The right conditions being near-death," he confirmed.
"And the subsequent abilities." She wasn’t asking whether they existed. She’d seen the evidence trail, the Gargoyle King’s defeat, the Harpy remains Zhang Wei had apparently led her past, the extraction residue in the corridors she’d tracked down. She was asking him to account for them.
"The movement ability lets me interact with monster signatures directly. When I kill something, the ability can absorb elements of its mana structure." He kept his voice even, factual, the tone of someone explaining rather than justifying. "I didn’t understand it at first. I’m still mapping the parameters."
Li Meilin was quiet for a moment. Jiang Rui, behind her, had the expression of someone whose previous suspicions were being retroactively validated, which was a less comfortable observation.
"That’s a copy ability," Li Meilin said.
"A variant of one, I think. The system classifies it differently." True — everything he was saying was true. "I don’t have full clarity on its rank or category yet."
"What rank does the system show you."
"Hidden."
Something moved in her expression. Not skepticism exactly — more like a recalibration, the new data point being processed and integrated. Hidden talent classifications were rare but documented. They existed in the field literature for exactly the reason the system used the word: the ability was present but classified as non-standard, requiring specific conditions for the system to fully categorize it.
She was deciding whether the explanation was sufficient or whether she had enough evidence to push past it.
Zhang Wei stepped into the space.
"He pulled me out of a corridor with five C-rank monsters before I’d even seen the second one," he said, with the specific credibility of someone reporting observed facts rather than character testimony. "He led the Gargoyle King fight from the shadows for the entire duration. He found the core chamber, stabilized it with whatever the system gave him for ability copying, and then came to collect the students we passed on the way up." He paused. "I’ve known him for three years. He’s not performing mysterious. He’s performing private, which is different, and I’d appreciate it if you’d let him be private until we’re out of a dungeon that was collapsing forty minutes ago."
Li Meilin looked at Zhang Wei with an expression that indicated she was filing him separately from Yuan but in the same category, person with relevant information, not currently willing to provide full detail.
She looked back at Yuan.
"The dungeon’s residual mana map," she said. "You can read it."
It wasn’t a question. She’d watched him stop in the corridor before she rounded the bend — before she would have been audible to normal hearing, before a standard Mana Sense would have registered an approaching signature through two levels of stone. She’d clocked the tell precisely.
"The stabilization left a connection," Yuan said. "Temporary. I can read general positions and threat signatures." He met her eyes. "There are twelve remaining active monster signatures between here and the main hall. Two of the original anomaly cluster that haven’t fully dissipated yet, C-rank, moving away from us, probably following the residual elevated mana. Ten native-ecology monsters in designated zone positions, which means they’re not actively hunting. The path to the main hall is clear if we move in the next twenty minutes before the dissipation pattern shifts."
Li Meilin held eye contact for four full seconds.
Then she said: "And the two students you collected."
"First-years. Eastern branch. They’re ahead of us, Zhang Wei has them."
She looked at Zhang Wei, who confirmed with a nod, and she conducted an internal calculation that Yuan could follow in the way she was processing it — evidence versus explanation versus operational necessity versus the students in the main hall who needed to be moving.
"After we’re out," she said, "you’re going to give me the full version."
"After we’re out," Yuan said, "I’ll give you more than this."
Not the full version. But more. He watched her calculate whether that was acceptable.
[Ding!]
[Temporary Alliance formed with Li Meilin (S-Rank Hunter).]
[Reputation with Li Meilin increased by 20. Current: Friendly (Cautious)]
He read the parenthetical addition and thought the system was being accurate.
"The exit path," she said. "Show me."
Yuan turned and oriented himself by the dungeon’s proprioceptive map, the layout clear in his awareness like a building he’d spent years in. "Main corridor to the central junction, second level. Bypass the eastern branch, there’s residual Harpy mana there that the two dissipating C-ranks are moving toward. Western secondary passage to the upper access stairs. The mana density in the main corridor has dropped to F-rank baseline already. We should move quickly while it holds."
Li Meilin turned to her group and conveyed this in the compressed language of someone used to being followed efficiently. Jiang Rui fell into formation with the focused expression of someone who was also filing everything for later.
They were turning to move when the Tremor Sense input changed.
Multiple signatures, moving, converging from the western corridor and the southern maintenance shaft simultaneously. The dungeon’s proprioceptive map updated and Yuan read what was coming before the Tremor Sense finished delivering the data.
He stopped.
"What," Li Meilin said.
"The stabilization released the excess Blight mana into the dungeon’s ambient field when the contamination cleared. It’s dissipating, but it hasn’t fully dispersed yet. Some of the native-ecology monsters are—" He paused, parsing the signatures’ behavior. "Agitated. The residual Blight is activating aggressive responses."
"How many."
"Fourteen. Mixed types, the Crystal Golems from the cavern perimeter have reactivated. And four of the native corridor types from the lower level. They’re not coordinated but they’re converging." He looked at the corridor behind them and the corridor ahead. "We’re between them."
Li Meilin processed that in approximately two seconds. Then she turned to her group and said: "Formation. Yuan on the map. Everything else is ours."
Jiang Rui raised an eyebrow in Yuan’s direction, the specific expression of someone revising their assessment in real time.
Yuan checked his MP. Twenty-seven. Enhanced Stony Skin passive. True Sight passive. Shadow Step available. The dungeon’s layout in his awareness like a second set of eyes.
The first Crystal Golem came around the western corridor bend.
"Left corridor," Yuan said. "Two more behind it. The Golems move slow, we can pass the lead one if we go now."