Volume I: Millennium of the Stream Chapter 25: The Origin of Arts

For the next several days, Fu Zhe and Wu Lanmu did not visit Ansheng Residence, allowing Sun Zikai and Jiang Yujin to gradually lower their guard. Sun Zikai spent his days tinkering with the vegetable garden, and today he set about digging a pond in front of the house. Possessing inexhaustible strength, he dug incessantly, breaking six shovels in half a day, yet he truly excavated a massive pond, over twenty zhang wide—large enough to raise whales, let alone fish.

Yesterday, he had spoken to Jiang Yujin and gone to the administrative office, where he paid one hundred taels to purchase the courtyard, securing a stable home for the two of them. As for the source of the funds, Sun Zikai made no secret of it, stating clearly that it came from Han Lei’s family, though he did not specify the exact reason for his visit there.

The water for the pond became the greatest challenge. Sun Zikai did not want to carry it bucket by bucket, so he had to wait for the rain. He walked back to the courtyard, where Jiang Yujin was practicing cultivation. Her cultivation level had increased by two stages in succession, and she was now at the fifth stage of Qi Condensation.

She was holding a manual for the "Earth-Binding" technique, and by studying it entirely on her own, she had gradually begun to grasp its nuances.

Seeing Sun Zikai approach, she suddenly channeled her spiritual energy, focused her intent, and pointed a finger. A visible, tangible technique glided along the ground toward Sun Zikai’s feet. Sun Zikai did not dodge; the technique locked onto his feet, causing him to pause for a heartbeat before it dissipated.

Sun Zikai asked, "Is that it?"

Jiang Yujin rolled her eyes at him and said, "It’s already quite good, isn’t it? As long as I can trap the opponent for ten breaths—no, five breaths is enough—my sword will be able to strike."

"Let me take a look." Sun Zikai grabbed the manual and began to manipulate his spiritual energy according to the methods described. It was as if he were bringing order to chaotic things, similar to the Way of Wuji; this was his specialty. Controlling spiritual energy was too simple, so he chose to directly control the underlying energy itself, only letting it transform into spiritual energy at the very last moment. If a single unit of energy were fully utilized, it could be converted into a hundred or even a thousand times the amount of spiritual energy.

Slowly, he realized there was no need to convert energy into spiritual energy at all; he could simply create techniques based on energy itself.

"You don't understand it, do you?" Jiang Yujin said triumphantly. "Want to learn? I'll teach you."

Sun Zikai kept his head down, reading the book. After brewing his intent for a long time, he pointed outward. A technique slid across the ground, and for a long time, there was no sound in the courtyard. Dozens of breaths later, Sun Zikai looked up and discovered that the entire courtyard and the main house had been tightly wrapped and bound by layers of earth and stone, resembling a low stone mountain. He immediately struck the debris to dig Jiang Yujin out; she had nearly suffocated and felt like she had narrowly escaped death.

Jiang Yujin spat out a few mouthfuls of dirt, her hair covered in dust, and shouted, "Just you wait!" She then ran to the east courtyard to boil water.

Sun Zikai continued to strike the earth and stone, thinking to himself, "Energy becomes a technique because it gains order; a technique can be said to be a form of energy. Every kind of technique is formed by the different arrangement of energy, which in turn proves that energy has a fundamental unit."

He stopped, condensed a wisp of energy in his palm, and calmed his mind. He slowly manipulated and decomposed the energy until it reached the level of a fine thread. At this moment, his concentration was at its peak. He continued to decompose it, and after thirty breaths, he finally discovered the fundamental unit of pure energy—the energy thread.

Everything was composed of energy threads. He summoned a wisp of flame; during his torment of Han Lei, his flame had birthed a soul. This he did not understand, for that soul was not an energetic entity, but something akin to a spiritual one. Could it be that Han Lei’s mental suffering had reached such a degree that it permeated the flame, forming something like a soul? Was a soul a form of spirit?

His cultivation level was still far from the realm of the soul, but not understanding it didn't matter; the birth of a fire soul was a tremendous surprise. The flame seemed to resonate with his heart and mind. As he focused his intent, the wisp of flame stripped itself layer by layer, turning into the final flame threads, which then decomposed into the purest energy threads.

He immediately reversed the process, arranging the energy threads into an "energy knot" in the same order he had just memorized. The manifestation of this energy knot was exactly that of a flame. He continued to tie more energy threads into knots, and a roaring fire appeared before him. Unlike the fire he had previously produced spontaneously through his body, this was a technique constructed entirely from energy.

The flames turned into wisps, rotating around him. He could feel the soul within them; the feeling was incredibly marvelous and unforgettable.

Sun Zikai reached out toward the earth and stone binding the house, wanting to decompose the energy knots within, but he could not find a point of entry.

Suddenly, he had an idea. He focused his mind to decompose a single energy thread and controlled it to drill into the earth and stone. It worked; the energy thread wove through the debris. Because it was so small, it moved directly through the energy knots that constituted the earth and stone, allowing Sun Zikai to map out their structure.

The moment he understood it, the world he saw changed. He no longer saw layers of earth and stone, but two types of mixed and layered energy knots. He plucked the strings, and as the saying goes, moving one part moved the whole body. The earth and stone did not just crumble; they instantly vanished, turning into pure energy threads that surged into Sun Zikai’s body.

He sat in the courtyard, reading the thin Earth-Binding manual over and over. He used spiritual energy to create the technique, which slid along the ground to trap a stool ten steps away. If it met no resistance, it could trap the object for over two hours. However, spiritual energy was merely an energy knot composed of energy threads; it was already a product. When rearranged, its effect was far less powerful than a technique of pure energy, appearing as if only an invisible force were holding the stool.

Yet, using the same technique with energy threads, Sun Zikai had encased the stool in thirty layers of thick earth and stone, and the duration was permanent.

With a thought, the earth and stone were decomposed back into energy threads.

If he used energy threads to create objects, Sun Zikai could manifest a small patch of soil out of thin air within ten breaths. However, he also noticed that this process involved a massive flow of energy; it was energy from the natural world being instantly sucked into the created object. Conversely, when he decomposed the soil, it also produced a massive energy flow. He had noticed before that the transformation of energy forms would generate huge energy, but this process was spontaneous and required no human intervention.

It seemed to be a fundamental rule of nature; it permitted living beings to create "things" and provided the necessary assistance. Was it possible that this world was meant to have a Creator who had ordained everything?

He repeated the process many times—creating earth and stone, then decomposing them. He didn't need to expend much energy, but the massive energy flows both terrified and excited him. A thought crossed his mind: what if he could capture that energy? It flowed too fast, but could he create a unique energy field to balance the energy baseline, allowing energy to flow in only one direction so that it could be swallowed and absorbed?

Just as he was thinking, Jiang Yujin pushed open the door of the east room. Covered in dust and grime, she glared at Sun Zikai before going to the west room to fetch a wooden bathtub. Seeing this, Sun Zikai walked over to help her move the tub into the east room and poured in the boiled water. Jiang Yujin pushed him out the door, warning, "If you dare peek, I'll dig out your eyes!"

Sun Zikai looked at the technique manual again, his mind suddenly opening up. Looking at spiritual energy alone, it drifted uncertainly between heaven and earth; it was inherently flexible, with no need to be confined to the ground. In other words, this technique didn't have to be "Earth-Binding"—it could be "Air-Binding," "Water-Binding," or "Wind-Binding"...

He tossed the stool into the air and pointed a finger. Only when the stool hit the ground did earth and stone appear. He realized that the earth and stone in this technique were not built bit by bit with energy threads, but rather that the technique had created a special energy gravity, causing surrounding energy to spontaneously "tie knots" and form the energy structures corresponding to that gravity. The closer to the ground, the more obvious this gravity became. He concluded that all things in the world were formed by different forms of gravity condensing energy, and as long as one understood the structure of gravity, one could quickly create anything.

He plunged his hands into the soil, beginning to dig and perceive incessantly. Meanwhile, the stool was tossed into the air again and again. Just as he had once groped his way toward condensing the essence of heaven and earth, life force, and the way of energy, he was now stepping toward another miracle that transcended the era.

An hour later, Jiang Yujin emerged from the steam-filled east room and noticed Sun Zikai squatting in the courtyard. Turning her head, she realized the earth and stone that had encased the house were gone. She asked, "What kind of tricks are you thinking up now?"

Sun Zikai turned back and said, "I think I’ve discovered something incredible."

With that, he stood up, tossed the stool into the sky, and blew a gust of wind to keep it aloft. He slowly created a ring of energy knots that only he could see and threw the ring toward the stool in the sky.

In an instant, a massive amount of earth and stone appeared out of thin air, firmly wrapping around the stool to form a giant ball of earth two zhang in diameter. Sun Zikai said joyfully, "So that’s it! As long as you connect energy knots into a ring, it forms a small-scale gravity field, which causes surrounding energy threads to spontaneously form those specific knots, thereby achieving creation!"

"What... knot..." Although Jiang Yujin didn't understand at all, she was shocked by the giant ball in the sky. She asked, "What technique is this?"

"Earth-Binding. I evolved it a bit; now it can be used in the air, too. Oh? In that case, I could also use Water-Binding, Fire-Binding, Wind-Binding, or even Lightning-Binding..." Electric currents surged on his hands. If he could see through the energy knots of lightning and create a ring, could he summon heavenly lightning to fall and smite all living things?

Jiang Yujin once again witnessed Sun Zikai’s terrifying ability. She snatched the book, flipped through the ten or so pages of techniques, and asked skeptically, "Where does it say it can create rocks?"

"Of course it doesn't say that; I figured it out myself. By the way, there’s another book. I’m going to go check it out; you practice on your own for now."

"Stop right there!"

"What?"

"Teach me."

"You don't know the Way of Energy; how can I teach you?"

"Then teach me how to use spiritual energy to make this technique do what you just did."

"In your dreams!"

"I paid for this!"

"............Alright, let me think." Sun Zikai said, distressed, "I have to find a way for you to be able to use energy directly."

Jiang Yujin said, "Last year, when I was in the desert, you let me see energy. Later, I could still perceive some traces of it, but now I can't sense it at all; I can only perceive spiritual energy."

"I have to find a way." Sun Zikai stroked his chin, looking at Jiang Yujin, and gradually, the corners of his mouth began to curl upward.