Volume One: The Thousand-Year Stream Chapter 28: Extraordinary

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“Is this footwork of your own creation?” Fu Zhe watched Sun Zikai move across the plum-blossom posts like wind and shadow, swift as a hawk. He could not help praising him three times in succession. “The Yanming Sect has no footwork of this caliber. With this technique, you are qualified to become an elder.”

Sun Zikai slid down and asked, “Master, why does the path of cultivation place so little importance on training the body?”

Fu Zhe explained, “Because it becomes useless in the later stages. Spiritual energy can transform into ten thousand arts. Before you can even approach your opponent, the technique has already reached him. There are very few opportunities to fight someone bare-handed. Thus, those who follow the weapon path can only hold an advantage before forming their Golden Core. After that, they have no hope of achieving anything.”

“What if I touch my opponent before he has time to gather spiritual energy?”

“How fast are you?”

“Would you like to find out, Master?”

“Very well. Come at me. Ah…”

Fu Zhe froze. Sun Zikai’s hand was already at his throat. There had been almost no process at all. The two of them had clearly been at least five paces apart a moment before.

Fu Zhe could not help shuddering at the thought. If Sun Zikai had truly been a deadly enemy, would he not already have lost his life?

Sun Zikai withdrew his hand, yet Fu Zhe still took a step backward. Touching his neck, he asked in bewilderment, “Why are you so fast?”

Sun Zikai concealed the true nature of his cultivation and merely replied, “I honed it during the days I spent killing barbarians. What do you think, Master?”

Although Fu Zhe had been wary of the boy in every possible way before taking him as a disciple, after accepting him, he treated him with complete sincerity. He made no attempt to conceal his admiration.

“With footwork like this, you are invincible among those of the same realm.”

Then he asked, “Have you ever practiced the techniques of Manqian Tower?”

“I have.”

“Show me.”

Sun Zikai could not truly use his energy, so he gathered spiritual energy in his palm and transformed it into a technique, taking care not to make too great a display. He kicked a long bench into the air and flung out his hand. The spiritual energy formed a spell pattern midair. Three magatama-shaped arcs spiraled inward from the side. A moment later, they fixed themselves in place and formed a cage.

Three bands of light bound the bench in midair, and for a long while, it did not move.

Fu Zhe was astonished. “What technique is that?”

Sun Zikai replied, “It is Earthbind, the technique you selected for me at Manqian Tower. It was originally meant for Jiang Yuqin to practice, but I learned it along with her.”

“Nonsense! How could I not recognize Earthbind?”

“I was merely inspired by that technique. I made a few minor changes and evolved it somewhat.”

“More nonsense. Do you even know who created Earthbind?”

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“Whoever created it, it can still be improved, can’t it?” Sun Zikai asked doubtfully. “This technique seems very simple to me. It is not particularly profound. Look—I have already evolved it into many different forms.”

The bench fell into the water. With a wave of Sun Zikai’s hand, spiritual energy shot forth, and four streams of water wrapped tightly around the bench. The flowing rings of water never slackened for even an instant, resembling hemp ropes soaked through. They looked extraordinarily difficult to break free from.

Sun Zikai used his blade to hook the bench back onto the ground. The moment it landed, a mass of earth and stone enveloped it, forming an “egg,” which slammed heavily into the ground and smashed out a crater.

One might say he could bind the sky, bind the water, and bind the air—anything but the earth.

Fu Zhe was utterly dumbfounded. He thought to himself: If you possess such ability, why did you even take me as your master?

Still unwilling to believe it, he pulled a thick spell manual from within his robes and said, “In half an incense stick’s time, I want to see how far you have comprehended this technique.”

Sun Zikai accepted the book. The words “The Way of Controlling Fire” were written across its cover.

What luck. An open-book examination, and it happened to concern his greatest strength.

For a moment, Sun Zikai was stunned. Why would he need to read something like this?

After Fu Zhe left, Sun Zikai opened the manual. He did not treat it carelessly, however. Instead, he was deeply drawn in by the exquisite principles within.

“Spiritual accumulation gives birth to desire, and desire gives rise to blazing color. Fiery flame is emotion in motion, burning thought…”

If Sun Zikai’s understanding of flame had once been like a stream flowing through his body, then this manual brought him an endless baptism of the soul.

The first time he sensed the faintly emerging thoughts within fire, it seemed like something from the Arabian Nights. How could flame respond to one’s heart like a living creature?

His thoughts burst out of their cramped room, out of that tiny Ansheng Pass, and rushed onto an endless plain.

So fire was born alongside desire. It could become a form of spirit, or a category of soul.

He had once mentioned to Jiang Yuqin whether flame could be divided into many different kinds. Before, no matter how he imagined it, all he could do was divide one pile of fire into several piles.

But now it was different.

The fire of the soul? The fire of the spirit? The fire of desire? The fire of severed thoughts?

When the heart and soul reached their utmost intensity, fire was born accordingly. Who decreed that fire had to look like the thing used to burn wood and cook meals? That was merely the lowest form of fire.

He sat on the ground and meditated for half an hour. His thoughts transformed into a fiery phoenix, carrying flame in its beak as it flew among the rain-like characters in the book.

Then, suddenly, a hand rapped him on the head.

Fu Zhe asked, “Which part is it that you cannot understand?”

Sun Zikai had yet to return to his senses. Fu Zhe knocked him twice more before Sun Zikai finally raised his head.

“Master, wait a moment. This book is immensely useful to me. I became so absorbed that I did not wish to stop for even an instant.”

Fu Zhe thought the boy was merely being stubborn. The manual was a technique from the tenth level of Manqian Tower. He had studied it for seven years without achieving anything of note. Even now, he could not use spiritual energy to create the slightest spark of spiritual fire.

Fu Zhe did not blame Sun Zikai. Instead, he encouraged him. “It is all right. Your comprehension is exceptional. Study it for a few more years, and you will certainly gain something.”

“I have gained far too much, Master. This manual has opened up my world. No wonder the techniques in Manqian Tower are so expensive. They are truly worth the price.”

“Oh? How far have you comprehended it?”

“Your disciple is unworthy. Although I have gained some insight, I still cannot manifest it within myself. I truly need more time.”

“Heh.” Fu Zhe nodded. “Is there any sentence you do not understand?”

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“There are many—far too many.”

A sheet of blazing flame ignited in Sun Zikai’s hand. The soul-flame seemed to come alive, caressing his palm with intimate affection.

Sun Zikai said, “As the text states, one seeks the wandering spirit and cleanses the vital energy. But this flame is clearly the manifestation of desire. Why, then, can it still purify energy? Could it be that the Great Way is simplicity itself, and that when fire burns to its utmost intensity, it gives birth to nothingness?”

Fu Zhe’s expression became hideously strained. It was as though a stone had lodged in his throat, and for a long while he could not speak.

“You… First tell your master this: how did you produce that flame?”

“Oh?” Sun Zikai asked suspiciously. “Is there something wrong with it?”

He casually gestured at the sky. Spiritual energy transformed into energy, energy formed a spell matrix, and an arc of flame appeared. He added another arc, completing a circle.

Fu Zhe snatched the book away and began flipping through it frantically. Bending over, he pressed Sun Zikai for the page he had read.

To his surprise, the boy had only reached the fifth page.

Fu Zhe’s entire understanding of the world had been shaken. He could not comprehend where those abstruse, inscrutable words—words he had failed to understand in seven years—recorded the method of creating fire.

He grew frantic and insisted that Sun Zikai explain himself clearly.

Sun Zikai turned the book to the third page and pointed to a line.

“‘When energy is clear yet heavy, spread the spell and it becomes thought.’”

He held a thread of spiritual energy between his fingers, calmed his mind, and “shook” away its impurities and杂质, stripping it into ten layers. Each layer became clear and transparent.

One layer fell, spreading a spell across it. By coincidence, it was the spiritual seal of Earthbind. Another layer spread over it. Two clear layers of spiritual energy clasped the spell seal between them, and sparks immediately appeared, soon becoming flame.

Sun Zikai said, “Thought gives birth to the spark of fire. Since clear energy spread with a spell becomes thought, it can naturally become spiritual fire.”

“But this flame is somewhat different from the one you made just now.”

Fu Zhe did not know that the flame before had been a soul-flame created by Sun Zikai with energy, whereas this one had been formed from spiritual energy.

Fu Zhe still could not understand. “How can your control over spiritual energy be so powerful?”

Sun Zikai did not know how to explain it and could only say, “It is all because of this manual. It is truly wondrous beyond compare. Everything I know came from it.”

Fu Zhe dropped heavily onto a bench. Staring at the young man before him, he finally realized that he could never become this child’s master on the path of cultivation.

The best way to educate him was to give him freedom.

This boy needed only a direction. There was nothing else Fu Zhe had to do.

Sun Zikai asked again, “Master, this flame is different from the flames of the mortal world. Does it have a name?”

Fu Zhe replied in a low voice, “It has no name. Since it is born from spiritual energy, generation after generation has simply called it spiritual fire.”

“I see. I believe the flames of the world can be divided into many categories, and that countless kinds can evolve from them. The ordinary fire used for cooking belongs to the murky depths at the very bottom. Spiritual fire can at least be brought into the light, but it is still merely an ordinary thing that has reached the light. As the book says, ‘spiritual yet close to the mortal.’ I think I shall call these two kinds the Fire of Filthy Innocence and the Fire of Mortal Innocence.”

Fu Zhe sat on the bench and looked at the boy seated on the ground, as if he were seeing a towering mountain rising into the clouds…