Volume One: A Thousand Years of Streams Chapter 51: Defying the Heavens—The Power of Space

Sun Zikai needed to find a way to dispatch Wu Lanmu; he could not afford to remain under surveillance for the entire two months. He simulated numerous options in his mind, but ultimately, he chose the simplest and most direct one.

He gave the table a gentle slap, turned his head toward the direction of the rat, and said, "Master Wu, I have been aware of your presence for a long time. Regardless of whether you are acting on orders from Sect Master Cui or someone else, please cease your surveillance of me. After Feng Yueyi used this trick to play with me several times, I will no longer be fooled by it."

However, his words met with no response. Sun Zikai's gaze turned cold. He picked up a chopstick from the bamboo container and hurled it toward the rat. His strength was more than two thousand times the limit of an ordinary adult, and he held nothing back. The chopstick brushed past the rat's ear and embedded itself deeply into the ground, piercing diagonally downward to a depth of about nine feet.

Smoke rose from the rat's ear, burning a small patch of fur, and it finally stirred. It appeared ready to leave. In a stern tone, Sun Zikai warned, expressing his deep displeasure at having his freedom restricted: "Please inform the Sect Master that I, Sun Zikai, am not stubbornly attached to staying in the Yanming Sect. If you pull such tricks again, I will sever ties with the sect and take my leave elsewhere."

After a brief pause, the rat quickly vanished.

Jiang Yujin said with unease, "If that really was Master Wu, haven't you offended her? And talking to her like that, you might even offend the Sect Master!"

"So what!" Sun Zikai slapped the table for no apparent reason, causing all four table legs to crack.

Jiang Yujin had never seen him fly into such a rage, so she gently and cautiously soothed him, "Alright, alright, let's not pick a fight with them."

Sun Zikai was the sort to dwell on matters repeatedly; once he grew angry, his anger would persist for a long time. Resolving this used to be simple—if barbarians provoked him, he would simply kill them. But that was no longer possible. Instead of subsiding, his fierce hostility grew even stronger. The ball of fire with an awakened soul seemed to be continuously and irritably searing his flesh and spirit.

He strode out of the door into the courtyard, casting ten energy shields and three vitality membranes. He hung a wooden plaque on the door, inscribed with the words: "Do not disturb, do not enter; trespassers will be executed without mercy." With a kick, he shattered a water jar; with a punch, he cracked the wall, and let out a harsh curse.

Returning indoors, Sun Zikai suddenly froze. He touched his head; his flushed, feverish brow quickly cooled down, and he returned to his usual calm, water-like state, feeling puzzled by the sudden, irrepressible rage he had just experienced.

Looking at Jiang Yujin, he asked, "Just now, I wasn't very calm, was I?"

Jiang Yujin, who had remained silent the entire time while sitting by the table, replied, "I felt a sort of aura around you—an aura that made anyone who caught a whiff of it feel frantic."

"Indeed, I experienced it deeply," Sun Zikai said. "The sensation came directly, igniting at the slightest touch and refusing to stop. While I was in the midst of it, my mind was frantic as well." He exhaled a breath that unexpectedly took form, resembling a fiery cloud, which quickly turned into blazing flames.

The moment he saw those flames, sudden agitation rose within him once more. In an instant, fire began to burn on his head, though it did not singe his hair, and his eyes even threatened to change color.

Jiang Yujin felt that frantic aura once again and became too nervous to utter a sound. Clutching his chest, Sun Zikai roared in a low voice, "Come out! Come out! Come out!"

A ball of fierce flames flew out from his heart. It burned savagely and audaciously with towering momentum. Though it was only a small cluster, it seemed capable of swallowing and scorching the entire Yanming Sect.

Jiang Yujin remarked, "Could this be the companion entity of the Fire Spirit Technique?"

"No!" Sun Zikai furrowed his brows angrily and continued, "This is the origin of fire. I told you before that I tempered my body with the essence of fire. This is the purest flame in nature, and this is its true nature—just like pure energy, it always maintains the appearance it had when it was born."

Pressing the ball of fire back into his chest, Sun Zikai sat cross-legged, guiding the energy of the heavens and earth to transform into water that washed over his entire body. The rampant hostility gradually faded, and his eyes regained their clarity.

Standing up, Sun Zikai calmly stated, "There are countless things in this world to explore, and even a tiny ball of fire holds profound mysteries. Do you believe me? Relying solely on this flame, sooner or later I will also be able to ascend into the heavens and traverse the cosmos. This fire is nature itself. The Dao of nature is the greatest among all Daos. I suspect that only by becoming like a god or a demon can one truly enter that state of nature."

Naturally, Jiang Yujin could not understand any of this, but as long as Sun Zikai had regained his composure, that was enough. She said, "While I still have time, show me whatever secrets you have."

Sun Zikai sat down beside her and took out the wooden plaque. After examining it closely from all angles, Jiang Yujin said, "Actually, I wanted to say this last time: I can't see the things inside this plaque."

"Of course. This plaque is similar to your bracelet; only the owner can perceive the scenery within. Moreover, mine is of a higher grade and seems connected to my blood, but that is not the point. We can examine the contents later. The spatial technique inscribed on this plaque actually consists of two paths. One serves as a storehouse, while the other is half-missing, yet maintains a tenuous connection to a distant place. I believe this is a spatial transfer technique. If I infuse energy to complete it, it will likely transport the two of us across to another land—perhaps Yingdai, where the Qingyi Sect was located back in the day."

"Then are you going to go?"

"Of course I am going to take a look."

"But what if it isn't a spatial transfer technique, or what if it's an abandoned spatial technique, and your body gets pulverized?"

"That possibility does exist. However, the old man from four hundred years ago who left behind the spirit technique didn't tell me how to get to Yingdai; this is probably the method he left behind. Hmph, then again, maybe not. Eh? Wait."

Sun Zikai immediately grabbed Jiang Yujin's wrist and said, "Let me have a look at your bracelet."

Unable to perceive the contents within the bracelet, he casually asked, "How do I..."

Before he could finish, Jiang Yujin said, "Prick your finger."

Sun Zikai had never exerted such effort just to pierce his skin; he tried with all his might, yet failed to squeeze out a single drop of blood. In the end, he had to rely on the power of the lightning element to draw a trace of blood.

Jiang Yujin immediately bit her own finger, mingled her blood with Sun Zikai's trace of blood into a single droplet, and let it fall onto the bracelet. Thus, the owner of the bracelet changed from Jiang Yujin alone to the two of them.

Sun Zikai gave a scoff and said, "I thought your gold would be piled into a small mountain, but it's only a few thousand pieces?"

Jiang Yujin chuckled softly. A bumpkin like Sun Zikai naturally wouldn't know that there were things in this world far more valuable than gold; gold blocks were merely the floor tiles of the small space inside the bracelet.

"Sigh, I counted wrong. There are actually two more piles over there. You really are wealthy," Sun Zikai sighed with emotion. "This wooden plaque of mine is terribly poor—not a single piece of gold in it. Truly unreasonable."

With that, Sun Zikai deployed the profound energy technique—Technique Reversal—and carefully observed the spatial technique on the bracelet. After a moment, he exclaimed with delight, "So that's how it is! Your bracelet also contains two spatial techniques. The other one is likewise half-missing and distantly connected to a faraway place. I understand now; its other half is in Wen Yiru's possession. This was originally a piece of jade imbued with spatial technique. After being split in two, practitioners fashioned storage functions out of the spatial techniques upon them. I was wondering why the spatial power within both the wooden plaque and the bracelet was so immense, yet only manifested as a tiny space."

Sun Zikai reached a conclusion: spatial power was not something ordinary practitioners could create. The jade ring and the wooden plaque were actually fragments bearing spatial power, merely stumbled upon and utilized by practitioners by chance. Therefore, the person from four hundred years ago surely did not know this truth.

Sun Zikai intended to run an experiment. Since he clearly knew where the destination of the spatial power on the bracelet lay, he wanted to test whether he could use it to teleport directly to Wen Yiru's presence. He harbored an even greater ambition: perhaps he could also discover a method to control spatial power itself.

Spatial techniques were extraordinarily complex. Just this single half contained tens of thousands of structural pathways. Jiang Yujin left behind the bracelet and departed, while Sun Zikai studied it intently from noon until the night of the fourth day. Fortunately, he had tempered his mind with various elements; otherwise, his sanity might have snapped under the strain.

Looking at the bracelet on the table, Sun Zikai muttered to himself, "Fortunately, there is a system to it: forty primary rules and one hundred sixty minor rules, but the order of these rules is chaotic." He clutched his brow; his head had been aching since earlier. Spatial techniques were truly beyond the reach of ordinary mortals, and his brain clearly could not withstand these structural rules any longer.

He could not help but walk out into the courtyard. The stars crowding the sky were countless and devoid of any discernible pattern. No, there was a sort of order—just like when Old Yang taught him in his childhood: if you wanted to find the Big Dipper, you looked for the "ladle" in the sky. At this thought, an epiphany struck him. Perhaps, after analyzing the most fundamental structure of the spatial technique, he did not need to understand every single order or base structure individually. After all, a "ladle" only needed to be a "ladle"—it mattered not whether the "ladle" was curved or straight. He began to ponder the "purpose" of the forty primary rules and one hundred sixty minor rules, categorizing them based on where they pushed energy blocks, layer by layer, until finally, he divided all the technical structures into four major regions.

The energy in the first region formed an "infinite circulation current." No matter which structure within this region an energy thread entered, it would end up trapped in this loop. Sun Zikai deduced that this was the "firewood pile" of the spatial technique; relying on it, the spatial technique gained its energy and carrier. He immediately took out the wooden plaque to verify this, and within a single hour, he found the exact same region, confirming his hypothesis.

The energy in the second region formed a "repulsion wall." This region was quite strange; it permeated the entire spatial technique, resembling a carrier yet definitively not being one. Its function was to isolate any "technical entity" from the outside. A "technical entity" referred to things like energy, spiritual Qi, and so forth. It protected the spatial technique from being altered, rendering it unblockable and unalterable by defiance.

The energy in the third region formed "effect blocks." This region determined the "purpose" of the spatial technique: was it for storage, or for teleportation? In truth, this region was the simplest because the spatial technique encompassed all functions, and with just a slight manipulation, its effect could be coaxed out. Sun Zikai performed a small experiment: using his own energy, he sketched two additional structures inside the third region of the wooden plaque. As a result, a second independent space instantly appeared on the plaque. When he pushed those two structures back, the space vanished once again.

The energy in the fourth region formed a "name." This was Sun Zikai's conjecture, because the first three regions of the bracelet and the wooden plaque were almost identical, differing only completely in the fourth region. Therefore, he believed that just as every person had a name, the energy in the fourth region served to distinguish spatial techniques or maintain their independence; otherwise, wouldn't all spatial teleportations end up sending people to the exact same place?

Sun Zikai wanted to test whether the spatial technique on the bracelet could allow him to travel. He needed to tinker with the third region, coaxing out a portion of its energy structure so that while maintaining its independent spatial function, a connection was forged between the third and fourth regions. Without requiring further operation from him, acting under the influence of the fourth region, the third region seemed to spontaneously generate a special structure. Sun Zikai judged that this structure must be the function of teleportation.

Since he could not transform his entire body into pure energy to cross over, he had to devise a method. He pondered all night, feeling that something was still missing. At the crowing of dawn, his head bumped against the table. It did not hurt, but it annoyed him slightly. He touched his head—of course there was no injury—yet he suddenly realized why dropping blood could cause spatial objects to acknowledge an owner!

He immediately gathered all his strength to pierce his skin once more and let a drop of blood fall onto the bracelet. Using Technique Reversal, he closely observed the process and discovered that the moment the blood contacted the spatial power, it instantly melted and dissolved into countless energy threads while retaining a special structure. That very structure caused a massive tremor in the major structures of the third domain. He seemed to witness countless energy structures forming a new door, upon which a new keyhole appeared, with his blood serving as the key. The owner of this bracelet was now none other than Sun Zikai.

Whether it was his spiritual Qi or his energy, all of Sun Zikai's power was channeled through his blood. When energy left the body, though pure, it inherently carried the structural elements of blood, which was why it could unlock the seals of spatial techniques.

He was far too familiar with his blood. Imitating the structural texture of his blood, he immediately forged layer upon layer of energy rings, ultimately forming a finger-sized energy sphere. His physical body remained constantly linked to that energy sphere, making the sphere an extension of his own physical form. Pressing his finger against the energy sphere, he touched the fourth domain on the bracelet. In an instant, his consciousness spun wildly; the teleportation effect of the third domain carried that energy, bound his body, and crossed the void.

Early in the morning, Wen Yiru was relieving herself. She had just taken off her trousers, squatted down, let out a breath not long ago, when her wrist was suddenly grabbed. Overjoyed and startled, Sun Zikai let out a bizarre cry, shouting, "It worked! I succeeded!"

In the tiny outhouse, a girl's startled scream rang out.