Chapter 3: Chapter 3 — Divine Ability

The Longyuan River flowed without end—mighty and vast, a rolling expanse that seemed to hide a true jiao-dragon in its depths.

This great waterway ran for ten thousand li through the realm of Great Li, its waves surging and smashing the banks as it passed by Longyuan Province—whence the province took its name.

Night had deepened.

Seen from afar the river lay like a gigantic black dragon coiled upon the land, majestic and dignified, displaying the glory of water’s virtue. The moon sailed clear through curdled lotus-clouds, and a night breeze stirred the reedbeds, lending the scene an almost otherworldly grace.

Yet a hundred li upstream, on a stretch of sandy shore, a broad-shouldered middle-aged man in dark-gold robes ran and leapt with a speed that bested even the swiftest hunting leopard by a third.

Shh—shh!
With every stride his body sliced the air, tearing a long wake of force; the rush crackled and roared like churning river water.

Not even the fastest thousand-li steeds could match half of his speed.

Swish! Swish! Swish!

As the dark-gold robed man thundered along the bank, suddenly torches flared up ahead and human shapes flickered into being. Dozens of heavy crossbow strings twanged, and a deadly volley shrieked toward him.

“Flying-Crane Repeating Crossbows!”
someone shouted.

The man narrowed his eyes, dropped his center of gravity, and flattened himself to the sand like a sheet of paper—dodging the rain of bolts as if they missed by inches.

“Bai Haichan, you won’t escape. Hand over the Nine-Orifice Golden Elixir and the Map of the Dragon Lurking in the Yellow Springs! Surrender them to the Fang clan and your life will be spared. We will treat you as honored guest—your flesh can reach the Tenth Stage of Divine Transformation! The Fang family will receive you as kin!”
a leader announced, voice ringing with composed authority.

Torches lit the night. Several hundred men surrounded the man in dark gold.

One leader stood with hands behind his back in fine brocade, silvering at the temples, his face worn by the world yet his eyes sharp as jewels reflecting moonlight.

“Fang Zeshan of Longyuan.”

Bai Haichan stopped and swept his gaze to the speaker. Around him the cordon formed in layers: inner bladesmen in shining longswords, a mid ring of repeating-crossbow men, and an outer ring bearing torches to hem everyone in.

The repeating crossbows were carved with the figure of a white crane, its beak spouting bolts—an heirloom armament, the true-transmission weapon the Fang family had received from the Yuhua Sect.

“Indeed, that is me,”
Fang Zeshan said with a smile. “I did not expect Master Bai to recognize me.”

“You—your brother Fang Zeta o is Governor of Longyuan, a high-ranking official favored by the Great Li Emperor. How could I not know the players on my soil? Word reached us that you possessed the Nine-Orifice Golden Elixir and the Map of the Dragon Lurking in the Yellow Springs. Clearly this news came via the Yuhua Sect.”
Bai Haichan spoke coolly despite being surrounded.

“Our Fang ancestors trace their roots to the Yuhua Sect. We came to wait for you by the order of the sect’s envoy,”
Fang Zeshan said, stepping forward. His joints trembled like a chord being plucked—an odd, composed strength.

“You found the Map of the Dragon Lurking in the Yellow Springs within the ancient tombs of Mount Huangquan, and the Nine-Orifice Golden Elixir as well. Others may not know, but the Yuhua Sect does,”
Fang Zeshan continued.

“The Nine-Orifice Golden Elixir can help one glimpse the threshold of the Divine Ability Realm. The Dragon Map hides an enormous treasure secret. If your Fang house can obtain them, who knows what schemes you have in mind?”
Bai Haichan smiled wryly.

“Silence! The Dragon Map will be offered to the Emperor, and the Elixir will produce for our clan a master who has stepped into the Divine Ability Realm—raising our standing beyond measure!”
Fang Zeshan’s voice snapped. “If you will not surrender them willingly, then I shall take them from your corpse!”

“Is that so?”
Bai Haichan’s eyes narrowed. In the blink of an eye he surged—his robes whipping, his body a darting fish, a coiling dragon. In a dozen strides he closed the distance to Fang Zeshan’s side before the men had time to react.

Woo—woo—woo.
Fang Zeshan felt the air around him crush inward, a momentary vacuum, then a colossal fist blossomed like the smashing of a mountain—its force set to obliterate his skull.

Bai Haichan struck with savage power.

“Crane-Dance in the Vast Sky!”
At the edge of death, Fang Zeta o’s exceptional skill revealed itself. Two great muscles in his back flexed; he moved like an unfolding crane, light and precise, and slipped aside from the blow.

“Good—Pine-Crane Longevity Fist. You’ve reached the Eighth Stage of the Flesh—Heroic Might—but you’re still no match for me. Summon your brother Fang Zeta o!”
Bai Haichan said as he plunged into the crowd.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
A guard’s skull was smashed flat; others had their temples pierced by fingers, blood gushing. Ten guards were hurled through the air as if struck by a thousand-jin carriage—their organs ruptured on impact.

When a body attains the Tenth Stage of Divine Transformation, even five horses cannot tear it apart. Such power made Bai Haichan a living weapon—unstoppable.

In a single heartbeat the several-hundred-man ring shattered before him.

“Fang Zeshan—dare block me and you shall pay later with your head,”
Bai Haichan barked as he broke free and fled.

Remaining men loosed their repeating crossbows, but the bolts struck the dark-gold robe and failed to penetrate. The robe was clearly a treasure garment—blade and bolt could not pierce it.

What man could stand against both such a treasure robe and the force of a Tenth-Stage body?

“Bai Haichan, since you came here, stand fast—why flee?”
a voice as mist and cloud drifted across the sand.

“Who—?”
Bai Haichan froze, senses sharpening like stone.

From the moonlit riverbank a woman in white walked forward: skin like polished jade, brows curved like the crescent moon, her figure delicate as carved bone—an otherworldly beauty. She seemed to have stepped from the palace of the moon or from a dragon-king’s river court. The air itself felt purified.

At her arrival the guards bowed in reverence. “Young Mistress!”

Fang Zeshan’s gaze halted. “Qingxue—why have you returned?”

She was the Fang family’s eldest daughter—Fang Qingxue.

“I have just returned from the Yuhua Sect,”
Fang Qingxue said with a nod to Zeshan. “Leave this matter to me.”

Bai Haichan’s face darkened. He flicked his hand and launched a palm-sized flying wheel of black steel, serrated on both edges—his signature hidden weapon, the Black-Doom Wheel. Forged like tungsten steel and propelled by the force of a divine-transformed body, it could pierce any expert within three hundred paces.

He flung it with utter confidence—sure that even a peer could not escape its blade.

But something strange happened.

The wheel spun toward Fang Qingxue and stopped three feet from her as if struck by an invisible wall. Without reason it froze.

Szzz… Szzz… Szzz.
A lattice of crackling filaments—an electric web—sprang into being around her, humming and glittering. Everyone felt the current; hair rose on heads and arms trembled.

The Black-Doom Wheel hit the web; the electric lash melted the wheel as though it were candle-wax. Molten metal dripped onto the sand, steaming the grit.

A net of lightning about her—melting metal—this was no mortal feat.

“Divine Ability Realm!”
Bai Haichan cried in shock. “You have stepped into the Divine Ability Realm! So young—and already you have reached such heights! The Fang house shall dominate the world! The Yuhua Sect has birthed another genius!”

When the flesh is honed to its utmost, the heart supplies the brain with torrents of nourishment, and the brain unlocks hidden potential—transmuted through cultivation into a mysterious power: mana. With mana one may command thunder and flame, ride the air, or slay with a flying sword—those things ordinary men cannot perform. This is the Divine Ability Realm.

Worldly fighters are many, but to step into Divine Ability is rarer than finding a star fallen to earth.

Bai Haichan, though at the pinnacle of fleshly transformation, could not cross that final threshold. He could only flee before such a master.

“Violet-Lightning Yin-Thunder Blade!”
Fang Qingxue intoned. As Bai Haichan fled beyond sight, she raised a low chant. A spinning sphere of purple-light coalesced at her fingertip, then burst into six blade-rays that cleaved through three hundred paces—lightning that burned the reeds along the bank.

The strike hit with no chance to dodge. Bai Haichan’s body smoked and stank of seared flesh. His treasure robe tore as the electric onslaught shredded it.

He staggered and plunged into the roaring Longyuan River.

“Life snuffed—what use the escape?”
Fang Qingxue stepped out and, to everyone’s astonishment, floated above the water as though walking on air. She reached the spot where Bai Haichan had fallen and with a single palm produced a tremendous suction: the river snarled upward into a thick pillar that dragged his body in its vortex.

“The Map of the Dragon Lurking in the Yellow Springs!”
Fang Qingxue said. By her power an ancient scroll and a palm-sized gilded iron box were pulled toward her, drawn by her mana.

But when the scroll tasted her power it shivered and suddenly unfurled.

On the black, sombre background like the Nine-Underworld itself, a crouching jiao-dragon lay half asleep—half awake. The dragon’s eye opened; in an instant it coiled around Bai Haichan and dived into the river, vanishing from sight.

“So the Dragon Map cannot be touched by raw mana. Mine awoke a trace of it—truly a relic of primeval mystery,”
Fang Qingxue murmured. The dragon’s plunge into water carried it a thousand li in a breath—how could they pursue it?

“Qingxue—you have entered the Divine Ability Realm! At last, in a century, the Fang family bears a Divine-Ability expert!”
Fang Zeshan cried, elated though Bai Haichan had fled.

“Uncle, send men to search the river upstream and downstream. Bai Haichan is struck by my Violet-Lightning Yin-Thunder Blade—his life force is nearly gone. The Dragon Map merely absorbed a little of my power and triggered its great array; recover it and I will present it to the Yuhua Sect’s chief.”

Fang Qingxue’s voice was calm. She then rose like a crane and vanished into the night.

“Issue the order—every county and prefecture must search the entire region!”
Fang Zeshan commanded. As provincial governor, his orders moved like thunder; none dared disobey.

Night gave way to dawn. After finishing his chores, Fang Han slipped out to the riverbank reeds beyond the city and trained as he had learned in secret—pushing his body through exercises to build strength.

Having been lashed and then rewarded by Fang Qingwei, Fang Han trained more bitterly than ever: sandbags tied to his limbs as he ran, leaped, rolled—trying to fill out his limbs and waist with hard muscle.

He had memorized the Pine-Crane Longevity Fist from watching the core Fang disciples each morning, but he did not yet practice it. He knew the sequence: nourish the body, build strength, then master techniques. Without a solid base, techniques were empty shells.

Punch after punch his sweat spattered in the dawn light among the reeds.

Ouch!
After hundreds of hits he saw stars and his head buzzed; his strength spent, he crumpled into the reeds.

“It’s still not enough. Even with the five liang, I can’t match the Fang disciples—their daily diet is bird’s-nest, stag-antler, ginseng, black-bone chicken. My five liang buys maybe a few meaty meals. With such difference in nurturing, I can’t reach Divine Strength.”

He lay on the sand and sighed.

If things continued as they were—born to serve, with no education or resources—could he ever break free? Would he be a servant to the end of his days?

A rustle in the reeds cut across his thoughts. Water churned as if a great fish had beached.

“What’s that?”
Fang Han forced himself up through the pain and peered into the swirl.

Floating in the eddy, wrapped by the current, was a man in dark-gold robes.