pjbooks Chapter 114 Discovering Clues
Chapter 114 Discovering Clues
The training at the abandoned factory continued late into the night.
Wang Kai slumped to the ground, his entire body aching. He had held out against Jiang Chen for twenty-three breaths tonight, thirteen more than yesterday, but the price was that his entire right arm was trembling, and his true energy in his dantian was almost depleted. Shen Qingxue wasn't in much better shape; her plain white tracksuit was covered in concrete dust, and strands of her long, silvery-white hair were damp with sweat, clinging to her cheeks. But she stood ramrod straight, her right hand's fingers repeatedly flexing and extending, as if she were reliving the angle of her punch.
Jiang Chen leaned against the wall, holding a newly bought cup of hot coffee. Moonlight streamed down from the dilapidated roof of the factory, casting dappled shadows at his feet.
"That's enough for tonight." He threw the empty coffee cup into the trash can. "Wang Kai, your Qi Refining Level 2 is stable. Qing Xue, your Ice Bone Tempering stage is completely complete. Begin Fire Flesh Tempering tomorrow."
Wang Kai got up from the ground, dusted himself off, and said, "Brother Chen, there's a question I've been wanting to ask you."
"explain."
"When you dodged my roundhouse kick, your footwork wasn't a straight line, it was an arc. But the footwork I've seen in cultivation novels is all about straight lines—the shortest distance and fastest speed. Why did you go in an arc?"
Jiang Chen glanced at him, a slight smile playing on his lips: "Because an arc can simultaneously allow for the accumulation of power for both dodging and counterattack. In the cultivation world, low-level cultivators move in straight lines, mid-level cultivators move in arcs, and high-level cultivators don't need any footwork—they simply tear through space to appear behind the enemy. You're currently at the second level of Qi Refining, it's time to learn the arc."
Shen Qingxue suddenly spoke up: "Jiang Chen, you said in the Apostle Hall before that you had lived in the cultivation world for a thousand years. You slew the Primordial Dragon Elephant, the Ancient Demon God, and even the Heavenly Dao. But when you said these things, your expression was as if you were talking about someone else's life."
She paused, her icy blue eyes gleaming coldly in the moonlight: "Have you really let go completely?"
The abandoned factory fell silent. A few calls of wild cats in heat drifted from afar, mingling with the whistling of the night wind through the steel bars. Wang Kai glanced furtively at Jiang Chen and noticed that Chen's fingers tightened slightly around his coffee cup.
Jiang Chen remained silent for a long time, so long that Wang Kai thought he wouldn't answer.
Then he spoke, his voice very soft, as soft as the wind blowing across a dry riverbed: "Some things are not a matter of whether you can let go or not. A thousand years is enough for a person to wear down all the pain into a habit. But habit is not the same as forgetting. When Qingyunzi was possessed, I was only at the Foundation Establishment stage, and I couldn't even withstand one of his moves. Su Wanniang waited for me her whole life, and when I went back, her grave was already overgrown with grass."
He looked down at the golden sword mark on his right palm—a mark left after the Broken Thought Sword merged into his body, gleaming faintly with a pale golden light under the moonlight.
"That's why I built Qingyun Academy. It's so that there will be a second Qingyunzi in this world, so that those with talent won't have to kneel alone in a pool of blood like I did back then, unable to be saved even by my master."
Wang Kai opened his mouth, as if to say something, but couldn't utter a word. Shen Qingxue lowered her eyes, her right hand's five fingers stopped flexing and extending, hanging quietly at her side.
Jiang Chen placed his coffee cup on the cement platform, turned, and walked out of the factory. "Training will be doubled tomorrow. Wang Kai, you'll learn the arc footwork. Qing Xue, you'll prepare to start the Fire Refining Body—Fire Refining Body requires the spiritual power of a fire-attribute awakened individual to temper the body with blood and qi. I've already contacted the headquarters to transfer an A-level fire-attribute awakened individual to be my sparring partner."
He stopped at the factory gate without turning back. "There's one more thing. Tomorrow afternoon, the list of candidates for the first batch of spiritual root testing will be sent to me. You two will help me screen them. Qingxue, although you don't have a spiritual root, your eyesight is among the best of the Awakened, and you can help me discern the applicants' fighting spirit. Wang Kai, your cultivation speed lately has been faster than I expected; perhaps your physique has some special compatibility with true essence. I suspect…"
He paused for a moment.
"I suspect that the humans in this world may have some kind of connection with the cultivation world."
These words were like a pebble thrown into a deep pool, creating silent ripples in the hearts of Wang Kai and Shen Qingxue.
Jiang Chen's figure disappeared into the shadows where the moonlight couldn't reach. The abandoned factory fell silent again, broken only by the mournful sound of the wind whistling through the ruins.
Wang Kai turned to look at Shen Qingxue: "Brother Chen just said that this world is connected to the cultivation world. What do you think that means?"
Shen Qingxue was silent for a moment, then said softly, "I saw a fragment in the ancient book room of the Shen family in the capital. Three hundred years ago, before the arrival of the Apostles, some undecipherable runes were unearthed in the ancient ruins on this continent. Those runes did not belong to any known human writing system, nor to the Apostles' void law system. An ancestor of the Shen family once speculated that before the arrival of the Apostles, before this planet was covered by human civilization, there might have been another extraordinary civilization."
She looked up at the darkness outside the factory gate, where the moonlight couldn't reach: "Perhaps that civilization is the world of cultivation."
Wang Kai stood there, stunned.
When Jiang Chen walked out of the factory, the moon was already high overhead. He walked slowly, his hands in his school uniform pockets, his shadow stretched long by the streetlights. Passing the convenience store near his apartment complex, he paused, intending to buy another hot coffee, only to find it closed—the owner was dozing behind the counter, the television still on, looping a replay of the Qingyun Academy's admissions brochure launch event. On the screen, Chen Beiyuan stood at the podium, his white hair gleaming silver under the lights, reciting the final line of the admissions brochure: "The path of cultivation asks not of birth, but of the heart of the Dao."
Jiang Chen withdrew his gaze and continued walking home.
When he got home, Jiang Xueqin was still waiting for him in the living room. The TV was on, the volume turned down low, showing the evening news. There were several neatly folded school uniforms on the sofa, and next to them was a plastic bag containing several boxes of instant coffee from the supermarket—his mother knew he loved coffee and had made a special trip to the supermarket that day.
"You're back?" Jiang Xueqin stood up from the sofa, walked into the kitchen, and brought out the late-night snack that was keeping warm in the pot—it was still pork ribs, steamed tonight, the cartilage was stewed until translucent, and it broke easily with chopsticks.
Jiang Chen sat down at the dining table and picked up his chopsticks. Jiang Xueqin sat opposite him, watching him eat, just like always. The moon outside the window was round and bright, making the leaves of the potted rose with its new buds shine. The new bud had grown taller, and a second tender leaf had sprouted on the stem at some point, swaying gently in the evening breeze.
The next morning, Chen Beiyuan from the Awakened Ones Bureau sent a message.
The message was brief, just a few lines, but it made Jiang Chen freeze in mid-air while holding his coffee.
"Jiang Chen, the Dragon Kingdom Archaeological Institute has discovered an ancient ruin deep within the Kunlun Mountains, dating back to a time long before any known human civilization—approximately ten thousand years ago. The runes within the ruin are highly similar to the starting stance of the sword technique you use in battle. Currently, large-scale energy fluctuations have been detected deep within the ruin. We need you to come here in person."
The message included coordinates and several drone photos. In the photos, about 100 kilometers west of the ruins of the Thirteenth Apostle's Temple deep in the Kunlun Mountains, a massive fissure has split open on the side of a black mountain covered in millennia-old ice. Deep within the fissure, a faint golden light can be seen flowing, and something within that light is slowly moving—an extremely ancient array, existing for countless years, is awakening from its millennia-long slumber.
Jiang Chen stared at the photograph, his pupils contracting slightly. He recognized the ancient formation. It was a remnant of the "Zhou Tian Xing Dou Grand Formation."
In the cultivation world, the Zhou Tian Xing Dou Grand Array is an ancient sect's protective array, requiring a powerful cultivator at the Dao Integration stage or above to set it up. The founder of the Qingyun Sect set up a Zhou Tian Xing Dou Grand Array covering the entire Qingyun Mountain range eight thousand years ago—the core rune structure of the array is completely identical to the remnant array in the photograph.
His hands trembled slightly.
Jiang Chen put down his coffee cup, picked up his phone, and sent a message to Su Ze: "Arrange a private jet, I'm going to Kunlun."
Less than three seconds after the message was sent, Su Ze replied: "It's already being arranged. Elder Chen said that this trip to Kunlun may be related to the very foundation of human history—and also to the source of your cultivation power. The General Administration is fully cooperating."
Jiang Chen put his phone back in his pocket and went to the entryway to change his shoes. Jiang Xueqin poked her head out from the kitchen: "Are you coming back for lunch?"
Jiang Chen paused for a moment while tying his shoelaces: "Mom, this time it might take a few more days."
Jiang Xueqin was silent for a moment. Then she turned around and said something to the stove that made Jiang Chen pause at the doorway for a second: "There are still ribs in the pot. I'll pack them in a thermal container for you to take away."
Jiang Chen stood in the entryway, watching his mother's back as she busied herself at the stove, carefully placing the ribs one by one into the insulated food container, arranging them neatly. Just like every time he left home before.
He opened the door and walked down the stairs. His steps were faster than usual, but each step was very steady.
Downstairs, Su Ze's car was already parked at the entrance of the residential area. The old lady walking her teddy bear by the flowerbed saw Jiang Chen approaching and called out from afar, "Young man, you're on TV! My grandson asked me to get him an autograph!"
Jiang Chen nodded to her without stopping. He opened the car door, got in, started the engine, and drove out of the street in front of the residential area onto the highway to the airport.
The Kunlun Mountains. The ancient Zhou Tian Star Array, dating back ten thousand years, still shines. Under the same sky, beneath the eternal dark golden dome of the Apostle Realm, the nine Apostles on the circular throne simultaneously sensed the same signal—deep within the Kunlun Mountains of the human world, an extremely ancient energy source is reviving. The frequency of that energy source's fluctuations is perfectly consistent with Jiang Chen's True Essence Sword Technique.