Mo Fan slowly raised the right fist that had just caved in a peak Qi Condensation demonic eagle's skull, and squeezed it shut.
His knuckles cracked like muffled thunder.
"Unbelievable."
He murmured to himself. His mind drifted back to less than two weeks ago—he'd just moved to Hundred Forging Peak, and Senior Brother Wu Mang, that freak of a Foundation Establishment body cultivator, had dragged him into a bare-knuckle exchange.
Back then, he'd held his ground through sheer stubbornness, but the impact had nearly shaken him apart on the spot. He'd almost blacked out entirely.
And now?
He felt the terrifying HP burning like a furnace inside him, steady and inexhaustible. He felt the LV. 2 [ Bone Armament ]—one thought away from covering his entire body in plating that could tank high-tier spells head-on.
An almost uncontrollable battle-hunger began spreading through Mo Fan's chest like wildfire.
With my current Tier-2 stats and physical conditioning...
Mo Fan licked his lips. A dangerous gleam flickered in his eyes.
If I ran into Senior Brother again—no spells, just bodies—I might actually be able to put him down in one punch.
That thought lasted less than a second.
Hssss—!
Mo Fan jolted like he'd grabbed a live wire. He shuddered violently and strangled the idea before it could breathe.
"Cool it. Mo Fan. For the love of—COOL IT."
He slapped himself across the face.
"A few days ago, everyone thought I was a bottom-rung body cultivator who scraped into the Inner Sect through raw stubbornness and a complete disregard for self-preservation."
"I take one trip down the mountain, and now I've got combat power that rivals Foundation Establishment?"
"If I start flashing that kind of strength around the Inner Sect..."
Mo Fan swallowed. Cold sweat broke out down his spine.
He could already picture it. The moment he revealed this kind of unreasonable power, every elder in Azure Cloud Sect—especially that "mad scientist" Lin Dong with his obsession over human physical potential—would look at him the way a researcher looks at a once-in-a-generation lab specimen.
What awaited him wouldn't be "special cultivation resources." It would be getting trussed up and bled dry while those old monsters picked apart the secret behind his meteoric rise.
Don't get cocky. Absolutely do NOT get cocky.
Mo Fan hammered the warning into himself relentlessly. The persona cannot crack. Until I have the power to protect myself absolutely—I am still Lu Xiaoqi, the trash older brother with a bit of muscle and a very low ceiling.
Decision made. He rearranged his face into something honest, simple, and faintly dim-witted, then ambled down the mountain path toward Azure Cloud Sect's outer sect servant quarters at a leisurely pace.
He was back. First stop was obviously Old Lü and the others.
Mo Fan stepped back into the familiar servant village—that cluster of low buildings perpetually smelling of cheap spirit grain and woodsmoke—just as the sun was setting and cooking fires were beginning to rise.
Children in patched clothes chased each other through the alleyways. An old woman sat on her doorstep mending clothes in the last of the evening light.
Mo Fan stopped at the entrance to the lane and looked at the quiet scene for a long moment.
He let out a soft sigh.
This one short week—for him, it had been a complete upheaval, a back-and-forth sprint across the threshold of death itself. But for these ordinary people and low-tier cultivators, it had probably been nothing more than a few unremarkable sunrises and sunsets, gone before they'd noticed.
"Seventh Brother?!"
A delighted shout broke through his thoughts. Da Hu had been splitting firewood in the courtyard. He looked up, saw Mo Fan standing at the gate loaded down with packages, and immediately bellowed at the top of his lungs:
"Old Lü! Er Ya! Seventh Brother's back!"
CLANG.
Something hit an iron pot inside the house. Then Old Lü came shuffling out at a half-run, back hunched, a flour-smeared spatula still in his hand.
He took one look at Mo Fan—standing there completely unharmed, holding a bottle of quality spirit wine and several fat roasted chickens he'd picked up at the market—and stopped.
Then the old man's weathered, groove-lined face arranged itself into its habitual expression of stern parental authority. He squinted and started shooing Mo Fan away with cheerful insults:
"You little wretch! How many days have you even been in the Inner Sect? What are you doing rolling back here already? You think the Inner Sect is your family's back garden—come and go as you please? Don't you have cultivation to do?!"
His mouth was full of complaints. But those rough, calloused hands reached out without permission and grabbed Mo Fan's arm—gripping it tight, holding on with a faint, barely perceptible tremor, as if afraid he might disappear again.
Mo Fan noticed, with quiet attention, that Old Lü was standing straighter today than he'd ever seen him stand before.
A few passing servants spotted Mo Fan and stopped in their tracks, breaking into ingratiating smiles from a distance, nodding and calling out "Steward Xiaoqi" with practiced deference.
Old Lü said nothing. But the slight lift of his chin and the pride burning in his eyes said everything.
"Old Lü, I just got cooped up on the mountain and started missing you," Mo Fan said naturally, clasping the old man's hand in return and keeping his tone easy and light. "Came down to take care of a few things. Figured I'd stop by."
After the greetings and the usual rounds of affectionate bickering, Mo Fan was ushered inside.
Over roasted chicken and good wine, he sat patiently while Old Lü rambled through the small happenings of the past few days. Mo Fan showed no impatience. He listened quietly, offering a word here and there.
But he didn't stay long.
The longer he sat in warmth like this, the more that cold, death-tempered heart of his threatened to soften in ways he couldn't afford.
He understood clearly: given where he stood now, the further he kept these ordinary people from his world, the safer they actually were.
He left behind several bottles of good wine and enough loose spirit stones to keep them comfortable for a long time. Then, under Old Lü and Er Ya's reluctant gazes, Mo Fan set back out toward Hundred Forging Peak
He walked out of the servant quarter into a night that had fully settled in.
Mo Fan stood at the foot of the absurdly long mountain path leading up to Hundred Forging Peak, craned his neck back to look at it, and felt his expression collapse completely.
"I have to climb this stupid mountain again."
He rubbed his thighs. Every part of him resisted. Sure, with his current physical conditioning, the climb wouldn't leave him half-dead the way it had before. But it was still a waste of time.
I am a person who has unlocked a [ Floating Soul Wings ] skill!
Mo Fan's eyes shifted. A brilliant idea surfaced in his mind.
He glanced around in every direction, confirmed there wasn't a single soul in sight, and began rummaging through his high-capacity storage pouch with the focused energy of a man on a mission.
Clang.
A flying sword hit the ground. A piece of loot he'd casually pocketed while looting corpses earlier.
Under normal circumstances, Mo Fan had not a trace of spiritual energy in his body. He couldn't channel Mana into a flying sword the way orthodox cultivators did.
Sword-flight, the classical way, was completely beyond him.
But cultivation wasn't all mysticism. Sometimes it called for a little physics.
Mo Fan dug through the miscellaneous junk in his storage bag and produced a large lump of sticky black substance with a pungent, eye-watering smell. The Mystic Realm's industrial-grade heavy-duty adhesive.
Glue.
He slathered the entire flat of the sword with the adhesive in a few rough strokes, then—
Splat.
He lifted his foot and planted his thick-soled cloth shoe directly onto the blade without a moment's hesitation.
"Solid."
He stomped twice. The flying sword was now firmly, rigidly, and with complete disregard for its own dignity, adhered to the bottom of his shoe.
Preparations complete.
Now for the miracle.
Mo Fan stood alone at the deserted mountain base and cleared his throat. He drew a long, solemn breath, and with great ceremony, imitated the posture of those cold, lofty Foundation Establishment cultivators he'd watched gliding through the sky—hands clasped behind his back, one hand forming a completely meaningless, thoroughly amateur "sword seal" that he'd invented on the spot.
The night wind moved through his dark robes.
Mo Fan's eyes narrowed. In a tone so embarrassingly theatrical, so aggressively dramatic, so deeply cringe-inducing that it would have raised goosebumps on anyone within earshot—he bellowed at the empty staircase like he was announcing the arrival of a divine weapon:
"BLAZING INFERNO DEATH-GOD WAR-SOVEREIGN FLYING SWORD—RISE——!"
The words left his mouth.
Hmm—!
The Tier-2 divine technique hidden at his shoulder blades—[ Floating Soul Wings ]—activated instantly.
But Mo Fan didn't let the spectral blue wings unfurl. He compressed the death-qi with brutal force, keeping the wings crushed down into a tiny, invisible layer pressed flat against his back.
The lift exploded from behind him.
WHOOSH——!
Mo Fan's feet—planted firmly on the adhesive-locked flying sword—left the ground as the invisible force launched him skyward like a fired rocket, shooting up along the mountain path's trajectory and into the open air above.
High above, the mountain winds screamed.
If any inner sect disciple had happened to look out toward Azure Cloud Sect's peaks at that moment—
They would have witnessed something breathtaking.
In the clear moonlight, a dark-robed figure stood atop a flying sword, hands clasped serenely behind his back, posture impeccable, robes streaming in the wind.
The speed at which he "rode his sword" was extraordinary—carrying with it an air of effortless, world-transcending elegance as he shot toward Hundred Forging Peak.
And our Mo Fan, in that cold night wind, propelled by a lump of pungent industrial adhesive on the bottom of his shoe and a pair of invisible undead wings—
Through this profoundly committed act of physical cosplay—
Had finally, at long last, lived out his dream of sword-flight in the cultivation world.