The torrential rain of the dense forest finally ebbed, yielding to the first, feeble rays of dawn. Sunlight pierced the drenched canopy, weaving an ethereal, shimmering mist that resembled a dreamscape. The post-rain air was incomparably pristine, bearing the scent of damp earth, nascent leaves, and burgeoning vitality.
Yet, to Tran Kien, the world at this moment was painted in bleak shades of grey.
He had fled for an entire night. No matter how resilient his fleshly body—tempered by the Iron Dash incantation—was, it possessed its limits. The Primordial Chaos Qi within his meridians was utterly depleted. The wounds on his chest and shoulder throbbed with a dull, incessant ache; every breath felt as though a thousand needles were piercing his lungs. He had reached his absolute limit.
He located a narrow, abyssal ravine obscured by a dense tangle of ancient vines. Bereft of the strength to take another step, his entire body collapsed onto the thick layer of rotting foliage, plunging into an abyss of profound unconsciousness.
Within his stupor, he found himself back in Fallen Leaf Town. He saw his parents smiling at him; he saw the emaciated old beggar handing him the stone elephant statue. But then, the scenery abruptly warped. Flames soaring to the heavens. The collapse of the Wind and Cloud Inn. Shadow Sparrow wielding his frigid dagger. The black-clad mob of the Black Dragon Stronghold firing poison-laced arrows. Blood. So much blood.
He jolted awake, his entire body drenched in cold sweat—whether from the agony of his wounds or the terror of his nightmare, he did not know.
It was nearly noon. Sunlight filtered through the foliage, illuminating his youthful, pale face. With tremendous difficulty, he propped himself up, leaning against the freezing stone wall of the ravine. He lifted his robes to inspect his injuries. The chest wound, caused by the terrifying backlash force, had begun to scab over, though it remained inflamed. The claw marks on his shoulder had ceased bleeding, but showed ominous signs of festering.
Tran Kien furrowed his brows. He knew that without proper treatment, this wound could rot and cripple his entire arm.
He possessed no medicine. The Wound-Mending Powder gifted by Van Tam Thong had been exhausted. Yet, he displayed no panic. Within the sea of texts in the Pavilion of Ten Thousand Tomes, he had not only perused formations and histories; he had also devoured medical manuals and herbologies.
Knowledge, in this perilous juncture, was the most precious life-saving panacea.
Mustering the last dregs of his stamina, he used the stone wall for support and stood up, beginning to scour his surroundings. His gaze no longer lingered on the towering ancient trees; instead, it locked onto the underbrush and the wild weeds sprouting from the crevices of the rocks.
After nearly half a shichen of searching, he finally found what he sought. A type of climbing vine with heart-shaped leaves, its stem coated in fine white fuzz. The ancients called it "Blood-Bane Grass." According to the Divine Efficacy of Southern Medicine, this herb possessed a Yin-cold nature and a bitter taste. It was exceptionally potent at clearing heat, neutralizing poisons, and reducing swelling—specifically utilized to treat wounds inflicted by martial weapons.
Tran Kien meticulously harvested a handful of Blood-Bane Grass and found a rocky depression holding a small pool of crystal-clear rainwater. He washed the leaves, then used two clean river stones to patiently crush them into a dark green medicinal poultice.
Gritting his teeth, he tore away the old, blood-and-pus-soaked bandages from his shoulder, revealing the ghastly wound beneath. Without a shred of hesitation, he slapped the freshly mashed Blood-Bane Grass directly onto the festering flesh.
Ssssss...
A searing agony, akin to salt being rubbed into raw flesh, assaulted his senses, causing his entire body to violently convulse. But immediately following that torment was a soothing, icy coolness that rapidly spread outward, pacifying the inflamed, burning sensation of the wound.
Having accomplished all this, Tran Kien was utterly drained. Leaning against the stone wall, he slowly drifted into a deep slumber. This time, there were no nightmares.
He remained secluded within that ravine for three full days.
During these three days, he did not cultivate. He solely engaged in three tasks: resting, foraging, and pondering.
He utilized the worldly knowledge he had acquired to survive. He unearthed edible roots and fashioned rudimentary traps to snare small birds. Fearing exposure, he dared not light a fire, consuming everything raw. It was arduous, yet it imparted a crucial lesson: survival in the desolate wilderness required not only sheer strength but also intellect and boundless patience.
And he pondered. He reflected upon his entire journey, from Fallen Leaf Town to this very moment. He had braved life-and-death struggles; he had clashed with foes vastly superior to himself. He had emerged victorious, yet every victory hung by a thread, relying heavily on stratagems and a stroke of providence.
He acutely realized his own fatal flaws.
First, his cultivation base was far too meager. Though his Primordial Chaos Qi was vastly superior to the spiritual energy of the same realm, its quantity was pitifully scarce—only sufficient to unleash one or two full-powered strikes.
Second, he lacked genuine martial combat techniques. He possessed raw bodily strength and instinctual reflexes, but his attacks relied entirely on rudimentary instinct. He did not possess a single complete saber art or fist manual.
Third, he was too solitary. No matter how brilliant his intellect, alone, he could never hope to stand against a colossal monolith like the Black Dragon Stronghold or the Divine Weapon Pavilion.
This cannot continue, he told himself. The road to the Indigo Capital is still vast. I must transform.
On the dawn of the fourth day, when the swelling on his shoulder had entirely subsided, leaving behind nothing but a faint scar, Tran Kien finally departed from the ravine.
He did not immediately march west. He circled back toward the official public road. He entered a nearby mortal town—an ordinary settlement devoid of cultivators, devoid of bloody disputes.
He took no overt actions. He merely sought out a smithy and requested to be taken in as an apprentice.
The proprietor was an elderly blacksmith. Seeing that Tran Kien, despite his frail frame, possessed a gaze of unshakable resolve, the old man agreed.
And thus, Tran Kien commenced an entirely new life.
Every day, he arose before dawn to stoke the furnace and wield the heavy hammer. The rhythmic CLANG, CLANG of the iron hammer striking the steel billet echoed ceaselessly. This labor, to him, felt even more familiar than the act of cultivation itself. He was not merely forging iron; he was tempering his own being. He learned to control his bodily strength with microscopic precision, learning to sense the subtle transformations of the metal beneath every strike.
At night, he did not rush to cultivate his Qi. He sat in his cramped quarters and drew his spiderweb-cracked long saber. He possessed no saber arts. Therefore, he would forge his own Dao of the Saber.
He mentally retraced every single strike of his hammer. He recalled the absolute, full-powered cleave that had shattered Shadow Sparrow's dagger. He realized that the 'momentum' of the hammer and the 'momentum' of the saber, though different in form, shared a fundamental essence: the condensation of supreme force into a singular point, followed by a direct, overbearing eruption.
He began to practice his saber. There were no flamboyant, flowery forms. There were only the most primal, foundational movements: chop, slash, parry, thrust. He repeated them thousands of times, tens of thousands of times. He was striving to fuse his enlightenment of the Solar Essence Guardian, the Iron Dash incantation, and the profound skills of iron-forging into every single stroke of his blade.
One month later.
On a certain afternoon, having completed his daily toil, Tran Kien stood in the smithy's rear courtyard. Grasped in his hand was not his long saber, but a freshly forged billet of steel, still glowing a searing red.
He closed his eyes. The Primordial Chaos Qi within his meridians surged and roared. He was no longer a youth, but a block of divine iron being tempered within a cosmic furnace.
Then, his eyes snapped open. He swung the steel billet. A profoundly simple cleave.
There was no howling gale. There was no heaven-shaking momentum. There was only a single, searing red arc of light that sheared through the void.
SWISH!
The saber-testing boulder, half the height of a man and incomparably tough, was cleaved cleanly in two, as effortlessly as a hot knife slicing through tofu. The severed surface was as smooth as a polished mirror.
The old blacksmith, who had unwittingly stepped into the courtyard, witnessed this scene. The smoking pipe in his hand slipped from his fingers, clattering onto the dirt without him even noticing.
Tran Kien gazed at the fruit of his labor and gave a faint nod.
A month of absolute concealment. He had not only healed his fleshly wounds. He had carved a permanent, indelible scar into the hearts of his enemies, and far more importantly, he had found his very own Dao of Martial Arts.
It was finally time to set out on the road once more.