Sixty Years in Thirty-Six Hours
Having listened to the mournful story of Geum Wang's past, Ouyang Qiangang pointed at the Cloth-Bag Buddha statue of Ten-Thousand-Year Warm Jade that the creature still cradled in its hand.
"Brother Geum, might that jade statue be connected in some way to your former master?"
He had continued addressing Geum Wang with careful politeness. The creature understood human speech as keenly as any person, and in the eyes of that small spirit beast lay the wisdom of ages so distant that one could scarcely guess how many centuries it had lived.
It was not a being one could presume to speak down to.
Geum Wang stared at the statue with eyes gone wide, then gave a slow nod, his small face full of sorrow.
"Mm……" A low groan escaped Ouyang Qiangang's lips.
To think the Warm Jade statue was deeply bound to Geum Wang's old master. He had half suspected as much when the creature halted its attack at the sight of the statue lying fallen on the ground — but even so, this was something he had never once imagined.
Heo Cho-ryeong asked, her face lined with worry.
"Qiang, we have to get out of here somehow... Is there an exit?"
"I haven't found one yet."
"Hwang Nodae must be waiting outside, worried sick..."
"Then we need to find that exit, and fast."
Ouyang Qiangang turned to Geum Wang.
"Brother Geum, is there a way out of this place?"
The monkey nodded and led the two of them to the sheer northern cliff wall, still scored with sword marks. There he pointed to a crevice hidden with cunning care behind the rock, barely wide enough for a single person to slip inside.
"You're saying we can leave through there?"
Geum Wang nodded — then immediately shook his head and launched into an urgent flurry of gestures, trying to explain something.
Heo Cho-ryeong looked utterly lost, but Ouyang Qiangang read the creature's pantomime with a deepening frown.
"What is he saying, Qiang?"
"We can get out — but he says there's a very powerful obstacle standing in the way of that passage."
"An obstacle? You could even tell what it is?"
"Yes."
Nodding, Ouyang Qiangang answered with a grave expression.
"Hard as it is to believe... it appears to be a demonic beast resembling a colossal imugi — a great serpent on the verge of becoming a dragon."
Heo Cho-ryeong went pale.
Most women recoiled instinctively from reptiles, and from snakes above all. An imugi grown tens of thousands of times larger and more hideous than any mere snake? Her revulsion was only natural.
Ouyang Qiangang went on.
"It seems strong enough that even Brother Geum would struggle against it alone, and it spews deadly venom as well."
Heo Cho-ryeong let out a sigh.
"What do we do, then..."
"There is a way, he says."
At that sliver of hope, her eyes lit up.
"What way?"
"Brother Geum says I only need to become as strong as himself. Then the two of us together can set upon it and bring the beast down."
Color returned to Heo Cho-ryeong's face. She had never actually witnessed Qiangang fight Geum Wang, so she had no idea how strong the creature really was.
"Qiang, couldn't you take Geum Wang down even now? Spirit beast or not, he's still an animal."
Qiangang answered with a wry smile.
"Sister, in a head-on contest of strength and speed, I could not withstand Brother Geum. Even earlier, it wasn't I who subdued him — I came away unscathed only because he stayed his hand the moment he saw the statue. As I am now, I couldn't promise victory even in a rematch."
Heo Cho-ryeong's mouth fell open.
"You're serious?"
"I am."
Geum Wang, who had followed every word, squared his shoulders and thrust his neck out stiffly, the very picture of smug pride.
Her expression clouded over once more.
"If he's that strong, who knows how many years it would take for you to..."
Unlike her, Qiangang was entirely unbothered. His gaze had already drifted to the Supreme Blood Moss and Dragon-Brain Jade Fungus scattered across the floor.
"Two days, at most."
It came so far out of nowhere that she couldn't grasp his meaning.
"What are you talking about?"
"In two days, I will be able to defeat Geum Wang."
Her eyes went round. And not only hers — Geum Wang, evidently feeling himself slighted, fixed Qiangang with a glare, fury burning in his ruby eyes.
Oblivious or indifferent, Qiangang pressed on.
"With the aid of the spirit herbs here, I intend to finish my training as quickly as possible. After that, we should be able to escape this place."
"What manner of training could possibly raise your skill that fast?"
"A method of my own, one no one else in this world could manage. But it would be difficult to explain."
"A secret art passed down in your family?"
"Something like that."
Sensing he had no intention of elaborating, Heo Cho-ryeong asked nothing further. Qiangang explained to her the astonishing properties of the Supreme Blood Moss and the Dragon-Brain Jade Fungus, then asked her to wait, taking her meals from the herbs in the meantime.
He lifted out two jade cases. The first one he opened seeped a chilly frost — inside sat a fist-sized lump of blue-green jade that sent a shiver down the spine at a mere glance.
Akasha, analyze the material.
Yes, Doctor.
The instant his hand touched the jade, the nanobots began scanning its surface and mapping its internal structure. A moment later, Akasha's voice sounded in his mind.
Doctor, compositional and energy-wave analysis complete. This is, without question, the legendary treasure recorded in the Record of Life and Death — Ten-Thousand-Year Cold Jade.
Just as I thought... His heart was pounding.
The molecular structure of this jade possesses a more perfect crystal lattice than any material I have ever observed. Because of that, its energy resistance to qi bearing the Yin attribute is all but zero.
Energy resistance near zero?
Yes. Think of it as the twenty-first century's superconductor. It can store your pure, refined Pure Yin qi with almost no loss whatsoever, and discharge it whenever needed with perfect stability — in short, the most flawless energy-storage medium in existence. At this purity and volume, we could construct the Pure Yin qi storage complex we planned and still have jade to spare.
Her crisp analysis curled a smile across his lips. He had just taken hold of the single most crucial key to the sustainable production of the Yang Dragon Pill.
Next he opened the second jade case. Inside lay only the iron plaque that had served as the key to the door leading here, and a single booklet of yellowed parchment. He already knew the plaque's purpose, so he picked up the booklet instead. Across its cover ran four characters: Ghost Shadow Secret Manual.
He turned the first page, and a text written in the form of a last testament met his eyes.
I spent my life striving to unlock the secret of the hidden treasure left behind by the Founding Patriarch, and at last I learned that his traces remain somewhere beneath Sand Rock Peak.
The iron plaque is the key that opens the door to that place. Other secrets seem to slumber here as well, but I could not find them. Should fate ever grant you the chance, perhaps you will unravel the iron plaque's mystery yourself.
· · ·
I sought Sand Rock Peak in secret, but an elder of the Demonic Cult, still unable to forget an old grudge, discovered me, and I fell to a lethal poison. To die here with the Patriarch's legacy within arm's reach — how unbearable the bitterness.
To you, fortunate soul of a later age who reads these words, I make this request: my son lives in Lanzhou, in the province of Gansu. The boy was born with meager talent, and so I passed on to him neither the sorrowful wish of this text nor my martial arts. All the wealth and treasure I gathered over my lifetime now sleeps in the hidden vault beneath the house where my son lives.
It is my dearest hope that you will take this Ghost Shadow Secret Manual for yourself, and that you will deliver to my son even a portion of the vault's treasures, watching over him so that he may live free of worldly want.
By the time he finished reading, Ouyang Qiangang's thoughts had tangled into knots.
The owner of those sword scars was an absolute supreme master from the Heaven Beyond Heaven — a being who left behind traces of sword-light capable of cleaving heaven and earth in a single stroke. So why does the Ghost Hand Divine Thief's martial art, said to descend from him, lean solely toward assassination and stealth? Something here doesn't add up...
He set the question aside for now — hoping he might find a clue in the treasure vault the Ghost Hand Divine Thief was said to have left behind.
The manual contained a host of techniques, but only two held any interest for him: the Ghost Shadow Thieving Art and the Ghost Shadow Divine Art. These were the core arts of the Ghost Hand Divine Thief, who had once contended for the title of first under heaven in stealth and concealment.
Doctor, if we weave the stealth of this Ghost Shadow Divine Art into the Heavenly Void Meteor Divine Art you obtained from Sage Healer Hwata, I estimate we can elevate its power and utility by an entire dimension. I will begin researching it at once.
Understood. I'll leave it to you.
Leaving the research in Akasha's hands, he rose from his seat. Now came the work that truly mattered.
He walked over to Heo Cho-ryeong.
"Sister, from this moment I'll be entering a deep trance to circulate my qi. I can't say how long it will take."
"All right."
She nodded. So long as Geum Wang remained friendly, nothing in this place would disturb his meditation.
Qiangang plucked up the Supreme Blood Moss and Dragon-Brain Jade Fungus until they lay heaped like a small hill, and sat down before it. From the mound of spirit herbs radiated such an immense spiritual energy that a single look was enough to make the head swim.
Akasha, from now on, analyze every particle of energy entering my body, raise my internal power at optimal efficiency — and at the same time, begin treatment of the Nine Yin Severed Meridians.
Understood, Doctor. Activating automated parallel-processing systems. Please concentrate solely on absorbing and refining the spirit herbs' energy. I will draw off the accumulating internal power myself and, through the nanobots, carry out the meridian treatment simultaneously according to the protocols we have established.
Eyes closed, he set the Transcendent Formless Divine Art in motion and began to draw in the herbs' pure energy. The Supreme Blood Moss and the Dragon-Brain Jade Fungus were no common medicinal herbs, so he admitted their power slowly and with great care. Internal power one could not control was worse than none at all — a single misstep could send him plunging straight into qi deviation, the worst calamity imaginable.
There was no need, as at the Hwa Clan fort's herb warehouse, to store them apart; he refined each herb's energy the moment he absorbed it and fused it into his own internal power. At the same time, Akasha siphoned off the newly generated power in real time, deploying every available nanobot to begin the painstaking work of melting away the cold energy compacted in his first great acupoint.
Absorption, refinement, and treatment — three tasks running at once inside his body.
How much time slipped by like that?
Akasha's voice arrived.
The first great acupoint of the Nine Yin Severed Meridians has been fully opened. Proceeding now to treatment of the second acupoint!
As Heo Cho-ryeong and Geum Wang looked on, the blue-tinged frost energy and the red and white glow of the spirit herbs mingled around Qiangang's body, conjuring a scene of unearthly beauty. His internal power climbed in a slow, stable ascent — and yet at a speed for which precedent would be hard to find.
Time kept flowing.
Then Akasha's voice rang through his mind, brimming with joy.
Doctor — the second great acupoint has opened as well! I have also melted away a substantial portion of the cold energy in the remaining seven acupoints, and the entire meridian has widened dramatically.
At the end of his long, long trance, Ouyang Qiangang slowly opened his eyes. The shadow of death that had always veiled them was gone without a trace; in its place now burned a light as tranquil as a bottomless abyss — and as voracious, as though it could draw in all things.
How much time has passed?
Thirty-six hours.
A day and a half had gone by.
Your total internal power has now surpassed one full sixty-year cycle.
An amount of internal power most martial artists would never attain even by devoting their entire lives to it — he had passed beyond it in under two days. Of course, the decisive factor had been the legendary spirit herbs, in which hundreds, even thousands, of years were condensed.
He rose to his feet.
And in the man who stood there, no trace of the sickly young boy remained.