The Fusion of Martial Arts and Cultivation Techniques: Five Elements Stars Transformation!

Inside the office, the air was thick enough to seem solid.

Gu Ci's lifeless eyes rested quietly on the Old Principal, without a trace of emotion, as though he were looking at a lifeless stone.

The Old Principal said nothing.

He simply raised his hand and gave a gentle wave toward the empty wall before him.

Hum!

A massive screen of light unfurled without a sound.

Displayed on it was all of Chen Fan's information, concise yet shocking.

[Name: Chen Fan]

[Age: Nine]

[Entrance assessment Qi and Blood: 57.0 calories]

[Qi and Blood after one month in the Prodigy Class: 80.0 calories]

[Martial arts mastery: Five Elements Fist (Peak Perfection), Five Elements Swordplay (Perfection)]

For the first time, the faintest ripple crossed Gu Ci's eternally unchanged, deathly face.

It vanished in a flash, too quickly for even Feng Lie and Wei Tianlong, standing nearby, to notice.

Involuntarily, his mind returned to the blood that had dyed the entire Training Ground red ten years ago, and to his most prized disciple, lying in a pool of blood and looking at him with despair and unwillingness in his eyes.

"My path isn't suited to him."

At last, Gu Ci spoke.

His voice was hoarse, every word carrying a coldness that kept others a thousand miles away.

"All I can teach are madmen or dead men."

"Besides," he paused, and deep in his lifeless eyes, a dense, impenetrable darkness seemed to churn, "my enemies won't spare anyone... connected to me."

The Old Principal did not argue.

He merely turned around slowly, his back to Gu Ci, and watched the ever-changing clouds roll and unfurl beyond the window. In a distant, calm voice, he asked softly:

"It's been ten years, Gu Ci."

"Don't you really want to... personally teach a student who can rise to the top of the entire Federation and become its Top Scholar?"

"Federation Top Scholar"!

Those words struck Gu Ci's long-dead lake of the heart without warning, like a violet thunderbolt cleaving across heaven and earth!

In eyes that had known no ripple since ten years ago, a struggle appeared for the first time, so fierce it was almost distorted.

The most primal ambition of a Martial Dao Grandmaster was locked in a furious battle with the remorse that had sunk into his bones and gnawed at him for ten years!

A long time passed.

So long that Feng Lie even thought he would simply turn and leave.

Only then did Gu Ci force the words out from deep in his throat.

"I'll go take a look."

Meanwhile.

Prodigy Class, independent cultivation room number one.

The thick Alloy Gate had long since shut out all the shock and clamor of the outside world.

Chen Fan sat cross-legged, swiftly replaying his battle with Qin Wuyue in his mind.

His finger sword had shattered her moonlight.

It had looked effortless, but he knew better than anyone that it was the crushing advantage of three things combined: his realm, his cultivation technique, and his Qi and Blood, which had reached eighty calories.

If Qin Wuyue's realm had been equal to his, the outcome of that battle would have been hard to predict.

"Still not enough..."

"Nowhere near enough!"

His thoughts clear, Chen Fan sprang to his feet.

Without pausing for a moment, he sank into a stance and set himself.

He performed the Five Elements Fist at the pinnacle realm. His fist intent was perfectly harmonized, his Qi and Blood surged through his body like a dragon, and every punch carried the profound, weighty Dao essence of the five elements revolving.

Bringing his fist movements to a close, he casually picked up the alloy practice sword by the wall.

He followed with a performance of the Five Elements Swordplay, which he had only just brought to the realm of Perfection. Its sword principles were clear and unobstructed, the five elements flowed without end, and wherever the blade pointed, even the air seemed to be cut apart.

A fist, a sword.

A fist, a sword.

Chen Fan immersed himself completely in this wondrous alternation, tireless.

At some moment as he alternated between fist and sword.

Chen Fan's movements abruptly stopped!

He could clearly sense that both martial arts had grown out of the Five Elements Stance, sharing the same origin.

One was an extension of the body.

The other was an extension of a weapon.

They... were one to begin with!

Once the thought arose, it spread like a wildfire across the plains, impossible to contain!

"If they're one, why can't they be united?"

An unprecedented brilliance burst from Chen Fan's eyes. It was as though he had glimpsed a brand-new gate of the Martial Dao, leading to a higher level!

What he had to do was push that gate open with his own hands!

The next second, Chen Fan moved!

He drew a deep breath and violently unleashed a standard Metal Element Collapse Fist from the Five Elements Fist!

Before the force of the punch had run its course, the Qi and Blood in his body forcibly reversed at his fist in an exceedingly strange way, turning fist into fingers!

He forcibly twisted that unstoppable collapse fist intent into an incomparably sharp sword formed by his fingers!

Boom!

Two forces of the same origin, yet utterly different in how they manifested, collided violently in the meridians within his body!

It felt like two high-speed maglev trains smashing head-on into each other!

"Pfft!"

A surge of violent Qi and Blood roiled uncontrollably upward, and a thin trickle of crimson blood slowly seeped from the corner of Chen Fan's mouth.

Yet in his bright eyes, there was not the slightest trace of pain or fear. Instead, a nearly mad fervor and understanding blazed within them!

"So that's it... the node was wrong, and the route the Qi and Blood took was wrong..."

"Again!"

He wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth. Far from stopping, he was like a madman who had discovered a new continent, ready to make a second attempt, a third, and even countless more!

Just then.

Hiss!

The heavy Alloy Gate of the cultivation room slid silently to one side.

A ghostly figure that seemed to be one with the shadows appeared in the doorway.

It was Gu Ci.

He made no sound, nor did the slightest trace of his aura leak out.

His lifeless eyes crossed the distance of dozens of meters and instantly locked onto the nine-year-old child in the center of the room, blood at the corner of his mouth and his aura in disarray, yet his eyes frighteningly bright and his appearance that of a madman.

And onto the aura of a cultivation technique... which had just subsided inside Chen Fan, yet still bore traces of a violent collision.

Fusing cultivation techniques... on his own?

And while still at the prospective martial artist stage, forcibly fusing two basic martial arts that had already reached top-tier realms?

Madman!

A complete and utter madman!

A glint flashed through Gu Ci's eyes, which had been lifeless for a full ten years.

It was as though he saw his disciple from ten years ago, just as brilliantly gifted and just as unwilling to follow the beaten path, yet who had ultimately died a tragic death before him.

No.

That's not right.

The one before me...

Is even madder than he was!

Gu Ci's expression stirred somewhat.

Gu Ci's figure seemed to merge with the shadows. Without breath or heartbeat, he was like a stone statue standing at the ferry crossing to the netherworld.

His lifeless eyes pierced the distance of dozens of meters, precisely capturing every trace of Qi and Blood moving through Chen Fan's body.

Chen Fan, in the center of the cultivation room, was utterly oblivious to everything around him.

His mind was completely immersed in every detail of his failed attempt.

He paid no heed to the tearing sensation in his meridians or the violence of his Qi and Blood surging backward.

"The five elements share one origin and should be able to merge... the problem isn't the power, but how to control it!"

A thought, like lightning splitting an eternally silent night, suddenly illuminated all the mist!

Use the method of the Stars to control the arts of the five elements!

At the instant of understanding, Chen Fan's eyes, slightly unfocused from pain, suddenly blazed with a terrifying light!

Without the slightest hesitation, he immediately began his second attempt!

Hum!

This time, he did not crudely force the fist intent and sword principles to collide.

With a thought, he violently roused the Star Power within him, cold and aloof, as though it came from the depths of the starry river in the ninth heaven!

That overbearing power became an invisible furnace, opening with a roar within his meridians. It forcibly enveloped, crushed, and tore at the fist intent and sword principles that had just been raging without restraint!

What he intended was to forcibly temper and fuse these two martial arts on a higher dimension!

"Ugh!"

The pain this process brought was more than ten times worse than before!

If the last attempt had been two trains colliding, this time it was like forcibly stuffing both trains into a narrow pipe, then squeezing them into a single mass with hundreds of millions of tons of pressure!

His meridians seemed to be torn apart inch by inch, then forcibly welded back together with an invisible Star Iron.

Every inch of flesh and every bone let out an overburdened wail beneath the overbearing pressure of Star Power!

Chen Fan's body trembled violently, and veins bulged across his forehead like fearsome, coiling dragons. More blood seeped from the corner of his mouth, staining the front of his clothes red.

But he clenched his teeth and did not make a sound.

There was not the slightest retreat in his bright eyes. Instead, the flame of near-mad fervor burned all the more fiercely!

Outside the door.

Deep within Gu Ci's lifeless eyes, a genuine ripple finally appeared.

It was as though he saw across time and space to his disciple from ten years ago, just as brilliantly gifted, just as unwilling to submit to fate, and just as daring in defying the Dao, yet who had ultimately died a tragic death before him.

No.

That's not right.

Gu Ci's pupils contracted almost imperceptibly.

The will of the nine-year-old child before him, his indifference and composure in the face of pain, were... purer than those of the person in his memory!

And... even madder!

Time seemed to stretch out endlessly amid the extreme pain.

He did not know how long had passed. Just as Chen Fan's consciousness was about to be overwhelmed by the endless sensation of tearing.

The two violent forces colliding within him finally reached an incomparably wondrous point of balance under the forceful suppression and smelting of Star Power.

They were no longer fist intent and sword principles, distinct from each other as the waters of the Jing and Wei rivers.

Instead, they had been utterly shattered, ground to powder, and recombined with Star Power as their framework!

Boom!

A terrifying new power, standing above the five elements yet containing their cycles of creation, destruction, and change, burst into being like the first ray of light when chaos first opened!

The power coursed through his body without the slightest obstruction, perfectly smooth and responsive, as though this was how it had always been meant to be!

It worked!

In a flash of inspiration, Chen Fan instinctively pressed his fingers together like a sword and casually slashed at the wall of special alloy dozens of meters away.

There was no sound, no light or shadow.

Not even a fluctuation of Qi and Blood.

A five-colored glimmer of starlight, so fine it was almost impossible to see with the naked eye, flashed from his fingertips and vanished.

Hiss.

A tiny, bottomless hole with edges as smooth as a mirror had appeared without a sound in the sturdy wall, which could withstand a full-force blow from a martial artist with ninety calories of Qi and Blood!

The metal around the hole showed no sign of melting, as though that portion of matter had been directly... erased from the world.

Seeing this and feeling the new power within him, several times stronger yet as easy to control as his own arm, Chen Fan finally broke into an utterly radiant smile from the bottom of his heart.

"With the five elements as the foundation, and the Stars as the transformation..."

"I'll call you the Five Elements Stars Transformation!"

He spoke softly to himself, his voice full of a joy and satisfaction like being born anew.

But before his words had faded.

A ghostly figure, seemingly from the Nine Nether Abyss, appeared silently before him.

Fast!

So fast that even Chen Fan's Perfection-realm swordplay perception had detected nothing!

It was as though the person had been beyond heaven and earth one second, then crossed space and time to arrive here the next.

The joyful smile was still frozen on his face.

Chen Fan abruptly raised his head.

He found himself looking directly into a pair of lifeless eyes, as though they could devour all the light and hope in the world.