Time Flies, White Horse Passes a Crack

Thus, in the 331st year of the Great Yan Calendar—the twenty-first year since Gu Han had come to this world—Ran Wen bowed to Gu Han as his master in the Martial Lecture Hall of Prince Liu's Estate in Qinghe City. Gu Han renamed him Ran Min, and thus began his tumultuous, magnificent life.

In the first year of Ran Min's apprenticeship, the 332nd year of the Great Yan Calendar, under Gu Han's meticulous guidance, Ran Min took only a single year to train the "Arhat Fist" to perfection, reaching the Skin Tempering Perfection realm.

Afterward, in just over ten days, he switched to cultivating the "White Tiger Muscle Tendon Refining Fist," quickly grasping its fundamentals and breaking through to the Muscle Tendon Strengthening realm. He became a recognized Second-rate Master in the martial world, on par with those who had labored for over a decade or even decades.

The third year.

Ran Min, barely fifteen years old with childish features still clinging to his face, came before Gu Han once more. Excitedly, he announced that he had thoroughly refined all twenty-four minor tendons and twelve major tendons of his body. Then, right in front of Gu Han, he broke through the Blood Tempering realm in one go—a bottleneck that had stymied Gu Han for over a decade. Gu Han's heart churned with such frustration he nearly spat blood. He sighed inwardly, marveling that this boy's talent was truly terrifying beyond compare.

Not only did he surpass Gu Han himself, but he far outstripped even his elder brother Jingyuan, that peerless prodigy. No matter how many so-called heaven-defying geniuses Gu Han had seen or heard of over the years, not one could match Ran Min. Looking through past and present, only the legendary, deified Patriarch Bodhidharma might have been able to outshine him.

Then, another three years passed.

At just eighteen years old, Ran Min's martial realm climbed steadily once more, reaching the Blood Tempering Perfection level. His overall strength was now only a single step away from the most top-tier Internal Qi masters in the martial world.

In the following months, Ran Min attempted to break into the Internal Qi realm several times. But alas, that single step often proved the hardest to cross. For the vast majority of people in this world, the leap from Blood Tempering to Internal Qi was like a natural chasm—one that many could never surmount in a lifetime.

For Ran Min, though this step might not be insurmountable, it still briefly halted his meteoric rise.

After mulling it over for an entire month, he finally tendered his resignation to Gu Han on a bright, sunny morning. Thus began his journey wandering the martial world—and the opening of his tumultuous, magnificent life.

Yet the changes of the world never cease for anyone, and Gu Han's life was not interrupted by Ran Min's departure.

After Ran Min left, Gu Han maintained his old routine. Each day, he either studied martial arts manuals or diligently trained in the techniques left by Patriarch Bodhidharma.

In the first year after Ran Min's departure, Gu Han, after years of bitter cultivation, finally comprehended the first of Patriarch Bodhidharma's supreme combat techniques—the "Heaven-Overturning Palm"—and trained it to perfection.

Paired with his own fierce, unmatched Internal Qi, a single palm strike sent internal force covering an area of several zhang in radius, plunging the surroundings into darkness as if the sky itself were collapsing. It far surpassed the abilities of Abbots Yuanyin and Ben Zhen of Treasure Pearl Temple in their prime. Truly, it overturned heaven and earth, living up to the name Patriarch Bodhidharma had given it.

In the third year after Ran Min's departure, while practicing his fists, Gu Han suddenly experienced a moment of enlightenment. His martial realm surged dramatically. With the aid of two Greater Returning Pills, his Internal Qi accumulated to the very limit of the Internal Qi Realm in this world.

Setting aside his physical body, his pure Internal Qi cultivation had already reached the pinnacle of this world. Though still far from Patriarch Bodhidharma, he was now on par with Abbots Liao Kong and Jue Ming in Treasure Pearl Temple's history, as well as the Southern Barbarian King A Yanda and others.

Combined with his physical strength, his overall power had undergone a true transformation—no less than a Second-rate Master from the main world, and even slightly exceeding that.

As for the internal cultivation method he had hoped to create, with the boost from this sudden enlightenment, he finally began to see some progress.

In the ninth year after Ran Min's departure.

Though Gu Han's internal cultivation method was still not perfected, he had comprehended another of Patriarch Bodhidharma's supreme techniques—the lightness skill "One Reed Crossing River"—and trained it to perfection.

This skill focused entirely on lightness of body. Once perfected, one could be as light as a swallow and walk atop water.

While Gu Han, limited by his cultivation realm, could not cross a raging river several hundred zhang wide with a single reed as Patriarch Bodhidharma had, he could cross a river several hundred meters wide without issue.

Thus, Gu Han had perfected two techniques.

He had achieved mastery in both fist-and-foot combat and lightness skills.

Until the 354th year of the Great Yan Calendar—the twenty-third year since Ran Min became his disciple, and the seventeenth year since he had left.

In the south, the old Barbarian King A Yanda had aged. But his son, A Kakin, suddenly rose to prominence with explosive force. At just twenty-eight years old, he broke through to the same realm his father A Yanda had once reached—far surpassing Internal Qi Perfection, gazing toward the legendary tier from afar.

On his very first outing, he displayed strength no less than his father's, cutting down several Internal Qi-level generals of the Northern Eighteen Vassals Alliance in battle. His momentum was overwhelming, forcing the vassals to retreat and avoid engagement.

But unlike A Yanda, who had grown up in the Barbarian Tribe, the young Barbarian King A Kakin had been tutored by renowned Central Plains masters since childhood. His grasp of military strategy was far more refined than A Yanda's. Under his leadership, the Northern Eighteen Vassals Alliance, which had barely held on for over a decade, finally crumbled under the Barbarians' overwhelming forces.

Among them, Prince Liu, the lord of Qinghe City, fell in battle. His daughter, Liu Yiyi, vanished without a trace. The famed Prince Liu's Estate, renowned for centuries, was thus scattered.

Of the remaining eighteen vassals, eight were slain. The survivors fled in disarray, each suffering heavy losses, retreating to their strongholds to stubbornly resist the Barbarian onslaught.

But if the eighteen vassals, united and cooperating, could not withstand the Barbarian assault, how could the surviving remnants, gasping for breath, possibly hold out?

Thus, under A Kakin's offensive, the northern vassals had no power to resist whatsoever.

One city fell in three days, one commandery in half a month, one province in two months!

Countless miraculous numbers played out. The northern territories were continuously devoured by the Barbarians. In less than a year, of the nine northern provinces, six had been seized—a terrifying two-thirds.

Just then, when people thought the three-hundred-year-old Great Yan dynasty was finally about to fall, an army rose from Liang Province in the north. It swept across the land, slaughtering countless Barbarian troops, with no one able to stand against it.

Its leader called himself Ran Min, known to all as the "Martial Mourning Heavenly King." This man was a grand strategist with astonishing military talent. He issued the Barbarian Extermination Order, calling upon all righteous heroes under heaven to restore Great Yan and make it their mission to slay every Barbarian, winning the people's hearts. He also rallied Prince Ming of the northwest and the northern vassals not yet destroyed by the Barbarians, establishing the Anti-Barbarian Alliance.

For a time, under his leadership, the allied army repeatedly defeated A Kakin, reclaiming four of the six lost northern provinces. They stood in opposition to the Barbarians, who now occupied the entire south and a small portion of the north, locked in a stalemate.

Thus, another seven or eight years passed.

In the north, in Gaoliang Province, inside an ordinary thatched cottage in a nameless mountain village, an old man with white hair and a crane-like complexion trembled. In his Dantian, internal force began to stir.