Precision

A strand of Cang Hua was roughly one-fifteenth the thickness of a hair.

As a life cluster born of successful cultivation, it was not an insensate strand of hair. It was more flexible than a finger, more sensitive than a finger, and a Dao-art organ.

Sharp, tough, controllable at will, and capable of releasing psychic energy, it could move effectively through the body and stop bleeding steadily.

Cang Hua was also the finest surgical instrument.

The sight of ten million strands of Cang Hua piercing the human body at once was perilous in the extreme. With the slightest mistake, Huo Yuanjia would be instantly sliced into thousands of pieces by the sharp white hair, or directly burned to charcoal by psychic energy that suddenly went out of control. For the operator, it was a tremendous test.

Precision was the difference between butchery and surgery.

Even Lan Yi had to be more careful now, lest he accidentally kill the benefactor of his past.

He was not the sort of man who stopped short when taking revenge but wiped out an entire family when repaying a kindness.

At any rate,

as the martial-arts benchmark of Artificial Divine Realm 1909, Huo Yuanjia's success or failure in Bestowing Martial Arts would greatly influence Lan Yi's subsequent arrangements.

Accustomed to wielding a broad ax to remodel an Artificial Divine Realm for his own use,

Lan Yi had never intended to shrink back or tie his own hands.

That would also be the style of most psychic cultivators in the future. Especially when the River Civilization and Dayang Civilization factions competed fiercely and entered team-battle mode, with thousands upon thousands of Artificial Divine Realms forcibly remodeled into entirely different civilizations, that would be when the cultivators of the two great civilizations were truly tested for resilience and willpower.

Following the nerve plexuses and blood vessels, Cang Hua burrowed into Huo Yuanjia's body.

Various readings—including body temperature, heart rate, blood pressure, lung function, Innate Qi compatibility, the response speed of the five senses, and whether a life cluster was present—were rapidly fed back into Lan Yi's mind.

Huo Yuanjia's body was extremely healthy.

Even if he swallowed arsenic, he would not die for quite some time.

The hidden injuries and chronic ailments left behind by overtraining and arena battles also failed to escape Lan Yi's examination. Combining them with several martial-arts techniques preserved in Lan Yi's memories, he soon worked out a safe plan to raise Huo Yuanjia to Qi Cultivation Grand Completion as quickly as possible. An introductory form called Zhu Yan Tramples Mountains was sent into Huo Yuanjia's ears through the vibrations of Cang Hua.

Zhu Yan appears, and all beneath Heaven takes up arms.

That is rather fitting for what I am about to do.

Now that I have become an immortal master, I may as well make full use of this identity.

Lan Yi proceeded methodically, as though constructing a model. The silvery-white Cang Hua filling the room began to glow amid the crowd's suppressed gasps, and its brightness rapidly intensified.

Psychic energy was being injected at an accelerated rate.

Cang Hua avoided the pain nerves as much as possible. While destroying the original tissues, it filled them with Innate Qi at the level of Qi Cultivation Grand Completion.

Even though Lan Yi deliberately controlled it,

Huo Yuanjia still began to emit increasingly painful muffled groans as the white hair's glow grew blinding!

Even spectators like Nong Jinsun and Chen Qimei, who did not understand what they were seeing but knew it was extraordinary, could sense that Bestowing Martial Arts had reached its crucial moment. It was impossible not to be nervous.

Drive out the barbarians, restore China, make the myriad foreigners submit! Let envoys come from all four quarters!

Everything the Divine Land Empire had been humiliated into losing might truly be reclaimed in its entirety by their hands! When that time came, it would be more than having one's name recorded in history—that would be the honor of a founding emperor! What Star-Han person could refuse this glory handed down from antiquity?

As for the foreign reporters, they were equally tense. This was a transformation even more incredible than the Industrial Revolution. Perhaps, apart from technology, this world was about to open up another path of competition. They were witnessing this historic moment firsthand.

"Brother Jinsun, Immortal Master Lan Yi frightens me." From the back of the crowd, Chen Qimei suddenly spoke.

"Brother Qimei, why do you say that?" Nong Jinsun withdrew his focused gaze and asked in confusion.

Chen Qimei did not answer. Instead, he handed a roll of paper to Nong Jinsun.

It contained intelligence delivered to their gathering by his informants in the Governor-General of Liangjiang's office and by figures from all walks of life. The contents were extraordinarily fantastical. If Lan Yi had not been right before Chen Qimei's eyes, he would have cursed them as the ravings of a madman, utterly divorced from reality.

The intelligence was even more absurd than Emperor Guangwu summoning a meteorite.

An immortal had held thunder in his hand and sunk every one of the several dozen ironclad warships belonging to the great powers on the Yangtze. Not a single officer or soldier aboard had survived.

"This... is it true?" Nong Jinsun's spectacles nearly slipped from the bridge of his nose.

"It should be. Jingxiong and Huanqing have already set out for Puhai, while Dezun plans to end his activities in Dongyang ahead of schedule. They all intend to meet the immortal master personally, explain the stakes, and beg the immortal master to..."

At this point, Chen Qimei found the whole thing so absurd that he could not help giving two dry laughs.

"...They may have underestimated the immortal master's methods and ambition. If future martial masters all possess the immortal master's ability to sink ironclads—no, if they merely become unafraid of foreign guns—then the foreigners' good days will be over."

"The immortal master wants every foreigner dead." Nong Jinsun hit the nail on the head.

If that menopause-stricken old hag possessed the courage to declare war,

then in the future, they would possess the means to do so.

"This is bad. If this is true, the Imperial Court and the foreigners may come to arrest him right now." Nong Jinsun's brows knitted together.

He was not afraid that Lan Yi would be imprisoned and executed by firing squad.

He was afraid that Lan Yi would go on a killing spree.

When immortals battled, mortals suffered.

The might of naval artillery would be a disaster if it fell upon the city. And if the immortal master who could sink ironclads were provoked and slaughtered his way through the city until Blood Flow ran through the streets, would that not implicate the innocent?

If too many people died, even cleaning up the aftermath would be difficult.

"Brother Jinsun, you are worrying too much. The Governor-General of Liangjiang is probably too busy saving himself right now. As for the foreigners..." Chen Qimei let out a cold laugh. "The Imperial Court fears alarming our friendly nations, but our backbones have not been broken, so we have nothing to fear. I would welcome the foreigners coming here. Together with the immortal master, I would deal with them!"

At the mention of the foreigners, the eyes of both Chen Qimei and Nong Jinsun reddened with blood.

Ceding territory and paying reparations, surrendering sovereignty and disgracing the nation.

Those things could be set aside for now. When the foreigners had sent troops to attack, the beasts had committed rape and plunder, slaughtered and burned, and perpetrated every kind of atrocity. Any Star-Han person with even a shred of backbone would hear of it with eyes blazing red and hair standing on end, yearning to eat their flesh, drink their blood, and sleep upon their hides!

Without power, they could only swallow their anger.

Looking at Huo Yuanjia, whose painful muffled groans had gradually transformed into powerful breaths and whose heartbeat rang like a great bell, Chen Qimei felt that they would probably no longer need to swallow their anger before long.

"Roar!!!"

Cang Hua's electric radiance blazed until it was blinding. Huo Yuanjia's furious roar, like the howl of a ferocious beast, erupted through the spacious lecture hall, unleashing visible waves of force and wind!

Just as Chen Qimei had predicted,

in Puhai, at the former site of the Han Prince's residence, the Governor-General of Liangjiang's office,

Governor-General of Liangjiang Zhang Ji was completely numb by now. He had been in office for less than a month when the sky was suddenly pierced open, and the foreigners were on the verge of madness. This practical, capable, dignified, and seasoned high minister—someone who could be called a gentleman—was now drenched in sweat, utterly at a loss for what to do.