Great Yun, Jiangcheng Prefecture, Linyuan County Town.
The clear sky was vast as cerulean jade, and floating clouds drifted like azure hounds.
Beneath the vault of blue sky and white clouds, a number of fishing boats and sampans either docked at the Xue Men River wharf in Linyuan City to hawk their catch or plied the waters to go fishing.
A good many people in Linyuan City were fishermen who made their living from the Xue Men River. The Xue Men River ran deep and long, and spirit fish occasionally appeared within its waters, which frequently attracted angling and fishing enthusiasts from outside the city to come here by reputation.
An elegantly decorated carriage galloped along the riverbank. Unlike the bustling scene of a hundred boats racing on the river, inside the carriage, a handsome young man with a face like jade and an imposing, upright bearing held a scroll of books, reading and browsing with a leisurely manner.
"Three hundred years of the Great Yun Kingdom, the Cloud Emperor passed away, and Crown Prince Yun Qi succeeded to the throne, changing the reign title to Jianxin.
In the mere three years of the new dynasty, evil spirits emerged from the foreign realm of Yunze, devouring thousands of households of commoners and plunging the living into misery."
"In the twenty-fourth year of the new Great Yun dynasty, the sovereign Yun Qi was devoid of the Dao, colluding with foreign demons and monsters, preying upon the common people and poisoning all living things. The aristocratic clans and powerful households could no longer endure it and successively declared themselves independent.
Three years later, the Zhou family of the aristocratic clans overthrew Great Yun, and King Wu of Zhou ascended the throne as the new emperor, establishing the Great Zhou and promulgating a variety of alien-energy cultivation methods while creating the Demon Suppressing Division to broadly recruit those with spiritual aptitude to join."
"In the thirtieth year of the Great Zhou, the Divine Marvel Building burst forth onto the scene, recruiting geniuses with both outstanding martial arts aptitude and spiritual aptitude with massive resources, but unexpectedly, many geniuses were tragically sacrificed to divine weapons, staining the pugilistic world with blood.
The Great Zhou Demon Suppressing Division dispatched experts to forcefully suppress them, and the Divine Marvel Building vanished from the pugilistic world ever since. For the fifty years thereafter, geniuses of the pugilistic world were all intimidated by the fierce might of the Divine Marvel Building and hid their sharpness behind clumsiness. It was only in the recent decade or so that those with superior spiritual aptitude finally dared to emerge one after another."
"Spirituality, what is spirituality? Rumored to be merely rolling in the mud across the four martial arts realms, only those who possess spirituality can step into the extraordinary realm.
I have transmigrated for three years now, cultivating diligently. My martial arts can already be considered to have achieved some success, yet I still do not know whether I actually possess spiritual aptitude or not."
The handsome youth was named Chu Ge. At this moment, looking at the lines of information described in the book in his hand, his long, slanted eyebrows rose at the temples and he sank into deep thought.
He had transmigrated via his soul, inhabiting the body of Chu Ge, a wealthy young master in this world. Come to think of it, the two shared the same name and appearance, only differing in personality, much like counterparts from different parallel spacetimes.
According to the integrated memories of his predecessor, the predecessor had disliked martial arts since childhood.
Back then, his eldest sister, Chu Feixue, had also intended for him to practice martial arts, but it ultimately came to nothing, and thus a sound foundation in martial arts had never been laid down.
After he transmigrated, to avoid making his eldest sister feel that something was amiss, he likewise did not immediately ask his eldest sister, who was in a martial arts sect, for martial arts manuals.
Moreover, even with a manual, unless his eldest sister returned from the sect, there would be no one to guide and instruct him, making it easy for him to go awry in his practice. Therefore, he had gone on his own to study martial arts at a martial arts hall within the city.
Afterwards, in normal correspondence by letters, he gradually manifested his changing interest in martial arts to pave the way for their future meeting.
Suddenly, a commotion came from the direction of the fish stall, and immediately quite a few people swarmed over, faintly hearing someone cry out in alarm about a spirit fish.
"Hmm?"
Hearing the commotion in the distance, Chu Ge's spirits lifted and he put down the book.
"A spirit fish actually turned up today? Let's go take a look."
No one answered. The green-robed maid driving the carriage was pretty and delicate, around sixteen or seventeen years old. Her hair was styled into double buns, and her eyes were bright and lively. She wore a light green silk long-sleeved garment, draped on the outside with a deep green satin vest, yet she seemed to be mute.
The carriage suddenly turned around and drove onto the wharf, heading straight for the fish stall as if sensing the biting winter wind all the way.
The many onlookers among the fishermen caught sight of the carriage and immediately cleared a way, smiling and discussing among themselves.
"It's the Young Master Chu's ride! It looks like this spirit fish is his."
"Young Master Chu inherited the Chu Family's massive fortune, and Eldest Sister Chu was long ago taken in by the Hidden Water Sect as a disciple. Whatever he sets his sights on, no one can contest it with him!"
"This Young Master Chu has quite a few hobbies, most of all loving to collect strange and bizarre knick-knacks, not hesitating to spend a fortune! I heard he's also learning martial arts at Master Hu's place in the east of the city, and I wonder if he's learned anything from it!"
"Heh! If I were that rich, I'd play with everything too, and play more extravagantly than him."
The green-robed maid was the first to step down from the carriage, lifted the carriage curtain, and waited upon Chu Ge as he alighted.
He was tall and robust, wearing a silver crown to bind his hair, dressed in white python arrow-sleeves, and girt at his waist with a jade-and-red-leather belt. At a glance, he was a young master of a wealthy family with an air of great style, causing the fishermen on both sides, whose bodies carried a heavy fishy odor, to involuntarily step aside one after another, with some smiling and offering flattery.
"Young Master Chu, what's turned up this time is an red scale claw fish, caught by Little Qin, a bailiff in the city. You simply must win this!"
"Oh? Little Qin, you caught a spirit fish again? Not bad at all."
Chu Ge walked through the crowd, looking with a startled expression at the youth in the crowd who had a saber hung at his waist and was barefooted while holding the spirit fish, and laughed.
"With this fishing skill of yours, you could manage to earn a living even without serving in the yamen."
That Little Qin was a youth with a yellowish complexion. Seeing Chu Ge walk over, his eyes also lit up slightly—who didn't know that Young Master Chu was a wealthy benefactor? He immediately lifted the spirit fish in his hand with a smile.
"You flatter me, Young Master Chu. We people of Linyuan City can wade into the water at age seven and float at age ten, and most of us can fish. I just got lucky. Are you interested in this spirit fish?"
Chu Ge smiled and nodded, glanced at the condition of the spirit fish, uttered a word of praise, and said, "Not bad, this is a red scale claw fish, right? I've heard of it but never seen one. I offer twenty taels! I'll take this spirit fish."
Upon hearing this price, which directly doubled, the surrounding crowd erupted into a slight commotion, and a few people who had intended to bid were dumbfounded.
Their inner limit was at most fifteen taels; twenty taels would be pushed up during bidding out of sheer pride, but feeling the calm and unruffled aura of this Young Master Chu at this moment, who would dare to contend further?
"Xiao Qing!"
Chu Ge glanced sideways at the maid beside him.
Xiao Qing merely smiled and stepped forward without a word to settle the account.
"Little Qin, the next time you catch a spirit fish, you can send it directly to my residence!"
Chu Ge left a light smile and got into the carriage to depart.
Seeing this, the surrounding fishermen found it nothing out of the ordinary, while some outsiders who failed to win the spirit fish felt secretly annoyed.
However, upon inquiring and learning that someone in this Chu Family was actually a disciple of a major sect like the Hidden Water Sect, they had no choice but to drop the matter with a sheepish laugh.
After getting into the carriage, Xiao Qing finally put down the lively spirit fish in her hands.
As Chu Ge raised his hand slightly, Xiao Qing's tender body seemed to lose all strength, sliding down smoothly. The cloud-patterned belt tightly binding her slender waist slipped off, and her gaze rapidly dimmed.
Her entire body was as boneless as if she had only a single layer of skin supported by bamboo strips. At this moment, as the bamboo strips collapsed section by section, her whole person also tumbled to the floor like a stack of garments. Her pitch-black, glossy hair drooped over the clothing and the skin-bag, and her fair, pretty face turned even whiter, devoid of blood like a sheet of paper.
"Maintaining this shadow puppet for barely half a day has actually consumed a wisp of alien energy. It's not worth it, simply not worth it, and it's not as good as spending some silver to hire a few maidservants, which is cheaper!"
Inside the carriage, Chu Ge looked at the masterpiece sprawled on the ground, sighed and shook his head, and reached out to scoop up a beauty's face drawn out on paper skin. Yet the face was like jade, with eyebrows like distant mountains, a delicate nose, and cherry lips, and though it looked charming, it lacked any seductive or wanton air.
Chu Ge was exceptionally satisfied with this drawing skill of his. If he couldn't find a wife in the future, he would just draw a few more paper-puppet wives to keep him company, which could also be considered a form of solace, except that it consumed quite a lot of paper.
He put away the facial skin, and his fingers flicked slightly inside his sleeves, instantly retracting strands of thread, almost invisible to the eye, from the skin-bag and garments on the ground.
Saying it wasn't worth it was actually just a joke.
Though this shadow puppet seemed somewhat like a chicken rib, if used correctly, it would also be a great source of strength, especially during actual combat, often achieving the effect of mistaking the fake for the true.
However, having transmigrated to this world for only three years, he had not yet practiced this craft to a very profound realm, and could only use it as a miscellaneous auxiliary art in martial arts cultivation. For those who did not understand this path, it could exert miraculous effects.
Having pulled the carriage over to the side, Chu Ge's gaze fell upon the spirit fish inside the vehicle.
This fish had red scales and claws, and was still jumping about lively long after leaving the water; it was indeed a spirit fish that was a rare mutation among fish.
If martial artists ate this fish often, their martial arts cultivation would inevitably advance by leaps and bounds.
However, Chu Ge bought this spirit fish not to eat it directly, but to use it for sacrifice to maximize its value.
He abruptly grabbed toward the spirit fish, and the next moment, on his wrist beneath his clothing, a tattoo of a dragon-patterned bronze bell seemed to come to life, vivid and lifelike.
The spirit fish instantly vanished, while on the dragon-patterned bronze bell tattoo on his right wrist, a groove faintly revealed a glowing radiance.
This radiance was visible to him alone.
And there, inside that groove, a spirit fish appeared.
The spirit fish quickly fell into a circle of golden light at the center of the groove.
That golden light was like a golden orb. After the spirit fish fell into it, a line of information rapidly surfaced on the surface of the orb.
"Red scale claw fish (a rare mutation among fish): Description: (A strange fish mutated after being affected by alien energy. Ordinary people eating it can strengthen the body and increase strength; martial artists of the four martial arts realms eating it can elevate vital blood and advance their strength. Force Condensation martial masters eating it can extract and refine the alien energy within.)
Current status: Extracting optimal ability."
Seeing the information surface on the dragon-clock tattoo, Chu Ge was not surprised.
Before his transmigrating, he had taken a picture of a twin-knobbed dragon-patterned bell at the National Museum, and as a result, the moment the flash went off, he had inexplicably transmigrated.
After transmigrating, this dragon-clock tattoo had appeared on his wrist.
Any valuable item whatsoever could be devoured by the bell heart within this bell's groove.
Afterwards, the bell heart would extract the most valuable part of that item within a certain period of time.
Over the past two years, Chu Ge had sacrificed gold and silver jewelry, food and wine, tree bark, stones, and even corpses to this bell, at a considerable cost.
Just like the spirit fish, he had once sacrificed a spirit fish with wings, acquiring a innate ability called 'fish fins'.
However, that ability was too much of a chicken rib; once mastered and inherited, a pair of fish fins a foot long would form behind his back.
The fish fins could not help him fly, but only helped him swim faster in the water.
This innate talent belonged mostly to the comedic category—after all, he didn't need to be a fisherman to catch fish.
After he discarded that ability, it would transform into a ball of pure alien energy for him to absorb.
Be advised that alien energy was a power that only martial artists of the Force Condensation Realm—the fourth of the four martial arts realms—could come into contact with, belonging to the mysterious power drifting between heaven and earth.
Martial artists of the first three martial arts realms simply could not touch it.
Yet Chu Ge was able to rely on the dragon clock to come into contact with and absorb alien energy ahead of time, which naturally enabled him to take to martial arts like a fish to water after practicing it. Today, he was already a martial master of the Bone Training Realm, the third of the four martial arts realms.
It was just that, having newly arrived and being intimidated by the rumors of the Divine Marvel Building, on the surface he preferred to hide his sharpness in clumsiness and had never revealed his true strength. Therefore, even Master Hu of the east city who taught him martial arts only assumed he was a second-realm Muscle Training martial artist.
At this moment, seeing that the red scale claw fish was still undergoing refinement and might require four or five days to be fully refined, Chu Ge immediately paid it no further heed and instead looked toward the other information inside the dragon clock.
"Five Mao Mountain Marvelous Skill (Incomplete): Grade: [Marvelous arts above alien energy]
Explanation: (One skin, two paper, three embroidery, four casting, five poisons, six pottery shaping. The Five Mao Mountain Marvelous Skill is regarded as a heretical left path, yet the heretical left path also has its refined essence, among which the six paths are profound and abstruse. Regrettably, this marvelous book only records four of the chapters: skin, paper, embroidery, and poisons.)
Current status: Acquired and inherited techniques: shadow puppetry, paper-cutting, embroidery, five poisons."
This incomplete volume of the Five Mao Mountain Marvelous Skill had been imparted to him by a Daoist priest in the world before his transmigrating, and it had later become the craft by which he earned a living.
Yet he had always assumed that the craft he mastered was merely some folkloric skill, never expecting that at the time of his transmigrating, the manual passed down by that Daoist priest had also been absorbed into the dragon clock and even appraised as a marvelous art above the level of alien energy.
One had to know that in this world, marvelous arts above the level of alien energy, aside from those secret techniques that impaired one's potential, mostly required experts of the Force Condensation Realm who had mastered alien energy in order to study them.
And over these past two years, when Chu Ge attempted to use this craft to create some small objects, those objects would frequently undergo strange mutations after being infused with alien energy, displaying bizarre changes such as the shadow puppets.
However, lacking mastery over alien energy himself, he could only rely on the dragon clock to extract alien energy from spiritual objects, thereby borrowing the dragon clock to cast and practice, which was why his cultivation speed could never speed up.
"Alien energy... Alien energy, the four martial arts realms of skin, flesh, bone, blood.
It is rumored that after blood-changing, with the Three Flowers Gathering at the Top, those with spirituality can sense the alien energy in heaven and earth, while those without spirituality will completely stop at the four martial arts realms..."
Chu Ge rose and stepped out of the carriage, his gaze falling upon the flowing waters of the East Flow River not far away, his expression contemplative. "Do I possess spirituality? If not, can I hold my ground in this torrent of the mortal world?"
He had already experienced the wondrous nature of alien energy. It could combine with marvelous arts to turn the decadent into the miraculous, making shadow puppets seem as though they had renewed vitality, vivid and lifelike, mistaking the fake for the true.
Even more, it could transform into a mighty vital blood force, strengthening the body and prolonging life.
Precisely because he knew of it, he yearned all the more for that kind of power...
"Master, have mercy!"
At this moment, a little beggar passed by in the cold wind.
Chu Ge abruptly flicked his finger, and a copper coin flew out with a puff, striking the horse's rump.
Following that, it bounced back and landed in the beggar's broken bowl, emitting a 'clinking' sound.
Stung by the pain, the horse let out a neigh and immediately stepped out with all four hooves, galloping away with a clattering sound straight toward the martial arts hall in the east of the city.
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