Ultimate Dao Spear, Blue Silver Star Sea!

"Alright, you can head back."

Mang Tian withdrew his eager gaze and returned to being the cold, hard blacksmith he was.

"Today was just a test. Go home and apply hot compresses to your arms. Come here on time after school tomorrow. Be one minute late, and don't bother coming again."

"Thank you, Uncle Mang!" Tang Wulin bowed excitedly.

Although his arms ached as if they no longer belonged to him, his heart was brighter than the streetlights.

Tang Linyuan merely nodded slightly. His calm, steady demeanor made Mang Tian marvel inwardly once more.

After bidding Mang Tian farewell, the father and his two sons started home.

It was already late at night, and the streets of Aolai City had grown quiet.

Tang Ziran pushed his bicycle along, looking at his two sons with mixed emotions.

He was proud of their potential, yet his heart ached at having them shoulder the burden of making a living so early.

When they returned home, Na'er was sitting on a small stool by the door, lost in a daze.

The moment she saw the three of them return, her purple eyes lit up like two tiny night-lamps.

"You must be hungry, right? Mom saved dinner for you." Lang Yue came out carrying steaming dishes.

The meal was especially delicious.

Tang Wulin in particular was truly starving. He wolfed down three huge bowls and even used steamed buns to wipe up every last drop of sauce from the plates.

Na'er watched from the side, occasionally slipping the meat from her own bowl into Wulin's. Then she timidly glanced at Tang Linyuan. Only when she saw that he did not object did she purse her lips and smile secretly.

During dinner, Tang Ziran said that he had not found Na'er's family and announced that Na'er had officially become a member of the Tang family.

When Wulin heard that he had a little sister, he cheered with delight. A faint curve also appeared at the corner of Tang Linyuan's lips.

After dinner.

"Wulin, come out with me." Tang Linyuan put down his chopsticks. Rather than going to sleep, he headed straight for the door.

"Huh? Brother, where are we going?" Tang Wulin rubbed his round belly, looking confused.

"To train."

To the north of Aolai City lay an undeveloped park. There were no manicured lawns there, only wildly growing Blue Silver Grass.

Moonlight spilled like water over the blue sea of grass, casting layers of silvery radiance.

"Sit down." Tang Linyuan pointed to an area where the grass grew thickest.

Tang Wulin obediently sat cross-legged. "Brother, what's different about training here compared to training at home?"

"At home, you breathe with your nose. Here, you breathe with your Martial Soul."

Tang Linyuan sat down across from him, his voice sounding ethereal and distant in the night.

"Close your eyes and release your Martial Soul. Don't try to 'control' it. Instead, 'feel' it. Feel the emotions of the Blue Silver Grass around us. They are humble, but they are tenacious. They are the weakest, yet they are also the most numerous."

"Remember, you are their king. But for now, you must first learn to be their friend."

Tang Wulin nodded as if he understood.

As crystal-clear stalks of Blue Silver Grass emerged from his palms, the countless wild Blue Silver Grass around him seemed to sense something. They began to sway gently, releasing specks of pale blue light that gathered toward Tang Wulin.

Only after seeing his younger brother gradually enter the right state, his breathing becoming long and steady, did Tang Linyuan slowly close his eyes.

But he did not immediately enter meditation.

He sank into his sea of consciousness. There, the pitch-black Tyrant Profound Divine Spear floated silently, radiating an incomparably proud and solitary aura.

Looking at the spear, Tang Linyuan's thoughts seemed to pierce through the barriers of time and space, returning to that azure planet with no Soul Power or Martial Souls, but with martial arts at their peak.

In his previous life, he had been born into an ancient martial arts family.

In an era dominated by firearms, ancient martial arts had long since declined, reduced to flashy exercises for fitness. But he refused to believe it.

He was the peerless martial arts genius his family had not seen in nearly a century.

He gripped a staff at three, practiced shaking a heavy spear at five, and by ten, he could send the family guards flying with a single steel spear.

At eighteen, he traveled across famous mountains and great rivers, challenging reclusive masters from every path. His spear moved like a dragon, and he had never known defeat.

By twenty-five, he had reached the pinnacle.

In that world without "qi," he had honed his body and skill to the limits of humanity.

But the road had ended!

There was no path ahead.

That loneliness of drawing his sword and looking in all directions, only to find himself lost, was more terrifying than death.

To find an opportunity to break through the limits of the human body, to glimpse the legendary "shattering the void" between life and death, he became obsessively addicted to extreme sports.

Free climbing, deep-sea diving, low-altitude wingsuit flying... He danced on the Death God Scythe, all for that fleeting sensation of his body's shackles loosening when his adrenaline surged.

The scene in his memory finally froze on a gloomy afternoon.

Ten thousand meters in the sky, clad in a wingsuit, he leaped down like a lone eagle.

The wind cut across his face like blades, and his speed reached the extreme.

Just as he prepared to deploy his parachute, a mechanical malfunction occurred. The pack jammed shut.

Faced with the ground rushing ever closer, faced with certain death, he felt no fear.

On the contrary, at that moment, he smiled.

At the boundary between life and death, in the instant before his body was shattered, the "membrane" he had sought so bitterly finally broke.

In that instant, his spiritual will ascended to its utmost limit, transforming into an indestructible spear that pierced the boundary between life and death, and also pierced the barriers between dimensions.

When he opened his eyes again, he had become Tang Linyuan.

"In my previous life, I was bound by the shackles of heaven and earth. No matter how divine my spear arts were, I could not stand against a single bullet."

Tang Linyuan murmured inwardly. The Tyrant Profound Divine Spear in his sea of consciousness answered with an impassioned hum.

"But in this life, there is Soul Power, there are laws, and there are limitless possibilities for evolution."

He drew in a sharp breath.

This inhalation was no simple breathing exercise.

The primordial energy scattered through the surrounding air seemed to be forcibly seized by some tyrannical will, turning into visible vortices that poured madly into his body.

If Tang Wulin absorbed energy through a gentle "request," then Tang Linyuan absorbed it through a domineering "seizure."

Ancient Martial Breathing Technique: Dragon Swallowing.

This was a method he had created in his previous life by combining the strengths of countless schools. Back then, it could only strengthen the body, but in this energy-filled world, it finally revealed its savage fangs.

Surging Soul Power washed through his meridians. The satisfying sensation of his strength increasing bit by bit intoxicated Tang Linyuan.

In this life, I seek neither immortality nor godhood.

I only seek to see, at the end of the martial path, just how magnificent the scenery there may be.

Who knew how much time passed.

The east began to pale, and the first wisp of purple qi arrived from the east.

Tang Linyuan opened his eyes precisely on time. A faint spear light flashed through them, sharp enough to seem capable of cutting through the morning mist.

"Phew..."

He exhaled a mouthful of turbid air, and it shot three feet away like a white arrow.

Tang Wulin beside him woke as well.

The little fellow stretched lazily, and his bones crackled all over.

"Brother! I feel amazing!" Tang Wulin jumped up in surprise. "And I think... I think my Soul Power increased a little!"

In the past, he might not have felt anything after training for an entire night. But beside his brother, amid this field of Blue Silver Grass, one night's results surpassed an entire week of the past.

Tang Linyuan stood up and brushed the dew from his body. Looking at his vigorous younger brother beneath the rising sun, the corner of his mouth lifted slightly.

"This is only the beginning."

He looked into the distance.

"Come on, let's go home and eat. We still have to go to Uncle Mang's today. Don't forget, those thousand hammer strikes were only the entry ticket."

"Today's goal is fifteen hundred hammer strikes."

"Huh? Brother, are you trying to kill me...?"

"Do you want to protect Na'er? Do you want to eat your fill?"

"...Yes."

"Then shut up and swing the hammer."

The morning light stretched the shadows of the two boys long behind them.

One was steady as a mountain, while the other was resilient as spring grass.

A new day began amid the laughter and chatter of the two brothers.