Beginner Specialty: Synesthesia

Li Pingsheng said goodbye to Shen Tong and Lu Qingshan, then turned and left Dry Well Alley.

This time, he'd won the bet.

As he passed through the front courtyard of the martial hall, he heard people chatting.

"Have you heard? The Zhao Family and the Black Water Gang clashed in the Outer City last night! It was a bloodbath!"

"A bloodbath? My cousin works at the City Guard Station. He said all the Zhao Family's shops west of the city were smashed, and three warehouses burned down without a hair left. More than half of their hired thugs were killed or wounded!"

"The Black Water Gang is that fierce? The Zhao Family's a major lineage in the Inner City."

"Fierce my ass! The Black Water Gang lost even more people! I heard their leader was so furious he threw up blood on the spot. Now both sides are ruined, down to their last pair of pants. But if you ask me, the whole thing's Zhao Ming's fault!"

"How so?"

"I heard it from one of the Zhao Family's servants. In front of the whole lineage, Zhao Zhentian slapped Zhao Ming hard across the face and called him a good-for-nothing who'd disgraced the family."

"He even gave him a death order: if he doesn't take first place in this Martial Hall Grand Exam, he'll strip him of his heir status and toss him into the Outer City to fend for himself."

Li Pingsheng listened without changing his expression, but he knew exactly what was going on.

Everyone else thought old grudges between the Zhao Family and the Black Water Gang had boiled over. Only he knew he was the director of this whole show.

The feeling of stirring up trouble from behind the scenes left him grinning inside.

He kept walking, casting a glance at the Martial Practice Field nearby.

In the middle of the field, Zhao Ming was bare-chested, his eyes bloodshot as he desperately hammered away at a row of wooden posts with Thunderbolt Fist.

His punches were frantic and disordered, full of fury and despair. Every blow seemed to draw on every last ounce of strength he had.

The air carried the smell of medicine. He'd taken drugs, burning through his potential.

Li Pingsheng sneered.

A caged beast. Pathetic.

He crossed the courtyard, returned to his room, and locked the door behind him.

[Potential Points: 2.5]

Without hesitation, Li Pingsheng spent 1 Potential Point and unlocked [Mystic Gate—Beginner Specialty: Synesthesia].

The instant [Synesthesia] lit up, a dark thread connected it to another specialty.

[Beginner Talent—Spirit Aperture: Open a crack in the aperture, and all things speak with energy. Unlocking this talent establishes the foundation of the Mystic Gate, allowing you to sense and draw in the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, and granting you the aptitude to cultivate magic.]

His five senses were suddenly amplified several times over.

The aptitude to cultivate magic!

Martial arts and magic—two entirely different kinds of power—had now intersected within him.

He was no longer merely a martial artist.

One foot had already crossed the threshold into that mysterious world of magic.

To test the limits of [Synesthesia] and find more potent thunder-element spiritual energy to stabilize his newly opened Spirit Aperture, a place immediately came to mind.

The martial hall's back mountain: the Stele Forest.

The place housed the training steles of generations of Azure Cloud Martial Hall seniors. It was so remote that not even birds shat there. It was perfect for secret cultivation.

A mist hung over the Stele Forest on the back mountain. Hundreds of stone steles, large and small, stood in silence, giving off a gloomy, dilapidated air.

Li Pingsheng walked among them, his [Synesthesia] talent fully active.

To his senses, every stele was like a signal source, radiating a different martial will.

Unfortunately, after so much time, those wills had all become incomplete and were of no use to him.

Just as he was about to reach the end of the Stele Forest, he suddenly stopped.

Li Pingsheng stared at a broken stele in the farthest corner, covered with vines and moss and split in two down the middle.

In the eyes of the other disciples, it was just a worthless old rock.

But to Li Pingsheng's [Synesthesia], the broken stele was practically blazing with a violent blue light!

The pure, domineering thunder-element spiritual energy felt as though it could set the air around it alight.

He'd struck gold!

Delighted, Li Pingsheng darted over and brushed the moss from the stele.

The moment his fingertips touched its surface—

A tyrannical thunderous will surged through his fingertips and drilled into his mind.

The will was wild and savage, brimming with the aura of destruction. It sent his blood and qi roiling, forcing him to stagger back three full steps before he could steady himself. His throat turned sweet, and he nearly spat blood.

"What fierce thunder will!"

Li Pingsheng wasn't afraid. Instead, excitement kindled in his eyes, like a wolf spotting meat.

This stele definitely held a great secret.

He forcibly suppressed his surging blood and qi, took a deep breath, and fixed his eyes on the chaotic scratches across the stele. Then he silently intoned:

"Activate, Martial Wisdom!"

In an instant, he entered that state of epiphany, his comprehension soaring to the absolute peak.

In his eyes, the scratches on the stele repeatedly struck and rearranged themselves in his mind.

Combining them with the core principles of thunder-element force he'd grasped while working out Thunderclap Explosion, he began to reverse-engineer the meaning contained in the stele.

Scene after scene flashed through his mind, from the most basic methods of drawing in and gathering energy, to combining blood and qi with the spiritual energy of heaven and earth, and finally to summoning the power of heavenly thunder...

Everything became crystal clear.

As his deductions went deeper, the air currents around Li Pingsheng began to surge.

Strands of visible blue lightning flickered wildly through his black hair and along his slender fingertips.

The air around him grew exceptionally dry. The instant the dead yellow leaves on the ground touched the aura he was giving off, they blackened and crumbled into ash.

Half an hour later.

Li Pingsheng opened his eyes. Two flashes of lightning flickered deep within his pupils.

He'd done it.

From this broken stele, abandoned for who knew how many years, he'd painstakingly deciphered a fragment of Heavenly Thunder Guidance, a core Inner Courtyard spell lost by the Azure Cloud Martial Hall for nearly a century and once reserved exclusively for its Hall Masters.

Li Pingsheng raised his right hand. With a thought, he tried to draw in the thunder-element spiritual energy around him, following the sensation from his epiphany.

The scattered blue motes in the air rushed toward his palm.

In an instant, a fist-sized orb made entirely of thunder took shape in his hand, crackling with sharp pops.

He could clearly sense the terrifying destructive energy contained within the orb.

If he combined it with his blood and qi and launched it using the principles of Thunderclap Explosion, it would be powerful enough to instantly kill an ordinary high-level martial artist.

Even against someone like the Black Water Gang's leader, he could give him a run for his money.

This was the grand gift he'd prepared for Zhao Ming.

Satisfied, Li Pingsheng dissipated the lightning in his palm, concealed his aura, and turned to leave.

But as he turned, he failed to notice a shadow beneath an old locust tree not far from the Stele Forest.

An old man in coarse gray robes stood there, holding a large broom. He looked as though he had one foot in the grave, but his cloudy old eyes were wide as he stared fixedly at Li Pingsheng's back.

The old man's calloused hand gripped the broom and trembled violently. His expression had gone from indifference to shock, and now to utter horror.

"That... That's... the lost Heavenly Thunder Guidance?!"

"This kid... He didn't just understand the Wordless Thunder Stele the patriarch drunkenly carved in a damn mess all those years ago, he... he even drew in spiritual energy?! He actually has the legendary one-in-ten-thousand... Spirit Aperture?!"

The old man clapped a hand over his mouth, barely stopping himself from crying out.

He quietly backed away, then disappeared into the mist without making a sound.

After a long while, a low chuckle rang out.

"Interesting. Very interesting!"

"I'll see for myself just how much of a surprise you little rascal can bring me in this Martial Hall Grand Exam!"