Basic Specialty: Synesthesia

Li Pingsheng bid farewell to Shen Tong and Lu Qingshan, then turned to leave Dry Well Alley.

This gamble, he had won.

Passing through the front courtyard of the Azure Cloud Martial Hall, he heard people chatting.

"Heard the news? The Zhao Family and the Black Water Gang went at it in the Outer City last night! It was a total bloodbath!"

"Bloodbath? My cousin works at the City Guard Station; he said every shop the Zhao Family owned in the West City was smashed to pieces, three warehouses were burned to the ground, and more than half of their hired thugs were killed or wounded!"

"The Black Water Gang is that fierce? The Zhao Family is a major clan from the Inner City."

"Fierce my ass! The Black Water Gang lost even more men! Word is their gang leader vomited blood on the spot from pure rage. Now both sides have lost their shirts. But if you ask me, this whole mess is the fault of that Zhao Ming from the Zhao Family!"

"How so?"

"I heard it from a Zhao Family servant. Zhao Zhentian slapped Zhao Ming across the face in front of the entire clan, calling him a piece of trash and saying he'd disgraced the Zhao Family name."

"He even gave him an ultimatum: if he doesn't take first place in the Martial Hall Grand Exam, he'll be stripped of his status as heir and tossed into the Outer City to fend for himself."

Li Pingsheng listened to these words with a blank expression, but his mind was crystal clear.

Everyone else thought this was just an old grudge between the Zhao Family and the Black Water Gang boiling over, but only he knew that he was the director of this grand performance.

The feeling of pulling the strings from behind the scenes gave him an immense sense of satisfaction.

He didn't stop walking, though his eyes flicked toward the nearby Martial Practice Field.

In the center of the field, Zhao Ming was shirtless, his eyes bloodshot, frantically practicing the Thunderbolt Fist against a row of wooden stakes.

His technique was hurried and chaotic, fueled entirely by rage and despair, as if he were trying to pour every ounce of his strength into every single strike.

The air reeked of medicinal concoctions; he was clearly overdrawing his potential with stimulants.

Li Pingsheng sneered.

A trapped beast in a cage—how pathetic.

He walked straight through the courtyard, returned to his room, and locked the door behind him.

[Potential Points: 2.5]

Li Pingsheng didn't hesitate, consuming 1 Potential Point to ignite [Mystic Gate—Primary Specialty: Synesthesia].

The moment [Synesthesia] was ignited, a dark thread connected to another specialty.

[Primary Talent—Spirit Aperture: A single aperture opened, all energy resonates. Upon unlocking this talent, the foundation of the Mystic Gate is established, allowing one to sense and channel the spiritual essence of heaven and earth, granting the aptitude for spell cultivation.]

His five senses were suddenly amplified several times over.

Aptitude for spell cultivation!

Martial arts and spellcraft—two completely different types of power—were now intersecting within him.

He was no longer a mere martial artist.

One foot had already stepped through that mysterious gate of spellcraft.

To test the limits of [Synesthesia] and to find more concentrated lightning-type spiritual essence to stabilize his newly opened Spirit Aperture, a location immediately flashed through Li Pingsheng's mind.

The Stele Forest behind the martial hall.

That place housed the training steles of the predecessors of the Azure Cloud Martial Hall. Because it was remote and desolate, it was the perfect spot for his secret cultivation.

The Stele Forest on the back mountain was shrouded in mist. Hundreds of steles of varying sizes stood in silence, exuding an eerie, decaying, and ancient aura.

Li Pingsheng walked through the area, his [Synesthesia] talent fully active.

To his senses, every stele was like a signal tower, radiating different martial wills.

Unfortunately, too much time had passed; these wills were fragmented and incomplete, useless to him.

Just as he reached the edge of the Stele Forest, he stopped dead in his tracks.

Li Pingsheng's eyes were locked onto a broken stele in the deepest corner of the forest, covered in vines and moss, snapped clean in half.

To any other disciple, this was just a piece of useless rubble.

But through Li Pingsheng's [Synesthesia], this broken stele was radiating a violent, blue light!

The pure and tyrannical lightning-type spiritual essence felt as if it were about to ignite the surrounding air.

He'd struck gold!

Li Pingsheng felt a surge of joy. He darted over in a few strides and reached out to brush the moss off the stele.

The moment his fingertips touched the surface of the stone.

A tyrannical, unstoppable intent of thunder surged through his fingertips and drilled straight into his brain.

The will was violent and savage, filled with an aura of destruction. It sent his blood and qi into a frenzy, forcing him to stumble back three large steps before he could steady himself. A sweet, metallic taste filled his throat, and he nearly vomited blood.

"What a fierce thunder intent!"

Li Pingsheng wasn't afraid; instead, a fire of excitement burned in his eyes, like a wolf spotting its prey.

This stone stele definitely holds a great secret.

He forcibly suppressed his churning blood, took a deep breath, and stared fixedly at the chaotic scratches on the stele, decisively chanting in his heart.

"Activate, Martial Wisdom!"

In an instant, he entered that state of epiphany, a "supreme comprehension."

In his eyes, the scratches on the stele were constantly striking down and rearranging themselves within his mind.

Combining this with the core of thunder-attribute force generation he had grasped when developing the Thunderclap Explosion, he began to reverse-engineer the true meaning contained within this stele.

Images flashed through his mind, from the most basic gathering of qi, to how to combine blood energy with the spiritual essence of heaven and earth, and finally, how to trigger the power of heavenly thunder...

Everything became crystal clear.

As the deduction deepened, the airflow around Li Pingsheng began to surge.

Wisps of visible blue electric arcs began to dance wildly across his jet-black hair and slender fingertips.

The air around him became exceptionally dry; the withered yellow leaves on the ground turned black and crumbled into ash the moment they touched the aura he emitted.

Half an hour later.

Li Pingsheng opened his eyes, and two streaks of lightning flashed deep within his pupils.

He had succeeded.

He had managed to extract from this broken, long-abandoned stele the remnant of the Heavenly Thunder Guidance—the core inner-court technique of the Azure Cloud Martial Hall that had been lost for nearly a hundred years and was once reserved only for successive masters.

Li Pingsheng raised his right hand, focused his mind, and, imitating the sensation from his epiphany, attempted to draw upon the thunder-attribute spiritual essence between heaven and earth.

The wandering blue specks of light in the air rapidly gathered toward his palm.

In a single moment, a fist-sized orb of light, formed entirely of thunderous power, took shape in his palm, emitting a "crackle" of explosive noise.

He could clearly feel the terrifying destructive energy contained within this thunder orb.

If he combined it with his blood energy and unleashed it using the method of the Thunderclap Explosion, the power would be enough to instantly kill an average high-level martial artist.

Even against a character like the leader of the Black Water Gang, he could definitely hold his own.

This was the grand gift he had prepared for Zhao Ming.

Satisfied, he dissipated the lightning in his palm, retracted all his aura, and turned to leave.

However, the moment he turned, he failed to notice that in the shadow of an old locust tree not far from the Stele Forest, an old man sweeping the floor—dressed in gray linen, holding a large broom, and looking as if he had one foot in the grave—was staring fixedly at his back with wide, cloudy eyes.

The old man's calloused hand, which was gripping the broom, was trembling violently, and the expression on his face shifted from indifference to surprise, and then to sheer horror.

"That... that is... the lost Heavenly Thunder Guidance?!"

"This kid... not only did he understand the Wordless Thunder Stele that the founder carved while drunk, but he... he actually triggered the spiritual essence?! Does he actually possess the legendary, one-in-ten-thousand... Spirit Aperture?!"

The old man clamped his hand over his mouth to keep from crying out.

He retreated silently, vanishing into the mist without making a sound.

A long time later, a low chuckle echoed.

"Interesting, truly interesting!"

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