Knowing Fate, Understanding Change

At dawn, Lu Bian walked along a narrow mountain path. Dewdrops clung to the grass and trees on either side, and as he hurried past, they soaked the cuffs of his trousers. Wild chrysanthemums bloomed all over the mountainside. Early that morning, Lu Bian had come to search among the trees for edible wild mushrooms.

The horizon was just beginning to brighten when Lu Bian got up and headed into the mountains.

If someone told him to wake up and practice martial arts, he'd sleep in until he naturally woke. But if they told him to wake up and go mushroom picking, he could crawl out of bed before dawn.

The people of the Dali Kingdom didn't seem to have a habit of eating wild mushrooms. They rarely went into the mountains, so all the wild mushrooms scattered across the hills were practically there for the taking.

Lu Bian had gone mushroom picking five or six times before transmigrating. His grandmother was from Yunnan Province, and Lu Bian had Yunnanese blood. His elders had passed down their skill at identifying wild mushrooms. Now, living in the Dali Kingdom during the Great Song era, Lu Bian's childhood memories of staying at his grandmother's home in Yunnan Province came flooding back.

As the sun rose in the east, Lu Bian filled a whole back-basket with mushrooms and started home.

Living out in the countryside, he rarely made friends or had dealings with others. Only on market days in the nearby towns and villages did Lu Bian leave the mountains to trade for necessities among the crowds.

Such a leisurely life made Lu Bian feel like reciting a poem:

"Autumn chrysanthemums have lovely hues; I pluck their blooms, still wet with dew."

"Floating this forgetfulness brew, I leave the cares of the world behind."

"Though I drain one cup alone, the empty cup tilts the jug to pour."

"When the sun sets, all living things fall still; returning birds hurry to the woods, calling."

"Beneath the eastern eaves, I whistle and roam, and for now, I have this life."

It was a poem by Tao Yuanming. He'd done enough poetry questions in high school to last a lifetime, but it fit the moment, so he recited it offhand.

After practicing Ultimate Boundless to the twentieth heaven, Lu Bian's thoughts and memories had become exceptionally clear. Knowledge he'd once returned to his teachers came back to him.

In this era, he could pass for half a man of letters.

A man of letters... Lu Bian considered himself a martial artist.

Spotting a branch in the distance, Lu Bian eagerly picked it up.

It was straight and long—a fine branch.

He snapped off the extra twigs, turning the branch in his hand into a staff.

"Staff Strikes Both Dogs!"

The grass and plants at his feet were cut clean through.

Raising his hand, Lu Bian began practicing the Dog Beating Technique, still taking shape in his mind.

Lu Bian had a thought. Ever since he'd transmigrated, he seemed to have had nothing but trouble with canines.

The first crisis he'd faced after transmigrating had come from two wild wolves, and the Howling Celestial Dog had left both his hands crippled for over half a year.

"The great winds rise, and the clouds fly; where can I find brave men to roam the four corners of the world?"

Whenever he encountered a wild dog, he had to beat it. There was no other way.

He had to create the Dog Beating Technique. There was no other way.

"Ah, there you are." A glint flashed in Lu Bian's eyes.

There were wolves in the mountains, and they traveled in packs. That was why nobody in this era went mushroom picking alone.

Wolves were dogs, and dogs were wolves.

They were all canines, anyway.

"Yah!"

"Staff Smashes the Dog's Head!"

Clutching his staff, Lu Bian charged at the pack and struck at their heads with lightning speed.

The wolves scattered at once. This wasn't their first time meeting him.

Every time, the pack had suffered a crushing defeat and fled.

Wolves held grudges. The feud between Lu Bian and this pack in the mountains had become impossible to settle.

"Flip the Dog Toward the Sky!"

Lu Bian slid his staff beneath a wild wolf and gave it a fierce heave, flipping it onto its back with its belly facing upward.

The Dog Beating Technique, though still unfinished, was incredibly nimble and full of marvelous variations. Against the cunning wolves, Lu Bian anticipated their movements and struck them just as they were about to change course.

Trip, chop, lift, draw in, jab...

Cries of pain rang through the mountains, stretching on and echoing through the empty valleys...

Lu Bian gave every wolf in the pack a thorough beating. With shit and piss running down their legs, they tucked their tails between them and fled.

"Will you come back?"

Lu Bian shouted after the vanished wolves.

"..."

"Do come back, you hear?"

Lu Bian strolled out of the mountain path and returned home.

As soon as he got home, Lu Bian lit a fire and started cooking.

Some people said making soup out of wild mushrooms was a waste, but Lu Bian loved soup. He'd already given up rice and noodles as staples. After all, he could fill his belly just by breathing.

After satisfying his craving, Lu Bian began to practice martial arts.

Holding a bamboo staff, Lu Bian pondered.

Krillin and Gohan had done similar training aboard their spaceship while heading to Namek. It was called mental imagery training.

Practicing alone, Lu Bian used mental imagery to picture an opponent. He imagined a huge black dog. How should he use the bamboo staff to fight it?

Creating a martial art of his own was like writing a graduation thesis for Lu Bian.

Magnetic Rotation, twentieth heaven—he ought to write that thesis now.

He had to pay attention to the plagiarism score. If it overlapped too much with Ultimate Boundless, then it wouldn't count as a martial art he'd created himself. It would just be a new application of that divine art.

"This is hard to think up..."

He exhausted every move he could use against the imaginary black dog. The force behind each strike, the shifts between techniques, the places he hit—Lu Bian could always feel that they didn't quite mesh.

Techniques were the outer form of martial arts. Was the art he was creating missing its "soul"?

That was it.

Why did he want to beat dogs?

Why did dogs get beaten?

What attitude should he take when beating a dog?

"I'll beat your dendrobium!"

A dog's dendrobium was one of its absolute weak points. Striking a dog's dendrobium was a sure-kill move.

The fiercest, most savage technique appeared beneath Lu Bian's staff.

Lu Bian pulled back in time, but the tip of the bamboo staff burst apart.

"Oh?!"

He raised the shattered end of the staff to eye level and carefully recalled how the force had flowed through it as he pulled back. Suddenly, Lu Bian realized something.

"If it exploded inside a dog's dendrobium, the damage would be unimaginable!!"

Inspiration surged through Lu Bian's mind.

Ultimate Boundless Qigong had been a shackle while Lu Bian was creating his own martial art. But now, with inspiration flooding in, he cast Ultimate Boundless aside completely and banished it from the Dog Beating Technique.

One by one, stars flickered in Lu Bian's mind. Without thinking, he used the Book of Supreme World Ordering to read them.

Knowing fate, understanding change—those were the Book of Supreme World Ordering's abilities.

"So that's how it can be done!"

"The Dog Beating Technique isn't just for beating dogs. It can beat dog bastards and dog donkeys too!!"

"Haw?" Hearing someone mention a donkey, the foolish donkey in the courtyard looked over at Lu Bian.

Feeling the foolish donkey's gaze, Lu Bian smiled and walked toward it.

He untied the rope and had the donkey help him practice.

Although Lu Bian's donkey looked stupid, it was actually sharp as a tack. At Eagle Sorrow Stream, it had eaten many precious mountain delicacies watered by the Little White Dragon, and its intelligence had awakened.

"Haw!"

"Hee-haw!!"

"Foolish donkey, don't dodge. Charge right at my staff!!"

"Why are you running away!!"

"Running away... Good. This move shall be called Beat the Drowning Dog!!"

Facing Lu Bian's endless assault, the donkey sprang up and landed on the roof.