Fen Ge took a few steps back, grinning easily at Long Chen. "Just a spar — first hit that lands, we're done. No need to worry about losing too badly, Young Master Chen."
Long Chen stared back at him, cold and unmoved, and felt the contempt hiding under that smile plainly enough. If yesterday hadn't happened, he probably wouldn't have stood a chance against an outsider like Fen Ge inside the Wren ranks.
But that was yesterday. Whatever had changed in him — his combat sense, his instincts, all of it had been rewritten overnight. And with real strength finally sitting in his chest, part of him was itching for exactly this.
"Fen Ge, don't bother with the act — I already know what you are. You want a fight, fine. But if I hurt you worse than you expect, don't come crying to me."
The flat certainty in Long Chen's voice caught Fen Ge off guard for half a second. Before he could snap back a reply, Qi surged around Long Chen's frame and a fist was already flying at him.
"So you really did break into the Dragon Pulse Realm — doesn't mean you're anywhere near my level! Don't say I didn't warn you!"
Fen Ge had spent two full years camped at the second stage, and the reserve of Qi he'd built in that time was considerable. Instead of retreating, he shouted and drove his own fist forward to meet the attack head-on.
Bam!
The two fists collided, Qi detonating between them and throwing both fighters backward.
Feeling how closely matched the impact had been, Fen Ge blinked in surprise. "Not bad — you were hiding your strength well. Second stage, huh."
Long Chen had staggered back too.
His reserves are close to mine, and he's got years of fight experience I don't have. Drag this out and I lose. This is my first real fight since breaking through — if I lose here, it sets my whole cultivation back. I can't afford to lose. Even if it kills me.
His eyes went bloodshot with focus. Scanning the ground fast, he spotted a fist-sized stone lying just off to the side.
He looked away just as quickly, fixed his eyes back on Fen Ge, and said, "You've got some weight behind you, sure. But I've got more. Come take another hit."
Fen Ge wasn't about to be outdone — he gathered another burst of Qi and slammed it toward Long Chen.
Boom!
This time Long Chen went flying and hit the ground hard.
"The cripple's son really is a cripple too. Pathetic strength like that, and you had the nerve to talk big in front of me — you deserve every bit of this."
Watching him go down, Fen Ge laughed loudly, certain the gap between them was settled.
But Long Chen was already back on his feet, eyes bloodshot, fixed on Fen Ge — his left hand quietly tucked behind his back.
"Still not done, are you?"
Fen Ge laughed and charged again. Watching Long Chen back himself into the nearby wall, he moved in for a finishing blow — and that's when Long Chen's left hand snapped forward, gripping the dark stone, and hurled it straight at his face.
"What is that—!"
Fen Ge threw both arms up to guard his face on instinct. The stone caught his forearm instead, and the sting told him immediately it was solid rock. Long Chen had put everything into that throw, but Fen Ge's Qi deflected most of the force before it could really hurt.
By the time the stone struck, though, Long Chen was already closing the distance. His kick landed square in Fen Ge's stomach with a crack loud enough to echo. Fen Ge shrieked, slammed backward into a willow tree, and coughed blood onto the ground — all fight gone out of him, staring up at Long Chen with pure disbelief.
"You— Long Chen, you actually dared hurt me! My cousin will end your miserable life for this!"
Long Chen stood over him and spat to the side, contempt plain on his face.
"Some second-stage cultivator you turned out to be. Against me, you were never anything but dead weight."
Before his cultivation broke through, Long Chen had already been in more street fights than he could count, and that last exchange had been his signature move from those days. In any fight, the face — where the eyes, nose, and every vital sense lived — was both the most important target and the most reflexively defended. Fen Ge had no idea what was flying at his face, so his hands went up automatically, and while he was busy deflecting a rock, his whole lower body sat wide open.
Thinking back to the spit from the day before, and this same man threatening him even now, flat on his back, Long Chen walked over, grabbed his collar, and said with a cold smile, "You called me a dog. You spat on me. All from that mouth of yours. I won't make this complicated — I'll just make sure that mouth doesn't work quite right anymore."
Fen Ge's eyes went wide with terror, silently begging. Before he could get a word out, Long Chen's fist came down on his mouth, shattering every tooth in it. Fen Ge collapsed, sobbing and writhing, regret arriving several minutes too late to matter.
The moment he stood over a beaten Fen Ge, the hair on the back of Long Chen's neck rose. He spun around and found Wren Hao and Wren Hao's father — the family's second elder, Long Chen's uncle — standing five paces away.
They'd simply been passing by and happened to catch the whole show unfolding outside the Techniques Hall. Fen Ge was Wren Hao's man, and watching him get beaten down like that lit something furious in Wren Hao. He stormed forward, radiating menace.
"Long Chen... are you looking to die?"
Without another word, he swung a palm strike straight at Long Chen's face.
The blow carried enough raw Qi that Long Chen realized instantly — if this landed, he'd lose every tooth in his head. Wren Hao's fury was written into every inch of that strike.
With no way to dodge in time and nowhere near the strength to block it, Long Chen could only brace and wait.
He clenched his jaw, rage boiling up past the point of restraint. Years of being looked down on, treated worse than a dog — he was done swallowing it.
He swore, right there, that this debt would be repaid.
Why does he get to slap me without asking a single question? If I outmatched him, would he dare try this — his father standing right there or not? If I were stronger, this slap would already be mine to give.
That incoming palm lit something in him like a fuse.
Pa!
A hand closed around Wren Hao's wrist an inch from Long Chen's face. The pressure of the strike still washed over him, stinging.
The one holding Wren Hao back was Wren Yun. He said sternly, "Hao-er, have you forgotten everything I've taught you? We are one family. How dare you strike so carelessly — I'll deal with you properly once we're home."
He turned to Long Chen next. "So you've finally broken into the second stage. I take it you're here for a technique — go ahead and choose one. But my father is in there cultivating quietly. Disturb him, and the punishment will be severe."
Without sparing Long Chen another glance, he pulled Wren Hao away by the arm.
Several dozen steps on, Wren Hao finally couldn't hold his tongue. "Father, he hurt Fen Ge. Why wouldn't you let me teach him a lesson? With how weak he is, ten thousand of him wouldn't be a match for me."
Wren Yun answered flatly, "What exactly are you proving by bullying a cripple? If you want a real test, go challenge your cousins — Wren Ling, or Wren Wu. And he's your aunt's son. He is not a servant for you to treat however you please."
Wren Hao muttered darkly, "It's not about the aunt. It's that she reached the eighth stage of the Dragon Pulse Realm. Father, just give me time — I'll get there too."
Long Chen watched their backs disappear down the path, forcing his fury down by sheer will. But that slap, and every beating and insult before it, he filed away without exception.
Same rule as always — don't give me an opening, or you'll wish you were dead.
Years of practice had taught him to bury the anger fast. He turned his attention to the Techniques Hall, shook off what lingered, and pushed the stone door open.
Fen Ge stayed where he'd fallen for a long while before Wren Yun's men finally came to carry him off.
Inside, Long Chen approached the tall steel pagoda and looked up at it. "My very first technique. Right here."
Off to one side sat a modest wooden hut — where the Wren family's founder, his grandfather, sat in permanent seclusion. No one dared disturb him, and his presence alone kept the entire hall secure. Long Chen had met the requirement to enter, and that was all that mattered.
Strange old man, keeping himself locked away like some kind of secret. My father hit the eighth stage in his prime, barely a rung below him — if not for that jade, he might've been someone this family actually bet on.
With that uncharitable thought trailing behind him, he pressed further into the hall, winding through several corridors until he reached the pagoda's interior.
At the second stage, I'm limited to Foundation-rank techniques for now.
The Wren family kept thirty-three basic Foundation-rank manuals on file. Long Chen walked the first shelf and pulled down one titled Ferocious Tiger Fist.
Within a minute, he set it back down.
How is this so easy to read?
Working through the techniques, he noticed his senses and comprehension operating on a completely different level than before — every line of instruction landed instantly, fully understood. If he'd had space to practice right there, he was fairly sure he could have executed the whole form on the spot.
Either I'm some kind of prodigy, or...
He remembered trying to study basic techniques once before, back when they'd felt nearly impossible to parse. This was nothing like that. There was only one explanation.
That jade. It's rewired something in my sea of consciousness — my mind feels clean, sharp, like I'm seeing everything for the first time. Ten lines at a glance, and my awareness of everything around me is sharper too.
Father — what exactly was that thing? Not only did it hand me your cultivation, it turned me into something else entirely.
He worked through the rest of the basic shelf without finding a single technique that challenged him, so he moved on to the intermediate Foundation-rank section — only five manuals here. One title caught his eye immediately: Falling Star Fist.
"...Body like the night sky, fist like a falling star, heavy as Mount Tai, fast as lightning..."
Falling Star Fist ranks near the top of intermediate offense even among Foundation techniques — it's got real weight behind its name in this family. And looking at it now, it's no harder to grasp than the basics were. I've already mastered everything else on offer here — this is the one.
Wren family techniques could never leave the hall, so once chosen, a manual could only be copied by hand.
An hour later, Long Chen finished transcribing every line and returned the original to its shelf.
Copying it out was enough to lock the whole thing into memory. Time to go practice — though I still don't know if I can actually master something at this tier yet.
Foundation-rank techniques split into three bands — basic, intermediate, advanced — mirroring the structure of the Dragon Pulse Realm itself. By reaching for an intermediate technique this early, Long Chen had jumped clean past where his stage should have placed him.
With what that jade's done for me, I should be able to pull this off.
Resolved, he walked back out of the hall. Just before he reached the stone door, a dry, aged voice drifted past his ear.
"Wren techniques are to be destroyed the moment practice is complete. Anyone caught leaking family secrets faces immediate execution."
Long Chen turned and found no one behind him. He answered quickly, "Understood, Grandfather. I'll take my leave."
Choosing an intermediate manual this early technically broke convention, and worried the old man might press further, he answered fast and slipped out before anything else could be said.
Inside the hut, the old man opened his eyes and sighed. "I thought that boy might be worth grooming — seems he's already reaching past what he can chew, picking an intermediate technique this soon. Such a shame. Long Muyun, in his day, had the clearest shot at the Deity Dan Realm this family has ever seen..."