Chapter Four: Dark Derivation and the Sieve Law
Night had settled over Dusk Valley, and the stars above looked like cold eyes watching the suffering of mortals.
Inside the wooden shack, its walls groaning with every gust of wind, Zhuo Fan sat on the hard floor, the black stone given to him by the old man clenched between his fingers.
In the darkness, the stone looked like a miniature black hole, absorbing light around it. Its scent was a strange mix of deep earth and something like burning nerves.
"He told me to count the heartbeats until it melts…" Zhuo Fan muttered, his mind entering a state of computational calm.
He placed the stone in his mouth.
The moment it touched his tongue, he did not taste it. Instead, an electric shock surged through his spine.
It was not just pain—it was as if thousands of magnetic needles were piercing his meridians.
"One… two… three…" he began counting, his body dripping with cold sweat.
With every heartbeat, the stone released a black liquid that seeped into his throat.
It did not go to his stomach. Instead, it adhered to the walls of his leaky spiritual veins.
This was the start of a miracle—or a curse.
Normally, spiritual energy (Qi) entering the veins would escape through the holes like air through a net.
But this black substance acted as a dark adhesive. It did not plug the holes; it coated their edges.
"Heartbeat one hundred… temperature rising by two percent each second," Zhuo Fan calculated, gritting his teeth until they nearly broke.
"This substance does not repair my veins… it turns them into pressure conduits. The heavens gave me a sieve of a body, and this stone is teaching me to use the holes to create an internal whirlpool."
This was Dark Derivation.
Instead of trying to store energy in a leaky container (an impossible task), the idea was to maintain a continuous flow at extreme speed, letting the energy do its work before escaping.
At dawn, Zhuo Fan rose.
He did not feel rested; he felt as though his body had been reassembled incorrectly. His veins ached, yet his eyes gleamed with a terrifying light.
He grabbed the buckets and headed for the Spirit Spring.
As he dipped his hands into the spiritual water, something different happened.
Previously, the Qi in the water had ignored him. Now, because of the black coating on his veins, the energy was drawn into his pores as if a vacuum were sucking it in.
The energy flowed in… and out through the holes.
Yet between entry and exit, Zhuo Fan was calculating the flow angles.
"If I spiral the energy threads inside my arms while carrying the bucket…" he moved accordingly.
Suddenly, the fifty-kilogram bucket felt like twenty.
The energy passing through his body carried the weight for him before vanishing into the air.
"This is it!" he shouted inwardly, a savage smile spreading across his face.
"I don't need to possess energy… I just need to borrow it at the right moment. I'm not a container. I am a channel!"
As he ascended the mountain, he saw a group of outer sect disciples gathered around a notice pinned to a massive rock.
Among them was Zhang, the one-eyed boy under Zhuo Fan's protection.
"What's going on, Zhang?" Zhuo Fan asked, placing the buckets with a steadiness never seen before.
Zhang looked at him, astonished.
"Little Fan… you seem different today. Anyway, the sect announced a Cleansing Mission. Low-Rank Spirit Beasts have gathered in the nearby sulfur mine. The reward is ten low-grade spirit stones for each participant."
Ten spirit stones! For a servant, this was equivalent to a year's wages.
"Servants are not allowed to participate in cleansing missions," one disciple sneered, glancing at Zhuo Fan.
"Go sell your water, mortal."
Zhuo Fan said nothing. Instead, he examined the map attached to the notice.
His mind traced the mine's paths.
Sulfur Mine… high temperatures… Fire Rodents… weakness at neck joints… low humidity…
Zhuo Fan's calculations aimed at something else.
He did not just want the spirit stones—he wanted a field to test his newfound combat ability.
He knew Yang Lian and the other prodigies would avoid such a trivial mission, making it the perfect place to move in the shadows.
"Zhang," Zhuo Fan whispered, "we're going."
Zhang recoiled in fear.
"Are you insane? Supervisor Gao will whip us to death if we leave, and the beasts will eat us first!"
Zhuo Fan grabbed Zhang by the shoulder, his grip so strong that Zhang groaned.
"Supervisor Gao won't notice our absence for three hours if we use the Shadow Valley path I calculated yesterday. The beasts… they don't think. They only follow patterns. And I… I am the master of patterns."
That night, the two snuck toward the mine.
The air boiled with heat, yellow sulfur fumes filling the atmosphere.
The rodents' scent was pungent, and the sound of claws scratching rock sent shivers down their spines.
They saw a group of outer sect disciples fighting with difficulty.
The disciples relied on basic sword techniques, but wasted much energy in wild, aimless strikes.
"Watch," Zhuo Fan told Zhang.
Zhuo Fan advanced toward a massive Fire Rodent breaking away from the pack.
It was twice his weight, its crimson eyes glowing with hunger.
The rodent lunged.
Time slowed in Zhuo Fan's perception.
"Speed: 5 meters per second. Angle: 30 degrees from the right. Target: throat."
Zhuo Fan did not flinch.
He stepped slightly aside while activating Dark Derivation.
He drew a thread of heated sulfur energy from the surrounding air, ran it through his veins coated in black, and directed it into his palm in a circular motion.
Bam!
He struck the side of the rodent's head with his palm.
It was not a strike of brute force—it was a discharge of energy.
The energy siphoned from the air cooked the beast's brain with Zhuo Fan's precise calculations.
The rodent collapsed dead, not a drop of blood spilled.
Its brain had been cooked from the inside by Zhuo Fan's meticulous computation.
Zhang, watching from behind a rock, dropped his jaw in disbelief.
"How… how did you kill a First-Rank beast without a cultivation base?"
Zhuo Fan wiped sweat from his brow. His hand ached; his body was still too weak to endure this type of derivation.
"I didn't kill it," Zhuo Fan said coldly, looking at the corpse.
"Balance killed it. I was merely the conduit."
As he prepared to collect the beast's core, slow footsteps echoed from the mine's dark depths.
"Interesting… truly interesting."
A young inner disciple emerged from the shadows, his eyes full of malice and the scent of death.
It was not Yang Lian—but someone far more dangerous: a Pariah disciple, known as the Ember Serpent.
"A servant boy practicing secret energy techniques?" Ember Serpent licked his lips.
"Looks like I've found a human treasure today. Tell me, little one… who taught you this? Or better… I'll tear off your limbs and take your secrets myself."
Zhuo Fan stood tall.
His calculations told him only one outcome against a real Level Three Body Tempering cultivator: death in ten seconds.
But Zhuo Fan did not flee.
He glanced at the mine ceiling, encrusted with unstable sulfur crystals, then at Ember Serpent.
"I calculated your arrival five minutes ago, just from the scent of your incense," Zhuo Fan said in a chilling calm.
"The question isn't whether you'll kill me… the question is: have you calculated how long it will take for this mine to collapse if I touch that crystal?"
Ember Serpent froze. He looked up, then at the small boy smiling with cold, devilish precision.
The first true confrontation had begun between talent and dark calculation.