The journey from Wu Tan City was arduous for an eleven-year-old, even one with the mind of an adult and the burgeoning strength of a 7-star Dou Disciple. Feng Jiuge had left behind the only home he had known in this new life, the weight of his meager belongings a constant reminder of his solitary path. The silver coins Xiao Yan had tossed at him, a symbol of humiliation, had ironically funded this desperate gamble.
He traveled for five days, sticking to lesser-known paths, avoiding main roads where bandits or, worse, patrols from the major clans might be encountered. The nights were cold, the wilderness filled with the unsettling sounds of nocturnal creatures. He slept little, his senses on high alert, his hand always near the cheap, crudely forged dagger he had purchased.
'This is it,' Feng Jiuge thought, his heart a frantic drum against his ribs. 'No more observations, no more patient waiting. This is taking action and looking past a risk that might change my life.'
His memories of the novel were his guide, but the actual terrain was far more unforgiving than any description. The fifty miles to the Stone Gorge Falls waterfall felt like a hundred. His small legs ached, his throat was parched, but the image of his parents' lifeless bodies, the casual cruelty of the powerful, fueled his steps.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, he heard it – a distant, thunderous roar that grew with every step, vibrating through the very ground beneath his feet. He pushed through a final screen of dense foliage, and there it was.
The Stone Gorge Falls.
It was a magnificent, terrifying sight. A colossal sheet of water, hundreds of meters wide, plummeted from a sheer cliff face into a churning, mist-shrouded pool below. The roar was deafening, the air thick with spray that soaked him to the bone in moments.
'Stone Gorge Falls,' Feng Jiuge mused, a grim smile touching his lips. 'This should be the place.'
According to his deductions, the cave, if it existed, would be hidden behind this monstrous curtain of water. Getting there would be perilous. The rocks at the base of the falls were slick with moss, and the currents in the pool were violent.
He spent an hour observing, calculating, his mind working with the cold precision he had honed over years. He found a narrow, treacherous ledge that seemed to offer a path along the cliff face, partially shielded from the main torrent.
'One slip, and it's over,' he acknowledged, securing his pack tightly. 'But doing nothing is a slower death.'
Clinging to the wet rock, his small hands searching for purchase, Feng Jiuge began his ascent towards the side of the waterfall. The spray was blinding, the roar disorienting. Several times, his foot slipped, sending his heart leaping into his throat, but he held on, his determination a steel rod in his spine.
It took him another hour of nerve-wracking effort, but finally, he reached a point where he could see a dark fissure behind the thundering water. A cave.
'It exists!' A surge of triumph, quickly tempered by caution, shot through him.
He took a deep breath, braced himself, and plunged through the edge of the water curtain. The force of the water was like a physical blow, nearly tearing him from his hold, but he pushed through, gasping, into the relative calm of the cave beyond.
It was a large, damp cavern, the air surprisingly breathable, though heavy with the smell of wet stone and something ancient. The roar of the waterfall was a muted thunder here, a constant backdrop to the silence within.
Feng Jiuge scanned the interior, his eyes adjusting to the dim light filtering through the water. It was… empty. Just a wide, barren space. No signs of habitation, no hidden chests, no skeletal remains. Nothing.
A cold dread began to creep into his heart. 'Could I have been wrong? All this effort, all this risk… for nothing?'
He refused to believe it. His logic had been sound. The Dou King wouldn't have left his legacy out in the open.
"There has to be something," Feng Jiuge muttered to himself, his voice barely audible above the waterfall's rumble. "A Dou King, even an injured one, wouldn't just die in an empty cave without leaving a trace, or without ensuring his resting place was secure."
He began a methodical search. He ran his hands along the walls, tapped the floor, looked for any loose stones, any unnatural formations. He spent hours, the initial hope slowly eroding into a gnawing frustration. The cave was just a cave.
Exhausted, physically and mentally, Feng Jiuge finally slumped to the damp stone floor. He had been in the cave for nearly half a day. The light filtering through the waterfall was beginning to dim, signaling the approach of evening.
'Maybe the rumors were just rumors. Maybe the clans gave up because they had searched this area as well and there was truly nothing to find,' he thought, a wave of despair washing over him. He had staked everything on this.
He lay on his back, his small chest heaving, staring up at the rough, uneven ceiling of the cavern. Water dripped intermittently, echoing in the vast space. The patterns in the rock overhead were a chaotic jumble of shadows and protrusions.
'So much for my brilliant deduction,' he chided himself. 'I was foolishly thinking of it as a detective story. Right. This is a world of cultivators, of Dou Qi, not neatly packaged mysteries.'
He closed his eyes for a moment, the roar of the waterfall a lullaby of failure. But then, a thought, sharp and sudden, pierced through his fatigue.
'Wait a minute. A Dou King…' His eyes snapped open, focusing on the ceiling again. 'A Dou King can fly! Why would he put a secret mechanism at ground level, where anyone could stumble upon it? He would put it somewhere accessible to him, but not to a common explorer.'
His gaze sharpened, scanning the ceiling with renewed intensity. He wasn't looking for something his hands could reach from the ground anymore. He was looking for something higher up, something that would require a leap, or… flight.
The ceiling was mostly a homogenous expanse of dark, wet rock. But then, his eyes, already trained by years of scrutinizing texts and observing the minute details of the marketplace, caught it.
High up, near the center of the cavern, almost lost in the shadows, was a section of rock, perhaps a meter square, where the texture seemed… different.
The natural, jagged lines of the cave were interrupted by a series of fainter, almost geometric indentations. It wasn't an obvious carving, but it was undeniably distinct from the surrounding stone.
'There!' Feng Jiuge sat bolt upright, his fatigue forgotten. 'That pattern… it's too irregular to be natural in this setting.'
It was too high to reach by jumping. He looked around the cave. There were plenty of loose stones, dislodged by time and the constant vibrations from the waterfall.
He picked up a rock, about the size of his fist. 'A bit crude, but let's see if I'm right. If this is a mechanism, it might react to a strike.'
He took aim, channeling a tiny thread of his wood-attribute Dou Qi into his arm for a bit more strength and accuracy. He didn't want to hit it too hard, just enough to see if it was a trigger.
He threw.
The rock arced through the dim air and struck the patterned section with a dull thud.
For a moment, nothing happened. Feng Jiuge's shoulders slumped. 'Just a rock, then.'
Then, a low grumble echoed through the cavern, deeper and more resonant than the waterfall's roar. The ground beneath him vibrated, gently at first, then with increasing intensity. Dust rained down from the ceiling.
Feng Jiuge scrambled to his feet, his eyes wide, fixed on the spot where the rock had hit. The entire cavern seemed to shake. Cracks of light, faint at first, began to appear around the perimeter of the patterned stone he had targeted.
With a grinding shriek of stone against stone, a section of the cave wall, one he had meticulously examined earlier and dismissed as solid, began to slide inwards, revealing a dark, narrow opening.
A new path.
'It worked!' A grin, wide and genuine, split Feng Jiuge's face. 'This Dou King wasn't so simple after all!'
The rumbling subsided, leaving behind an expectant silence, broken only by the distant thunder of the Stone Gorge Falls. The newly revealed passage beckoned, promising unknown wonders or perhaps, unknown dangers.
Feng Jiuge, however, did not rush in. The elation was quickly brought under control by the ingrained caution of his adult mind.
'A Dou King's true resting place,' he thought, his eyes narrowed as he peered into the darkness of the passage. 'He wouldn't make it easy. There could be traps. Poison darts, collapsing floors, energy arrays… I can't afford to be careless now.'
He picked up another stone, smaller this time, and tossed it into the passage. It clattered a short distance and stopped. No immediate reaction.
He took a deep breath. "Alright, Dou King," he murmured. "Let's see what you've really left behind."
He lit a piece of dried moss he carried for tinder, using a flint and steel. The small flame cast flickering shadows, pushing back the oppressive darkness of the new tunnel. He advanced slowly, one careful step at a time, prodding the ground ahead with a sturdy stick he'd picked up, tapping the walls, his senses stretched to their limit.
The passage sloped gently downwards, carved smoothly from the rock, unlike the natural cavern outside. It was blessedly free of traps. Perhaps the Dou King, in his weakened state, hadn't had the energy for elaborate defenses, or perhaps the secrecy of the location itself was deemed sufficient.
After about fifty meters, the passage opened into a larger chamber. This one was clearly man-made, or at least significantly modified. The air was still and cool, free of the dampness of the outer cave. Torches, long since extinguished, were set in sconces on the walls.
And in the center of the chamber, seated on a simple stone throne, was a skeleton.
It was clad in the tattered remnants of what must have once been fine robes. Its posture was upright, almost regal, even in death. Feng Jiuge approached cautiously, his small flame illuminating the scene.
From the bone structure, even to his untrained eye, it was evident that this individual had suffered grievous injuries. Several ribs were clearly fractured and poorly healed, a jagged crack ran across the skull, and one of the femurs showed signs of a severe break.
'This must be him,' Feng Jiuge thought, a strange mix of awe and melancholy filling him. 'The Dou King. He made it here, but he never left.'
His gaze was then drawn to the skeletal hands resting on the stone armrests of the throne. Adorning the bony fingers were not one, but three rings. Storage Rings. Their faint, almost imperceptible shimmer in the torchlight was unmistakable.
The jackpot.
A surge of excitement coursed through Feng Jiuge, but he quickly suppressed it. This was the resting place of a powerful expert. A flicker of respect, a sense of solemnity, touched him.
'Before anything else,' he decided, his gaze softening as he looked at the skeleton. 'He deserves a proper burial. He gave me this chance; the least I can do is offer some peace.'
He looked around the chamber. There were no tools, but the floor was earthen in some sections. Using his dagger and his bare hands, Feng Jiuge began to dig a shallow grave near the wall, a respectful distance from the throne. It was hard work, his muscles protesting, but he persisted.
It took him over an hour. When he was done, he carefully approached the skeleton. "Senior," he said softly, his voice echoing slightly in the chamber. "Thank you for this opportunity. I, Feng Jiuge, will make good use of what you've left behind. May you find peace."
He gently removed the three Storage Rings from the bony fingers. Then, with as much care as he could manage, he lifted the skeletal remains and laid them in the prepared grave. He covered them with earth, patting it down, creating a simple, unmarked mound.
He stood before it for a long moment, a silent vow passing his lips – a vow to not let this legacy be wasted, a vow to one day be strong enough that no one could carelessly destroy his life or the lives of those he might care for.
Only then did Feng Jiuge turn his attention to the rings. He sat down on the cool stone floor, his heart thumping with anticipation, and focused his nascent Dou Qi on the first ring. It was unowned, the imprint of the Dou King having long since faded with his death.
With a thought, the contents of the first ring appeared before him. Not gold or jewels, but four jade slips, glowing faintly in the dim light.
'Cultivation techniques and Dou Skills, most likely,' Feng Jiuge thought, his fingers trembling slightly as he picked one up.
He poured his Dou Qi into the first jade slip. Information flooded his mind.
"Raging Thunderclap Art: Mid-level Mysterious Class Lightning Attribute Cultivation Technique."
'Mysterious Class!' Feng Jiuge's eyes widened. 'And a lightning one! This is far beyond my family's Verdant Sapling Art!' His mind raced.
He had a faint lightning affinity; this could be the key to truly utilizing it.
He eagerly moved to the next jade slip.
"Thunderflash Step: High-Tier Yellow Class Lightning Attribute Movement Dou Skill."
'A movement technique! Perfect. Speed is life.'
The third slip revealed:
"Lightning Serpent's Fang: High-Tier Yellow Class Lightning Attribute Offensive Dou Skill."
'And an attack skill. Good, good. The Verdant Sapling Art had almost no offensive capabilities.'
The final jade slip was the thinnest. When he accessed it, the information was more intricate, more profound.
"Heavenly Perception Pupils: A High-Tier Mysterious Class Ocular Dou Skill."
Feng Jiuge blinked. 'An eye technique? Mysterious Class?' He focused on the description. This skill, once cultivated, would allow him to imbue his eyes with Dou Qi in a specific way, granting him enhanced vision. He would be able to perceive the flow of Dou Qi in his opponents, anticipate their movements, and even spot weaknesses in their techniques or formations.
"This… this is incredible," Feng Jiuge breathed. "Against opponents of the same level, being able to see their energy flow and anticipate their next move would be a massive advantage."
He carefully placed the jade slips aside and focused on the second Storage Ring. This one, when opened, released the faint, mixed aroma of various plants. It was filled with medicinal herbs.
Feng Jiuge, thanks to his extensive reading and countless hours spent in the Wu Tan City marketplace observing apothecaries and herb merchants, recognized many of them. There were rare spirit grasses, vitality-enhancing fruits, and roots known for their potent healing properties.
'A Dou King's collection of herbs must be extraordinary,' he thought, his eyes scanning the pile.
However, as he examined them more closely, a hint of disappointment crept in. Many of the most potent healing herbs, the ones clearly intended for treating severe injuries, looked withered, their spiritual energy almost entirely depleted.
'He must have used most of them trying to heal himself after his last battle,' Feng Jiuge surmised. 'There's only a trace of vitality left in these. Not enough for any significant healing, but maybe I can extract what little essence remains for minor uses later.'
The other herbs, however, were in pristine condition, pulsing with gentle energy. There were Fire Crystal Grasses, Ice Blood Lotuses, and even a stalk of Seven-Colored Spirit Ginseng. Unfortunately, most of them were too high-grade for him to refine or consume with his current cultivation.
"Still," Feng Jiuge mused, "they'll be invaluable later. Or I could trade them for things I need now, but that seems like a waste." He carefully repacked the herbs.
Finally, he turned to the third Storage Ring. This one felt colder, heavier. When he opened it, a wave of elemental energy, diverse and potent, washed over him. Beast Cores. Dozens of them.
They lay like a pile of mismatched jewels: fiery red cores pulsating with heat, deep blue ones radiating a chilling aura, vibrant green cores humming with life energy, sharp yellow ones crackling with faint sparks, and even a few dull grey ones that emanated a faint, toxic scent.
Feng Jiuge counted them. Nearly fifty beast cores in total.
"Amazing," he whispered, picking up a particularly large, deep green core. "This feels like… a Wood Attribute Fifth Order Beast Core!" The energy within it was immense, far beyond anything he could ever imagine.
He sorted through them. The weakest were Third Order, still valuable, but the presence of several Fourth Order cores and that singular Fifth Order core was astounding. There were cores of various attributes: fire, water, earth, wind, wood, lightning, and even poison.
'This Dou King was either a prolific hunter or had plundered quite a bit,' Feng Jiuge thought with a grim respect. 'These alone are a fortune.'
With his immediate inventory taken, Feng Jiuge sat back, his mind buzzing. He had gone from being a destitute orphan with a mediocre cultivation technique to possessing a treasure trove that could change his destiny.
His gaze fell upon the jade slip containing the "Raging Thunderclap Art." The allure of a Mysterious Class technique was strong.
He unrolled it again, his mind absorbing the intricate pathways and cultivation methods. It was a powerful, aggressive technique, focused on drawing in atmospheric lightning-attribute Dou Qi, refining it with one's own, and cultivating a fierce, explosive Dou Qi. The more one withstood the tempering of natural lightning or lightning-attribute energy, the stronger and purer their Dou Qi would become.
Feng Jiuge then thought of his own "Verdant Sapling Art." It was gentle, nurturing, focused on slow, steady growth and resilience. Wood and Lightning… one nourishes, the other strikes.
'What if…' a daring thought sparked in his mind, 'what if I don't abandon the Verdant Sapling Art? What if I try to cultivate both? Or even merge their principles?'
He remembered his three affinities: wood, fire, and lightning. The Verdant Sapling Art catered to wood. The Raging Thunderclap Art to lightning. He still lacked a fire-attribute technique.
'My talent was deemed mediocre because it was diluted across three attributes,' Feng Jiuge mused, staring at the pile of beast cores. 'But what if that dilution isn't a weakness, but an untapped potential for a unique strength? If I could find a way to cultivate all three simultaneously, drawing on their distinct properties…'
He looked at the beast cores again. "If only I could just absorb all the elemental energies in these cores," he muttered, a fleeting, childish wish. "I'd probably reach Dou King overnight. Maybe even Dou Emperor, ha!"
He chuckled, shaking his head at the absurdity. Cultivation wasn't so simple. Such a brute-force method would likely just make him explode.
"No," he said firmly, "this has to be done step by step. Patiently. Carefully."
His immediate priority was to start cultivating the "Raging Thunderclap Art." But the idea of combining it with his existing foundation was too compelling to ignore.
'The Verdant Sapling Art strengthens my meridians, makes them resilient and flexible, like young wood. The Raging Thunderclap Art is about channeling fierce, volatile energy. Perhaps the former can provide a safer, more stable vessel for the latter?'
He decided to try a small experiment. He wouldn't attempt a full fusion yet, that was far too complex and dangerous without more understanding. But he could try to run the energy circulation pathways of the Raging Thunderclap Art while maintaining the foundational energetic signature of the Verdant Sapling Art within his Dou Qi.
He sat cross-legged, took a deep breath, and began. First, he circulated his Dou Qi using the familiar pathways of the Verdant Sapling Art, feeling the gentle, nourishing flow. Then, cautiously, he tried to guide a portion of that energy along the initial pathways described in the Raging Thunderclap Art.
Instantly, a jolt, not entirely unpleasant but certainly sharp, ran through his meridians. It was like trying to force a rushing stream into a narrow, winding irrigation channel designed for a gentle brook.
His internal Dou Qi, usually calm and green, began to flicker with trace sparks of agitated energy. Pain, sharp and biting, flared along his energy channels.
'This is… intense,' Feng Jiuge gritted his teeth, sweat beading on his forehead. His meridians felt strained, protesting against the conflicting energies. The wood-attribute Dou Qi felt like it was being… compressed and agitated by the nascent lightning-attribute flow.
He persevered for a few more minutes, pushing through the discomfort. He could feel a subtle shift. The ambient Dou Qi he was drawing in seemed to carry a faint, almost undetectable hint of lightning essence now, something he hadn't experienced with the Verdant Sapling Art alone. And despite the strain, the overall rate of Dou Qi absorption felt… slightly faster.
'It's working!' he thought, a grimace of pain mixed with triumph on his face. 'The absorption rate has increased! My guess… it has some merit. It's just incredibly crude and inefficient right now.'
A sharp twinge in his chest forced him to stop. He coughed, a metallic taste in his mouth. He had definitely strained something.
'Okay, enough experimentation for now,' he conceded. 'This new hybrid approach, if I can even call it that, needs incredible refinement. And I definitely need a fire-attribute cultivation technique to even think about balancing all three of my affinities.'
The Raging Thunderclap Art was a start. The Heavenly Perception Pupils would be his next focus for cultivation, as it didn't directly interfere with his Dou Qi circulation in the same way.
Feng Jiuge carefully gathered all the jade slips, herbs, and beast cores. He distributed them amongst the three Storage Rings. The one with the cultivation techniques and skills, he wore on his dominant hand, hidden under a strip of cloth. The other two, containing the herbs and beast cores, he wore on his other hand, similarly concealed.
He then took out the rough, patched-up bag he had carried from Wu Tan City. He put some common stones and a few dried, worthless leaves into it, making it look like it held his meager possessions.
'Appearances,' he thought. 'In a world like this, unless you are strong enough… appearing weaker than you are, or at least not advertising your windfalls, is a necessary survival tactic.'
No one would suspect an eleven-year-old orphan, seemingly carrying nothing of value, to be in possession of a Dou King's legacy.
He took one last look around the chamber, at the simple grave he had made. He then turned and walked back through the passage, the mechanism sealing the entrance shut behind him with another grinding sound as he exited into the main cave behind the waterfall.
Emerging from behind the Stone Gorge Falls, drenched but invigorated, Feng Jiuge felt like a different person. He was still small, still outwardly an eleven-year-old, but inside, a new power and a new purpose were taking root.
He didn't return to Wu Tan City. There was nothing for him there but painful memories and the shadow of the Xiao Family. His path lay elsewhere.
'Xiao Yan took a treasure from me. He will continue to rise, following the path laid out in the story. I need to find my own opportunities, my own strength, away from his shadow for now.'
His mind sifted through his knowledge of "Battle Through The Heavens." There was one place, relatively close, that held a unique opportunity, and a person who might become an unlikely ally, or at least a valuable asset, if he played his cards right.
'The Tager Desert,' Feng Jiuge decided. 'And within it, Rock Desert City.'
It was a harsh, unforgiving environment, but it was also a place where unusual things happened, and where unique individuals could be found. He remembered a particular girl, one with a unique bloodline and a tragic fate, at least initially. Qing Lin, the girl with the Jade Snake Three Flower Pupils.
The journey to the Tager Desert took him nearly two months. He traveled cautiously while trading for food and information in small villages, always maintaining his guise as a wandering, somewhat pitiable orphan.
He practiced the "Thunderflash Step" in secluded spots, his speed increasing noticeably, and painstakingly began the initial stages of cultivating the "Heavenly Perception Pupils," feeling a strange, cool energy slowly gathering in his eyes.
Finally, the lush greens of the Jia Ma Empire's borderlands gave way to arid scrub and then to the vast, sun-baked expanse of the Tager Desert. The heat was oppressive, the landscape stark and intimidating.
Rock Desert City eventually rose from the shimmering desert haze, a dusty, sprawling settlement built from sandstone and rough-hewn timber. It was a haven for mercenaries, traders, and those seeking to escape notice.
Feng Jiuge entered the city, blending into the bustling, diverse crowd. He found a small, slightly rundown inn. He approached the burly innkeeper, a man with a scar across his cheek.
"Sir," Feng Jiuge said, his voice polite and small. "I am looking for a room for a few nights. I don't have much coin, but I have this." He carefully unwrapped one of the lowest-grade medicinal herbs from the Dou King's collection – a common Grade 1 "Sunpetal Flower," still fresh and radiating a faint warmth. It wasn't valuable to a high-level cultivator, but for an ordinary person or a small inn, it had its uses.
The innkeeper eyed the herb, then Feng Jiuge. "A Sunpetal, eh? Good for minor burns and keeping the chill off on desert nights." He grunted. "Alright, boy. One room, three nights. Don't cause any trouble."
"Thank you, sir," Feng Jiuge replied, relief washing over him.
He was shown to a small, stuffy room. It was basic, but it was shelter. He secured the door and finally allowed himself to relax slightly.
After a night's rest, his first in a proper bed in weeks, Feng Jiuge set out with a new objective.
'Now, to find Qing Lin,' he thought, his eyes scanning the dusty streets of Rock Desert City. 'According to the novel, around this time, she should be in this city. She hasn't been found or joined the Desert Metal Mercenary Company yet, or at least, her unique pupils shouldn't been discovered by Mo Cheng. Finding her before that happens would be ideal.'
He knew it wouldn't be easy. Rock Desert City was large, and she was just one small, probably ostracized, girl.
'But a half-snake, half-human girl of about my age shouldn't be too hard to find if I ask around discreetly,' Feng Jiuge mused. 'Rumors of such a child would surely circulate, even if only in hushed, fearful whispers. After all, people fear what they don't understand.'