Chapter One: The Ancient Martial Artist, Yan Tian

August of 2060, the southern skies of the Dragon Kingdom were already tinged with the rich hues of autumn.

"Yan Tian!" On the dais, the mathematics teacher of Crane City No. 3 High School, renowned for her severity and nicknamed "the Li Mochou of the faculty," Ms. Yang Yan, slammed her pointer against the desk with thunderous force, her voice roaring like a tiger: "Get out! You don't need to attend this class!"

The Yan Tian in Ms. Yang's mouth was the notorious underachiever of the senior year at Crane City No. 3 High School. Of average stature, with medium-length, tousled hair and an unconcerned expression, he stood up slowly, a faint smile on his lips, and leisurely walked out of the classroom.

"Everyone, do you see this? This is the black sheep of our class! This is the future dregs of society. Keeping him here will only drag us all down! I hope you take this as a warning!" Ms. Yang's fierce words echoed in Yan Tian's ears, yet he remained utterly indifferent.

Such treatment was nothing new; Yan Tian had grown accustomed to it long ago.

His latest expulsion had a simple cause: during math class, he was playing King of Glory, and just as victory was within reach, Ms. Yang called on him to answer a question. Yan Tian, often inattentive, naturally failed to respond, prompting Ms. Yang to show no mercy and send him out.

Had it been one of the better students, Ms. Yang would have merely issued a stern rebuke, but Yan Tian was a different case. Though his Chinese grades were respectable, his scores in other subjects were abysmal. He was eternally anchored at the bottom in English, once setting an unbreakable record with a nine-point score on the final exam.

For a student like him, Ms. Yang, famed for her ferocity, harbored nothing but loathing. In this era where achievement is measured solely by grades, both students and teachers are judged by exam results alone.

Yan Tian, except for his prowess in Chinese, was woeful in all other subjects, with mathematics being the hardest hit. Thus, his treatment was not entirely unwarranted.

Standing in the corridor outside the classroom, Yan Tian idly counted the swallows flying across the sky.

"Forget it, I’ll just go home." Counting the birds soon bored him, so Yan Tian decided to leave early.

He staggered back into the classroom, passing through amazed classmates and Ms. Yang’s furious gaze, retrieved his backpack from his seat, and ambled to the door. Nodding slightly to the teacher on the brink of losing control, he said, "Goodbye, Ms. Yang," and departed amidst her furious roar.

"Actually, I do respect my teachers," Yan Tian appraised himself fairly as he stepped out of the school gate.

It was only four in the afternoon, with school ending at six. His return home was certainly premature. For most, parents would question such an early departure, but Yan Tian was different—no one cared about his comings and goings.

His parents, scientists, had left when he was very young to pursue research on Project X, never to be heard from again. The grandmother who raised him passed away two years ago due to old age. Yan Tian inherited a centuries-old ancestral house and less than one hundred thousand yuan in savings.

The Yan family should not have been so impoverished; his parents were renowned scientists, and Yan Tian once lived a princely life as a child. But after their disappearance, the family's fortunes declined, their estate consumed by debts. Even his grandfather’s assets were almost entirely used to pay off creditors, saving only the ancestral house where Yan Tian now lived.

For two years, he survived on the ninety thousand yuan left by his grandmother, covering tuition and necessities. Now, only seventy thousand remained.

He had considered using the remainder for college, but knew well that with his grades, he could only buy his way into a third-rate university. To enter a prestigious institution was mere fantasy.

Of course, Yan Tian was not truly dull. In fact, he had shown unusual talent since childhood. His lack of academic achievement stemmed from the absence of motivation after the loss of his loved ones.

The world is vast, yet without a single kin, what would glory or fame matter? Who would share it with him?

Yet Yan Tian never dwelled on such thoughts; for him, worry solved nothing. He refused to waste his mind on fruitless anxiety.

He took a bus for one yuan to the outskirts of the city, then walked twenty minutes to his ancestral house on the edge of town.

The estate was large, with three courtyards—front, middle, and rear—enclosed by high walls of polished blue stone, some damp areas already overgrown with moss.

Yan Tian opened the gate and entered. The two pomegranate trees in the front yard were heavy with fruit, their ruby seeds reflecting sunlight like precious gems.

The ancestral house was a Ming Dynasty structure, renovated and expanded by each generation. Yan Tian’s hometown, both in ancient and recent times, was a vital strategic location, yet the ancestral house had miraculously survived countless wars unscathed.

His grandfather used to say the house was protected by the spirits of their ancestors. The Yan family had produced extraordinary figures, once unifying the realm and founding a vast empire.

Yan Tian was half skeptical. Their lineage did boast illustrious ancestors, as recorded in the family genealogy. The first emperor of their line had risen from the martial world, overthrowing the old empire with the help of three sons and loyal followers.

But history books held no record of an empire spanning eight centuries, making Yan Tian doubt the truth of such claims.

After all, the Yan surname was common in the Dragon Kingdom; who could say whether the family historian had embellished their lineage?

He believed partly because, from the age of seven, he sensed the house’s peculiarities—whenever a meteor streaked across the sky, he saw two strange lights, one shaped like a five-clawed golden dragon, the other like a flying blood-red tiger, circling the estate and roaring in his heart with the cries of dragon and tiger.

Oddly, no one else ever saw or heard these visions.

He picked a pomegranate, savoring the juicy crystals as he gazed around the yard.

It had not been tended for a month; weeds were rampant, and moss crept over the stones of the house and walls.

With a sigh, Yan Tian pushed open the hall door, greeted by a cloud of dust. For one so carefree and lazy, owning such a vast residence was hardly a blessing.

At least, when it came to maintenance, the burden was painfully clear.

He tossed his backpack, stuffed with bestsellers and classical novels, onto the Eight Immortals table, raising a plume of dust.

Cleaning was unavoidable; without it, the house would soon be uninhabitable.

With a heavy heart, Yan Tian embarked on the monumental task of cleaning.

He began with the outer walls and front yard, scraping off moss, pulling weeds, and pruning the branches of various trees. This alone took two hours.

Then came the middle and rear courtyards, another two hours.

By the time the yards were finally in order, darkness had fallen, and stars twinkled in the night sky.

He switched on all the lights in the three houses, making the ancestral home appear splendid—though beneath the brilliance, only Yan Tian and his shadow lingered.

The next stage was even more arduous: cleaning the interiors. He started with the main house in the front yard, spending two hours scrubbing every room, including the attic, until each table and chair gleamed.

When this was done, he wiped sweat from his brow; it was already ten at night.

Only the side rooms in the middle courtyard and the rear house remained. Yan Tian, once resolved, never left a job unfinished, no matter how late.

Carrying a broom and mop in one hand and a bucket of water in the other, he strode quickly out of the front house. Just as he was about to cross the middle courtyard, a shooting star flashed across the sky.

It vanished instantly, unnoticed by Yan Tian. Yet the ancestral house’s strange phenomenon, which appeared on meteor nights, manifested precisely on schedule.

Two rays—one golden, one blood-red—shot up from the central spot in the courtyard, transforming into a five-clawed golden dragon and a flying giant blood-red tiger, swirling around the estate. That familiar roar of dragon and tiger echoed in Yan Tian’s heart, wild laughter like metallic percussion reverberating within.

Startled, Yan Tian dropped everything, spilling water over his shoes and pant legs.

Though accustomed to the spectacle, he was still shocked, for never before had it been so intense—the lights erupted from beneath his feet as he stood in the courtyard’s center, brushing past his face as they soared into the sky.

He looked up, mouth agape, dazed, before regaining composure and shifting his gaze to the ground beneath him.

He fixed his eyes on the spot where the lights had ascended.

The dragon and tiger circled the sky for fifteen minutes before fading. Yan Tian, once the vision disappeared, placed the bucket on the site, then hurried to the rear yard and fetched a hoe and shovel from the woodshed.

It was his first time locating the origin of the phenomenon. His heart raced, throat dry, sweat breaking out on forehead and back.

He wasn’t afraid, but thrilled and nervous—the mystery that had haunted him for eleven years was about to be unveiled. He was desperate to know what lay beneath the earth.

He kicked the bucket aside, raised the hoe high, and began digging. He cared nothing for disrupting the house’s feng shui; to him, solving the mystery was worth any risk.

Sweat pouring, his energy surged, driven by obsession.

He dug deep, swinging hoe and shovel, expanding the pit ever larger and deeper. From past ten at night till after five in the morning, it reached nearly two meters. Yan Tian felt no fatigue. Even without supper, he sensed no hunger.

His stamina was unprecedented, his spirit aflame, his narrow eyes shining with excitement. He didn’t know why, attributing it to his obsessive nature.

Only a fanatic can accomplish such a feat.

A metallic clang rang out—the hoe struck something hard, sending sparks flying, jolting his wrist.

Yan Tian was overjoyed; he knew he’d finally reached something of consequence.

He tossed aside the hoe and began clearing dirt with his hands. After brushing away a layer of soil, a square slab one meter across appeared at the pit’s bottom.

It wasn’t quite a stone slab—neither stone nor jade, made of unknown material. It was crystal-clear and smooth, warm to the touch, with a mysterious heat flowing into his palm.

Though the stars had faded and the pit was pitch-black, Yan Tian found he could see the slab’s contents.

More precisely, he could see within it. The surface was flawless, without a mark, perfectly natural.

Through its surface, Yan Tian saw a dense array of ancient seal script, with a dragon and tiger on the edge. It was as if the slab’s surface was transparent glass, letting him peer inside.

The dragon and tiger were vividly lifelike—the dragon a five-clawed golden beast, the tiger a soaring blood-red monster—identical in form and color to the visions he’d seen.

The densely packed seal script was black, appearing to flow gently.

On one edge was a golden ring.

Yan Tian touched the ring, cold as metal, but oddly free of rust.

He tried pulling it with all his strength, but the slab didn’t budge.

Abandoning the idea of opening it, he focused on deciphering the seal script within.

Yan Tian disliked formal study, but loved reading. Reading for pleasure, not exams. From childhood, he had delved into all manner of literature—ancient and modern, domestic and foreign, philosophy and history.

The Yan family had a trove of ancient texts; Yan Tian never missed a chance to read, and had studied various scripts. Though seal script was tricky, he recognized it as the style adopted over a millennium ago during the Old Qin Empire, used for centuries in the Dragon Kingdom until it was replaced by the more streamlined small seal script, relegated to calligraphers.

He ran to the library in the front house, fetched a dictionary comparing ancient seal script to modern language, and began translating each character from the slab.

The more he read, the more delighted he became.

The first vertical column from right to left was titled—Yan Family Martial Arts Compendium!

What young man doesn’t crave martial arts? Yan Tian, having devoured countless wuxia novels, yearned for the chivalrous life of heroism and vengeance. As a child, he’d pestered his grandfather about family martial arts, only to learn the old man knew none.

Who’d have guessed that, by accident, he’d now discovered the Yan Family’s ancestral martial arts!

He quickly grabbed pen and paper and began translating.

Luckily, he was familiar with seal script, otherwise transcribing the nearly ten thousand characters would have taken ages. Even so, it took him eight hours—until after three in the afternoon—to translate and record all the slab’s inscriptions in his notebook.

After a sleepless night and most of a day, Yan Tian was disheveled and grimy. He’d eaten nothing but drank water, yet felt no hunger.

He wasn’t surprised, for the slab’s inscription explained: “This jade is a celestial fallen stone, capable of storing the true energy of masters. Successive generations of Yan Family experts, before passing, infused their true energy into the jade. In a hundred years, over a dozen of the world’s top masters have contributed their energy, making it a treasury for future generations.”

The conditions for unlocking and obtaining the energy, as well as seeing the inscriptions, were strict: only a direct Yan Family descendant possessing both “Heaven’s Eye” and “Twin Pupils” could do so.

The celestial jade recorded that Emperor Wen Yan Ren, the second ruler of the empire, was born with “Twin Pupils,” and later gained “Heaven’s Eye.” In theory, their descendants might inherit both, but until the empire’s demise, no one was born with both traits.

Yan Tian recalled the words spoken by the golden dragon and blood tiger when he was seven, suspecting he was precisely such a descendant.

It wasn’t wild speculation—he felt, as he studied the jade, a warm current flowed into him, making him comfortable and energetic, never hungry or tired.

Moreover, he could read the inscriptions in pitch darkness without external light, exactly as described.

“Who’d have thought I’m a born genius,” Yan Tian thought proudly, surmising that the warm current was the true energy infused by his ancestors.

His excitement was boundless. With this energy treasury and ancestral martial arts, he imagined soon becoming a legendary master, and lost all interest in school, eager to begin training.

The jade contained the most powerful Yan Family martial arts.

Among them—Sacred Spirit Sword Technique, Dominator Blade, Celestial Child Arts, Sunflower Manual, Universe Shift, Three-Part Vital Energy, Wind God Kick, Frost Fist, Eighteen Dragon Palms, Ripple Step, Vajra Wisdom Palm, Dark Nether Divine Palm...

...too many to count.

The methods for using Heaven’s Eye and Twin Pupils were also recorded. Strictly speaking, these were not martial arts, but innate abilities. The jade called them “miracles,” though Yan Tian scoffed at the term.

According to the jade, Heaven’s Eye could discern the essence of things and see through illusions, while Twin Pupils could shake mountains and rivers and pierce the yin-yang realms. Yan Tian, thinking scientifically, considered them extraordinary abilities, with no training method, only usage, and must be innate.

Realizing he was born with such abilities, Yan Tian couldn’t help but marvel, regretting he hadn’t discovered the jade sooner to make use of his powers.

The jade further explained: mastering all ten martial arts would fully unlock the jade, revealing the ultimate celestial arts within—One Qi Transforms Three Purities, Jade Pure Divine Thunder, Five-Colored Divine Light, Eight-Nine Profound Arts, Earth-Gold Light Technique, Soul Summoning Technique, as well as two heavenly weapons—Red Dawn and Deep Blue.

Any of the jade’s martial arts, once mastered, could make one a supreme expert, even grant immortality. Even a gifted martial artist, training from youth to old age, could only hope to master two or three.

But with the boundless true energy stored in the jade and the aid of Heaven’s Eye and Twin Pupils, mastery of the celestial arts was not impossible.

In essence, the jade was crafted for Yan Tian.

Alas, his ambition to start training immediately was thwarted. Though he could understand each character in the martial texts, he was clueless about specialized terms like meridians and acupoints.

Without knowledge of these, he didn’t know how to circulate true energy. Reckless attempts could lead to disastrous consequences. Having read many martial novels, Yan Tian understood well.

Helpless, he turned to the internet for information on human acupoints.

Fortunately, resources were abundant. Whether in traditional medicine or qigong, information was readily available, though it would take time.

He had to match his acupoints and meridians to the diagrams, as internal arts were no joke—a single mistake could mean lifelong regret.

To be precise, Yan Tian spared no expense, ordering a life-sized anatomical model from the city’s qigong research institute.

When the model, covered in detailed diagrams of acupoints and meridians, arrived, Yan Tian finally ended his arduous search, mapping each point and channel onto his own body, sometimes consulting elder doctors and qigong masters online.

It took him half a month to fully identify each acupoint, meridian, and their characteristics.

During these two weeks, Yan Tian was a recluse, eating only instant noodles or bread soaked in hot water. Sometimes, he was so absorbed in his studies that he ate nothing all day.

Luckily, every night he lay naked on the jade for eight hours, absorbing the true energy that tempered his body, avoiding malnutrition.

His body was the key; when he lay on the jade, his twin-pupiled physique activated the true energy. Though passive absorption was far less effective than active cultivation, half a month of sleeping on the jade greatly improved his constitution. Not superhuman, but at least he could go without food, drinking only water, and not feel hungry.

Occupied with martial research, Yan Tian couldn’t attend school. He applied for extended leave, promising only to take the final exam, spending the rest of his time "recuperating."

He didn’t specify what illness, nor did the school inquire. For an underperformer like him, the school was happier if he stayed away.

2060 became a historic year for Yan Tian.

For, on this day, he resolved to formally begin training in one of the jade’s divine arts.

He chose the “Dark Nether Divine Palm,” drawn by its mystical name.

Yan Tian sat naked on the jade, palms and soles facing skyward.

The true energy from the jade began to flow into his body through the perineum. Yan Tian took a deep breath and began circulating his energy as instructed by the Dark Nether Divine Palm manual.

As soon as he started, the energy flow accelerated, rushing in wildly. If previously the energy seeped like water from a loose tap, now it poured in like a high-pressure fire hose.

Though his body had been tempered, it was not yet strong enough to handle such a surge. The overwhelming energy crashed through him, and with a sudden spurt of blood, Yan Tian collapsed unconscious upon the jade.