Chapter 24: Chapter 24

Intelligence: Fifteen!

Shen Xiuhan’s thoughts stirred, and the numbers on the panel began to tick down.

Fourteen…

Eleven…

Seven…

Three…

Until it stopped at one…

BOOM!

In an instant, every noise around him peeled away into the distance. The world seemed drained of all sound.

In Shen Xiuhan’s mind, pale golden motes of light interwove and condensed into a phantom figure, assuming the opening stance of the Dark Eagle Stance.

Then, at dizzying speed, the golden phantom began cycling through the intricate stance art — deducing, deconstructing, and reconstructing it again and again!

Once, ten times, a hundred, a thousand… ten thousand!

【You cast aside all distractions and trained the Dark Eagle Stance day and night. In the fourth year, your stance art broke through to Initial Mastery, and you successfully sensed your qi-blood.】

【You trained without pause through summer heat and winter frost. After nine years of relentless tempering, your Dark Eagle Stance reached Full Mastery, and you comprehended the Grand Circulation breathing method! Simultaneously, your qi-blood reached its apex, and you advanced into the Bone Tempering realm!】

【In the thirteenth year, your Dark Eagle Stance reached Perfection! You fully grasped the subtle mechanics of generating force through joints and bones. Your comprehension of this stance art reached its zenith, and your cultivation ascended to the Peak of Bone Tempering…】

【In the fifteenth year, your understanding of the Dark Eagle Stance ascended once more, and you realized the martial technique “Heavenly Dark Eagle Force.” At the same time, you faintly touched upon a deeper martial shackle. In a flash of insight you glimpsed it — but your foundation was too shallow to push the Deduction through to a qualitative transformation…】

SWISH…

His consciousness snapped back.

Fifteen years of withering and flourishing in endless cycle, training through every summer and winter without cease — countless realizations poured into his mind like a revelation from the heavens, carving themselves into every limb and bone.

The next moment!

Shen Xiuhan’s face — and the flesh beneath his worn jacket — flushed an alarming, angry red, scalding hot as boiling water.

The qi-blood that had lain dormant inside him erupted as if a ladle of hot oil had been thrown into a furnace — stampeding like wild horses broken free, surging, crashing, and roaring through every meridian in his body.

“Huff… huff…”

Shen Xiuhan gasped for air in great heaving breaths. What left his mouth was no longer cold vapor, but scalding white steam.

This was…

Qi-blood?

He’d sensed his qi-blood!

Elation surged through his heart like a tidal wave.

But almost immediately, the qi-blood spiraled out of control, the searing heat multiplying several times over!

His entire body felt as though it had been thrown into the Eight Trigrams Furnace — as if the very next breath would ignite his five organs and six viscera and reduce them to ash. Shen Xiuhan’s expression changed drastically.

“Shed your jacket! Strip down and vent the heat!”

Through his haze, a thunderous shout exploded by his ear.

Shen Xiuhan didn’t have time to think. His hands tore at his clothing, and the old jacket hit the ground.

Biting wind laced with snow crystals struck his bare upper body, hissing faintly on contact and rising as a haze of white mist — clearing his mind in an instant.

He followed the voice. The one who had shouted was Second Senior Brother Xu Chuan.

And all around him, every one of the thirty-odd outer-court disciples who had been grinding away at their training had frozen mid-motion, staring at him as if they’d just seen a ghost — eyes brimming with disbelief.

“Don’t lose focus!”

Xu Chuan barked again: “Get on the posts! Channel the qi-blood! Opening stance!”

Shen Xiuhan didn’t hesitate. His feet crushed through the remnant snow as he leapt onto the wooden posts, arms thrusting out like iron spears, ten fingers curling into claws!

Dark Eagle Stance — begin!

First frame, fifth, eighth… twenty-eight!

The frames he’d drilled countless times now carried a torrent of surging qi-blood. With each form, claw-wind howled and tore through the falling snow.

Every rise, fall, turn, and transition flowed like drifting clouds and running water — seamless and complete, without a trace of roughness!

Only then did the dumbstruck outer-court disciples snap out of their trance — and the courtyard erupted.

Luo Qiaoqian’s eyes went perfectly round, her face a mask of disbelief: “‘Blood boils hot as broth, frost cannot harm’ — Junior Brother Shen has knocked on Blood’s door!”

“His whole body is red as fire, heat steaming off him in clouds… that’s unmistakably a Blood Tempering breakthrough!” Another inner-city clan scion was equally stunned.

“How is that possible?! He’s only been here a few days — how can he be this fast?!”

“Sixteen days! Counting today, it’s been exactly sixteen days!”

At the edge of the crowd, Xiao Wen’s young face was flushed with excitement.

This boy who was normally so timid he didn’t dare breathe loudly around the inner-city disciples was now clenching his fists and shouting at the top of his lungs.

“Sixteen days to knock on Blood’s door and break through to Blood Tempering… that’s so goddamn terrifying it shouldn’t be possible!”

“That’s two days faster than Eldest Senior Sister — she took eighteen!”

“His talent… it’s monstrous…”

“…”

The clamor exploded across the courtyard.

From deep within the rear courtyard, a dark figure burst forth.

Mei Shuangfeng’s toes touched lightly off a garden rock, and with a flutter of her robes, she’d already landed at the edge of the outer training grounds.

“Master!”

The surrounding disciples hastily cupped their fists and bowed.

But Mei Shuangfeng paid them no mind. Her habitually cold and piercing phoenix eyes locked onto that freely moving figure, a flash of astonishment crossing her gaze.

“Form follows intent, intent precedes the claw, like a dark eagle lifting its head to the sky…”

She spoke the words almost one syllable at a time: “Dark Eagle Stance — Initial Mastery!”

The moment these words left her lips, every disciple sucked in a sharp breath, scalps tingling.

“What?!”

“Sixteen days to break through Blood Tempering was already terrifying — and the Dark Eagle Stance has reached Initial Mastery too?!”

“Is this… is this guy even goddamn human?!”

In the crowd, Luo Qiaoqian bit down so hard her nails nearly dug into her own flesh.

Her delicate face was full of unconcealed regret and frustration.

If she’d known Shen Xiuhan’s talent was this extraordinary, she would have dragged him to her side by force after the assessment days ago — clinging on and refusing to let go if she had to!

But… as long as he hadn’t been formally recruited yet, it wasn’t too late to salvage this!

…

What no one knew was…

The instant his consciousness had returned, Shen Xiuhan’s Dark Eagle Stance had already surpassed Initial Mastery, surpassed Full Mastery, and entered the realm of Perfection!

But the tallest tree in the forest catches the gale.

When lying low in troubled times, you never show your full hand.

So he deliberately held back, leaving imperfections at certain transitions and power shifts — disguising himself as someone who had only just barely stepped into Initial Mastery.

But even so, it was enough to leave everyone present stunned speechless.

“Hoo…”

After running through the stance five full times, the surging, roiling qi-blood in his body finally settled through his meridians, brought fully under his control.

Shen Xiuhan drew a deep breath, leapt down from the wooden posts, and cupped his fists with a grave voice:

“Master, your disciple has not failed your expectations. I have knocked on Blood’s door and entered Manifest Strength.”

“Well done — very well done!”

Admiration blazed in Mei Shuangfeng’s eyes. She was a woman of decisive action who never wasted time, and she made her judgment on the spot:

“From this day forward, you are exempt from the outer-court trials. You will enter the inner court to train!”

At these words, Shen Xiuhan’s eyes lit up.

After his days in the martial hall, he was no longer the naive youth who had first walked in.

Outer-court disciples trained their stance arts, with sensing qi-blood as the primary goal.

Only after breaking through into Blood Tempering and entering the inner court did one earn the right to study real combat techniques.

Stance arts were the martial foundation — strengthening the body and nourishing the blood.

Combat techniques were the real killing arts!

Only when paired with complementary combat techniques would the Dark Eagle Stance — that slumbering eagle — finally grow the talons to rend its enemies apart!

“Your disciple obeys!”

Shen Xiuhan cupped his fists firmly.

“Follow me to the inner court. Xu Chuan, you come along as well.”

“Yes, Master!”

Mei Shuangfeng tossed out the order, turned, and strode toward the inner court.

Shen Xiuhan picked up his old cotton jacket from the snow, threw it on, and followed quickly alongside Xu Chuan.

Behind them, the training grounds fell into dead silence.

The eyes of every outer-court disciple followed that retreating figure, their expressions too complicated for words.

Envy, jealousy, bitterness…

And a sourness they couldn’t quite name.

Some clenched their fists. Some lowered their heads. Some opened their mouths, but no words came.

Mei Martial Hall had strict rules.

Outer-court disciples paid steep tuition for a window of only six months.

Within that half year, if they could sense their qi-blood and break through the gate of Manifest Strength, they could leap through the dragon’s gate into the inner court — formally accepted as Mei Shuangfeng’s personal disciples, bringing honor to their entire family line.

If they failed to sense it… they’d have to pay another eight taels of silver to continue.

But most would accept that martial arts were simply not in their fate, and leave.

Among the thirty-some disciples in the outer court, the one who’d been here longest had trained for nearly five months and still hadn’t touched the threshold of Blood Tempering.

Nobody had felt particularly anxious about it.

After all, not a single person in the outer court had produced qi-blood in all this time. Worst case, they’d all wash out together.

But then…

A fisherman’s son from the outer city — enrolled for a mere sixteen days — had knocked on Blood’s door right before their eyes, entered Manifest Strength, and been promoted into the inner court on the spot by Master herself!

For a long moment, the outer court was so quiet that only the wind could be heard.

…