Chapter 28: Breaking Up with “Curiosity”—In Accord with Heaven, In Service to Humanity

In the drill yard of Yongji Pass, Wu Fei wore a pair of cloud-patterned boots. He then began walking on air, gliding along invisible lines suspended in midair as the cloud patterns on the boots started to flow.

With each light step, clouds seemed to rise beneath him as they did beneath a galloping dragon-horse, leaving him floating two feet above the ground. In this way, he could race across most simple terrain.

Tripwires on the ground or trenches no more than two meters wide could be cleared in a single bound by these cloud-patterned boots. Wu Fei could sense that his boots were actually stepping upon a thread beneath his feet—a thread condensed from baleful energy.

In the past, Wu Fei had neither understood nor known how to walk through the air. He had merely thought dragon-horses and those cultivators who flew on swords looked incredibly impressive. Now he had a rough understanding of the properties of spiritual energy and baleful energy: spiritual energy stabilized the structure of energy, while baleful energy altered the paths along which energy dispersed.

At that moment, Wu Fei crouched down and inserted a piece of thunderburst stone into the hollow behind his heel. Based on his limited knowledge of chemistry, he roughly surmised that the object was a high-energy nitrogen-molecule folding compound refined by alchemists. As for its energy density, it was comparable to the legendary all-nitrogen anionic salt.

How could such a thing be refined? Spiritual energy had the effect of stabilizing energy structures, so the alchemists simply refined it by methods resembling stewing soup or stir-frying vegetables.

After inserting the thunderburst stone, Xuan Chong set off once more. As thunderfire flashed beneath his heels, a powerful thrust pressed against his back, and within a single second he was launched forward, moving faster than a warhorse at full gallop.

More precisely, Xuan Chong felt as though he had become a motorcycle rider twisting the throttle wide open.

The impact was enough to knock four or five people off their feet—provided those four or five people were not charging with leveled spears. That condition was easy enough to meet. As a highly mobile presence on the battlefield, he could slip through disorder on the flank or shove into the enemy from behind. There was no need to foolishly crash head-on into a forest of spears.

Wu Fei considered the matter. The next time he charged into rows of straw targets, he released baleful energy through both his breastplate and his long lance at the instant of impact. The breastplate became a protective layer of force, while the lance became an immensely strong steel spike.

With a great rustling roar, a large section of straw targets was flung into the air by the impact. Some flew five meters away, tumbling chaotically before breaking apart and scattering across the ground.

Wu Fei was willing to call this effect peerless.

He sensed the solidity of the baleful energy spread across his chest. After the collision, the sensation of impact changed from riding a motorcycle to driving a heavy freight truck—from flesh wrapped in metal to metal wrapped around flesh.

As for the horse lance in his hands, it was like the forks of a forklift, sweeping aside everything foolish enough to stand in its way while leaving him completely unmoved.

Wu Fei was now constructing the charging effect he wanted by the simplest possible means.

To Yao Third Aunt, the “cultivation partner” who had passed down the method to him, this was undeniably a sign of a lack of ambition.

…Wu Fei: As a man growing ever more mature, I am becoming increasingly pragmatic. I must restrain unnecessary curiosity…

Compared with the exceedingly simple modes of “twisting the throttle,” “putting on armor,” and “raising the forks,” there was also a far more complicated approach.

In the original version of the manual given to Wu Fei by Yao Third Aunt, strands of baleful energy were woven through the muscles. Whenever the user desired greater strength, he directly controlled those strands and used them as artificial muscles.

Xuan Chong: By the technological standards of my previous life, the original version of the manual describes an artificial-muscle system. Its technical complexity is naturally far greater than simply driving a heavy freight truck. But can I really control something like that?

In the past, Wu Fei—or rather, Xuan Chong—had felt a restless urge to try. A voice within him had told him that he could control it, and that he needed to believe he could.

Of course, whenever Wu Fei became too carried away, the system would cough meaningfully beside him.

Once, an irritated student whose fantasies had been interrupted asked what the coughing meant. The system replied, “Nothing. I just think someone believes that merely imagining himself working hard will let him succeed. Very much in the spirit of victory studies.”

After the system repeatedly poured cold water over him, Wu Fei set the idea aside again and again, abandoning his impractical fantasies.

After repeatedly calming himself and thinking the matter through, Wu Fei decided that the plan in the manual truly was impractical.

The reason was simple: the strands of baleful energy woven through the muscles would have to withstand forces far greater than those borne by ordinary muscle fibers. What would happen if those strands, whose energy density was hundreds of times greater than that of muscle fibers, malfunctioned and went out of control during movement?

Consider a rubber band. When stretched too far, it snaps and recoils, stinging the skin. But the rubber band is outside the body.

The “baleful-energy threads” replacing the muscles in the manual were inside the body, and their strength was comparable to steel wire. If some of them became overloaded and snapped, the force released would be far greater than the recoil of a broken rubber band. The original muscle fibers would almost certainly be torn apart as well.

Wu Fei could be certain that he would eventually overload them. This was not something caution alone could prevent.

Recently, Wu Fei had experienced growing pains and felt the agony of tearing flesh. A failure caused by such a rupture would certainly be far more intense than natural pain. Thus, as he looked over the manual once more, he could not help muttering, “This is a rather masochistic way to do things.”

“Is there some system of movement that can avoid such a high risk of failure?”

Several months earlier, Wu Fei had taken up his old idea once more. It was also the final time the blue patterns attempted to invade his pupils from the manual.

Still unwilling to give up, Wu Fei decided that movement techniques might reduce the overload on the preset transmissions within his muscles and joints. And so he brought out the art of shadow boxing.

With the assistance of data from the physical testing instruments, he designed a set of soft-palm movements that used gentleness to overcome force. Every motion contained sufficient buffering, preventing the torque in easily overloaded joints from collapsing under sudden exertion.

Wu Fei had nearly convinced himself that it was feasible. But as he practiced, he suddenly realized something.

Was all this effort really worthwhile?

Why was he practicing a method of walking as narrow and precarious as a single-plank bridge when a broad road lay plainly beside him?

Thus Wu Fei ultimately returned his attention to the broad road of “twisting the throttle” and “driving the freight truck.”

The enlightened Wu Fei: Taiji boxing may buffer one’s own force, but when faced with an external stimulus as powerful as artillery fire, would it not overload all the same? It would be better to remain within a buffer chamber formed from baleful energy and press the accelerator all the way down.

…Three months earlier…

Of course, Wu Fei still could not quite let the matter go. For the sake of final rigor, he openly asked Yao Third Aunt, the author of the manual.

After all, in Wu Fei’s era, whenever a certain country boasted about the various parameters of its stealth fighters, people on his side would run the calculations again and again and conclude that such figures were impossible. In the end, they would still assume that the supposedly gifted scientists of the opposing camp, under their democratic system, might have developed some black technology that ordinary people on his side could never imagine.

Wu Fei faced the blue-eyed female cultivator and asked, “Has anyone ever actually succeeded with this manual of yours?”

Yao Third Aunt toyed with her silver braid. “Of course. Many people have succeeded. This is not muscle, but it is superior to muscle. Compared with the circulation of vital energy practiced by ordinary people, this is the true path of transcendence.”

Wu Fei nodded. “So if the muscles—or rather, the flesh—become necrotic, they are directly replaced with threads of baleful energy, correct?”

Wu Fei had long since deduced this side effect, but he still wanted to know how the other party had dared to charge ahead regardless.

Yao Third Aunt looked at him. “What are you worried about? There is no need for concern.”

Then she leaned close to his ear and whispered, “You possess extraordinary talent. The Dao Venerable will bestow blessings upon you.”

Wu Fei paused slightly, then nodded. “Understood.”

He turned and walked away, losing all interest at once.

Yao Third Aunt had originally leaned close to him, her words growing more ancient and archaic, drawing him into an entrancing labyrinth and preparing to cast a vast web around him. But Wu Fei’s abrupt turn was like the sudden extinguishing of a light on a matchmaking program.

The entrance to the labyrinth that had appeared reflected above Wu Fei’s head dissolved like a moon reflected in water or a flower seen in a mirror, as though someone had suddenly switched on a pump to drain the pond. The entire spectacle became ridiculous.

“You…”

Interrupted by force for the first time, Third Aunt wore an expression of astonishment. In an instant, it turned into wounded disappointment, and her face took on the look of someone trying to hold him back.

By coincidence, Wu Fei turned around again and, in the perfunctory tone one might use to placate a little girl, said, “Yes, you’re right. The Dao Venerable’s blessing and all that. Ah, yes, yes, yes.”

…Xuan Chong: You should have said from the beginning that you were a charlatan. Heh. From now on, whenever a subject involving your faith comes up, I will show you the utmost respect…

From that moment onward, Wu Fei became entirely independent in his cultivation of baleful energy.

As for the manual that had once introduced him to the path, Wu Fei decided never to read it again. To prevent it from misleading others—and also out of a strong sense of morality—he helped Yao Third Aunt ensure that her teachings would not be passed beyond her school by burning the manual outright.

When the manual burned in the brazier, blue flames rose from it, startling Wu Fei.

“Damn, is there plastic in this thing? Or some kind of metal salt producing a colored flame?”

Wu Fei did not know that, immediately after he destroyed the manual, the Revealer of the Present, thousands of miles away, contacted Third Aunt through a spiritual eye.

The Revealer of the Future was perplexed.

“The manual. Why was it destroyed?”

“What? Burned? How could it burn?”

“Ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine Celestial Venerable talismans and a restriction as impregnable as a fortress—even lightning-forged fire could not destroy it. How could it have been burned?”

The Revealer of the Past, Third Aunt, argued in reply, “I can alter the past, but changes in the future are something you are supposed to see.”

…While the Thousand Transformations and the Myriad Changes argued, Xuan Chong had already escaped the tangled mess…

“To diminish what is excessive and supplement what is lacking is the cultivation of spiritual energy. To diminish what is lacking and supplement what is excessive is the gathering of baleful energy.”

Once Wu Fei understood this saying, he understood why the baleful energy within him was growing stronger and stronger. He also roughly confirmed that the world truly was headed toward troubled times.

Indeed, in an age of peace and prosperity, someone like him—a man of war—should never have had the opportunity to rise. Those who ought to stand above the world would be the Confucians and the Legalists.

That was correct. Although the Confucians claimed to embody righteous grandeur, and the Legalists claimed to act for the common good, both schools in reality still diminished what was lacking and supplemented what was excessive. In the language of the twenty-first century, they existed to serve the interests of the ruling class.

The Confucians constantly wrapped themselves in fine rhetoric, using righteous grandeur to frighten soldiers into retreat. The Legalists spoke of punishing criminals and warning the world through law. Yet what made the common people tremble was all baleful power.

At the very peak of the baleful power wielded by law and Confucianism stood the imperial house. The so-called majesty of the Son of Heaven was, in essence, the highest form of baleful energy.

After leaving the drill yard, Wu Fei went to the merchant quarter, then to the army, then to the craftsmen’s workshops.

The world had come to this. He ought to follow the way of Heaven and respond to the way of humanity. It was time to make up for what was lacking.

…The glass ceiling over the military path of advancement had shattered…

In the twenty-sixth year of the Guarding Heaven Calendar, at Yongji Pass, work began on “defensive siege machinery.”

In every respect, Wu Fei’s large-scale gathering of merchants and manufacture of weapons and armor within Yongji Pass were already repeatedly skirting the boundaries of what was permitted. In peaceful times, if the court wished to find a scapegoat and establish its authority, Wu Fei would have been an ideal target.

But now the Great Yao had been pinned down and pummeled by the “geckos” from the north. Who had time to care about a “little sparrow” peeking its head out from a tree in the south?

Wu Fei: The Wu family cannot privately manufacture military chariots, but it can build “baggage carts,” as well as “barrier gate blade carts” for defending passes—pushcarts with blades mounted all across the front.

But what was a military chariot?

One pulled by heavy draft horses, with a driver, crossbowmen, and warriors wielding halberds.

In the carpenter’s workshop, Wu Fei watched the water-powered saws complete their cuts as the components of a “Wooden Ox and Gliding Horse” were assembled. Facing the officials of Great Yao, he seemed to be arguing with himself:

“This does not count as a military chariot, does it? It is a farming implement.”

On the workshop’s assembly line, the Wooden Ox and Gliding Horse was a type of one-wheeled vehicle. On downhill roads it could move on its own. On uphill roads, however, it relied on another method.

Wu Fei noticed a feng shui disk mounted atop the wooden ox’s head. It consumed the divinatory energy stored within the wood. The vehicle also possessed a mast for hanging a sail.

The colossal Golden Ox used during the expedition to Bamboo Province had already been left behind by Wu Fei after the army returned to Winged City and the central army’s tiger tally was handed over.

But after commanding such a war machine, Wu Fei felt that his military system ought to include this kind of “non-flesh unit.”

The Wooden Ox and Gliding Horse in the workshop was on the scale of a chariot. Its width was that of a horse cart. Its chassis consisted of a single central wheel and four wooden mechanical legs. When the legs folded upward, the vehicle could glide forward on the central wheel. When all four legs struck the ground together, they could push the body forward.

Of course, the vehicle was not pulled by horses.

It was driven by wind.

On June 6, the craftsmen responsible for building the vehicle delivered good news: the self-propelled vehicle Wu Fei had requested was complete.

As Wu Fei watched with great interest, the craftsman set down a formation disk and lit a brazier. He then tossed several pieces of jade into the fire. The jade immediately shattered. After the heavenly clouds collected the “fee for borrowing the wind,” the wind arrived, catching the sail and driving the chariot forward.

It was a magical war chariot.

Wu Fei applauded from the side while inwardly grumbling: Spirit swords and spirit stones sound fine, but must every vehicle have the word “spirit” attached to it?

War chariots had existed since ancient times. Long before the founding of Great Yao, in the distant age of antiquity, the Human Sovereign had created a “south-pointing chariot” during a campaign. It was in that battle that the dragon clan had been forced to withdraw.

The south-pointing chariot of that era used Azure Mountain jade as its core spiritual material. Now, Wu Fei’s Wooden Oxes and Gliding Horses likewise required jade to manufacture the core component of their wind-setting disks.

It was no coincidence that the major goods carried by merchants traveling through the southern frontier consisted of timber and jade. The merchants had recently discovered several pits containing glass-grade jadeite. It was unsuitable for carving guardian beasts, but perfectly suited for artifacts that mediated interaction between humans and feng shui.

Inside the Wooden Ox and Gliding Horse was a series of flywheel mechanisms. Wind striking the sail caused it to turn, which in turn wound the flywheel to a certain degree. Thus, even when the wind weakened, the vehicle still retained enough power to change direction.

If a blade plate was attached to the front of the Wooden Ox and Gliding Horse, and the wind-setting disk used to borrow the wind was removed, it became a defensive siege device.

If the blade plate was removed and the sail and wind-setting disk were attached, it became a baggage cart.

As for attaching everything at once—according to the exact advice once given by experts when a certain country on Earth exported treaty-compliant missiles:

“Not recommended.”

The military chariots of the Great Yao Dynasty were organized in groups of four. Each chariot generally carried twenty-five men: seven aboard the vehicle and the remaining eighteen marching behind on foot.

The chariots charged, and the infantry finished the work.

After repeatedly weighing the design, Wu Fei decided on a formation of two vehicles per unit.

The Wooden Ox and Gliding Horse was far larger than an ordinary chariot and highly maneuverable. Since it had only a single wheel beneath the chassis, control in every other direction depended on its front and rear legs.

Its main wooden beams were also thicker than those of ordinary chariots. Its sail was no smaller than that of a riverboat, and its total weight was three times that of Great Yao’s “six-hundred-kilogram box carts.”

During testing, even sandbag targets weighing as much as mountain monsters could be sent flying by a direct collision.

In Wu Fei’s vision of the future army, each pair of chariots would be assigned one hundred men. That way, even if the vehicles became stuck in a muddy pit along the road, or the wind suddenly died, the men would still be able to push them onward.