Ren told them he was leaving on an afternoon that smelled of pine and warm stone.
The old tree in his courtyard cast a broad shade, branches swaying slowly above the spirit spring. Mist curled around its roots like white silk; lanterns hadn't yet been lit, but the sky was already turning the color of ripened peach.
Murong Zi had just finished sparring—her spear leaned against the pine, shaft still faintly hot from Fire intent. Qin Xingxuan was wiping sweat from her neck with a clean towel, movements neat and careful. Bai Jingyun knelt at the stone table, sorting through a stack of borrowed manuals. Na Yi and Na Shui sat together on the bench, bare feet on warm stone, listening to the distant noise of the Martial House.
Ren leaned back against the pine trunk, one ankle resting over the other, cup of tea balanced in his fingers.
"I'll be gone for a few days," he said casually.
Five gazes snapped toward him at once.
Murong Zi reacted first. "Gone? Where?"
"Travel," Ren said, smiling slightly. "A little trip. There's a place with thunder I want to see."
Na Shui immediately scooted closer, hooking an arm through his. "Thunder? Are you going to temper your body?" Her eyes lit up. "Take me with you!"
Na Yi's expression changed almost imperceptibly. "Is it dangerous?"
Ren considered it for a breath, then shrugged lightly. "To most people? Yeah, very. To me, it's just… stimulating."
Bai Jingyun's fingers paused on the edge of a scroll. "Is it related to the Seven Profound Valleys' envoy?" she asked softly.
Ren swirled his tea, watching the pine's reflection ripple on the surface.
"Indirectly," he said. "Before the Valleys decide whether they want to send down a storm, I want to go look at another storm first."
Murong Zi snorted. "You and your poetic nonsense. Just say you want to go fight something."
He grinned. "There is that."
He set the cup down and straightened a little, the lazy air around him sharpening just enough to draw the eye.
"I won't be gone long," he said. "Thundercrash Mountain is only so far. By the time the elders finish arguing with themselves, I'll be back."
"Thundercrash Mountain…" Qin Xingxuan murmured. She'd heard of it: the forbidden peak in the Southern Wilderness, the highest mountain of the region, its summit touching the clouds where thunder had fallen without pause for ten thousand years.
Na Shui leaned in until her nose nearly bumped his jaw. "And what if something happens while you're gone?" she asked lightly—but there was a real seriousness in her eyes. "What if the Martial House gets stupid? What if someone bullies us?"
Ren lifted his hand.
Ash-gray Dao lines and faint starlight flickered along his fingers. A thin thread of true essence shimmered into existence, coiled, and then unraveled into five points of light. In the next instant, five jade slips appeared on the table—simple, palm-sized, faintly warm where his Dao had branded them.
"Then you call me," he said. "If someone bullies you, if the Martial House acts stupid, if the Valleys send someone annoying… or if you're lonely and want to flirt." His lips curved. "Same method either way."
Murong Zi grabbed a jade slip immediately. "Tch… who would call you to flirt," she muttered, ears turning pink.
Na Shui laughed and took hers with both hands, eyes already gleaming with mischief as she poured a bit of her true essence into it, feeling it link to the quiet, distant 'Heaven' that was Ren's inner world.
Qin Xingxuan hesitated, then cupped the jade reverently. "We'll hold the Martial House," she said simply.
Bai Jingyun's fingers trembled almost imperceptibly as she picked hers up. "Thundercrash Mountain is… in the Southern Wilderness," she repeated, as if confirming it to herself.
Ren looked at her, gaze softening. "Don't worry. For others, it's a long, bitter trip. For me, it's just a walk with nicer scenery."
"I know," she replied. Her lips curved into a faint, stubborn smile. "It's just… I've grown used to you being here."
Na Yi took the last slip, her grip firm and steady. "We'll manage," she said. Her clear eyes met his, unwavering. "Just come back."
Ren rose.
He stretched lazily; joints loosened with a series of quiet pops. Then he opened his arms without a shred of shame.
"Come here," he said. "If I'm going to go stick my head into heaven's thunder, I should get some warmth beforehand."
Murong Zi rolled her eyes, but she stepped into his embrace first, spear forgotten. Her chest pressed against his as she grumbled, "Be careful, okay?"
"Naturally." His hand slid up the line of her back to the nape of her neck, thumb rubbing idle circles there until the last of her tension melted.
Qin Xingxuan came second, hesitating only a heartbeat. Ren drew her in more gently, one hand resting at the small of her back, true essence stirring faintly to soothe the exhaustion in her meridians.
"Even if it's just a short time, I'll miss having you by my side," he said softly. "Cultivate well, alright?"
"…En." Her reply was barely louder than a breath.
Bai Jingyun's turn came last.
She stepped into his arms like a white plum branch leaning into spring wind—movements restrained, eyes shimmering. Ren's hold around her waist tightened, pulling her closer than their usual reserved distance. He tilted his head the slightest bit and brushed his lips against her cheek, just shy of the corner of her mouth.
"Jingyun," he murmured, voice low and teasing at her ear, "if you miss me too much, you're allowed to call. I won't complain."
Her heart fluttered. "…You say such things so easily."
"Because I can back them up," he replied with a small smile.
Na Yi and Na Shui ended up pressed against his sides like bookends—Na Yi's cool hand resting lightly on his wrist, Na Shui boldly stealing a quick kiss from the corner of his mouth before darting back with a bright grin.
Ren chuckled.
"Alright," he said, stepping back at last. "Hold this place for me. When I come back, I'll probably be more annoying."
"You already are," Murong Zi muttered.
But when Ren's figure rose into the sky on a pillar of red-gold flame, five gazes followed him until he was nothing but a speck.
Only then did they lower their eyes and turn back toward the pine.
The courtyard felt a little emptier.
…
Thundercrash Mountain.
From afar, the range looked like a line of jagged spears thrust into the heavens. Thundercrash itself was the tallest among them—over a hundred thousand feet high, its main peak forever wreathed in black clouds and violet lightning. Bolts fell year-round; the sky above it seemed slit open, heaven's wrath pouring through without pause. Layers of magnetic ore in the mountain's body drew thunder like a magnet draws iron, carving black scars into its cliffs and melting stone into glassy flows.
Ren crossed the Great Zhou mountain range in a single smooth flight.
His Fire Martial Intent unfolded beneath his feet as a red-gold wheel, true essence compressed into a blazing disc of Law. Within its field, air itself became fuel; every step he took devoured and refined the heat of the world, propelling him forward. The faint warmth of distant cities, the afterglow of day's sunlight on stone, even the smolder of cooking fires far below—all of it flowed into that rune-wheel, vanished, and reemerged as thrust.
Wind tore at his clothes.
He let it.
At that height, Seven Profound Martial House was nothing but a memory. The world shrank to mountain spines and a sea of clouds—and, ahead, a solitary giant stabbed into the sky, wrapped in flickering violet light that pulsed in a slow, deadly rhythm.
Ren narrowed his eyes slightly.
"That's lively," he murmured. "If the thunder's this excited, the Laws should be in a pretty good mood."
He descended toward the foothills.
The nearer he came, the more the world changed.
The air grew heavy and metallic. Thunder rolled constantly—sometimes dull like a slumbering giant's growl, sometimes sharp as tearing silk. Every bolt that fell left behind faint veins of lightning essence in the stone; shrubs and trees clinging to the slopes bore scorched bark and twisted branches, sap infused with a trace of thunder.
Below, scattered camps dotted the lower forest—mercenary bands, small sect teams, lone martial artists who had come to try their luck. Some hunted thunder beasts for cores; others sat cross-legged facing charred cliffs, hoping to brush against Thunder Laws.
Ren drifted past them like a ghost.
He sank his aura until it was no more than a thin film of suppressed true essence hugging his body. To those cultivators, he was just another youth with a calm face and a too-relaxed back.
"First time at Thundercrash? Don't die for nothing," a rough voice called lazily from a campfire.
Ren lifted a hand in casual acknowledgment, not breaking stride.
Ahead, the forest ended.
The first wall of thunder greeted him.
Bolts fell like iron chains, slamming into the earth, sending arcs coursing through stone and air. The ozone tang was so strong it would have made a Houtian's eyes water. More than one half-buried skeleton lay in the scorched ground—some still wearing half-melted armor, others nothing but charred bone.
Warnings, written in bone and burnt steel.
Ren stepped into it.
His Fire Martial Intent spun once, then quietly faded away. He withdrew its protection, letting the thunder come bare.
The first bolt speared down and hit his shoulder.
To an ordinary half-step Xiantian, it would have been crippling. Even an Early Xiantian, caught unprepared, could be charred into a smoking corpse.
On Ren's body, it shattered with a crisp crackle.
Azure light flickered under his skin as the Azure True Dragon Infinity Seed stirred; its law pattern flexed, devouring the invading thunder essence, stripping away impurities and turning it into clean fuel for his meridians. At the same time, deeper still, the Ancient Ming Bloodline coiled in his cells responded like a predator scenting fresh meat, filtering what remained, folding those threads of energy into something that matched his own Dao.
"Good…" Ren murmured, flexing his fingers.
Fine arcs of lightning danced between them, obeying his will.
He walked up the mountain.
Beasts came.
A pack of Blue Thunder Lizards slithered from a side ravine, scales gleaming with electric light, eyes blood-red. Each was as thick as a man's waist, fangs crackling with gathered charge. At their head, a larger specimen—peak Houtian, aura feral and proud—reared back and spat a compressed bolt of lightning.
Ren lifted his hand.
He didn't dodge.
Thunder crashed into his palm and dispersed, drawn into a spiral by his stirring true essence. He let his comprehension brush it, tasting its structure—the crude, wild expression of first-level Thunder Laws: instinct, brutality, speed without thought.
Then he closed his hand.
The lightning shrank to a single thin thread and snapped outward.
The pack leader's skull burst like an overripe fruit. The lightning thread leapt from corpse to corpse, residual arcs chaining along wet flesh and scales. Screams cut off as charred bodies collapsed in a ragged line, smoke rising.
Ren's expression didn't change.
He didn't even slow down.
The mountain roared around him.
He climbed.
Higher.
Thunder grew denser, shifting from scattered strikes to a nearly continuous curtain. Each step forward felt like walking into overlapping waves of heavenly punishment. Lightning burned black trenches into the rock, leaving strange rune-like marks behind—thunder scars carved by ten thousand years of strikes, each a fragment of Law.
Ren slowed.
His mind sank.
Thunder Laws… second level first.
He spread his Spirit Sense outward, letting it sink into those scorched patterns. To an ordinary Martial World cultivator at his superficial realm, the thunder marks would be meaningless or, at best, crude references. But his soul had long stepped beyond this lower realm's boundaries. Deep inside his body, the Immortal Soul Bone quietly turned complexity into simplicity, dissecting each pattern into its roots.
Where others saw chaos, Ren saw order.
He reached out and brushed his fingers along a lightning-scarred cliff.
Thunder essence stirred.
It rose like a sleeping dragon opening one eye, curious.
Ren smiled faintly and sank his consciousness deeper.
He followed the way energy twisted just before a strike. The way heaven and earth origin energy funneled into a single point; the way the bolt split into branches, each branch splitting further, force dividing, recombining. He traced the structure behind the phenomenon—the concept of "piercing," of "shattering," of "erasing resistance."
Second-level Thunder Laws—no longer just "lightning is fast, lightning is destructive," but the shape of destruction itself.
His understanding clicked forward with an ease that made Mo Eversnow, watching from within the Magic Cube, feel a strange helplessness.
Inside that vast inner space, the white-clothed woman sat cross-legged, her soul wrapped in faint frost. Here, she was nothing but a soul form—without body, without weapon—but her perception was razor-sharp.
"He's… simply using this?" she whispered to herself, eyes fixed on Ren's meridians as thunder essence poured through them, refined and integrated at a speed that would have pulverized most geniuses' foundations.
She remembered his earlier leaps—from tempering Ashura Intent in a single day, to touching the threshold of second-level Fire Laws in a Body Transformation–level battle, to walking into Chaos like he had been born there.
Now, he was doing it again.
On a higher sky.
…
Ren climbed until the air thinned and the thunderclouds fused into a single, vast ocean overhead.
At a certain point, the path simply… ended.
A broken cliff jutted out over a sheer drop. Above, lightning threaded across the sky like a net, every bolt feeding into a massive vortex of storm. The sound was so loud that ordinary eardrums would have ruptured; even the bones of a Pulse Condensation martial artist would have vibrated painfully.
Ren stepped off the edge.
Space folded.
He didn't fall.
He reappeared on a jagged outcropping closer to the heart of the storm, then again, and again. Each shift was small, simple—a twist of his inner Heaven along paths only he could see, blending subtle Space comprehension from another world with Martial World's crude boundaries.
Finally, he reached it.
The primal heaven above Thundercrash Mountain.
Here, thunder didn't just fall—it condensed.
The core of the storm was a nearly solid mass of lightning, compressed into a sphere the size of a small house, hanging in the air like a second sun. Around it, wind howled; water vapor boiled in and out of existence; thin threads of metal essence shimmered in the void; earth force surged from the mountain below; and the trace of Fire—drawn from molten stone and friction-heated air—licked at the edges like hungry tongues.
Six elements.
Six doors.
Ren hovered at the edge of that maelstrom, cloak snapping behind him.
"Good place," he said softly. "Very good."
He didn't rush to seize anything.
Instead, he sat.
Right there, in midair, legs folded, back straight, eyes closing while heaven and earth howled.
His Spirit Sense expanded.
It passed into the thunder sphere—touching the structure of condensed Lightning Law.
It sank into the whirling winds—tasting the sharp edge of Wind Law.
It brushed the water vapor—learning how moisture condensed and dispersed.
It followed the faint glimmers of Metal essence—understanding rigidity, sharpness, weight.
It reached down into the mountain—feeling Earth's slow, steady pressure.
And it followed every trace of Fire—small tongues of heat clinging stubbornly to thunder's edges, buried in molten veins deep below.
Water first, he thought lazily. I've been neglecting you.
He let his perception sink into the mist.
He felt how water clung to surfaces, how it gathered into droplets, how it flowed along paths of least resistance, how it remembered shapes. He understood second-level Water Laws not as "stronger water," but as "adaptation"—the ability to become whatever the situation required, to carry force without breaking.
Threads of comprehension wove themselves into his Spiritual Sea.
Second-level Water Laws formed like a quiet vortex, blue and deep.
Wind followed.
He traced the way gusts slid past obstacles, how pressure differences formed currents, how invisible lines of force wrapped around objects. Wind wasn't just "fast"—it was direction, flow, sharpness when compressed, softness when dispersed.
Second-level Wind Laws settled in his mind.
Then Earth.
He felt the bones of Thundercrash Mountain—the layers of rock, the weight accumulated over ages, the way it anchored thunder and refused to move. Earth was patience, accumulation, unyielding support. It held, so other forces could rage.
Second-level Earth Laws took root.
Metal.
He touched the veins of ore within the mountain—their density, their brittleness and strength. Metal was sharpness, but also memory; a blade remembered its cuts, a spear remembered the thrusts it had delivered.
Second-level Metal Laws.
Thunder he had already begun.
Now he dug deeper.
He felt how lightning compressed space, how it ignored distance, how it carried judgment. He traced the fine edge between "light" and "destruction," realizing that Thunder's true meaning wasn't merely to break, but to declare a verdict.
Second-level Thunder Laws solidified, joining the rest.
Within the Magic Cube, Mo Eversnow's soul trembled.
"In such a short time…" she whispered. "He's pushed five elemental Laws to the second level."
In the Divine Realm, a genius who comprehended even one elemental Law to second level before Revolving Core would be considered promising; a top Holy Land might guard such a person like a treasure for centuries. Here, this boy in a lower realm had simply sat down under a thunderstorm and collected five like he was picking herbs.
Her heart, tempered by carnage and loss, actually skipped a beat.
…but he wasn't finished.
That's enough groundwork, Ren thought.
Now… Fire.
His consciousness turned.
Fire Laws.
He had already walked far along that path. From Burning Heat to Annihilation, from Annihilation to Creation—using battles, dual cultivation, foreign worlds' flames as his furnace. His Fire Laws had long since stepped into the third level: Creation—the ability to generate new fire, to draw flame from emptiness, to turn cause into blaze.
But above Creation, there was another step that changed everything.
Manifestation.
Ren exhaled slowly.
He opened his palms.
Fire origin energy surged from every direction.
It came from friction-heated wind, from molten rock deep below, from traces of lightning-burnt wood clinging to the mountain's wounds. It poured into his hands, swirling between them.
Under his will, it changed.
The fire did not simply form a ball or stream.
It began to… shape itself.
A line.
A curve.
Wings.
A beak.
In his palms, a small vermillion bird composed entirely of fire took form—each feather a flame rune, each breath a soft wave of heat. Its body condensed from pure Law, not true essence; its eyes of molten gold regarded him with clear intelligence. Then it spread its wings and soared upward, leaving a trail of blazing characters in the air as it circled the thunder sphere.
Fourth-level Fire Laws—Manifestation.
Energy given life. Fire that moved according to its own instincts and nature, even without constant control.
Mo Eversnow stopped breathing.
"…Fourth level," she whispered. "In a lower realm, at this stage…"
Her mind raced through everything she knew.
In the Divine Realm, a Divine Sea genius needed at least fourth-level Laws to be considered truly formidable. Empyrean descendants, bathed in the best resources from birth, struggled years and decades to push a single Law to fifth level.
This boy—this lower realm youth whose body was barely Houtian in this world's terms—had just leisurely walked Fire from third to fourth level in what, to him, was a quiet afternoon.
Outside, Ren's eyes remained closed.
"Thunder," he said quietly.
The vermillion bird wheeled.
Around it, lightning gathered.
Thunder origin energy boiled out of the storm sphere. It flowed into his Sea of Consciousness, swirling around his nascent Thunder comprehension. He guided it along the same path—forcing himself not just to know thunder as "strike" and "speed," but as a living pattern.
The sphere overhead flickered.
From its surface, a sinuous shape peeled away—a purple dragon formed entirely from lightning. Its scales were runes of destruction, its claws crackling arcs. It coiled in the air, roaring silently as it circled the fire bird.
Fourth-level Thunder Laws—Manifestation.
A thunder dragon, close in essence to the Purple Flood Dragon Divine Thunder—thunder soul bred by a Thunder Flood Dragon atop this very mountain.
Wind answered next.
Ren raised his hand and closed his fingers, as if grasping empty air.
Wind origin energy, already dense around Thundercrash's peak, surged toward his palm. Instead of dispersing, it compressed—tornados folding into ribbons, ribbons twisting into a single, vast wing.
A great roc formed from transparent gales, body visible only where it bent light. Its wings spanned tens of feet; each beat carved faint lines into the cloud sea, invisible blades slicing the mist.
Fourth-level Wind Laws.
Manifestation.
Fire, Thunder, Wind.
Three elements circled him, each one a living manifestation of Law.
Below him, the thunderheads churned. Above him, for a breath, the sky seemed to pause—as if the Great Dao itself had turned to glance at this single point.
Ren opened his eyes.
They were clear. Calm.
He watched the vermillion bird dive, the thunder dragon coil, the gale roc wheel. Then, with a thought, he let all three collapse into streams of Law essence that poured back into his meridians, branding themselves along his Modified Chaotic Virtues Combat Meridians and twining with his Heretical God Force.
Inside the Magic Cube, Mo Eversnow's soul rippled like a disturbed lake.
"Fire, Thunder, Wind at fourth level… Water, Earth, Metal at second level…" she murmured, dizzy. "This is no longer something I can explain with the word 'genius'."
She thought of Empyrean descendants—children born with awakened bloodlines, who cultivated with Supreme Divine Artifacts as pillows, who bathed in source-level Laws from childhood.
Compared to this person, those so-called prodigies seemed… narrow.
A forbidden thought slipped in.
Is he a heaven-defying genius born in the wrong world… or an old monster regaining his cultivation?
She truly couldn't tell.
Her curiosity, which she'd kept on a tight leash since awakening in the Magic Cube, surged dangerously.
Her soul flame wavered—
—and then steadied.
Outside, Ren smiled faintly.
He hadn't moved, but he felt it: a tiny tremor from the Magic Cube resting in his inner world, the slight agitation of the soul within.
"Almost knocking," he murmured under the thunder. "Easy, Snow. Not yet."
He had plans for that meeting.
Plans that needed timing.
For now, he let the branded Laws settle.
He sat in silence while Fire, Thunder, and Wind circulated through his meridians, harmonizing with his Dantian, sinking deeper into bone and blood.
Time blurred.
He didn't bother counting how many bolts fell.
Thunder crashed.
Wind howled.
Fire breathed.
Then, somewhere below, a different vibration cut through the storm.
Not the mindless roar of heaven's punishment.
The sharp, focused rhythm of battle.
Ren's eyes opened.
His Spirit Sense, which had been wandering among Laws, sank downward, slipping through layers of cloud and stone like a spear through water.
He saw it.
On a plateau halfway up the mountain, where lightning struck less often but with terrifying intensity, a young woman in red stood on the back of a blazing bird.
Her hair streamed behind her like flames. Her robes were embroidered with vermillion birds, each thread infused with Fire essence. In her hand, a long sword burned with crimson light; every slash sent arcs of fire into the storm.
Beneath her feet, the Vermillion Bird—Extreme Xiantian, feathers still slightly immature, but already holding the embryonic dignity of a Saint Beast—spread its wings and screeched as it spat pillars of phoenix flame to meet falling bolts. Its feathers shimmered with latent Fire Laws, each plume shedding sparks that refused to be snuffed out.
Opposite them, coiled around a jagged rocky spire, a vast Purple Thunder Flood Dragon reared back.
Its scales shone with violent violet lightning. Each breath it exhaled contained enough thunder essence to annihilate a peak Pulse Condensation expert. It was a Saint Beast–bloodline Thunder Flood Dragon that had monopolized Thundercrash Mountain's resources for ten thousand years; even the highest elders of the Seven Profound Valleys would have found it hard to retreat unscathed from a frontal clash.
Thunder souls clung to it like armor—the nascent Purple Flood Dragon Divine Thunder swirling around its horns, lightning souls layering its roar with destructive rhythm.
The two forces clashed.
Thunder smashed into phoenix flame, exploding into waves of mixed energy that shredded the surrounding stone. Peaks that had stood for centuries crumbled under stray shockwaves. The plateau's surface was a patchwork of charred ravines and molten glass, each new exchange carving fresh wounds.
Ren's Spirit Sense brushed the woman.
Early Revolving Core.
Her dantian revolved with a smooth, steady rhythm, true essence thick and refined. Her Fire Laws had at least reached second level; her Vermillion Bird flame carried a trace of high-order fire—the embryonic form of a true Saint Beast's fire.
Her aura was sharp and domineering, like a sword drawn to defend a sect… and underneath it, a carefully restrained softness.
"Mu Qianyu," Ren said, amusement and interest flickering in his eyes.
Divine Phoenix Island's Vermillion Bird Faction Saintess. A proud daughter of heaven whose name would one day resound through South Horizon Region.
He hadn't met her in this life, but he knew her silhouette. Destiny had arranged for her to bring Little Flame here to temper its flames with thunder; destiny liked its little dramas.
"And the timing…" he murmured. "Really lines up nicely."