Pathway

Ju Feng dreamt of an ancient gateway that had two, closed, stone gates. The likes he had never seen before in his eight years of existence. Both the gateway and the gates, had various runic inscriptions and symbols on them that were emitting different types of radiant colours. The exceedingly forceful runes made the gates dazzled in sparkling bright lights like the primordial solar stones, too powerful for a mortal's naked eyes.

How could a place be like this? Giving off such a powerful radiation of lights. What, even, was this place? And these gates, where did they even lead to? Probably other worlds. Maybe, the heavenly realm itself? Could be. It would certainly worth seeing what was on the other side, as long as it wasn't a road to his reincarnation. Pushing the thoughts to one side, he tried to take a cautious step towards the gates, but realized he couldn't lift his legs. Caught in a fright, he was desperately trying to free his legs when a voice suddenly rang out.

"You are just a childling, you'll simply die."

"Who's there?"

"Now, be gone."

Ju Feng woke up frightfully startled as he hurriedly checked his body to see if it was still intact. Satisfied, he looked at his surroundings. Discovering he was still in his room inside their cave, his shoulders sagged in a soothing relief. Ah, It was just a dream, yet it felt so real. What kind of a dream was that? Too much to take a peek in his own dream? That was totally strange. Even, if he had entered and died, all he had to do was to wake up and everything would be fine.

Anyway, a dream was still a dream. With his mind relaxed, he washed his face and went to look for his mother. Learning that she was in the cultivation chamber, he resolved to go and practice his martial arts. When he got there, he started repeating the steps and moves he had learned for the basics, stances, formations and weapons techniques.

He was so engrossed in his hard training that he didn't realize the arrival of his grandpa, who had watching him for some time before interrupting his training.

"A-hem."

"Grandpa!"

Ju Feng beamed joyfully before realizing he was on the training ground and standing before his martial arts master. He quickly cupped his hands and bowed deeply.

"Good morning, grandpa. I was only trying to do some practice while I wait for your arrival. I didn't know you are already here."

"Mhm. That's very thoughtful of you. I have been watching you for quite a time now. Your moves are more precise and your force-field much more stronger. It shows you are really getting into the mind frame of a martial artist. You see, to be the best you can be at martial arts, you must know what it involves. Practice! Practice! Practice!"

Zhang Li Qiang punched his palm with his right fist to mirror his emphasized words as he continued.

"Continuous training will engrave the arts in your heart, becoming intuitive which will help you to hone the skills you have. That is how martial masters are made, Ju Feng. No matter the level you reach, always realize that you can get better, and practices will definitely make you the better."

Uttered Zhang Li Qiang as he stared admiringly at his grandson. Afterwards, he moved to where the practice stone dummies were placed and turned to regard his grandson.

"Today, I will start by showing you how powerful your martial art can be when you power your moves with your Chi energy. As you already know, these stone dummies are protected by talismans. That's why they could be used for training purposes successfully since they can withstand great attacks."

Zhang Li Qiang removed the protective talisman from one of the dummies and hit the dummy with a powerful looking strike. There was a loud muffled sound from the impact, which only rocked the stone dummy with no other visible effect.

"That was brute strength. You can see there was little to no effect, right? But when you now add your inner force, your Chi energy, to the move, it becomes very powerful."

He hit the dummy again, but this time, his palm was infused with his Chi energy. Their was a cracking sound from the impact as the dummy exploded into dust.

"This is what cultivators do in combat. They use their Chi to power their martial arts. Although It's true that there are spirit pills that can replenish the Chi in the body, the body can only get unrefined spiritual energy from them. The body still need to refine and condense the Chi for use, and in combat, it will be extremely difficult to refine and condense Chi when facing an opponent. The cultivator will have to use raw energy which will have effect on his dantian and meridians, or have to wait and refine the energy. And that's where you have the advantage. But I tell you this, unless in absolute combat, try not to use your Chi. You can easily injure someone with it, especially a mortal. Do you understand?"

"I do, grandpa."

Zhang Li Qiang, producing a golden manuscript and some white manuscripts, gestured for his grandson to come closer.

"This golden manuscript is our ancestral manuscript, and it contains both hand and sword techniques we have in our bloodline. There are two hand techniques. The Searing-Flame and the Shifting-Heavens hand techniques. The Shifting Heavens is not affinity related, so you can learn that one. As for it's sword technique, it's called the beasts inferno technique. I use the [Dragon Inferno], your grandmother uses the [Eagle Inferno] and your mother uses the [Phoenix Inferno]. We all have the fire affinity, hence we could learn it. Although you don't have fire affinity, I will still show you the technique. They need to be in your memory, permanently engraved."

Zhang Li Qiang placed the golden manuscript to one side and displayed the remaining manuscripts for Ju Feng to see their contents.

"These are techniques bought, given or exchanged. Let's check them and see the one that suits you for now."

They went through the techniques one by one, and found the ones that suited him most after some minor tests. Since he couldn't use the Searing Flame hand technique, they settled for the Shifting Heavens hand technique. For the sword technique, due to his lack of fire affinity and no available lightning technique, they chose the low-tier Mortal Blade as the sword technique for him because of his light affinity and it was the only light affinity technique they got.

"When these techniques are powered by Chi, their true powers will be displayed. The sword techniques take longer to master, so, you will need to train harder and be very patient. The thing with any weapon technique is the elemental affinity of the owner."

Zhang Lu Qiang produced his sword, Skyfire, and facing the dummies, he used the beasts' Dragonfire — the first stage of the Dragon Inferno technique. Pressing storm of raging fire attacked the dummies in scorching flames.

"This sword is made from white nephrite and the core of a white wyvern. As you already know, Ju Feng, wyverns and dragons are fire beasts. Therefore, I could use the core of a wyvern to make my sword. There are different sources where elemental cores can be obtained. Apart from mundane animals and normal plants with no sentience, everything else has a core. For an immortal cultivator of a particular affinity, a weapon of that particular affinity must be made for the cultivator to be able to bring out the full power of the element or elements, if he has more than one. You as a light and lightning affiliate, will need a sword made with the core of light, lightning or both energy."

Zhang Li Qiang stopped to see the serious expression on Ju Feng's face, then smiled.

"There's a good thing going for you with the level of the Chi in your body. This is the benefit we get from cultivating the astral primal technique, the effect it has on the dantian and the meridians. When you cultivate with the astral primal technique, the dantian becomes enlarged and the amount of chi it can contain becomes many times greater than that of normal cultivator's dantian. You see, in the world of cultivation, martial art move on it's own without chi is just a simple move when you are facing another cultivator. Your opponent will just shrug it off. Now, let me show you the moves. The hand technique first."

Zhang Li Qiang transmitted the ancestral techniques to his grandson and showed him the moves. Immediately after the transmission, Ju Feng could already grasp the fundamentals of the techniques as they were permanently engraved in his soul. Nevertheless, for the next two hours, he continued to practice the basics of the Mortal Blade technique on his own since it wasn't their bloodline technique.

After training for a while, Zhang Li Qiang raised his hand to halt his grandson's practice.

"Ju Feng, we'll stop here for now. The market will be opened for the antiques now. Your mother and grandmother will be waiting for us. Me and your grandmother have decided to follow the two of you to the market, maybe we can find interesting things too. You will continue with the training later."

Leaving the training centre, they headed towards the cave where they found Zhang Wang Jing and Zhang Xiu Ying by the entrance to the cave. Few minutes later, they all left for the market place which was quite a distance due to the fact that their cave was at the extreme outskirt of the village.

With their stage of advancements, they could have flown but came to a decision to walk using the generally popular flash-steps. Walking made them felt the comforting peace and harmony of nature.