Chương 488: Chapter 487: Three Days

The first morning after my fight with Feng Tianyu, I woke up feeling the weight of what I needed to accomplish. Three days. That's all I had before facing Earth Fist Liu. The countdown timer in the sky showed a glowing 3, reminding me that time was running short. I made my way to the waterfall training ground that had become my regular spot. The morning mist hung in the air, and the sound of rushing water helped clear my mind.

Master Hong had given me permission to use any of the temple's training facilities, though he'd also made it clear he'd be watching.

"Let's start with the basics of Heaven-Breaking," I said, settling into a meditation pose.

"What exactly can cultivators at this level do?"

"From the memories you've absorbed," Azure replied, "Heaven-Breaking cultivators can literally break natural laws so give that a try." I stood up and threw a simple punch at the air. Nothing special happened.

"You need to understand the law you're trying to break first," Azure explained.

"Then impose your martial will to create an exception." Right. I focused on gravity, really thinking about how it worked. Mass attracted mass, creating a force that pulled things toward the earth. Now, how would I break that? I gathered my Martial Aura around my fist and punched downward at the ground. This time, I tried to impose my will: gravity reverses here. The stone cracked under my fist, but that was just from the physical impact. No reality-breaking yet.

"Try something simpler," Azure suggested.

"Maybe start with friction?" That made sense. I placed my palm on the wet stone beside the waterfall and concentrated. Friction was what let surfaces grip each other. What if I removed it entirely? My Martial Aura sank into the stone, and I pushed my understanding into it. No friction. None at all. Water from the waterfall that splashed onto that section of stone didn't slow down at all. It slid across like the surface was perfectly smooth ice, maintaining its full momentum until it flew off the edge.

"Good start," Azure said.

"But that's barely a parlor trick by Heaven-Breaking standards." I spent the rest of the morning experimenting with different physical laws. Making hot things cold by reversing thermodynamics. Creating zones where sound couldn't propagate. Each success felt like forcing my understanding of reality through a tiny keyhole. By noon, I was exhausted and had only managed minor effects that lasted seconds at most. This was harder than I'd expected. I took a break to eat some rice and vegetables from the temple kitchen.

While I ate, I watched other disciples training in the courtyard. Their movements were so clean, so precise. Every technique had been polished through countless repetitions.

"That's what I'm missing," I muttered.

"What do you mean?" Azure asked.

"I'm trying to break reality through pure power and understanding. But this is the Mortal Martial World. Everything here is about technique, not raw force." After lunch, I returned to my training spot with a different approach. Instead of trying to impose grand changes on reality, what if I incorporated reality-breaking into martial techniques? I started with Swift Wind Stepping. The movement technique that Jinghui had unified with was all about unpredictability.

What if I broke the law that said I had to move through the space between two points? I took the starting stance and gathered my Martial Aura. As I stepped left, I tried to impose my will: I don't need to cross the intervening space. My foot landed three meters away, but I'd definitely moved through the space between. The reality break hadn't worked.

"You're thinking too abstractly," Azure said.

"Heaven-Breaking in this world seems to require a martial framework. Try connecting it to the technique's purpose." Swift Wind Stepping was about being impossible to predict. What made movement predictable? The fact that you could see someone moving from point A to point B. I tried again. This time, as I stepped, I focused on breaking the law that said motion had to be visible. My Martial Aura wrapped around me, and I imposed my will through the technique itself. The world blurred.

One moment I was in the starting position, the next I was three meters to the left. But this time, there was no sense of movement, no transition. I had simply stopped existing in one spot and started existing in another. If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"Excellent!" Azure said.

"You just performed a true Heaven-Breaking technique." I grinned and tried it again. Right, diagonal back, forward spin. Each movement happened instantaneously, with no visible transition. It was like reality hiccupped and I was suddenly somewhere else. The effect only lasted about ten seconds before my control slipped, and I returned to normal Swift Wind Stepping. But it was progress. The rest of the afternoon was spent refining this technique.

I learned that I could extend the duration by not fighting against reality so hard. Instead of completely breaking the law of visible motion, I could bend it. Make my movement technically visible but happening too fast for even Heaven-Breaking perception to track. By evening, I could maintain the enhanced Swift Wind Stepping for a full sixty seconds. It drained my Martial Qi like crazy, but against someone like Earth Fist Liu, sixty seconds of truly unpredictable movement could make all the difference.

The second day, I decided to focus on offense. Master Hong had left some training dummies in the chamber, probably expecting me to use them.

"Let's work on that palm strike," I said, approaching one of the dummies.

"Something that can actually threaten a martial arts master." I'd seen Feng Tianyu's techniques that could age things or shatter space itself. But those seemed too esoteric for my current skill level. I needed something that fit with Jinghui's body and the techniques I'd already learned.

"What about incorporating the concept from your Phantom Strike?" Azure suggested.

"That technique is already about delivering unexpected force." Phantom Strike was a quick palm technique that could cave in someone's chest. What law could I break to enhance it? I thought about force and impact. Normally, when you hit something, the force transfers at the moment of contact. What if I broke that law? What if the force arrived before my palm did? I set up in front of a training dummy and channeled my Martial Aura into my right palm. The energy felt dense, heavy with potential.

I struck forward, trying to impose my will: The impact arrives before the strike. My palm was still a foot away from the dummy when it suddenly caved inward, wooden splinters exploding out the back. The force had transferred through empty air.

"Interesting application," Azure said.

"You've essentially removed the requirement for physical contact." I tried it several more times, getting a feel for the timing. The hardest part was controlling when the force arrived. Too early and opponents could dodge. Too late and it defeated the purpose. After an hour of practice, I could reliably make the impact arrive about six inches before my palm. It wasn't much, but against someone expecting to block at the point of contact, it could be devastating.

"What about defense?" I asked.

"Earth Fist Liu is known for his incredible strength."

"You could try breaking the law of force transfer," Azure suggested.

"Make it so impacts don't actually reach you." I had one of the automated training dummies attack me with basic strikes. As its wooden fist approached, I covered my body in Martial Aura and tried to impose my will: Force cannot transfer to me. The fist connected and I went flying backward into the wall.

"Okay, that didn't work," I groaned, pulling myself out of the person-shaped crater.

"The concept might be too absolute," Azure said.

"Try something more specific." I thought about it while dodging the dummy's continued attacks. What if instead of negating force entirely, I changed how it behaved? Force normally traveled in straight lines from the point of impact. What if I made it curve? The dummy threw another punch. This time, I focused on bending the law of linear force transfer. Make it flow around me instead of through me. The fist connected with my chest, but instead of knocking me back, I felt the force slide along my skin like water.

It dispersed harmlessly into the air around me.

"Much better!" Azure said.

"Though it looks like it requires precise timing." He was right. I had to activate the technique at the exact moment of impact. Too early and it didn't work. Too late and I'd already taken the hit. But when I got it right, even the dummy's strongest strikes felt like gentle pushes. The rest of the day was spent integrating these Heaven-Breaking concepts into my existing martial arts techniques.

Each application drained enormous amounts of energy, but they transformed simple techniques into something genuinely threatening to high-level fighters.

The third day was when I decided to expand on my discovery with blue sun energy.

"When I fought Feng Tianyu," I said, standing in the center of the training chamber, "my tiger strike manifested as an actual spiritual tiger. I want to see if I can do that with other techniques."

"Makes sense," Azure said.

"The blue sun energy seems to grant temporary life to martial concepts in this world." I thought about which techniques to try first. The tiger had worked because there was already a strong conceptual connection between the technique name and the animal. What other martial arts here had similar associations? I started with Soaring Crane Takes Flight, a leaping technique I'd learned from one of the Echoes. As I performed the movement, I channeled blue sun energy into it while thinking about the essence of a crane.

Graceful. Precise. Elegant. The energy swirled above me and condensed into a translucent blue crane. It spread its wings and circled overhead for about four seconds before dissolving. Not as solid as the tiger had been, but definitely real enough to distract an opponent.

"The manifestation quality seems to depend on how strongly you connect with the concept," Azure observed. That made sense. I'd been desperately fighting for my life when the tiger appeared, so the emotional intensity was much higher. Still, even a brief crane manifestation could be useful. I tried Dragon Ascends to Heaven next, a rising uppercut technique. This time I poured more blue sun energy into it, really focusing on the image of a dragon. Powerful. Ancient. Unstoppable.

My fist rose and a serpentine form of blue energy followed it upward. The dragon was more detailed than the crane, with visible scales and eyes that blazed with inner light. It let out a roar that shook dust from the ceiling before fading away.

"Now we're getting somewhere," I said, grinning.

"Try combining it with Heaven-Breaking principles," Azure suggested.

"What if the manifestation could break laws too?" Interesting idea. I performed Snake Strikes Twice, a double palm technique. As I channeled blue sun energy, I focused on creating a snake that could ignore the law of solid matter. The energy formed into a blue serpent that shot forward from my palms. When it reached the training dummy, instead of hitting it, the snake passed straight through the wood. Then it solidified inside and exploded outward, destroying the dummy from within.

"Okay, that's terrifying," I admitted.

"But effective," Azure added.