High Martial Arts: Enlightenment after Practices

The fabric was a special composite fiber, light and flexible, providing both protection and temperature regulation. Over it, he wore the specialized protective suit for Liang Wei Third, silver-gray, with a built-in life support system.

The Liaoyuan Long Spear was secured to his back with a specialized strap, its tip pointing upward for a quick draw.

Energy Supplements, a medical kit, emergency rations... These items were sorted and packed into the various pockets of his tactical vest.

Finally, he checked his personal terminal and encrypted storage device, confirming all data had been downloaded.

All preparations were complete. It had only taken ten minutes.

Old Meng watched him, a hint of approval flashing in his eyes. ”There aren’t many young people as composed as you.”

”The mission requires it,” Xu Wuyi said calmly.

”True enough.” Old Meng leaned on his cane and walked to the entrance of the channel. ”Go on, then. Remember, the flow of time inside the channel is different from the outside. You might feel like a long time has passed, but it could actually be just a few minutes.”

”Keep your Heart Image stable. Follow the flow of the Energy. Don’t resist it, and don’t try to speed up.”

”Understood.”

Xu Wuyi walked to the channel’s entrance.

Up close, the pale blue ball of light was even more unstable. Tiny electric arcs constantly leaped across its surface, emitting a faint CRACKLE.

He could feel a spatial tearing sensation coming from within, as if an invisible, giant hand was trying to drag him inside.

”Martial Artist Xu,” a technician reported from the control console. ”The channel has stabilized to its optimal state. You may enter.”

Xu Wuyi took a deep breath.

The phantom image of a dark gold Great Marsh flashed behind him and vanished. The Power of his Heart Image flowed through his body, forming an invisible shield on his skin.

Then, he stepped into the ball of light.

There was no sound.

Nor was there the violent impact he had imagined.

There was only a strange sense of weightlessness, as if his entire being had been thrown into the deep sea, surrounded by a viscous and heavy darkness.

Then, the tearing sensation began.

It came not from one direction, but from all of them. Every inch of skin, every muscle, every bone felt as if it were about to be ripped apart.

Xu Wuyi immediately circulated the Power of his Heart Image. The ’breathing’ rhythm of the dark gold Great Marsh quickened. A Gravity Field spread out from his center, forming a stable, spherical Domain.

The tearing sensation immediately lessened by more than half.

Inside the channel, there was no light and no visible points of reference—only endless darkness and the Energy Turbulence flowing within it.

Xu Wuyi advanced, following the direction of the Energy flow.

It wasn’t walking, nor was it flying. It was a stranger form of movement. He felt as if he had become a part of the channel itself, moving along with its overall ’flow’.

His sense of time did indeed become blurry.

Five minutes might have passed, or perhaps fifty. He could only roughly estimate the time by the consumption rate of his Power of Heart Image.

When he had consumed about twenty percent of it, something changed up ahead.

At the end of the darkness, a tiny point of light appeared.

The point of light was initially the size of a pinprick, but as he drew closer, it rapidly expanded into a circular exit. Beyond the exit was a pale sky and a blinding white light.

He had arrived.

Xu Wuyi adjusted the output of his Power of Heart Image, forming a denser shield over his body, and then accelerated toward the exit.

The moment he passed through the membrane of light, a bone-chilling cold rushed over him.

Gale-force winds howled, and the RAT-TAT-TAT of ice pellets striking his face shield was as dense as rain.

Liang Wei Third. The polar ice fields.

Xu Wuyi landed, his knees slightly bent to absorb the impact, and quickly scanned his surroundings.

An endless expanse of white, a lead-gray sky. Visibility was less than five hundred meters.

The environmental data on his face shield began to refresh: Temperature, negative forty-two degrees Celsius. Wind force, Level 7. Atmospheric oxygen content, 31%...

It was a perfect match for the data he had reviewed.

Without delay, Xu Wuyi confirmed his position.

His personal terminal automatically connected to a hidden beacon. The map interface expanded, showing his green dot appearing slightly east of the polar center.

Six hundred kilometers from the target, the crater canyon.

He glanced at the time. Twenty-seven minutes had passed in the outside world since he entered the channel.

The Federation’s six-person negotiation team should be arriving at the Great Liang border at around the same time.

’Perfect timing.’

Xu Wuyi took a deep breath as his face shield automatically supplied a gas mixture with 40% oxygen.

At the same time, his terminal received an encrypted signal from the trapped team.

”This is ’Probe Seven,’ identity verification passed. Martial Artist Xu, have you arrived?” The signal was somewhat choppy, but the speaker’s suppressed excitement was audible.

”I’ve reached the polar region,” Xu Wuyi replied. ”Report your situation.”

”Three with minor injuries, one with severe injuries but now stable. The Starship’s camouflage is intact; we haven’t been discovered yet. But the last Great Liang search party passed only eight kilometers from our position.”

”Search party composition?”

”Five members. The leader is at the peak of the Innate realm, the other four are mid-stage Innate. They’re using a compass-like artifact to detect Energy Fluctuations. Our cloaking device can hold out for... twenty hours at most.”

’Twenty hours. That’s less than half of the forty-eight hours the military estimated.’

Xu Wuyi frowned. ”I’m departing immediately. Maintain radio silence and wait for my contact.”

”Understood.”

The communication cut off.

Xu Wuyi checked the map again. Six hundred kilometers. In an environment with 0.82 times normal Gravity and a thin atmosphere, it would take three to four hours to travel at full speed.

He took a deep breath and executed his Quicksand Step. His form blurred into a dark gold phantom, skimming across the surface of the ice field.

He didn’t use the Power of his Heart Image to accelerate, relying purely on physical strength. In this environment, any abnormal Energy Fluctuation could be detected by Great Liang’s artifacts.

The ice field was a vast, open expanse with no cover whatsoever.

The journey was monotonous.

The sound of the wind, the rattle of ice pellets, his own steady breathing. Beyond that, there was only a dead, white silence.

As he ran, Xu Wuyi reviewed the data on Great Liang’s Martial Artists in his mind.

”Sub-Saint,” the title for a Quasi-Grandmaster Level Martial Artist. There weren’t many Martial Artists of this caliber in Great Liang; each one was a major figure who held dominion over a region.

’Liang Wei Third originally had only one Sub-Saint stationed there, but now the number has increased to three. I wonder if I’ll run into one.’

Just as he was thinking this, something changed on the horizon ahead.

At the edge of the ice field, the faint silhouette of a black mountain ridge became visible.

That was the mountain range encircling the polar region. Over those mountains lay the mid-latitude zone of Liang Wei Third, where the environment would be relatively milder.

Xu Wuyi picked up his pace.

Two hours later, he arrived at the foot of the mountain range.

The wind was much calmer here, and the temperature had risen to around negative twenty degrees Celsius. The mountains were made of dark gray rock, their surfaces covered in a thick layer of ice.

Xu Wuyi chose not to climb over the peaks; that would be too conspicuous. He followed the base of the mountains, found a fissure canyon carved out by a glacier, and passed through it.

On the other side of the canyon, the scenery was completely different.

The ice field was gone, replaced by a dark red Gobi desert.