Chapter 40: Senior Zhang’s Thunderous Wake-Up Call

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“Do you know why I was able to lead you astray so easily?”

Zhang Zhiwei did not reject the title of senior. His strength far surpassed Fengping’s, so he was more than worthy of it.

“Because you’re stronger than me, Senior!” Fengping replied.

Zhang Zhiwei did not deny it. “How would you rate your skill with fire?”

“My skill with fire?” Fengping asked seriously. “Do you mean fire control, without involving any other techniques?”

“Exactly.” Zhang Zhiwei nodded.

Fengping answered modestly, “I entered the Fire Virtue Sect as a child and have trained ever since—tempering myself day after day, through the bitterest winter and the hottest summer. When it comes to controlling fire, I suppose I’m fairly competent.”

“Fairly competent?” Zhang Zhiwei grinned. “You only control fire? You don’t cultivate your body and spirit?”

“Of course I do!” Fengping answered honestly. “Ever since I set foot on the path of cultivation, I’ve never stopped.”

“And how far have you gotten?”

“I’ve achieved a modest degree of mastery, I suppose.”

Although Fengping and Lu Ci had suffered setbacks, Fengping was the direct heir of the Fire Virtue Sect, and his cultivation still placed him among the finest of his generation. Naturally, there was no comparing him with Zhang Zhiwei.

“A modest degree of mastery?” Zhang Zhiwei tilted his head. “By your way of putting it, cultivating the body and spirit is easy, while mastering techniques is difficult?”

Fengping replied truthfully, “Cultivating the body and spirit is a matter of accumulation over time, a painstaking process that allows no shortcuts. Techniques, on the other hand, depend on insight, so they are naturally more difficult. What is more, a powerful technique can multiply one’s strength. Naturally, mastering techniques is even more important.”

That was the consensus throughout the world of adepts.

Zhang Zhiwei curled his lip but did not argue. He patiently continued, “How many stages do you think there are in mastering a technique?”

Without hesitation, Fengping answered, “Being able to use it proficiently counts as minor mastery. Complete mastery, perfect integration, and reaching the realm of transformation count as great mastery.”

Zhang Zhiwei shook his head. “Wrong. Proficiency is merely scratching the surface. Understanding its true meaning, comprehending its essence, and integrating it with yourself—that is minor mastery.”

At that, both men fell silent.

Zhang Zhiwei thought there was no need to discuss great mastery. Fengping was still at the rudimentary stage, and there was no point in saying more.

Fengping, meanwhile, was stunned. He carefully turned Zhang Zhiwei’s words over in his mind. If proficiency was only scratching the surface, and understanding the essence counted as minor mastery, then what was he? Still at the surface—or had he reached minor mastery?

After a moment of silence, Zhang Zhiwei said, “Since you hold your technique in such high regard, let me see your ability to control fire. Attack me.”

Fengping froze and did not dare make a move.

“Attack!” Zhang Zhiwei barked.

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This time, Fengping did not hesitate. A flaming blade condensed in his hand, and he swung it at Zhang Zhiwei.

Zhang Zhiwei neither dodged nor used any special technique. He merely extended a finger and sent out a strand of qi. It struck Fengping’s flaming blade and dispersed it instantly.

Fengping stumbled back two steps. He stared at his now-empty hand, his heart filled with uncertainty.

The flaming blade had been formed by transforming the qi within his body. Having felt it disperse so effortlessly, he naturally knew exactly what had happened.

Yet that was precisely why he was so bewildered. It was not that the force had been too powerful for his flaming blade to withstand.

The force had been weak—his flaming blade should have been able to endure it. And yet, inexplicably, it had not.

The reason was that the blow had struck the point where the qi within him was most difficult to control. Thus, even a light strike had been enough to scatter his technique.

A coincidence?

“So this is what you call fairly competent?” Zhang Zhiwei said. “Again.”

Fengping gritted his teeth, summoned another flaming blade, and charged forward. Just as before, it was effortlessly dispersed by a strand of qi far weaker than the blade itself.

Staring at his empty hand once more, Fengping was now certain. It had not been a coincidence. He was simply inferior.

Even without using any special technique—even using qi whose force was far weaker than that of his flaming blade—the other man could easily break the technique he was most proud of. And he had done so with brutal simplicity.

He had encountered a true master...

Fengping was not a fool. A master who came looking for him surely had no intention of merely amusing himself. With a loud slap, he dropped to his knees and bowed.

“Please instruct me, Senior!”

“What do you want me to instruct you in?” Zhang Zhiwei asked.

He had not come to Fengping to show off, nor because he enjoyed playing the teacher.

It was merely that his earlier little maneuver had cost the young man dearly. Fengping had lost both his dignity and his money.

People said that one should act without shame before one’s own conscience. What he had done had been somewhat unfair, so he had come to offer Fengping some guidance.

“How can I achieve minor mastery of a technique? How can I comprehend its essence?” Fengping asked hurriedly.

“How did your master teach you?” Zhang Zhiwei asked.

“My master said that the nature of fire is violence, combustion, endless variation, and the ability to penetrate every opening...” Fengping recited at length.

“And how did you put that into practice?” Zhang Zhiwei asked.

“I took all of those qualities into account!” Fengping replied.

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Zhang Zhiwei shook his head. “You took nothing into account. You haven’t comprehended the essence at all. You think you accounted for everything, but in reality, you accounted for nothing. Your so-called consideration of every aspect is nothing but an empty imitation.

“That is why I was able to pull your fire dragon off course with a single motion. That is why your fire blade could not break Lu Ci’s Wishful Force. And that is why the technique you were so proud of was scattered by an utterly ordinary strand of qi!”

Fengping’s face flushed scarlet. He was rendered speechless. Yet, unexpectedly, he felt no resentment. It did seem to be true. Within the Fire Virtue Sect, he was indeed one of the best. But once he stepped outside the sect, he was no longer anything special.

“You tried to account for everything—this and that at once. A poor student with a desk full of stationery: little ability, yet grand ambitions!”

Zhang Zhiwei spread open his hand. A cluster of silver lightning rose from his palm, its surface wreathed in a faint blue flame.

The Yang Five Thunders were formed from the qi of heart-fire and lung-metal. Zhang Zhiwei naturally knew how to use fire as well, and teaching Fengping was well within his abilities.

“Look. Look carefully at what I’m holding. Gather your essence, energy, and spirit to observe it. Use your very life to see it!”

Hearing this, Fengping immediately held his breath and stilled his mind. He focused all his attention on the lightning and flames in Zhang Zhiwei’s palm, staring until his eyes nearly strained from their sockets.

At first, the display seemed utterly ordinary. But after he had stared for a long while, until his vision blurred, Fengping suddenly felt the lightning in Zhang Zhiwei’s palm expand with explosive speed.

A silver tide of lightning burst forth and swallowed him whole, leaving him without even the desire to resist.

Then the lightning tide vanished as quickly as it had appeared, as though what he had just witnessed had merely been an illusion.

“What did you see?” Zhang Zhiwei asked.

Fengping’s eyes were wide, his face filled with lingering terror. He murmured, “The ultimate speed. The ultimate destructive power. The ultimate control.”

As one of the future Thirty-Six Outlaws, Fengping’s insight was naturally not lacking. Besides, Zhang Zhiwei had deliberately put on that display for him.

“That is what it means to be fast, ruthless, and precise,” Zhang Zhiwei said. “Cultivation is not filled with so many needless complications. Grasp the fundamental essence of a technique and move forward from there. Everything else is merely a trivial branch—an embellishment that only makes things worse.”

Fengping’s master had said similar words to him. His master’s master had said them to his master, and his master’s grandmaster had said them to his master’s master. Everyone had his own interpretation, but by now the words had become nothing more than a stock phrase.

Knowledge gained from books always feels shallow in the end. No matter how much one is told, it cannot compare with experiencing the truth firsthand. The demonstration of the Yang Five Thunders that Zhang Zhiwei had deliberately shown Fengping had unquestionably struck him like a blow to the head.

It made him realize that the things he had once been proud of were like castles built upon sand dunes—beautiful in appearance, yet hollow and fragile, collapsing at the slightest touch.

“Senior, I understand now!”

Fengping cried out in delight and immediately performed several grand bows, striking the ground with each one. But he was bowing to empty space.

When he raised his head, all he saw was Zhang Zhiwei’s retreating back.

“What should I call you, Senior?” Fengping shouted as he sprang to his feet.

“My surname is Zhang...”