Morning mist clung to the training grounds as Lin Hao's boots crunched over gravel seasoned with decades of weapon oil. The Black Tortoise Hall's shadow loomed ahead—a beast of weathered stone and ironwood beams groaning under its own history. Lei Meng's bowstring hummed at his back, its vibration syncing with Lin Hao's enhanced auditory nerves like a plucked bass string.

  "You sure about skipping spellcraft?" Lei Meng's breath fogged in the chill air. His bow's leather grip creaked under calloused fingers, releasing whiffs of cured yak hide.

  Lin Hao's cane tapped a rhythm only Four Treasures understood. "Blades sing clearer than incantations." The parrot's talons tightened in agreement, leaving half-moon indents on his shoulder pad.

  They passed under an archway carved with serpentine combat forms. Lin Hao's nostrils flared—stone dust, ancient sweat trapped in mortar, the metallic tang of a thousand whetstones. Four Treabytes' telepathic snort echoed: Smells like stale violence.

  ——

  Lei Meng's bow thrummed with restrained power as he shouldered through the crowd. Novices scattered like startled quail, their indignant protests dying against his mountain-forged silhouette. Four Treasures catalogued their fear-sweat—sour apple adrenaline under citrus colognes.

  "Third column, seventh row." The parrot's beak clicked like a librarian's stamp.

  Lin Hao's cane found the classroom doorframe. Frosted talisman paper crinkled beneath his fingertips, its enchantments buzzing like wasps in a jar. Inside, wooden training dummies stood sentinel—their sand-filled guts leaking through decades of stab wounds.

  A girl's laughter sliced through the murmurs—crisp as autumn frost. "Watch the blind one trip!" Her jasmine perfume clashed with the hall's musk.

  Four Treasures' feathers ruffled. Peacock alert. Three o'clock.

  Lin Hao's cane swept wide, intercepting the sneaky blade thrust meant to topple him. Steel met enchanted ironwood with a clang that silenced the room. The would-be tripper staggered back, his swordtip now resembling a shepherd's crook.

  "Apologies." Lin Hao's smile carried winter's bite. "My cane has a taste for cheap steel."

  ——

  The classroom door groaned open, revealing a nest of mismatched desks. A black-haired youth snored at the center, his cheek pressed against a grimoire leaking shadow-smoke. Four Treabytes' thermal vision showed impossible cold radiating from his pores—a living void sucking in the morning light.

  Lin Hao chose the seat beside this human black hole. The desk's carved graffiti told stories under his fingers: crude dragons, vulgar limericks, a surprisingly competent etching of the headmaster's bald pate.

  Chaos erupted as the injured bully's dagger rebounded via shadowy vortex. Four Treabytes' lenses captured the physics—angle of incidence matching angle of regret, steel finding home in its owner's thigh.

  "Darkness affinity!" someone whispered. "That's reverse karma technique!"

  The sleeping youth yawned, stretching arms that momentarily blurred at the edges. "Can't a man nap?" His breath smelled of midnight orchids and burnt sugar.

  ——

  The accuser arrived in a storm of jasmine and entitlement. "You'll pay for this!" Her jade hairpin quivered like a struck tuning fork.

  Four Treabytes analyzed her stance: knees locked (poor balance), dominant foot overextended (predictable lunge), pheromone spike (48% rage, 32% fascination, 20% latent pyromania).

  Lin Hao leaned back, chair creaking. "Your friend attacked first."

  "Liar! You're just a—"

  "Third-grade warrior?" The shadow-drunk youth lifted his head, eyes like condensed event horizons. "Who here can sense his meridians?"

  Silence thickened. Four Treabytes recorded seventeen students attempting subtle qi probes, their spiritual feelers shriveling against Lin Hao's dragon-tempered aura.

  The girl's face flushed poppy-red. "This isn't over!" Her retreating footsteps left ozone scorch marks on the flagstones.

  ——

  Lei Meng reappeared as the gong signaled first bell. His bow's tension wire hummed in harmony with the vibrating bronze. "Twenty-first class has three Mountain Clan brothers. They smell like wet bears."

  Lin Hao's cane traced the desk's combat diagrams—centuries of student boredom transformed into martial art masterpieces. "Good hunting?"

  "Better." Lei Meng patted a bulging pouch. "Traded arrowheads for fire talismans. The alchemy girls like shiny things."

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  Four Treabytes' ocular sensors zoomed in—crude but functional explosives wrapped in pink silk. Romantic pyrotechnics.

  ——

  The morning's instructor arrived trailing sulfur and disappointment. His armor clanked like a poorly maintained kiln, each plate etched with demerit tallies. Four Treabytes cross-referenced facial scars—veteran of seventeen student revolts, last recorded using the "Falling Meteor" disciplinary technique.

  "First lesson!" His roar shook dust from the rafters. "Any fool can swing steel. Warriors must become steel!"

  A training dummy exploded into kindling. Lin Hao's wind affinity caught a spinning splinter—its trajectory calculating seventeen possible counterattacks before the shard even stabilized.

  The shadow-boy sneezed, accidentally unraveling a desk into sawdust. "Oops."

  ——

  By noon, Lin Hao's meridians thrummed with stolen knowledge. Each parry demonstration became tactile scripture, every footwork diagram a dance scored into muscle memory. Four Treabytes archived it all—the twitch of Instructor Gao's eyelid (impending tantrum), the exact pressure needed to fracture a practice sword's quillon (3.2 newtons), the acidic aftertaste of cheap canteen noodles (regret in broth form).

  As dismissal gongs echoed, the shadow-drunk youth stretched, his outline momentarily consuming the sunlight. "Name's Mo Xu." He nodded at Lin Hao's cane. "That's no ordinary stick."

  "Lin Hao." He tapped the ironwood shaft. "And this is no ordinary target."

  Four Treabytes' infrared detected the smirk beneath Mo Xu's shadow veil. Predators recognize predators.

  ——

  The walk back smelled of impending storms and roasted chestnuts. Lei Meng's bowstring hummed counterpoint to distant thunder. Four Treabytes' plumage fluffed against the rising damp.

  "Tomorrow," Lei Meng promised, "I'll show you the draw that pierces cloud layers."

  Lin Hao's cane found a loose cobblestone. "Looking forward to it."

  Somewhere above, the Wolf Spider's mandibles clicked in anticipation.

  The Ancient Bloodline

  The ponytailed beauty’s jasmine-scented rage hung thick as summer humidity. Her finger jabbed through Lin Hao’s personal space, nail polish glinting like poisoned daggers. Four Treasures’ talons flexed, shredding the classroom’s tension into confetti-sized threats.

  Mo Xu—the shadow-drunk youth—blinked sleep from his event horizon eyes. “Huh? Me hurt your friend?” His breath carried the sweetness of overripe plums left to ferment in moonlight. “Which friend? Where?”

  The wounded bully staggered forward, his arm weeping rust-colored tears around the embedded blade. The metallic stench of fresh blood mingled with the classroom’s chalk dust and lingering breakfast buns. Lin Hao’s enhanced hearing caught the drip-drip of ichor hitting floorboards—three-second intervals, growing weaker.

  Instructor Wu’s arrival silenced the room like a guillotine drop. His armor plates clanked out a disciplinary rhythm—left greave dented from last year’s troublemaker, right pauldron still smelling of sulfur from morning alchemy drills.

  “Explain.” The single word carried the weight of executioner’s axes.

  Lin Hao’s cane tapped an innocuous rhythm against his boot. “They played with fire.” His tone mimicked spring thaw—deceptively mild. “Got burned.”

  Mo Xu’s shadow tendrils lazily coiled around a desk leg, digesting splinters. “Was napping,” he mumbled through a yawn that briefly warped the air. “Still am.”

  The accuser’s jade hairpin trembled like a compass needle near lodestone. “Lies! They—”

  “Enough.” Instructor Wu’s gauntleted hand crushed the complaint mid-air. His gaze swept the room, lingering on Mo Xu’s shadow-wreathed form and Lin Hao’s deceptively placid posture. The veteran instructor’s scarred nostrils flared—decades of battlefield instincts recognizing predators in student clothing.

  Dismissal came swift as a headsman’s stroke.

  ——

  Post-lecture sunlight slanted through dusty windows, gilding the jade slip in Instructor Wu’s palm. Its surface rippled with trapped knowledge—a frozen river awaiting spring.

  “For you.” The instructor’s calloused fingers released the artifact like a sacred offering. “Foundational texts. Breathe it in.”

  The jade slip chilled Lin Hao’s palm—winter lake cold seeping through callouses. Mo Xu’s drool formed a tiny galaxy on his desk as Instructor Wu’s baritone explained, “Mind links with mineral. Knowledge bleeds through.”

  Lin Hao’s consciousness plunged.

  The void welcomed him with fractal geometries—sword forms blooming like frost crystals, footwork diagrams spinning like dying stars. Four Treabytes’ telepathic screech barely registered: Overload! Overload!

  Mo Xu’s shadow stretched curiously across the floor. “Careful,” he drawled, nibbling a stolen honey cake. “Old Wu’s primers bite.”

  ——

  Nightfall found Lin Hao practicing in a moonlit courtyard. His movements echoed the jade slip’s wisdom—each strike precise as calligraphy, each pivot flowing like ink across parchment. The Wolf Spider’s venom glands purred approval at the lethal ballet.

  Kung Fu Fly’s surveillance feed projected against his retinas: Ma Juntain’s medical cot surrounded by weeping relatives, the ponytailed beauty storming through administrative halls, Mo Xu bartering shadow-woven trinkets for dumplings.

  Four Treasures regurgitated a warning: Snoop approaching.

  Qin Yu materialized from perfume clouds, his rainbow sash clashing violently with the moon’s silver pallor. “Heard you’ve been collecting enemies like trophies.”

  Lin Hao’s practice blade never wavered. “They collect themselves.”

  “The Ancient House brat...” Qin Yu’s fan snapped shut, impaling a moth mid-flight. “Their shadows eat kingdoms. Tread lightly.”

  The warning dissolved with its bearer, leaving behind cloying sandalwood and unanswered questions.

  ——

  Dawn’s first light revealed the jade slip’s true nature—cracks spreading like cobwebs across its surface. Lin Hao’s midnight practice had drained it to husk. Mo Xu’s laughter echoed from the rafters where he dangled bat-like.

  “Told you,” he sing-songed, shadow tendrils stealing a steamed bun from Lin Hao’s breakfast. “Wu’s gifts come teeth-first.”

  The classroom door groaned open to Instructor Wu’s approving nod. His gaze swept the exhausted but intact student body—lingering longest on Lin Hao’s ink-stained fingers and Mo Xu’s crumb-strewn shadows.

  “Today,” he rumbled, “we dissect failure.”

  A preserved corpse slammed onto the demonstration table—some long-dead warrior mid-battle cry, frozen in eternal humiliation. Rancid preservation oils assaulted nostrils.

  “This,” Wu’s blade tip traced a fatal scar across the cadaver’s ribs, “is what happens when arrogance outpaces skill.”

  Lin Hao’s wind affinity caught the whisper of decaying viscera, the creak of ancient bone. Four Treabytes catalogued seven hidden weapons in the corpse’s remains—a lesson within a lesson.

  Mo Xu’s shadow poked the dead man’s eyeball. “Still fresher than cafeteria fish.”

  ——

  By midday, the jade slip’s knowledge pulsed in Lin Hao’s veins—a second heartbeat of borrowed wisdom. Instructor Wu’s voice carved itself into muscle memory:

  “Warrior cultivation channels earthly qi through marrow and sinew.”

  “Mages weave cosmic threads into—”

  A snore from Mo Xu’s desk punctuated the lesson. Lin Hao’s nostrils flared, catching the ozone tang of neglected potential among yawning classmates.

  The Wolf Spider’s mandibles clicked impatiently.

  Tomorrow’s challenges.

  Tonight’s evolution.