Located at the foot of the Kun Lun Mountains, the village was surrounded by verdant trees on all sides. The vast empty fields stretched underneath the clear, blue skies, farming tools, carts and equipment abandoned alongside untended crops.

The farmers had deserted their post to watch the single most important yearly event in the village. All of them had gathered in the village square, worried parents fussing over their excited children. The adults exchanged nervous glances as they forced their offspring to stand in line, fidgeting nervously as they lifted their eyes to the podium.

The village chief, an old man of about eighty, stood at the podium and cleared his throat. Taking a deep breath, he rested his weathered gaze upon the eighty-odd children who were lined up before him. They were resplendent in their golden and white ceremonial garb, chattering incessantly as they looked forward to the ceremony.

After all, this was the most important event in their lives, one that would determine the path of their futures.

"It"s very good to see you all here today." The village chief bowed politely. "As you know, today is the Evaluation Ceremony."

The parents listened intently as the village chief went through the formal speeches and explained the significance and importance of the ceremony. All very boring stuff, and several of the kids actually dozed off when listening to the old man drone on and on…

However, the moment the ceremony finally began, they snapped to full wakefulness.

"Ang Di Yi! You"re first in line. Please step forward!"

A chubby boy nervously stumbled forward, his ruddy cheeks glistening with perspiration. He approached the podium hesitantly, staring at the obsidian rock that was nestled on a mahogany table next to it.

"Please place your hands here," the village chief instructed as he gestured toward the gleaming rock. Ancient runes glowed as the obsidian stone gave off a soothing air of qi, throbbing with energy as if it was alive.

Di Yi gulped and nodded before he obediently pressed his palms against the obsidian stone. A bright light instantly flashed the moment he made contact, and arcane symbols materialized in the air above it.

The village chief studied the golden runes, and then nodded.

"Three Star Const.i.tution!"

Cheers and applause broke out from the other children and adults. The village chief nodded in approval and clapped an encouraging hand on Di Yi, who was rooted to the spot in disbelief.

"Very respectable talent," the chief told him warmly. "I look forward to seeing your exploits in future, Di Yi."

"T…thank you!"

Di Yi shuffled away, barely able to contain his excitement. Three Star Const.i.tution was rare even in the history of the village, but it guaranteed him a career as a martial artist. Even among the great Zhou Empire, martial artists with Three Star Const.i.tution could become renowned heroes who put their lives on the line to defend civilians from the demonic sects and magical beasts.

"Next! Chen Er Ren!"

Not wasting any time, the village chief turned to the next child in line. The tension continued to climb as the kids were evaluated one at a time, but unfortunately, the next ten weren"t lucky enough to receive such a high rank. Many of them received a rating of One Star Const.i.tution, which caused them to burst into tears.

Such a rank would mean they had no talent for martial arts whatsoever, and they were consigned to perform menial labor or other non-combat vocations. Most likely, the majority of them would follow their parents in becoming farmers.

With their fates determined by this single event, it was only natural that the children were all tense and anxious.

Among them, only one child seemed relaxed. Unlike the majority, he did not have any parents accompanying him. He stood alone, off to the side, his handsome face sliding into an utterly bored expression. He stifled a yawn and shook his head, causing his brown curls to rustle against his temples. He glanced at the worried children and tense adults around him, scornful of all the fuss they were making over this little event.

It wasn"t long before it was finally his turn.

"Next!" the village chief shouted. "Hao Cai Neng!"

Cai Neng leisurely strolled toward the obsidian slab, his expression as relaxed as ever. With a single, flippant motion, he stuck his hand on the stone.

Instantly, a brilliant golden glow erupted from the slab and materialized in gigantic runes above the podium. The village chief gaped at the runes, his eyes bulging in disbelief.

"F…Five Star Const.i.tution?!"

The moment the words left the chief"s lips, the entire square fell into deathly silence. Everyone present, from the youngest child to the most seasoned adult, turned to stare at the still-bored Cai Neng, who looked as if he didn"t understand what was going on.

"That"s…that"s impossible…" the village chief murmured, his aged voice cracking. "The legendary Five Star Const.i.tution, the highest in the history of Zhou Empire? Only the legendary Emperor Zhou Zui Qiang has ever achieved such a rank!"

The crowd finally remembered to breathe, gasps echoing across the square as they began mumbling to each other. The highest rank that even the oldest adults had seen was Four Star Const.i.tution, a genius who had left the village a few years ago to become a legendary martial artist in the service of the great Zhou Empire. Even a Four Star Const.i.tution was just beyond their imagination, yet here was a kid who surpa.s.sed even that!

n.o.body knew quite how to respond to this sudden turn of events.

Cai Neng yawned.

"Can I go now? I"m getting tired."

Then the square exploded into chaos. The crowd was in an uproar, with the adults rushing forward to congratulate the child, with several people rubbing their eyes in disbelief, and several children glaring daggers at him out of jealousy. There was quite the mixed reaction, and before long, Cai Neng found himself mobbed by the excited crowd.

"I don"t really see why you"re all making such a fuss," Cai Neng complained as he attempted to get away from the crowd.

"Fu Man Chu!" the village chief shouted to his deputy. "Get Cai Neng to my office! I"ll be talking to him later. The rest of you, get back in line! The ceremony"s still not over! Back! Back, the lot of you!"

As the village chief struggled to rein the agitated crowd back under his control, a middle-aged deputy with a mustache seized Cai Neng"s arm and dragged the bewildered boy away from the square and toward the biggest house in the village.

*

Cai Neng awoke with a start when someone shook him. He blinked, realizing that he must have dozed off while waiting for the village chief. Deputy Fu had placed him upon a bench outside the chief"s office, and he taken the opportunity to nestle against the soft cushion and leather to take a nap, figuring that the chief would still need quite some time to wrap up the ceremony.

"Sorry to keep you waiting. You can come in now."

"Right."

Cai Neng rubbed his eyes and stretched himself. Glancing out of the window, he saw that the skies had gotten a little darker. The ceremony had taken place close to noon, but now the sun was past its zenith. Glancing at the clock hanging in the lobby, he realized that three hours had pa.s.sed since he was brought here.

Taking his own sweet time, huh?

Cai Neng suppressed his annoyance and followed the village chief into the office. Stepping onto the polished, marble floor, he glanced around curiously. As expected, the interior was lavish, with red carpet lining the floor, and the walls polished to glimmer. Scrolls and gold-lined stationary were scattered across a large, expensive-looking wooden desk, and a large, velvet chair sat at the back. The chief wasted no time settling himself comfortably in that luxurious piece of furniture before gesturing for Cai Neng to take a seat in a slightly smaller but also similarly expensive chair on the other side of the mahogany desk.

"First of all, allow me to congratulate you."

"For what?"

Cai Neng yawned. The chief raised an eyebrow at his response.

"For being evaluated with a Five Star Const.i.tution, of course. Do you know what that means?"

"I have an idea, but I think you"re going to tell me anyway."

The chief chuckled and reclined back in his seat. "Well, it means you"ll definitely be a legendary hero in future. You have unparalleled talent for martial arts…the potential to be the strongest warrior in all of Heaven and Earth. If you harness your potential, you will become invincible…you might even achieve feats on the same scale as the legendary Emperor Zhou, the founder of our great Zhou Empire."

"So? That doesn"t mean I will."

"…huh?"

The village chief wasn"t sure he had heard Cai Neng right. The boy was scowling impatiently, crossing his arms as he glared at the chief.

"Quit wasting my time. If you want something from me, hurry up and spit it out. I"m late for my afternoon nap."

The chief was taken aback by his rudeness. There were few in the village who dared to speak to him in such a tone, and those who did were either idiots or not afraid of death. However, Cai Neng clearly belonged to the latter, so the chief merely chuckled and smiled indulgently.

"What have I done to deserve such disrespect, young one?"

"Well, you forced me to come here."

"Will it kill you to indulge an old man like me in conversation?" Then realizing what Cai Neng"s reply would be, the chief quickly raised his hand and shook his head. "Never mind. Anyway, you have great potential, and it is our duty to help you realize your innate abilities to the fullest. Our village will sponsor your enrollment in a martial arts academy. We"ll send you to Martial City where you can choose whichever martial arts academy you want to enroll in. Upon your enrollment, you"ll be granted entry to a famous sect among the Martial Arts Alliance, the Alliance who established all the various martial arts academies. Which one would you like to join? There is the Nine Tail Fox Sect, the Kun Lun Sect, the Snow Valley Sect, and the Heavenly Way Sect. These are four out of the eight strongest orthodox sects. Or you can join one of the Celestial Creature Sects…maybe the Green Dragon Sect or the White Tiger Sect. I"ll personally recommend the Kun Lun Sect, but any one of them will definitely accept you as an inner sect disciple. Under their guidance, you will reach the Qi Gathering Stage in one month, which will make you a fully-fledged martial artist…"

"Hold it," Cai Neng interrupted. "What makes you think I want to be a martial artist?"

The chief blinked. "What?"

"Honestly, all you people seem to want to do is meditate and punch other people. Boring!" Cai Neng yawned.

A long, uncomfortable silence stretched out between them.

"Well, that"s hardly what martial arts is about!" the chief laughed. "We train ourselves to become physically and spiritually stronger. If you train hard enough, you"ll be able to pull off superhuman feats. You can kill magical beasts with your bare hands, shoot energy beams, control the elements and have the heavens bow down to you! Don"t you want that kind of power? You know? Wielding fire or shooting qi beams out of your hands?"

"You conveniently left out the part where I have to go through years of super-boring training to reach that stage." Cai Neng shook his head, disgruntled. "Sounds completely unnecessary. I would rather spend my life doing something more interesting."

"Don"t worry." The village chief held up a hand of a.s.surance. "With your talent, you"ll be able to reach that level in half the time most people require."

"Still too many years for me…and it just ain"t worth the effort."

"Cai Neng," the chief said seriously. "You have the potential to be the strongest martial artist in the world. Don"t throw that away. If you do, you"ll ascend to the highest ranks…probably become the Emperor"s most trusted Divine General himself. You"ll be renowned and honored not just in this village but throughout the Zhou Empire and the Middle Continent…even the world. You could protect those you love and attain everything your heart ever desires. You could be truly great."

"I"m an orphan. I don"t have anybody I want to protect." Cai Neng rolled his eyes. "Also, that whole glory stuff sounds like too much work. I don"t want to fight people and climb to the top. I don"t care about being super-strong or becoming some stupid lapdog general that barks to the Emperor"s every whim. I just want to take naps and laze around. I just want to be happy."

"What about the happiness of everyone else?" The chief countered. "There are so many disasters and crises in this world. So much evil. You could destroy them all. You could save lives. You could fight the legendary dragons that terrorize the villages in the south. People would erect statues of you in your honor and lay down flowers at your feet. You could drive the demonic sects back to the north. You would become revered as a hero and savior of the entire Middle Continent!"

"Not my problem," Cai Neng grumbled. "Why should I risk my life for other people?"

"That," the village chief sighed. "Is remarkably selfish."

"And you forcing me to be a martial artist is not? Shoving responsibilities of being a world savior onto a kid like me?" Cai Neng retorted. "What a hypocrite you are."

"I won"t deny that," the village chief admitted. "But it"s for the greater good of the village, and the empire."

"And who decides that?" Cai Neng snapped as he turned away. "I"ve heard enough. I"m leaving."

Without another word, he strode toward the door and twisted the k.n.o.b, only to frown when it refused to budge.

"Well…as you know, this world is a cruel one. The strong rules over the weak. The word of the strong is law. If you"re weaker than someone else, you"ve to listen to them. And right now you"re weaker than me."

Cai Neng slowly turned around to glare at the village chief.

"You did something to the door, didn"t you?" he spat. "Open it."

"No," the village chief replied coldly. "Perhaps if you trained, perhaps if you were strong, you could break free. If you choose to be lazy, you"ll be subjected to the whims of those stronger than you. Like now."

"Open the door."

"No."

"I hope you feel good about yourself," Cai Neng snarled. "Bullying a 12-year-old kid like me."

The village chief shrugged. "Actually, I do feel good about it. As I said, if you"re strong, you can make others bow down to you and listen to you. That"s how this world works." His lips curled into a smile. "You should try it…I"m sure you"ll enjoy the feeling of subjugating others."

"That"s f.u.c.ked up!" Cai Neng complained.

"Maybe you"re the one who"s overly naïve." The village chief shook his head. "But I am a fair man. How about a deal? If you can break the door, I"ll allow you to leave. I"ll teach you a martial arts technique that would require most people at least a month to master. For you, one day should be enough."

Cai Neng glowered at him. "Okay, fine. Show me the move."

"First, lift your dominant arm like this…"

"No, I don"t want your instructions. Just demonstrate the move."

A fierce light shone in the old man"s eyes. He stood from his seat and slowly raised his hand. White light gathered on his palm before flattening into a gauntlet-like aura. With a single flick of his arm, the village chief sent the fist-shaped qi hurtling through the air. The energy projectile slammed into the wall and left a huge dent in it, carving out a chunk of marble with a dull thump.

"This white energy is qi," the village chief explained as he conjured another sheen of qi. "Most people are unable to gather enough of it to make it visible, so you probably won"t be able to see this white glow during your first attempt. To execute this move, all you need is to coat your palm with a thin layer of qi and then blast it toward the door."

"…"

Cai Neng studied him quietly.

"Most people can"t even sense qi to begin with. Even if it"s you, you"ll require a few hours under my guidance to finally be able to feel essence. To learn to convert essence into qi and then manipulate it will take a bit longer. This is the most basic martial arts techniques, Palm Strike." The village chief grinned. "I told you that martial artists will be able to fire off energy blasts. Still not convinced?"

Cai Neng closed his eyes in reply. When the village chief first executed Palm Strike, he had observed how the energy of the universe had gathered and condensed into a fiery brilliance in his palms. He had always sensed this energy, but never knew that he could use it in such a manner. Now that the village chief had shown him how, he could attempt it. Raising his hands, he mimicked the village chief and summoned the qi around him.

Warmth circulated around him, and he channeled the qi into his palms. He focused on the exact qi pathways that he had seen circulate into the chief"s strike, acc.u.mulating as much qi as possible into the palm of his hand. With a flick of his hand, he imitated the chief and unleashed the qi in a single burst, but the white energy fizzled out almost as quickly as it appeared.

"A very impressive first effort," the chief praised him sincerely. "But…"

But Cai Neng wasn"t paying any attention to him.

Instead, he repeated the procedure and gathered qi into his hands before lashing out again. This time, he relaxed so as to make his movement a lot less rigid and forced. Glimmers of light burst to life along the edges of his palm, coating his hand in a silvery aura. He swung it with as much force as possible.

A second before the white energy blast made contact with the door, it stopped, as if hitting an invisible barrier, and dissipated.

Cai Neng turned to the chief, who was staring at him with wide eyes.

"A day, you said?" he mocked the older man.

Blinding light erupted across the room. Time seemed to slow as the essence of the universe condensed into a ferocious supernova in his palm. The next moment, blazing fury rent wood apart in an explosion of splinters. When the white flash died down, the village chief could only gape in disbelief at the ravaged, scorched remains of his door. By the time he recovered from his shock, Cai Neng was long gone.

*

"b.l.o.o.d.y geezer."

Grumbling to himself, Cai Neng stomped toward his home. Flinging his door open, he barely threw himself inside his house and plopped down onto the ground, exhausted. Martial arts burned away a tremendous amount of energy and he was now feeling completely spent.

Good. This was a great time to take a nap. It wasn"t ideal to nap on the floor, but the b.a.s.t.a.r.d village chief had made him late for his nap and right now he didn"t care if he was in the bed or out in the woods. He just wanted to sleep.

"…huh?"

Cai Neng blinked when he realized that something was amiss. Earlier, he didn"t realize it because he was tired, but now he remembered that he had locked the door before he left for that stupid ceremony earlier that morning.

Yet he had just flung it open without unlocking it with his keys.

"What?!"

Cai Neng bolted to his feet, his weariness suddenly forgotten. He tensed when he sensed that he wasn"t alone in his house.

There was an intruder. No…there were many intruders.

"Ah, d.a.m.n it! Can"t everyone just leave me alone?!" he howled in exasperation. Gathering qi into his hand as he recalled the move he had just learned from the village chief, he stomped angrily toward the trespa.s.sers.

There was a rustle as the intruders became aware that he had just returned home. However, Cai Neng was in no mood to wait for an explanation.

"Get out of my house," he snarled. "I"m in a foul mood today, and if you"re going to bother me about this whole martial artist thing again, I swear I"ll kick your a.s.s…"

He never completed his sentence. A scythe swung through the air.

"…eh?"

Cai Neng never saw the attack coming. The next thing he knew, his vision was spiraling upward, the floor, walls and ceiling of his house rolling around like some disorientated marble. There was a thud and a spray of something wet hitting the ground. As the constantly shifting vision stopped, he caught sight of a headless body wobbling, a geyser of blood spurting from its neck.

"Ah…I thought this house was abandoned."

A ma.s.sive man with red skin and black tattoos strode out of the shadows, stroking his bloodstained scythe. He stared disdainfully at the headless body and then at Cai Neng, even as the shadows stirred behind him.

To Cai Neng"s shock, he found that he actually recognized that ma.s.sive man. That was Tian Sha Tian Zun, one of the most malicious and cruel exponents of the demonic way. He was the sect leader of the Tian Sha Sect – that must mean the other intruders hidden in the shadows were his subordinates.

But that wasn"t the most shocking thing at all.

Cai Neng understood that the headless body that he was seeing belonged to him.

W…what happened? No way…

Cai Neng tried to say something, but his voice wouldn"t come out. It was only natural. His head had been completely severed from his body, his throat cleanly sliced into two. His vocal chords were separated from his mouth, drenched in the gushing geyser of blood.

"Hmph. Just a rotten kid."

Tian Sha Tian Zun"s lips curled into a sneer as he gazed down on Cai Neng, who was gradually being swept away by the darkness of oblivion. Cai Neng couldn"t even follow Tian Sha Tian Zun as the demonic sect leader stalked off to some other part of his house, presumably looking for something. He would find nothing.

An orphan like Cai Neng didn"t own anything, after all.

As Cai Neng"s consciousness was consumed, he felt a deep sense of regret. If he had taken the village chief"s advice, he wouldn"t have died a pathetic, dog"s death like this. He would be learning martial arts right now and fighting monsters like this smug, red-skinned b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

But it was too late.

Just like that, the promising life of Hao Cai Neng was cruelly cut short.