Chapter 407: The Ancient and Modern Recorder (18)

The boy's name was Si Zhaonan. His daily life consisted of fishing, catching shrimp, and looking for any household that was hosting a feast so he might beg for a meal.

Si Zhaonan's parents had both died when he was young. He had grown up eating food from a hundred families. He had heard that beyond the village lay a far broader world filled with cultivators called martial artists.

The term meant little to him until Wang Dahu, the long-absent older brother of Wang Ergou at the village entrance, suddenly returned. With a single punch, Wang Dahu shattered the stone stele at the village gate that stood as tall as himself. If that punch had landed on a person, the person would have been smashed to pieces as well.

That stele, carved with the words "Sanli Village," normally caused the old village chief to hobble from door to door with his cane and demand answers if even a tiny nick appeared. Si Zhaonan had been punished by the chief more than once for such trivial damage. Yet when Wang Dahu destroyed the stele, the old chief stood nearby and dared not utter a word.

What made Si Zhaonan envy him even more was that after one trip into the mountains, Wang Dahu returned carrying the corpse of a fierce tiger. That day Si Zhaonan was fortunate enough to receive a bowl of soup containing a large piece of meat. It was delicious. For the first time, he wished to become a martial artist. Yet the very next day he had nothing to eat again.

Si Zhaonan had never imagined that the scene which existed only in his dreams would actually come true.

He had truly become a martial artist!

Three days earlier, while fishing, he had caught no fish but had instead pulled up a strange bronze mask.

At first, he wanted to sell the entire peculiar bronze mask, yet no one was willing to buy it, not even for a single ordinary meal.

Disheartened, Si Zhaonan kept the bronze mask. Out of sheer boredom, he put it on.

The moment he wore it, he seemed to see a person performing a sequence of movements before his eyes. He imitated every action one by one. To him, it felt like a dream; he was only playing. When he finally awoke, he discovered that his strength had increased several times over.

He still could not shatter a stele of his own height with a single punch the way Wang Dahu could, yet killing his former self with one blow was no longer a problem. The only bad news was that Si Zhaonan felt extremely hungry. His already thin frame had been reduced to skin and bones.

A fierce desire to survive drove him into the deep mountains in search of meat. Fortune favored him. After only a few steps, he encountered a wild rabbit. He exploded with astonishing speed, seized the rabbit, and, too starved to care whether it was raw or cooked, tore into it and swallowed it whole. Yet he only felt hungrier still.

Only then did Si Zhaonan come back to himself.

He stared at his bloodstained hands. Foul-smelling bloody foam still bubbled from his mouth.

He murmured, "Have I turned into a vicious ghost? Am I no longer human?"

"This is not the work of a ghost… Congratulations. You have become a martial artist!"

Si Zhaonan turned around. A burly man was watching him.

Wang Dahu!

Wang Dahu looked at Si Zhaonan with confusion in his eyes.

"Making such a racket in the back mountains in the middle of the night, I thought some demonic beast had broken through.

"So it was just a little fellow who had just become a martial artist. Did you fail to prepare enough flesh and blood to replenish your energy after the breakthrough?"

Si Zhaonan was still dazed.

He explained his identity, which surprised Wang Dahu. A lazy village idler had actually become a martial artist.

Fortunately, Si Zhaonan was clever enough. He claimed he had accidentally obtained a brightly colored fruit, and in his extreme hunger had swallowed it without caring whether it was poisonous. After that, he had become like this. Wang Dahu believed the strange tale, for the world was full of strange occurrences.

Si Zhaonan then heard Wang Dahu declare that he was a rare genius whose hundred meridians had all opened at once, a talent seen only once in a century, and that he should return with him to the military battlefield.

That was extremely dangerous!

Si Zhaonan finally agreed.

He wanted to see the outside world, to witness the vast and magnificent martial path that others described.

Great men had great dreams; small men had small ones. Some sought power over all under heaven, some sought wealth and glory, and some sought a name that would last through the ages. All of that felt far too distant to Si Zhaonan. In the past, he had only wanted to fill his stomach. Now that dream remained, yet another goal had been added.

He wished to leave the tiny Sanli Village and see a broader, more magnificent world.

After returning home, Si Zhaonan looked at the bronze mask still lying beside the haystack. He picked it up.

"Is this… a treasure of the immortals?"

Everything still felt like a dream, yet the dream was vividly real.

He knew he had stumbled upon tremendous luck.

This was a true treasure. Remembering how he had once tried to sell it for a single bowl of rice, Si Zhaonan wanted to slap himself. Fortunately, no one had been willing to buy it.

A few days later, Si Zhaonan set out with Wang Dahu to return to the military camp.

At the village entrance, he saw Little Hua looking at him with reluctant eyes.

Little Hua was the village flower of Sanli Village.

Every boy, young man, middle-aged man, and old man in the village held some fondness for her.

Si Zhaonan was no exception.

Ever since Wang Dahu had revealed his status as a martial artist, Si Zhaonan's standing in the village had risen to second only after Wang Dahu himself.

Little Hua had begun casting meaningful glances his way.

Si Zhaonan suppressed the excitement in his heart and ultimately chose to leave with Wang Dahu to see the wider world.

The outside was vast.

Si Zhaonan quickly learned that everyone here was a martial artist like Wang Dahu, and many were even stronger.

Fortunately, his hundred meridians had all opened, marking him as a rare martial prodigy.

In addition, he possessed the mysterious mask. Each time he wore it, a human figure appeared before him.

Later, Si Zhaonan learned that the figure was demonstrating a technique called the Heavenly Origin Art, a genuine divine-grade cultivation method.

Si Zhaonan repeatedly earned merit. After a hundred years, he had become the Grand Marshal of a dynasty's armies.

Reflecting on the journey that had brought him here, Si Zhaonan could not help feeling emotional.

The weather turned bitterly cold.

"Marshal, the weather has grown cold.

"Please put on another layer."

Si Zhaonan looked at the garment. It was yellow and embroidered with a majestic nine-clawed true dragon.

He smiled knowingly.

In less than ten years, the original dynasty had undergone earth-shaking changes. A brand-new dynasty had risen in its place, named the Heavenly Origin Dynasty.

Si Zhaonan's nearly legendary experiences quickly secured him a place among the human territories of this continent.

Beyond the Heavenly Origin Dynasty, many other forces existed in this world.

The strongest among them, the power that ruled the entire human race, was called the Sacred Mountains.