The rain over Jiangnan had transitioned into a heavy, suffocating morning mist that clung to the jagged topography of the southern hills. Far away from the frantic sirens and flashing news broadcasts detailing the sudden political decapitation of the Zhao Groupâs security division, a generic regional transit bus groaned as it crawled up the winding mountain pass.
Lin Feng sat in the last row, his forehead leaning lightly against the vibrating glass windowpane. He had changed into a dry, unremarkable gray utility jacket, his worn backpack resting firmly between his knees.
To the handful of elderly farmers and early-morning commuters sharing the cabin, he looked like nothing more than a broke university student escaping the urban sprawl for a cheap hiking weekend. Nobody noticed that his breathing didn't match the shifting atmospheric pressure of the high altitude, nor did anyone realize that his skin possessed an unnaturally clean, porcelain smoothness that completely repelled the ambient dust of the old bus chassis.
Stage 9 Peak,
Lin Feng thought, his internal gaze scanning the intricate architecture of his
Dantian
.
The skeletal structure is perfectly compressed, the bone marrow is purified, and the muscle fibers are locked like high-tensile alloy weaves. But this is the absolute limit of the mortal container. To progress any furtherâto survive the tectonic ruptures that will dismantle Huaxia in less than a yearâI must completely shatter the threshold of Flesh Refinement and establish my first true Qi Circulation channel.
To achieve that, he didn't need more raw spiritual power. He needed a geographic catalyst.
The bus hissed to a halt at a remote mountain crossroads marked only by a rusted iron shelter. Lin Feng slung his pack over one shoulder and stepped down onto the wet gravel. The vehicle rattled away into the fog, leaving him entirely alone on the deserted asphalt.
He turned his gaze toward the crest of the adjacent ridge. Squeezed between the pine forests and the sheer limestone cliffs was a massive, sprawling complex of traditional courtyards, guarded by high white walls, modern security fences, and a network of automated tracking cameras.
The Zhao Family Ancestral Estate.
In his previous life, this estate was revered by independent mercenaries as the "Southern Dragon Head." The Zhao clan had built their lineage directly over an ancient, subterranean fault reservoir. When the Great Awakening occurred, the bedrock beneath this manor didn't just leak energyâit burst upward in a continuous, crystalline column of primal Qi, transforming the family estate into a natural, high-grade spiritual sanctuary overnight.
Lin Feng checked his cheap phone. The decentralized network browser was dead; he had intentionally destroyed his "Xuanwu" data profile back in the city cellar to permanently sever his digital trail. But he didn't need internet updates to know what was happening down in the Jiangnan financial districts.
Bai Qingxiâs clean-up crews will have secured the Phoenix Street courtyard by dawn,
he calculated calmly, stepping off the paved road and into the dense, muddy brush of the forest line.
With Zhao Kun neutralized and his elite vanguard broken, the corporate directors of the Zhao Group will be locked in emergency board meetings, frantically shifting their liquidity and assuming a hostile regulatory purge is being executed by the Bai family. Their communication channels will be in absolute chaos. They wonât realize their ancestral foundation is exposed until my footprint is already hammered into their stone.
He navigated the dense thicket with absolute, terrifying silence. His boots didn't leave impressions in the deep clay, and the wet ferns brushed past his utility jacket without a single rustle. At Stage 9 Peak, his bodyâs micro-friction was completely synchronized with the natural environment.
Within twenty minutes, Lin Feng reached the northern perimeter wall of the ancestral estate, crouching behind the thick trunk of an old cedar tree.
He looked up at the defensive array. A three-meter-high concrete barrier topped with high-voltage concertina wire stretched across the ridge. Every fifty meters, an automated, weather-proof security pod housing a rotating thermal camera and a localized motion sensor scanned the tree line.
A standard industrial security array,
Lin Feng analyzed, his eyes scanning the wiring conduits running along the base of the wall.
But the placement has a fundamental vulnerability. To maintain structural grounding against the mountainous lightning strikes, the main electrical intake loop must pass directly through the subterranean drainage culvert.
He dropped down onto his stomach, sliding beneath a heavy thicket of brambles until his fingers made contact with the cold steel bars of a reinforced water outflow grate built into the foundation of the concrete wall.
Through the bars, the dark, stagnant water flowing from the estateâs interior smelled faintly of sulfur, old stone, and an unmistakable, intoxicating sweetness.
Lin Fengâs eyes widened slightly in the gloom, a cold flash of golden light reflecting in his pupils.
The secondary fault line has already fractured beneath their basement,
he realized, his pulse remaining perfectly flat.
The high-density spiritual vapor is leaking into their grey-water system. The Zhao clan thinks itâs just a broken geothermal pipe. Arrogant monkeys.
He gripped two of the thick, reinforced iron bars of the drainage grate with his bare right hand. He didn't execute a flashy martial arts strike or invoke a complex technique. He simply guided a fraction of his compressed physical mass into his fingertips, tightening his grip with a slow, controlled flex of his forearm.
Creak... snap.
The solid, two-inch-thick iron bars didn't just bendâthey sheared cleanly at the weld points with a dull, muffled pop that was entirely swallowed by the whistling mountain wind. Lin Feng slid his backpack through the gap, followed immediately by his own streamlined frame, slipping into the dark, wet interior of the estateâs subterranean utility lines without triggering a single sensor on the perimeter wall.
The drainage pipe led him deep into the bedrock foundation beneath the main ancestral temple. The air here was hot, damp, and vibrating with a low, rhythmic thrumming sound that resembled a distant, massive engine.
Lin Feng emerged from the pipe into a wide, cavernous basement chamber made of rough-hewn granite blocks. The space was filled with rows of industrial water heaters, ventilation equipment, and main electrical breaker panels. But Lin Fengâs gaze didn't linger on the machinery. It locked instantly onto the center of the granite floor, where a massive, ancient stone wellâsealed shut with a multi-ton slab of reinforced steel and iron chainsâwas sweating thick droplets of glowing, sapphire moisture.
The absolute core of the Jiangnan fault line reservoir.
"A clean infiltration," Lin Feng whispered, stepping out of the dark drainage trench.
But just as his boot touched the dry granite floorboards, a sharp, metallic
click
echoed from the dark catwalk stretching across the upper ventilation array.
Blinding, high-intensity halogen floodlights violently erupted from the corners of the basement ceiling, pinning Lin Fengâs silhouette in a crossfire of white light. From the shadow of the main boiler unit, four figures stepped into the open, their heavy tactical boots clicking sharply against the stone.
They didn't look like Zhao Kun's enforcers or the augmented mercenaries from the city. These were older men, dressed in traditional, deep gray linen robes that contrasted sharply with the modern industrial basement around them. Their faces were lined with wrinkles, their hands tucked neatly into their long sleeves, but their eyes burned with a sharp, vibrant clarity that proved they weren't ordinary mortals.
The elders of the Zhao clanâs private martial archives. Traditional practitioners who had spent decades refining their breathing styles in isolation, long before the corporations took over.
"We knew a rat would try to follow the scent of the water," the lead elder said, his voice a dry, rasping whisper that carried a dense, rhythmic pressure. He took a slow step forward, his linen robes rustling over the stone. "The Bai family's digital toys can't bypass the old ways, brat. You broke our gate, but you've just walked straight into the ancestral iron cage."
Lin Feng stood perfectly still beneath the blinding glare of the halogen lamps, his expression entirely detached as he slowly unzipped his utility jacket. A dark, undefeated smile curled the corners of his lips amid the white light.
The board had shifted again, but the prize was right beneath his feet.