Chapter 26

  After parting ways with his old friends, Adam wandered through the sect, guided more by instinct than intent. His feet eventually carried him to the training grounds—open, sunlit, and buzzing with Qi.

  There, he spotted them.

  Xiaoyan and Aria were locked in a spar. Not reckless or wild—disciplined, sharp, and fluid. Every clash of spell and sword echoed with experience and refinement. Lan Xiaoyan wielded a precise blend of elemental martial arts and spellcasting, while Aria moved with the grace of royalty, her blows calculated and unforgiving.

  Watching from the side was Xiaomei, her soft expression calm but attentive. Beside her lay a dragon—still young, but already massive. Sleek scales shimmered with the hues of water and life, and its eyes never left the battle.

  Adam stood at the edge, silent. A small, proud smile touched his lips.

  They’ve grown…

  He remembered when they'd been just kids—eager, wide-eyed, clinging to their father in fear of the unknown. And now? Now they stood tall, confident. Powerful.

  From children to cultivators. From fear to strength.

  They hadn’t noticed him yet, but he didn’t mind. For a moment, just watching was enough.

  They were no longer just the children of a man he once saved. They were the future of the sect.

  While Adam was quietly watching the sparring match, a voice suddenly called out from behind him.

  "Senior, what thoughts are you having about my sworn brother?"

  Adam blinked, caught off guard. Turning around, his eyes landed on the speaker—a disciple whose sheer mass was... confusing.

  He was fat.

  Not just pudgy or round, but genuinely, impossibly fat. Rolls layered upon rolls, each step causing a slight jiggle that defied everything Adam knew about cultivation. Cultivators, by nature, burned immense amounts of energy. Their enhanced metabolism made fat accumulation nearly impossible. Past a certain realm, they survived entirely on atmospheric Qi, bypassing physical digestion altogether.

  And yet, this walking paradox stood right in front of him. A breathing, bouncing impossibility.

  Adam’s thoughts turned toward a familiar trope. The Fatty Wang archetype... there's always one in these stories. The jolly but strong fatty with mysterious background and hidden talent.

  He narrowed his eyes slightly, then tested his theory.

  "Fatty Wang?"

  The disciple froze mid-step, stunned. "That… that was a nickname of one of my ancestors! Are you—" his voice dropped to a whisper, “—are you someone who once knew my ancestors? Have you descended to the sect in a disguised avatar body?!"

  Adam stared, deadpan. “No.”

  “Ohh! My bad, Senior! My name is Wang Baole,” the disciple said, scratching his head sheepishly.

  Before the misunderstanding could spiral into wild sect rumors, Adam raised a hand.

  “I’m just an acquaintance of Lan Xiaoyan and Lan Xiaomei. I recently came out of closed-door cultivation.”

  Wang Baole gave a relieved nod, grinning widely. “Ah, then that explains it! As you can see, Lan Xiaoyan’s sparring with Miss Aria. Let’s go—he’ll be happy to see you again! I bet you have a lot to catch up on.”

  Adam followed behind, still trying to reconcile what he had just seen. A cultivator that broke the rules of body tempering… just by existing.

  This world really is insane.

  As they walked toward the sparring platform, Adam kept sneaking glances at the plump figure beside him. The sheer absurdity of it was gnawing at his mind.

  Finally, he caved.

  “…Alright. I have to ask. How… are you fat?”

  Wang Baole grinned knowingly, his belly bouncing slightly as he walked. “Ah, the eternal question.”

  “I mean, you’re in the Qi Condensation realm. At that stage, the metabolism burns like fire. And in later realms, you don’t even need food—Qi replaces it.” Adam stared. “You’re defying common sense.”

  Wang Baole laughed. “Senior, what you see before you is not a lack of discipline, but a family curse.”

  Adam raised a brow.

  Wang Baole leaned in, lowering his voice to a conspiratorial tone. “Generations ago, one of my ancestors offended a rather eccentric expert—rumor says he tried to flirt with the man’s granddaughter using pick-up lines from a pill manual. The expert cursed our bloodline. Since then, none of us can use anything but the lower dantian for cultivation.”

  Adam’s expression turned more serious.

  “If we try to circulate Qi through the upper or middle dantian,” Wang continued, “it violently scatters. Not just disperses—shatters. There was one cousin who tried anyway. He farted lightning for three days straight and passed out.”

  Adam blinked. “…I’m both horrified and impressed.”

  Wang patted his belly. “Now here’s the twist. Our lower dantian isn’t where it should be. The curse caused it to fragment and spread across our fat cells. So in essence, this”—he patted himself with both hands—“is my dantian. My whole body is the lower dantian.”

  “That’s insane.”

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  “Yet, here I am. I cultivate through eating. Absorb spiritual energy? I digest it. Temper the body? I marinate it.” He grinned. “My ancestor reached the Soul Transformation Realm and still looked like a steamed bun. Not a shred of change. The fat is eternal.”

  Adam was silent for a long second. “…So you store Qi in lard.”

  “Refined, high-grade spiritual lard,” Wang corrected proudly. “Each jiggle is a reservoir.”

  Adam laughed, holding his forehead. “You’re cursed—but you’ve weaponized it.”

  “I prefer the term cultivation path less traveled,” Wang Baole said, puffing his chest with pride. “One day, I’ll open a secret technique manual titled: The Whale Path Sutra.”

  Adam snorted. “When you do, don’t forget to dedicate it to the guy who didn’t run away screaming the first time he saw you.”

  Wang grinned. “Deal.”

  Their banter died down as they neared the sparring platform. Adam glanced at Wang Baole, then looked down at his own arm. A brief pause. Then, with a calm breath, he tugged up his sleeve and extended it outward.

  From the base of the elbow down, there was no flesh—only cold, glinting metal. A sword's blade jutted out where skin and bone should be. The part above the transformation, near the elbow and bicep, was a patchwork of scarred skin—stitched like it had been forcefully reattached, torn and melted too many times to heal cleanly.

  Wang Baole froze, eyes wide. He wasn't the type to be easily rattled, but the moment he looked at the blade, a deep, primal discomfort welled up in his gut. It wasn’t fear, exactly—it was something worse. Like looking at something that shouldn’t exist.

  Adam’s voice was quiet, but steady. “It’s the result of surviving an encounter with a higher being’s corruption. One of those entities that shouldn’t be in this world. I was... almost turned into a sword.”

  Wang Baole blinked. “Wait—literally?”

  Adam nodded. “Not metaphorically. My body was being forged into a weapon. My bones were turning to ore, my blood into quenching fluid. The process was… spiritual, metaphysical. Had it completed, I wouldn’t be standing here. I’d be hanging on some mad god’s belt.”

  Wang stared a moment longer, then instinctively stepped a little to the side, only half-joking. “You… don’t randomly swing when you sneeze, right?”

  Adam smirked. “Only on full moons.”

  Wang Baole let out a half-laugh, but the tension didn’t leave immediately. He glanced at the blade again, then gave a low whistle. “It feels… wrong. Like my body knows it’s wrong.”

  “That’s because it is,” Adam replied. “It’s not natural. It’s a mark of something trying to rewrite me—my essence, my fate, my form.”

  Silence hung for a beat.

  “…But I’m still me,” Adam added, covering the arm again. “It tried to change me, and I made it part of me instead.”

  Wang looked at him differently now—still with some unease, but also with a grudging respect. “You know, senior… You’re the only guy I’ve ever met who could say that and make it sound cool instead of horrifying.”

  Adam chuckled softly. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  As the spar between Lan Xiaoyan and Aria continued, a sudden blur of blue and white dashed across the training ground. Adam blinked—and then Xiaomei was standing in front of him, eyes bright with excitement.

  “Adam!” she called out, practically bouncing. “You’re finally back!”

  Adam gave a warm smile. “Xiaomei. You’ve grown up.”

  She grinned, brushing a few loose strands of hair behind her ear. “And you broke through! Foundation Establishment, right? I could feel the shift in your Qi the moment I saw you.”

  Adam nodded. “You’ve become sharper too. That’s good to see.”

  Xiaomei laughed softly, then her expression turned a little more solemn. “A lot has happened. After you went into seclusion, we trained hard… Xiaoyan especially. He was determined to stand at the top, to be someone worthy of carrying Father’s legacy.”

  Adam looked at her for a moment, sensing something beneath her words. “…Old Bao?”

  She hesitated, then gave a quiet nod, eyes lowering. “He passed away. Peacefully, at the age of 108.”

  There was a moment of stillness. Adam’s expression softened.

  “I see…” he said gently. “He held on longer than most. And he got to see his children become strong. That’s a good way to go—for someone like him.”

  Xiaomei’s lips trembled, but she nodded. “He was proud. Always said the moment you saved him was when his life turned around.”

  Adam placed a hand on her shoulder, steady and reassuring. “He left in peace, Xiaomei. Knowing that both of you had a brighter path ahead.”

  Her eyes shimmered for a second, but she quickly wiped them and smiled again.

  Adam turned his gaze to the sparring ring. “Xiaoyan’s looking sharp. And that girl he’s fighting… Aria, was it?”

  Xiaomei nodded. “Mhm. She’s a royal from the Ebonreich. The two of them spar often. When they start, they get completely locked in. No distractions, no talking. Just pure focus. Their matches usually wrap up in a few minutes… and it’s always intense.”

  Adam watched the pair clash again, their movements fluid and precise, and felt something stir—pride, maybe. Or nostalgia.

  “Looks like I came back at a good time,” he murmured.

  The sharp ring of clashing steel echoed across the training grounds as Aria von Ebonreich lunged forward. Her figure glided on a thin trail of conjured frost, her twin daggers shimmering with icy light and shadow. The ground beneath her hissed as the frozen surface fractured in her wake.

  She struck in a blink—

  A diagonal slash streaked toward Lan Xiaoyan’s chest.

  He twisted, meeting the attack with a swift parry, his red-and-grey blade deflecting her strike with a clean, practiced motion. Her second dagger came in immediately, a stab aimed low toward the side of his abdomen.

  Using the momentum from the first parry, Xiaoyan rotated his sword, catching the second dagger and diverting it away. Without hesitation, he flowed into a horizontal counter, the edge of his sword humming as it carved through the air toward her neck.

  Aria dropped low, the blade slicing just above her. She felt the rush of heated wind graze her scalp. Spotting the brief opening as Xiaoyan followed through, she lunged upward—dagger gleaming as she thrust toward his exposed throat.

  Time slowed.

  Qi around Xiaoyan's upper dantian stirred—Time Qi flowed, wrapping around his senses. His perception sharpened, stretching each heartbeat into an eternity. The dagger's tip gleamed like a falling star.

  With practiced ease, Xiaoyan burst backward, Blazing Echo Step igniting under his feet with a crack of displaced heat. The thrust missed, cutting through air. Before Aria could recover her stance, he countered.

  He launched forward, his sword braced like a lance—

  A piercing stab, aimed straight for her chest, accelerated by the explosive propulsion of fire beneath his soles.

  Aria’s form blurred—partial phasing flickered across her body. The blade passed through her afterimage, striking nothing.

  Xiaoyan didn’t pause. He redirected in mid-air, momentum twisting with a sharp pivot, and brought his blade down in a heavy vertical arc, fire Qi flaring along the edge.

  Aria vanished once more, her body dissolving into streaks of darkness. She reappeared behind him, twin daggers crossing for a backstab. This time, she struck true—the cold steel touched his back, poised to dig in—

  —Until a sudden pulse of heat erupted around Xiaoyan. A controlled fire Qi burst, blooming in a small radius. Aria leapt back, arms raised in a guard, skidding to a halt across the icy ground.

  Both stood at opposite ends of the arena now, breaths heavy, shoulders rising and falling. Xiaoyan lowered his sword. Aria loosened her grip on the daggers.

  “…That’s enough,” she said calmly, though her legs trembled slightly beneath her skirt of frost and shadow.

  Xiaoyan nodded, a tired grin tugging at his lips. “I almost got you this time.”

  Aria smirked back, expression unreadable but tinged with quiet pride. Around them, the frost slowly melted under residual heat.

  Adam clapped his hands, a wide grin on his face. “That was a great spar. You two didn’t hold back at all.”

  Xiaoyan sheathed his sword and turned toward him, the faint steam from the clash still rising in the air. “Adam,” he said with a nod, “Congrats on reaching Foundation Establishment.”

  Aria followed with a polite smile. “Truly. It’s good to see you back… stronger than ever.”

  “Thanks,” Adam said, scratching the back of his head. “Feels like I missed a lot.”

  After some light conversation — a few jokes, a few updates — Xiaoyan stepped forward with a curious glint in his eyes.

  “Hey… I’ve got a favor to ask.”

  Adam raised a brow. “Shoot.”

  “I want to spar with you,” Xiaoyan said, voice calm but firm. “Not a serious fight. I just want to understand the gap — the real gap — between the Qi Condensation and Foundation Establishment realms. If I asked anyone else, they’d think I’m being cocky or picking a fight. But I know you won’t take it that way.”

  Adam blinked. Then smirked.

  “Alright. Let’s do it,” he said, stepping onto the field with a slow roll of his shoulder. “Been a while since I had a proper spar anyway.”

  Aria sighed, a knowing smirk on her lips. “Don’t go too hard on each other. I’d rather not heal two idiots in one afternoon.”

  Lan Xiaomei giggled from the side. “I’ll cheer for both of you!”

  As the two stood facing each other, the atmosphere changed. Friendly… but electric. Not a battle of ego — a test of progress.

  Adam took his place opposite Xiaoyan on the field, the breeze gently brushing past them as their eyes met—serious now, but not cold.

  He reached back and tapped the patchwork skin just before his sword-arm began, a subtle reminder of the battles he’d endured.

  “I’ll be using all my elements,” Adam said calmly. “Middle and lower dantians too.”

  Xiaoyan’s gaze sharpened.

  Adam gave a slight smirk. “So give it everything you’ve got.”

  Xiaoyan’s grip on his sword tightened.

  “Of course,” he replied. “I was about to say the same to you.”

  The air grew still.

  Xiaoyan’s stance lowered, sword gripped tightly in both hands as he dashed forward with a sudden burst of speed. His blade sang through the air in a wide horizontal arc—from left to right—aimed squarely at Adam’s torso.

  Adam didn’t dodge.

  Instead, he planted his feet, eyes focused, and raised his right arm to intercept. Metal Qi surged from his dantian, hardening his limb like tempered steel. He wanted to test it too—this new technique, this new realm.

  The impact rang out with a sharp clang—but the result was disastrous.

  Xiaoyan’s blade cut clean through three-quarters of Adam’s arm before the metal Qi reinforcement cracked, and the rest of the forearm shattered under the force. The severed chunk of flesh and metal hit the ground with a sickening thud, blood spraying across the courtyard.

  Gasps rang out from the onlookers. Xiaomei instinctively moved forward, eyes wide with panic. Even Aria’s usual composure wavered for a split second.

  But Adam only exhaled.

  “It’s fine,” he said calmly, raising his stump.

  Light bloomed—golden, radiant—and in moments, flesh and bone wove themselves back into existence. Muscles reknit, skin reformed, and in seconds, his arm was whole again.

  Xiaoyan blinked, stunned. “You...”

  Adam flexed his fingers, rolling his wrist with a grin. “My defense would’ve held—if it were anyone else.”

  He pointed at the elegant red-and-grey blade still humming in Xiaoyan’s grip.

  “But your sword is a special case.”

  Xiaoyan's grip on his sword tightened subtly, his eyes narrowing just a little.

  Adam noticed the slight shift in posture—the hesitation.

  He didn’t press. “It’s fine,” Adam said with a relaxed smile, as he picked up the severed arm with his newly regenerated hand. “I don’t need to know.”

  The moment held a quiet understanding.

  With a colourless pulse, Adam channeled his Death Qi into the severed limb. The flesh began to wither instantly, muscle col

  lapsing in on itself, bone cracking, rotting, and crumbling—until it all turned to dust and scattered in the wind.

  He dusted off his palm and took a steady stance again, his aura sharpening.

  “Let’s go back to the spar.”

  A faint grin played on his lips. “Round two.”