26 Painting the Heavens

The world surrounding Cha Ming disappeared into the void just as it had come. He opened his eyes to the familiar scene of the light blue glow of the surrounding cave. The light blue glow was no longer originating from the pool but rather from hundreds of stones left behind in the pool. He was in no hurry to retrieve them, therefore he focused on the answer to his question.

Huxian was still sleeping soundly on his shoulders. What he was about to attempt was potentially very dangerous, so he picked up Huxian and set him down to the side of the large cavern. He had looked at their food stores previously—they had enough to last a few weeks in the cave, but afterward they would need to exit the caves and attempt to travel to the city. He hoped Wang Jun had accomplished his mission and pulled out Feng Ming, Gong Lan, and of course, Hong Xin. Wang Jun seemed to dote on her a little more, so she was probably fine.

Before leaving Huxian in his corner, he gave him a few pats and hummed a lullaby he had heard in his childhood. He moved back to where the pool used to be and took out the Clear Sky Brush. With a thought, a green glow appeared on the tip of the brush. Carefully, yet precisely, he moved his brush in a familiar pattern. Compared to the past, however, there was a huge difference. Now he was painting the air, painting the heavens!

Since this was his first try, he decided to start with something small, a small leaf that he had seen on the character for wood. As the elemental essence poured out of the brush, he imbued it with his spiritual sense, which seemed to suspend the ink in the air and prevent it from falling. Soon enough, twelve fine strokes were completed, and the previously inanimate leaf seemed to come to life as thought it was a true and natural leaf. Success!

After his first successful leaf, he continued to paint more of them until he completed the basic outline of twelve leaves. These twelve leaves would form the basis of the wood character. It was the final point of the character, the ending. As the red-bearded man had told him earlier, it was all about depth. If a person started from the beginning without specifying the end, the resulting failed character might draw too much out of the person drawing it. Starting with the end in mind gave the character a definite purpose, and as such it would never suck him dry like he had been warned by his teacher.

As this thought ran through his mind, he realized that he'd lost his focus. His initial success was short-lived, and the flourishing leaves withered into yellow as they fell to the ground and turned to dust. He didn't dwell on this failure, as he'd experienced it far too many times before when crafting talismans. Compared to his previous works, this three-dimensional character was vastly more complicated. He could tell that this character was at the very limits of his current cultivation level, and he would need to achieve a breakthrough in his spiritual sense to complete it.

Day after day, his practice continued. Twelve leaves turned to twenty-four, and twenty-four leaves turned to thirty-six. After a full week, he was finally able to draw out a full sixty leaves, which were joined together in groups of five. These groups of five appeared much like young bean stalks that were just a foot long each, ones that had not yet sprouted flowers. Nevertheless, they exuded a sense of overwhelming vitality. Without any warning, Cha Ming knew that his spiritual sense was completely dried up, and the five stalks withered away into dust once more.

Huxian had awoken a few days prior. He woke up in a rather cheerful but hungry mood, licking Cha Ming's hand and begging for food. It didn't take long for Cha Ming to realize that the dried fruits and nuts he had prepared for himself would never satisfy the pleading fox, and after some contemplation, he took out the corpse of one of the lower-level spirit hounds he had picked up earlier. Huxian looked at him with a confused expression, but before long he was munching away merrily. Cha Ming sighed. Once again, it was his responsibility to look after a carnivorous pet. It wasn't his favorite arrangement, but the alternative had been letting the poor baby fox starve to death.

--

A nearly complete character for wood was currently floating in the air. Cha Ming was sweating profusely as he struggled to draw the second to the last stroke in the character. It was probably the thousandth time he had attempted to draw it. He had stopped keeping track after the hundredth time. Every time he attempted to draw the three-dimensional wood character, he started with the smallest leaf, eventually combining multiple leaves into a stalk. The twelve stalks would connect to the key nodes in the character, such as key points and intersections.

Whether it was a general feature of the brush or because he was using the skies as his paper, the elemental essence used on a failed character would automatically retract into his brush. It seemed like the brush itself refused a mediocre outcome, allowing only a finished product to come into existence.

Cha Ming really didn't have any idea if this was a normal phenomenon or if regular brushes could even perform such a feat as painting the heavens themselves. In the future, he would have to experiment and determine the limits and value of this ability. Perhaps some foundation-establishment-ranked talisman brushes also had this miraculous ability.

The speed at which Cha Ming could draw leaves was staggering compared to his initial attempts. At first, he needed to focus on every single vein in the leaf to form a perfect one. Later, after practicing over ten thousand leaves, he could form a perfect leaf with a single stroke of his brush and very little effort. This method was much less exhausting than his previous attempts, and it saved him a lot of stamina for the remainder of the character. It was as though an unfathomable mystery could be imbued in his brush, willing the ink to shape the fully formed leaf on its own.

Upon further reflection, he found that this process was very similar to how one could plant a seed and expect a plant to grow with sufficient water and sunlight. The seed was "coded" with instructions, which it would then use to grow out a new plant. The sixty "seeds" he painted were then drawn together into twelve key nodes using the wood (木) character base, for a total of seventy-two key points.

Before long, Cha Ming completed the twelve stalks containing five leaves each. He was nearing the point of exhaustion and paused briefly to take a breath. First stroke, horizontal. Second stroke, vertical. Left side, right side. The completed character joined together, and the leafy stalks writhed as though they were letting out shouts of joy. Much to his surprise, the character shrunk down to the size of a fist. As he was admiring his first stable creation, the Clear Sky Brush let out a commanding ohm.

As if shivering in fear, the wooden character rushed toward Cha Ming's chest at a frightening speed. He didn't have a chance to react. The character struck him at the very top and center of his ribcage. He was instantly flooded with a soothing feeling as energy started pouring into him from the surrounding area, forming a maelstrom with him at the center. This was Heaven and Earth energy in its purest form!

Off in a corner of the room, Huxian, who had been quite bored, looked over at him curiously. His newfound caregiver didn't seem to be in trouble or in pain, but neither did he seem able to do anything. Now was the chance he had been waiting for. The black-and-white fox darted out toward the middle of the previously filled pool and immediately bit down on one of the many stones with an audible chomp.

After successfully eating the first stone, he proceeded to eat a second, then a third. Despite being incapacitated, Cha Ming could see all of this. He decided that he would need to properly discipline the fox if they survived their ordeal. The little critter was basically gluttony incarnate. Huxian, sensing Cha Ming's unhappiness, cowered back toward a corner with his ears lowered, after which he fell asleep once again.

--

The energy maelstrom lasted a full sixty hours before it finally dissipated. The green character had long since branded itself onto Cha Ming's chest. After sixty hours of continuously staying still, Cha Ming was finally able to move. He got up slowly and cracked his joints. He felt like his fleshly body had been reborn, and he could feel his muscles brimming with energy. After stretching his stiff muscles, he took out the Clear Sky Brush. It looked much like before, but now the character for wood was no longer shining green. To his relief, he could still cause wood elemental essence to gather on the tip of the brush.

"Try lifting something, you dummy!" a familiar voice sounded in his head.

Black lines formed on his forehead as he sighed. It appeared that the shameless elder could talk to him whenever he wanted. Life was about to get a lot more interesting and infinitely more frustrating. Given his limited exposure to the red-bearded man, he decided to play along, walking toward a stone that likely weighed a hundred jin. This was the very limit he was able to lift previously.

"Too small, dummy! Try that one!"

He could tell which direction the red-bearded elder was guiding him in. "What the hell, old man. Are you trying to get me to pull a muscle?" exclaimed Cha Ming. The stone was clearly three times as big as the previous one.

"Entertain me. You'll surprise yourself!"

Cha Ming rolled his eyes and decided that he would give it a half-hearted attempt at most. He lightly gripped the stone, after which he tried lifting it at about sixty-percent strength. The stone didn't put up any resistance, and he lifted it with ease. Then the stone was crumbling in his hands, unable to bear the gripping force from his bare fingers. He dropped the stone back to the ground with a shocked expression.

The voice chuckled. "Kid, this is your good fortune! What you've just completed is the first little piece of the Seventy-Two Earthly Transformations technique. Back in my prime I used this technique to become virtually indestructible! Gods couldn't kill me! Buddha couldn't trap me! I trampled the gates of Heaven with this technique, and I overthrew the armies of Hell! As you practice it, all sorts of changes will happen to your body. You'll eventually be able to transform into any shape, and every hair on your bald-ass body will become a fearsome weapon!

"The first stage of seventy-two transformations remolded a single yin and a single yang organ, bringing you onto the path of body cultivation. This is equivalent to two transformations. For the following ten other transformations in the first stage, you'll slowly remold your body and purify it, setting your foundation for godhood."

Cha Ming felt a chill run down his spine. Godhood? Regular people couldn't become gods, could they?

"That little fox of yours, he's not ordinary, either. He's going to keep sleeping for the next week, and when he wakes up, he's going to be even stronger than you. What a lucky little shit you are. If I had half your luck, I'd never have been trapped in this stupid brush. Anyway, there's a ton of rocks around here; try lifting and breaking rocks to your limit for the next little while as you get used to your strength. Once he wakes up, you shouldn't have any problems getting out of these woods alive."

Despite the minor annoyance of having to listen to the man's rants, Cha Ming appreciated his helpfulness. Without him, he would never have been able to solve the mystery of the brush on his own. In time he would be able to draw out all five characters, but he sensed that the demands on his spiritual strength would increase with each character. He would need to first increase his cultivation to make any progress in the body transformation technique.

--

Feng Ming was standing in line at a large mansion to the south of the city. No one would have blamed him if he skipped straight to the front of the line. It was his father's mansion, after all, and his old residence. Unfortunately, his old man prided himself on propriety and right conduct, insisting that anyone who wanted to see him would first have to wait in line. There were few exceptions to this rule, the first exception being life-or-death emergencies. The second exception had never been used; it was reserved for when the king himself appeared and requested an audience.

Time trickled by, and soon an entire four hours had passed. He was finally allowed to enter with two sturdy guards stationed in front of his father's study. It was just as he remembered it: neat, orderly, and plain. The only adornments that could be seen in the wood-finished office were war medals, mementos from his father's various exploits.

A dark-haired, middle-aged man in military uniform was currently working away at military paperwork. He didn't bother to stop writing or look up as he finished yet another form and placed it at the top of the stack of completed paperwork.

"What do you want? I'm very busy, and I don't have time to deal with any of your childish requests," he replied coldly.

Thud.

Feng Chuan looked down to the floor, only to see his son kneeling while hanging his head in shame. This was the first time he had ever seen his son express any kind of remorse.

"Father, due to my negligence and lack of effort, I've let my friends down. More likely than not, my friend Cha Ming is now dead. I beg of you to grant me a request." His head remained down; Feng Ming did not dare look his father in the face.

"What exactly do you want? Do you expect me to give you a reward now that your friend has died? Get the hell out of my study!" His father's voice was filled with rage, as if wondering how his son could use his friend's death to ask for something.

"Father, I beg you, please let me join the army. I'll be an ordinary foot solider if I have to!"

"How dare you not leave when I tell you to lea— What?" A look of shock appeared on Feng Chuan's face as his son finally raised his head with a determined look in his eyes. "You would like to … join the military?"

"Yes, Father, please accommodate your son's selfish request!"

Feng Chuan put down his pen, putting his hands together as he continued looking at his son.

"Why do you want to join the army? There will be no comforts, no women, no gambling dens. There will be nothing but the strictest discipline. And since you are my son, I will be especially hard on you. I will only assign you to the strictest sergeant under my command."

Feng Ming didn't falter when hearing his father's warning. He had already expected this.

"Father, I wish to join the army to learn discipline. I now know that it was my lack of discipline that contributed to my friend's death. If I had only worked slightly harder, with our family's resources, I could have cultivated to a whole level higher! I truly don't know if this would have made a difference, but right now I hate myself for not having given my all. This is what I need. Please don't refuse me."

Feng Chuan continued looking at his son for the entire time it takes for an incense stick to burn, and Feng Ming did not get up, continuing to kneel in the same position. "Very well. You are to report to the west barracks at dawn tomorrow, fully packed and ready to leave. Understood?"

"Yes, Father. I won't disappoint you!" Feng Ming stood up, bowed, and walked out of his father's study.