Murong Seven was writhing in the frozen mud of the parade ground. That made sounds like a dying accordion. Every three seconds, a sharp purple spark snapped outward from his lower spine, causing his legs to kick wildly against the flat stone slabs. His face was pressed into the dirt, his high-born teeth gritted so hard that crimson froth bubbled from the corners of his lips.
Around him, the four sword attendants were shouting in total hysterics. “Quickly! The Nine-Yang Thunder-Calming Pill!” the senior attendant shouted, fumbling with a carved jade vial. He pried open Murong Seven’s jaw and shoved a golden healing pill, worth fifty thousand spirit stones, down his master’s throat.
The result was immediate and total. The healing pill, packed with volatile fire-lined up spiritual herbs, hit Murong Seven’s overloaded dantian like a cup of kerosene tossed onto a spark arc.
BZZZZT-CRACK!
A blinding discharge of purple sparks erupted from Murong Seven’s nostrils and ears! He arched his back off the ground with a bloodcurdling howl, his fingers clawing deep into the mud as his spirit veins seized in white-hot convulsions.
“Stop feeding him fuel, you total morons,” a calm, flat voice said from above.
Heavy leather boots crunched across the gravel. Frank walked into the center of the wild circle. He held his yellow pine clipboard under his left arm and a red grease pencil behind his ear. Behind him, Shen Shitou carried a pair of heavy, oil-tanned leather work boots with two-inch hardened rubber soles. Meanwhile, Niu Mang rested an eight-foot solid copper rod across his broad shoulder.
The sword attendants drew their flying swords, brandishing them with trembling hands. “Stand back, peasant! If the Young Master’s sword bone perishes, the Sovereign Sword Pavilion will raze this entire province to ashes!”
Frank didn’t even blink at the four glowing swords. He pulled the red pencil from behind his ear and tapped the clipboard with a sharp, office snap.
Frank looked down at the spasming young master. It shook his head with the weary disappointment of a city checker visiting an unlicensed welding shop. “Look at this fine ticket. Code Rule-break 402: Running an ungrounded high-voltage signal system without proper personal protective equipment. You’ve got four hundred and eighty volts of unbalanced three-phase power circulating through a meat chassis.”
Murong Seven gasped for air, his vision swimming with purple spots as he glared up from the mud. “You... You mock... My clan’s divine bone...” Murong Seven choked out, blood dripping from his chin. “The pain... Is the Heavenly Crucible... The ancient scriptures say... The lightning must burn the flesh... To forge the immortal sword...”
Frank let out a short, scoffing snort that ruffled the hairs of his mustache. “Heavenly Crucible? Kid, who told you that garbage? Your clan elders?”
Murong Seven shuddered as another burst tore through his lower-back spine. “My... My Great Elder... Said the agony... Is the mark of heaven’s favor...”
“Your Great Elder was an unlicensed hack who didn’t understand Ohm’s law,” Frank said flatly. “That searing agony in your spine isn’t divine favor. It’s resistive heating. Your nerves have an internal spark pushback of roughly one thousand ohms. When you draw two hundred amps of lightning through tissue with no return path, the energy has to fade as heat.”
Frank tapped Murong Seven’s forehead with the eraser of his pencil. “You’re not forging an immortal sword, kid. You’re cooking your own marrow like a hot dog on an electric fork. Ten more strikes like that and your nervous system will be charred beef jerky.”
The sword attendants gasped, their arrogance faltering under the cold, cold and exact power of Frank’s voice. “Then... Then how can the Young Master survive?!” the junior attendant cried, falling to his knees. “The lightning is trapped within his dantian! It won’t abate!”
“Told you two minutes ago,” Frank said, gesturing behind him. “Shitou. Boots.”
Shen Shitou stepped forward. Then he dropped the heavy pair of leather work boots into the mud beside Murong Seven’s trembling hands. The boots were massive, blocky, and fully empty of gold embroidery or flowing silk. They were crafted from thick, oil-treated cowhide with steel-capped toes and two inches of dense, waffle-tread vulcanized black rubber soles. They were stamped with the letters CIE-404-20kV.
“Put those on,” Frank instructed. “Niu Mang, hand him the copper rod.”
Niu Mang planted the eight-foot solid copper rod into the ground beside Murong Seven.
“Peasant boots?!” the lead attendant shrieked in horror. “The Seventh Young Master wears only thousand-year spider-silk woven by the maidens of the Eastern Cloud! You dare defile his noble feet with butcher’s leather?!”
“Shut up,” Murong Seven rasped, his voice raw with pure, unendurable agony. Another wave of spark fire rippled through his ribs. He could feel his core cracking. In ten breaths, his spirit veins would disintegrate, reducing him to a crippled mortal for the rest of his life. Dying in noble silk or living in peasant leather was not a difficult exact equation.
Gritting his teeth, Murong Seven kicked off the charred leftovers of his spider-silk slippers with trembling feet. His bare toes, caked with manure and soot, slipped into the inside of the leather work boots. The fit was heavy, clunky, and utterly raw. Yet his soles rested upon the two inches of vulcanized insulating rubber. Then, a strange, never seen before sensation washed over his lower body.
The uneven purple sparks that had been jumping wildly from his ankles to the mud ceased instantly. The rubber formed an iron-hard, twenty-thousand-volt insulating shield between his flesh and the damp ground.
“Now grab the rod,” Frank ordered. “Bond your left hand to the copper. Channel your sword bone and swing that blade toward the empty granite cliff.”
Murong Seven swallowed hard. His trembling left fingers wrapped around the cold, smooth eight-foot copper rod. With his right hand, he hoisted his old family six-foot thunder blade. He looked at the distant granite quarry wall fifty yards away. For fifteen years, every sword strike had been an exercise in painful spiritual martyrdom. Every technique needed him to endure the feeling of molten lead being poured down his spine.
Murong Seven closed his eyes, braced himself for the bone-shattering recoil. Then he swung his old family sword!
SWOOOOOOSH!
The Nine-Heaven Thunder Sword Art ignited within his dantian. Two hundred current units of violet lightning flooded into his arms and chest. Murong Seven prepared to scream. He prepared for the searing agony in his tailbone. He prepared for the blinding back-EMF explosion.
Nothing happened. There was zero pain. Zero heat in his lower-back spine. Zero spirit vein spasms.
The instant the spark current entered his body, the two inches of hardened rubber beneath his feet blocked any dangerous ground-fault flashover. At the same time, his left hand gripping the solid copper rod provided a path of near-zero pushback straight into the damp earth. The chaotic, wild purple lightning didn’t back-feed into his spine. Finding a spotless, balanced circuit with zero flow pushback, the spark charge snapped into total, zero-drag posture!
SHZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZT!
The sound that erupted from the tip of his old family blade was not a bone-shaking thunderclap. It was the razor-sharp hiss of a heavy-duty star-fire torch cutting through thin tin! A blinding beam of pure, clear violet star-fire—barely two inches in width, glowing with the intensity of a collapsed star—shot from the sword tip at the speed of light!
The star-fire beam crossed fifty yards in less than a nanosecond. It struck the massive granite cliff face on the far side of the parade ground.
HIIIIIIISSSSSSS.
There was no explosion. There was no shower of boulders. The clear beam of steadied star-fire sliced through thirty feet of solid mountain granite as if the rock were warm goat cheese! A perfectly straight, four-inch-wide, glass-smooth trench was carved clean through the bedrock, the cut stone faces glowing cherry-red with molten quartz dust!
Murong Seven lowered the sword. The violet star-fire on the blade vanished with a gentle, contented pop. The mountain wind howled through the courtyard. It carried the scent of molten quartz and clean, spark-charged rain.
Behind him, General Zhao’s jaw hung slack. The four sword attendants fell to their knees, their swords slipping from numbed fingers, their eyes wide with religious terror. “The... The Coherent Sword Domain...” the lead attendant whispered, clutching his chest. “No backfire... No spiritual friction... A strike that chops the mountain without disturbing the dust!”
Murong Seven stood fully frozen in the center of the courtyard. He was wearing a torn purple silk robe that exposed his blackened knees, a pair of clunky two-inch rubber work boots, and holding a copper grounding rod like an overgrown tent pole. He looked down at his trembling hands. Then, he looked inward, examining his lower dantian.
His Purple Thunder Sword Bone was fully calm. It had been inflamed, swollen, and bruised for fifteen years. The spiritual current was circulating through his spirit veins with a cool, silky smoothness that felt like pure spring water flowing through polished jade pipes. No pain. No burning marrow. No spitting blood.
“It’s... It’s cool,” Murong Seven whispered, a tear cutting a clean white track through the dried cow manure on his cheek. “The lightning... It isn’t angry. It’s obedient.”
He fell to his knees in the mud. He stared at the thick rubber soles of his boots with wild, trembling respect. “For fifteen years...” Murong Seven sobbed, his voice cracking with a lifetime of shattered orthodoxy. “For fifteen years, my master told me the agony was the ‘Heavenly Crucible’... My clan elders told me that spitting blood was the proof of my devotion to the sword...” He looked up at Frank, his eyes wide with a horrifying discovery. “It wasn’t a crucible... It was just a missing ground path?!”
Frank clicked his red pencil back into his clipboard with a small, dry nod. “Told you. Basic residential wiring. You don’t need divine devotion to run high voltage, kid. You just need proper heat padding and a ground rod.”
He pointed the clipboard at the kneeling, weeping young master. “Now, according to that fine ticket, your penalty is one hundred hours of community service pulling ground cables along the outer edge fence. Get up, wipe the manure off your nose, and grab a spool of wire.”