Outside the shack, the night air was still warm with the heat of shattered dark rock.
Shen Shitou was shoveling crushed gravel into the eastern foundation trench with bare hands. It hummed in devout ecstasy. His bronze skin gleamed under the moonlight, fully immune to sharp stone edges.
Inside Classroom 404, Frank stood beside the rusted coal stove, frowning at the kindling bin.
Sitting among dry pine shavings were five battered, waterlogged booklets tied with rotting twine. They were bargain-bin foundational training manuals the original Lu Zhen had purchased years ago for two copper coins each from passing trade caravans: The Iron Bull Stance, Nine-Fold Cloud-Drifting Breath, Five-Element Flesh Tempering, Golden Bell Qi Shield, and Flowing River Meridian Flow.
Frank picked up the first booklet, yellowed, water-stained, and smelling faintly of stale cabbage.
He dragged his thumb along the edges of the pages, flipping through the entire scroll in two seconds flat.
Fwip-fwip.
[Bulk OCR Cache Scraping Active.]
A cascade of emerald text streamed down Frank’s vision as the DAO-QA engine ingested every line, diagram, and spirit vein chart with machine smooth speed.
His internal HUD chimed with wild alerts.
Frank tossed the booklet back onto the podium and rubbed the bridge of his nose in sheer builder frustration.
“Unbelievable,” Frank muttered. “Who approved this pull request? Who looked at an infinite recursion loop in a kid’s breathing tract and said, ‘Yeah, that looks production-ready, ship it to the publishers’?”
He shook his head at the five moldering pamphlets.
“No wonder students in this world suffer from qi deviations and numbed bladders. The documentation is atrocious. They tell people to take three deep breaths, hold their chest muscle, and twist their spine sixty degrees while inhaling through their teeth. That’s not a sacred breathing art. That’s an ergonomic disaster designed to cause an inguinal hernia on the job site.”
Frank opened his main screen.
In his inventory, floating in a clean velvet-lined slot, was the Golden Master Page earned from Shen Shitou’s five-star review. It glowed with a soft, pulsing amber soft glow that smelled faintly of ozone and clean copper wiring.
Frank tapped his finger against the glowing page, selecting the core compilation feature.
[Prompt: Eat 1x Golden Master Page to initialize Hotfix Merge Engine?]
“Merge them,” Frank instructed. “Strip out duplicate classes, delete dead code, bypass useless flourishes, and optimize for zero spirit vein friction.”
HUMMMMMMM.
The Golden Master Page dissolved into a swirling vortex of golden light.
The five battered manuals began to vibrate. Glowing golden threads rose from moldy pages into a sharp-angled compiling matrix hovering three feet above the desk.
Contradictory pathways canceled each other out. Dangerous breath-holding loops were pruned like diseased branches. And bloated sixteen-step hand mudras were flattened into simple, elegant clockwork motions.
The compilation took less than five seconds.
The golden vortex collapsed, dropping a stream of crystal-clear information directly into Frank’s conscious mind.
He had half-expected some grand cosmological discovery filled with soaring dragons and thunderous sky omens.
Instead, the “Zero-Defect Foundational Scripture” was surprisingly straightforward: thirty-six simple, nonstop physical postures designed to align the human skeletal frame, open the chest cavity, and maximize dark blood return to the heart through rhythmic chest muscle spreading.
“It’s basically a tuned mobility routine combined with proper breathing body leverage,” Frank murmured, an appreciative grin spreading across his face. “Clean. Linear. Zero fluff. No chanting needed. Just thirty-six stretches.”
Frank looked around for something to write on.
There was no fine mulberry paper or red stone ink in the classroom. The only materials were a roll of greasy brown butcher paper earlier used to wrap smoked pork sausages, and a blunt stick of charcoal.
“Good enough for job-site documentation,” Frank grunted.
He unrolled three feet of butcher paper across the leveled podium, weighted the corners with two iron hex nuts from his tool pouch. Then he began sketching with charcoal.
His hand moved with rapid, razor-sharp care.
He drew clean, body line figures with aimed force arrows, joint angle degrees, and breath in-breath out counts marked in seconds.
Figure 1: Hip hinge, 45 degrees. Engage hamstrings. Inhale 4 seconds.
Figure 2: Thoracic rotation, 15 degrees. Relax shoulders. Exhale 6 seconds.
Figure 3: Scapular retraction. Ground heels. 0% lower-back arch.
In ten minutes, all thirty-six movements were neatly charted across the greasy butcher paper.
Frank walked to the doorway. “Ling’er, Niu Mang. Break time. Get in here.”
The two students dropped their tools and hurried into the shack, bowing deeply before the teacher’s podium.
“Master!” Niu Mang said, wiping dirt from his broad brow. “The eastern drainage ditch is five yards long now! Should I dig toward the cliff next?”
“Ditch can wait,” Frank said, spreading the butcher paper out on the desk. “Take a look at this.”
Jiang Ling’er and Niu Mang leaned over the desk.
The paper was visibly stained with dark cooking grease, the edges frayed, and the illustrations drawn in rough black charcoal.
Niu Mang scratched his head, his face blushing. “Master... I can’t read characters. Seven masters told me an illiterate peasant can’t cultivate the Dao...”
“There are no characters to read,” Frank said, pointing at Figure 1. “Look at the arrows. Arrow pointing down means drop your hips. Arrow pointing up means push through your heels. Even a golden retriever could follow these blueprints.”
Ling’er leaned closer, her eyes scanning the thirty-six figures.
Her breath stopped entirely.
Her delicate hands flew to her mouth, her violet eyes widening into round moons.
Jiang Ling’er was the Ninth Princess of the Great Da-Qi Dynasty! She had studied under grand tutors of the Royal Academy, memorizing hundreds of ancient Heaven-Tier scrolls and Saint-Grade sutras.
She knew the painful complexities of training. Seventy-two dangerous acupoints, eighty-one delicate spirit vein junctions, endless bottlenecks that claimed thousands of geniuses every year.
Yet she traced the simple charcoal arrows across this greasy paper. Then, she realized something terrifying:
Every single movement was arranged in impossible, divine harmony!
Movement Three naturally tightly packed the liver channel. That forced toxins into the intestinal tract before they could inflame the heart! Movement Seven decompressed the lower-back spine. He allowed kidney water to rise and cool the lungs without cooling pills!
There were no bottlenecks. No deviation points. No hidden traps!
“This...” Ling’er’s voice shook like dry autumn leaves. “This is... A Flawless Scripture... A Primordial Emperor-Tier Canon...”
“It’s an ergonomic stretching routine,” Frank corrected her, taking a sip of water. “If you do this twice a day, ten minutes per session, your joints won’t ache when you hit fifty. Stop calling it an Emperor Canon. It’s basic preventative upkeep.”
Ling’er stared at Frank, her soul quaking in terror and awe.
He scribbled a Primordial Emperor-Tier Canon... Onto a piece of sausage wrapper! Ling’er thought, her mind reeling in dizzying waves. He treats a treasure that could cause three empires to go to war as a casual morning stretch! What kind of ancient immortal is he?!
“Niu Mang,” Frank continued. “You try Movement Four. Feet twice shoulder-width. Lower hips until thighs are parallel to pine planks. Keep spine upright. Breathe in through your nose for four seconds, expand your belly, then exhale.”
Niu Mang stepped into the center of the room, planted his bare feet, dropped his hips. Then he took a deep breath.
HUUUUUU...
The instant his lungs filled, the force vectors on the butcher paper rang with his Ancient Primal Bull bloodline.
CRACK!
A sound like snapping timber echoed from Niu Mang’s spine.
His spine bones shifted, locking into solid strength. The dull ache that had tormented his lower back since childhood evaporated instantly!
A wave of golden warmth surged from his feet, flooding his dantian with clean, pure life-force!
“Master!” Niu Mang shouted, eyes glowing with joy. “My hips don’t feel heavy anymore! I feel like I can carry a three-ton cart up the mountain!”
“That’s because you’re using your glutes instead of pulling your lower back,” Frank said nodding. “Good form. Hold it for thirty seconds.”
Frank turned to Ling’er. “Ling’er, Movement Nine. Gentle arm rotations to decompress your chest spine. Don’t force your breath.”
Ling’er stepped forward, raised her slender arms, mirroring the charcoal drawing. She took a slow, measured breath.
Tssst...
A faint wisp of white steam escaped her lips. The crushing, icy band around her heart softened by another fraction of an inch!
“Master... It works,” she whispered, tears shimmering. “The cold is retreating!”
“Of course it works,” Frank said. “Physics doesn’t take days off. Keep practicing. We have forty-eight hours to get you kids into working condition.”
Then, without warning, the candle on Frank’s desk flickered wildly and died.
WHOOOOSH.
A sudden, terrifying plunge in heat swept through Classroom 404!
Window shutters rattled wildly against their latches. Frost—thick, pitch-black, and sharp as razor blades—exploded across the floorboards in wild patterns!
Jiang Ling’er gasped, her knees buckling beneath her.
She collapsed onto the planks, clutching her chest. Her skin turned semi-clear white, while deep beneath her chest bone, a blinding crimson light flared to life. It burned through her beggar silks!
GAAAASP!
A sound like a roaring blast fire echoed from her throat!
Frank’s HUD flashed wildly into view, bathing the frozen room in emergency crimson.
The timber shack began to groan under the sheer pressure of trapped energy!
Frank slammed his mug onto the desk, his eyes narrowing with skilled builder focus.
“Shitou, Niu Mang, step back!” Frank commanded, his voice cutting through the freezing howl. “The boiler valve is jammed! Emergency venting protocol commences now!”