Great Bear Lake, Northwest Territory, Country of the Maple Leaf.
The Northwest Territory was a near-arctic province in Canada. The land was vast, one million and seventy square kilometers in total and thanks to its extreme altitude, it’s average temperature was 40 celsius below 0 and the total population was only forty-two thousand.
The Great Bear Lake was one of the biggest lakes in Canada. It was thirty-one square kilometers with an average depth of 400 meters. The lake was permanently covered by a layer of jagged ice, making maritime navigation impossible. looking from a bird’s eye’ view, it looked like a giant mirror made out of ice.
On the island in the middle of the lake sat an elderly man.
Despite the old man’s white hair that suggested his real age, his face was youthful. He was wearing a white parka, which made him blend into his surroundings perfectly. From afar, he looked like an ice sculpture on the lake. Before him by his feet was a little hole that he had drilled into the ice for ice fishing.
However, the old man’s method of ice fishing was very different than the conventional method.
He carried no rods nor fishing lines. One of his hands hovered over the hole, holding onto a shimmering line as thin as hair. The white background made it impossible to tell if the shimmering line was a trick of the eyes or if it was real. The line reached into the hole and kept going for some unknown depth.
If Lu Tianfen was still alive to see this old man’s fishing line, he would have been impressed.
The Cloud Hand of the Lu family was powerful yet adaptable. They could condense the Qi into a thin thread; however, these threads could not contain its shape for long. The old man had been sitting on the lake, holding the same thread for over a decade, and the white hair-thin thread hadn’t wavered yet. To pull it off, the old man must have incredible control over his Internal Force that could easily outshine even the Grandmaster Lu Tianfen.
“Huw!” “Huw!” “Huw!”
A helicopter could be heard coming toward the island. It was lowering its altitude as it approached. When it was only a few dozen meters above the ground, a shadow jumped out.
When the man was still falling, he swept out his arms like a bird and shot out a puff of white cloud from his back. These clouds congealed quickly and formed a parachute and carried the man safely and softy onto the ground.
The man came closer. He was a middle age man in his thirties. His hair was as dark as midnight and his handsome features were chiseled onto his face. He had a pair of deep-set eyes that glinted in the sunlight, gloomy but irritably charming. It was obvious that he was of multiracial heritage. If the fangirls of boy bands saw his face, their eyes would turn into hearts as they would scream at the top of their lungs.
Any elite from Northern Canada would have recognized this face that belonged to the leader of the Chinese community in Canada. He held many honorary titles as well as functional positions in the government. Rumor had it that he was the boss of the underground criminal ring. He was also the head of the Hong Sect and was in charge of numerous shady businesses that were carried out under the table. The money that passed through his hands amounted to over a few billions of US dollars each year.
However, this man walked over to the old man with a great measure of respect. He said in fluent Chinese: “Master Lei.”
“Hi.”
The old man opened his eyes.
“Sthththla!”
A flash of lightning shot through the void space as the old man landed his gaze on a flake of snow before him. The heavy snowflake evaporated almost instantly. The old man was powerful enough to turn his gaze into a weapon.
The middle aged man noticed the energy coming out from the old man’s eyes, so he set his head even lower.
He knew that the old man’s system was so full of soul energy that it started to spill out. With that knowledge in mind, he bowed to the old man and said: “Master Lei, you are getting closer to the Immortal State each day.”
“I am still quite away from my goal.” The old man’s voice was dry and hoarse, it was as if he hadn’t spoken for ages. “The Immortal State is an elusive and slippery thing. Of all the martial artists in the world, only a very few of them were able to obtain the Immortal State. So far, I have only completed my True Qi cultivation and was nearing the peak of the Transcendent State.”
“To reach Internal Force, one will need to strengthen their physical condition, to reach the Transcendent State, they need to refine the Qi, and to reach the Immortal State, one would need to cultivate the essence of immortality.”
“Physical Strength and True Qi will not be enough for reaching the Immortal State. To reach the godly Immortal State, one would have to cultivate one’s Soul energy until it was powerful enough to summon lighting in the void space and obtain the ability of telekinesis in the real world. Even after gaining those abilities, one could only finally have a glimpse of the power of the Immortal State.”
The old man said slowly, while the middle aged man stood respectfully and listened attentively, fearing to miss even a word out of the old man’s mouth.
What the old man had to offer were top secrets of the martial arts world. No regular Grandmaster were able to come to such a conclusion and even fewer were willing to share the wisdom.
“What do you want from me this time?” The old man asked after he had finished his lesson.
He had kept himself in seclusion in the northern tundra for over a decade. For most of the time, he simply sat around the fishing hole and cultivated his Qi while fishing. He drank the icy water from the lake and killed animals for food. Thanks to the loneliness and the quietness around him, he was able to dedicate all of his attention into his cultivation. Slowly, as his True Qi merged with the Arcane energy in nature, he became one with nature and started to understand the deepest meaning of life.
This middle aged man was one of his best disciples. He was in control of the entire North American Chinese community and unless absolutely necessary, he would not disturb his master’s peaceful cultivation.
“Master Lei, Lin Hu is dead.” The middle age man lowered his head and spoke under his breath.
“Hum.” The old man answered readily.
Lin Hu was one of his countless disciples, and not a very particular outstanding one either. So, he wouldn’t care less if Lin Hu was dead. If he had to moan the passing of each and every one of his disciples, and his disciples’ disciples, he would never have time for his cultivation.
The old man knew that his chief disciple would not disturb him for such frivolous matters. So he waited for the real news patiently.
“The man who killed him was seventeen year old boy.” The middle aged man continued.
“Oh?” The old man raised an eyebrow, his interest was piqued.
Although Lin Hu was a far cry from his best disciples, he had reached the peak level of Internal Force cultivation, plus, he had learned the powerful Art of Thousand Trickeries directly from the old man himself.
The old man was taken by surprise to learn that a seventeen year old young man could have killed Lin Hu. However, surprise was all he felt, and his reaction stopped there.
He was at the precipice of power in the world. Only a very few people who were practically the stuff of legends would have rivaled his prowess. He had met a few young heroes like the boy who killed Lin Hu throughout his life and some of them ended their lives while combating him.
“That boy’s name is Chen Beixuan, and he must have reached the Transcendent State lately. So people are calling him the Young Grandmaster.” The middle age man put in.
“Young Grandmaster!” The old man’s face hardened more if it was even possible.
To achieve the level of Grandmaster required a lot of dedication. Even the old man himself didn’t have what it took to work on it until he was thirty. It was unthinkable that a seventeen-year-old boy could have already achieved such power. That being said, the old man was aware that there were a few well-hidden mystic arts and special elixirs that could boost one’s attainment straight to the Transcendent State. He knew at least one Daoism Sect that practiced hermeticism that might have possessed such mystic arts.
If that was how the boy achieved his Transcendent State, he had no chance of advancing his cultivation any further since the rushed progress would have spent his potential.
“Indeed. We heard news from China three days ago that he had killed the family Lord of the Lu Family, Lu Tianfen in front of a large crowd of martial artists.” The middle aged man’s voice trembled a little. Hearing the news coming out from his mouth, he still found it surreal.
“Some of the witnesses claimed that Lu Tianfen looked like a plaything in his hands. During the brief confrontation, the boy was unharmed. Someone suggested that the boy was both a Transcendent Master, as well as a Physique Refinement Grandmaster.”
“snap!”
The white line in the old man’s hand was suddenly broken from about two inches above the water surface. The loose strand fell to the calm water, like a lock hair.
“Master Lei!”
The middle age man was shocked by the development.
He knew that his master had been holding on the same fishing line ever since he started cultivation on the tundra. He fused the line with his True Qi every morning, strengthening it and extending it just so slightly. Over time, the quick-dissipating Qi had materialized into a solid form and reached miles long under the ice cover.
However, it was suddenly snapped after the old man heard the news. The nearly inaudible snap spoke loudly of the old man’s distraught mental condition.
“That’s fine.” The old man remained calm. However, a light started to glow in his eyes. “Lu Tianfen was not a powerful man. Despite his reputation as a Grandmaster, his performance was disappointing during our secret duel. To bad that I couldn’t kill him myself back then.”
The middle aged man’s face changed color when he heard the old man’s words.
The old man was regarded by the world as the most powerful Grandmaster whose needs had already transcended the worldly matters. It was hard to imagine that a boy could have done something that even the old man conceded that he couldn’t just a few years ago.
“Grandmasters are the true dragons. Defeating a Grandmaster is one thing, but killing one is entirely a different matter. It should have been impossible.” The old man suddenly sprung to his feet as he spoke.
In his previous haunched position, he looked scrawny and thin. Now he stood upright and pushed his chest out, looking like a sky-bound spruce tree or an unsheathed long sword that shone through the night.
“Our fight happened seventeen years ago. Now, I won’t even need both hands if I want to do away with Lu Tianfen.”
The old man stamped on the ground as he said so.
Suddenly, a wave of explosions rippled out from under the old man’s feet. The thick ice covers were blown off the lake, revealing bubbling water underneath.
From the broken ice cover, a hundred-meter long web made out of thin white threads rose into the air. In the net were countless trout, pikes and white fish. They jumped and thrashed around in the net, trying to break free. Among the fish was a two-meter-long seal. It writhed and wiggled its plump body in the net but to no avail.
“It. It..”
The middle aged man was stunned by sight. He knew that the large net was not made out of any material of this word, instead, it was formed by condensed True Qi. The fish in the net would weight over a few tons, yet the old man could hold them by just using his True Qi. How powerful exactly was he?
“Ten years ago, I had a single strand of thread, now, I have a huge net that can capture a dragon and cut through metal. With his deadly weapon, I wouldn’t need to lift a finger should I want to kill Lu Tianfen.”
The old man let out a peal of laughter.
Suddenly, the Qi Net folded into itself like a shrinking cage.
“Sthththtla!”
The fish and the marine mammals that were trapped in the net were sliced into countless chunks of bloody flesh, each the size of a pinky finger and were surprisingly uniform in shape. Blood poured down like a summer storm, turning the lake into a sea of blood. Looking from afar, it looked like a flower of death had bloomed a few hundred meters above the silent lake.
“Master Lei.”
The middle aged man dropped to his knees in sheer awe.
The old man’s power had exceeded his wildest imagination. What was the difference between his master and an immortal? He asked himself.
Lei Qianjue linked his hands behind his back and sauntered away, without wasting one more glance at the place where he had spent his last ten years of life. From the void dimension, a voice drifted in. “Let’s go. I will go to China and meet Chen Beixuan.”
“Yes, Master Lei!”
The middle aged man looked up, eyes glinting with joy.
It has been seventeen years since his master returned to the safety of seclusion to recuperate his injury. But now, he was back and was more determined than ever to change China.
“Chen Beixuan and Ye Nantian, just wait. This time, the Hong Sect will finally even the score with you.”
The middle aged man said as murderous intent burned in his eyes.