Twilight had crept in, enveloping Village Chief Wang Nan's small hut in a cloak of golden shadow. However, within the small chamber that belonged to Chen Huang, there was a different dimension of stillness—a precious peace, measured not by the room's tiny size, but by the tranquility of the soul he found there. This place, truly, was an altar where the foundations of his destiny would be reforged.
The air in the room felt thick, filled with a faint mist of dispersed Dou Qi particles that danced aimlessly. Those energy particles glimmered like wasted gem dust.
Amidst that static swirl of light, Chen Huang positioned his body. His movement into the meditation posture was a ritual full of absolute precision and control.
His back, slowly but surely, found perfect alignment, upright as if supporting the low ceiling. Every muscle in his shoulders softened and dropped, signifying the release of worldly tension.
Both palms were raised, thumb and index finger meeting in the form of an ancient mudra seal, before finally being placed with perfect grace upon his folded lap. The curtain of his eyelids descended, tightly closing his view of the physical world, shifting his focus entirely to the inner ocean.
In that profound silence, a soft, subtle, yet powerful melody emanated from the core of his consciousness.
It was the voice of Yue Chan, an ethereal whisper that felt like the caressing breath of a goddess.
Her voice triggered a gentle resonance in Chen Huang's chest, as if the sound waves themselves were pure energy woven into words.
The voice echoed. "Now begin by stabilizing your Dou Qi."
A brief pause, in which the stillness of the room felt compressed, then the next instruction flowed, as calm as a crystal river.
"Imagine a single point, then gather your Dou Qi there."
Chen Huang responded to the captivating instruction, moving his 'inner fingers' towards the scattered Dou Qi. He did not force it, but called it. Slowly, the energy particles in the air began to crowd together, forming an invisible current that moved towards a single focal point on Chen Huang's forehead.
The absorption began. The Dou Qi seeped through his skin pores with a comforting gentleness, not a sting. Every drop of energy drawn was a small victory, a return of a treasure that had been lost.
As the wave of Dou Qi entered his cranial cavity, it sank into the boundless territory of his ocean of consciousness. There, in the depths of his soul, the chaotic Dou Qi began to follow a new law of nature.
They spun, forming miniature vortices that became more and more solid. Under Chen Huang's inner gaze, the wasted Dou Qi gathered into a dense, shining core, residing at the center of his mental ocean.
Now, not only had his energy returned, but his foundation was firmly imprinted. Chaos had been replaced by order, and wastefulness had turned into a pillar of strength.
In the depths of his ocean of consciousness, where the Dou Qi had just gathered into a shining core, Chen Huang found himself standing before an anomaly. The ocean itself was an expanse of dark mental water, yet before him, towering high and challenging the inner horizon, stood a wall.
The wall was not a mere illusion; it was a tangible manifestation of every doubt, every failure, and every limit ever imposed upon him.
Pitch black, like obsidian vomited from the deepest abyss, its surface was adorned with simple carvings—ancient symbols of failure, the stigma of humiliation eternally inscribed in his personal history. The certainty of its architecture declared solidity and permanence. It was a prison without bars that had held him for years.
Chen Huang looked up. His neck strained as he gazed at the top of the wall that seemed to pierce his inner sky. Then, his gaze shifted, dropping to his inner hand which now grasped a book. The scripture, a treasury of wisdom manifested by Yue Chan's ethereal guidance, felt cold and heavy, containing the weight of eternal knowledge.
Just a glimpse at the cover was enough to trigger a wave of intellectual passion. His inner heart pounded, its resonance feeling real in the ocean of his consciousness.
The Law Breaking Technique, Chapter One: Sky Breaker.
Chen Huang observed every curve of the characters that formed the title, as if trying to decipher the secret code hidden within. His mental fingers slowly and respectfully began tracing each page of the ancient book. Every touch felt like turning a layer of time. His eyes absorbed the rows of words that were so complicated, so layered with meaning, yet somehow, every concept felt clear—as if he had been waiting for this moment to understand the universal language of power.
The ancient writings, rather than being mere ink on paper, seemed to be alive. They were not read, but crawled into his inner brain. Each character shone with cold light, forming intricate patterns among his mental synapses. The scripture no longer gave him instructions; it implanted understanding, engraving the truth of what he must do.
A mantra, the core of the technique itself, began to be engraved on the spine of his will.
When the world writes limits, I overlay them with will.
When the heavens establish laws, I crack them with a single breath.
Amidst the frozen silence of the universe, my step becomes the hammer of fate.
Shattering shackles, splitting rules, crushing the foundations deemed eternal.
All these concepts, energy, and philosophies streamed into Chen Huang's mind, a flood of awareness that exponentially raised his level of comprehension. He felt something change from his core, not just power, but the permission granted to himself to reject limiting reality.
With burning comprehension, Chen Huang stood before the great wall, the barrier that had mocked and bound him all this time. Anger and resolve carved his inner facial features. His hands clenched so tightly that the book vanished, replaced by pure vengeance.
In Chen Huang's inner mind, flashes of memory appeared as fast as a sandstorm, all the harsh words people had thrown at him when he failed, the cynical laughter that stabbed him sharper than a dagger, deafening his consciousness. This cold resentment and hatred now no longer destroyed, but served as fuel.
Chen Huang's inner hand was filled with Dou Qi. The energy he had just absorbed and stabilized was activated, centering and condensing in his right fist. The Dou Qi shone with a dense silver color, looking like burning molten metal. With a slow, concentrated motion—a draw back that was like pulling the bowstring of fate—he pulled his arm back, the muscles in his shoulder tensing, promising an imminent explosion.
His feet were planted firmly on the floor of the ocean of consciousness, wet with mental water. The water rippled faintly, as if anticipating a massive release of energy. In a blink of an eye that could only be measured by will, he lunged forward towards the black wall. His speed cleaved the water, leaving two streaks of energy stretching behind him.
The Dou Qi-laden fist swung forward; the movement was the culmination of the technique he had just understood. It was a movement to break, not to hit.
"Law Breaking Fist!" he cried, an internal roar that shook the fundamentals of his ocean of consciousness.
The impact came with strength beyond calculation. The fist enveloped in silver Dou Qi met the obsidian wall. There was no loud bang; instead, an ethereal cracking sound was heard, as if the shackles themselves were tearing. The wall did not just shake—it exploded into itself. Instantly, the solid wall of bondage shattered into pieces, becoming swirling, decaying debris in the ocean of consciousness.
"Now control your Dou Qi! Absorb all the restrained Dou Qi!" Yue Chan's voice echoed, her tone sharp and urgent, forcing Chen Huang to act immediately amidst the euphoria of destruction.
Chen Huang obeyed without hesitation. He reactivated the absorption technique. The shattered wall debris, along with the scattered Dou Qi from the explosion, began to be pulled back into his body's meridians. The ocean of consciousness, which was previously dark and damaged by the wall's existence, now began to reshape, undergoing a total metamorphosis.
The mental water became clean, crystal clear, reflecting the clarity of his new will. Above, the sky that was once suppressed now opened up, irregular like a newly discovered dimension, full of light nebulae and infinite promise. Chen Huang succeeded; he did not just break through a limit, he destroyed his mental prison.
Back in Wang Nan's hut.
Chen Huang gasped, his eyelids trembling before slowly opening. The remnants of the internal struggle were clearly visible on his physical body. Cold sweat drenched his clothes, and his breathing was ragged, as if he had just run through a desert.
He lay stiffly in his room, his body testament to the long, painful struggle to shatter the shackles that bound his potential.
Then, an invisible wave of energy gently exploded from his core. All the scattered Dou Qi in the room, the Dou Qi he had managed to gather but was released in the internal explosion, was now pulled back into his body's meridians.
Boom.
The energy surged, flooding his circulation pathways. His rank leaped. Peak 5-star Dou Zhi Qi, 6-star... and stabilized at a new peak.
7-star Dou Zhi Qi!
He had broken through two ranks at once. The barrier had been shattered. Literally, Chen Huang was free from the shackles that had held him for years.
Chen Huang raised his right hand, slowly clenching his fist. A new and profound power pulsed beneath his skin. His resolve was now hard as steel, not only strong, but also resilient. This was the first step he had taken.