Inscribing the Heavens

Chapter 7: The Pavilion of Boundless Tomes

The autumn twilight painted the peaks of Canglan Academy in burnt amber and violet.

In the quiet courtyard of the Eastern Medicine Pavilion, the weeping willow swayed softly in the evening breeze. On the wooden porch, an old man in a threadbare, wine-stained grey robe sat with one leg hooked over the railing, holding an unglazed clay gourd filled with cheap pear-blossom wine.

Master Gu Tianxing was fifty-odd years old, his grey hair unkempt and his posture indolent. To ordinary academy elders, he was merely an eccentric, broken-spirited caretaker banished to tend herbs because his dantian had supposedly withered decades ago.

Yet as Lu Chen and Kuang Yan stepped into the yard, Master Gu’s hazy, wine-soaked eyes cleared for a fleeting instant.

"Two fingers to shatter cold iron," Master Gu took a slow sip, wiping his mouth with a ragged sleeve. "You boy... for three years you slept under that willow, pretending to be a mute stone. Now you jump onto the stage and slap the Murong Clan until their teeth rattle. Do you think Murong Ba’s Ninth Layer Qi is made of paper?"

Kuang Yan set his heavy iron broadsword down with a dull thud, grinning broadly. "Master Gu, that peacock Murong Feng was crying like a baby! If Brother Lu didn't stop me, I would have smashed their Second Elder into meat paste!"

"Brute," Master Gu grunted, though faint amusement flickered in his cloudy eyes. He turned his gaze toward Lu Chen.

At seventeen years of age, Lu Chen stood tall in his freshly issued inner court robe. The azure silk was lined with delicate silver borders, accentuating his lean, poised frame. His skin held the pure, radiant translucence of ancient mutton-fat jade, and his obsidian eyes held a tranquil calm no storm could disturb. His jet-black hair was bound neatly with a dark ribbon, giving him the bearing of an immortal scholar stepping into the dusty mortal world.

Even Master Gu, who had witnessed countless prodigies and emperors in his distant past, couldn't help but marvel at the youth’s extraordinary bone structure and ethereal grace.

"Master Gu," Lu Chen bowed slightly with an easy smile. "A dog barked at our door for three years. If I didn't hit it once, it would continue soiling the courtyard."

"Barking dogs are easy to kick," Master Gu warned, tossing the wine gourd lightly. "It is the wolf pack behind them that carries venom. In seven days, the academy dispatches inner disciples into the Black Wind Mountain Range for the Winter Hunt. Out in the wilderness, academy rules cannot reach."

"Let them come," Lu Chen said softly, untroubled. "A blade only sharpens against an anvil."

Master Gu stared at Lu Chen before letting out a dry chuckle. "Fine. Go to the Hidden Scripture Pavilion. An empty hand can catch one sword, but against wolves in the wild, you need real methods."

"Disciple obeys," Lu Chen bowed and turned toward the central peak.

*

The Hidden Scripture Pavilion was a grand, seven-story pagoda of dark ironwood on the central summit of Canglan Academy. Bathed in the glow of evening spirit lanterns, it radiated an imposing, ancient dignity.

As Lu Chen stepped through the grand archway, the soft murmur of disciples filling the foyer instantly died away.

"Look... that’s Lu Chen!"

"He really came to the Scripture Pavilion!"

Dozens of disciples turned their heads. After the duel at the Martial Ring, news of Lu Chen’s Flawless Heaven-Grade Meridian and barehanded victory had overturned the academy.

Several inner court senior sisters in shimmering lavender robes stared at Lu Chen, eyes shining with fascination.

"He is even more handsome up close," whispered an eighteen-year-old senior sister, cheeks flushing pink. "Look at his eyes... so calm and deep, like starlight over an ancient mountain. At only seventeen... such poise makes the clan heirs look like clumsy children."

"Hmph, don't let your heart wander too far," a companion teased softly. "Senior Sister Chu Qingxuan smiled at him on the martial stage today. Do you dare contest with the Ice Fairy?"

Lu Chen walked through the whispering crowds with measured, graceful steps, showing neither pride from their praise nor discomfort from their scrutiny. Presenting his silver-trimmed token to the elder at the counter, Lu Chen was permitted into the First and Second Floors, where hundreds of Yellow-Tier and Mystic-Tier manuals were preserved.

The rows of dark sandalwood bookshelves stretched like a labyrinth of ancient wisdom. Disciples usually spent weeks agonizing over a single manual, carefully weighing elemental affinities before choosing one technique to cultivate for years.

Lu Chen, however, did not stop to choose.

He walked down the center aisle, his pale jade-like fingers brushing lightly across the wooden spines of the ancient scrolls.

HUMMM—!

The moment his fingers grazed a manual, the Wordless Heavenly Scripture floating in his sea of consciousness began turning its starlit pages with dizzying speed.

Yellow-Tier High-Grade: Blazing Sun Saber Technique.

Deconstructed, optimized, and transcribed into the Mystic-Tier Solar Ember Blade Intent!

Yellow-Tier Peak: Cloud-Drifting Phantom Footwork.

Forty-two steps, twelve breathing cadences refined into the Mystic-Tier Rippling Cloud Void Step!

Mystic-Tier Low-Grade: Nine-Fold Thunder Palm.

Seven meridian blockages resolved, reborn as the Heaven-Shaking Thunder Seal!

One book. Five books. Twenty books.

Lu Chen strolled through the aisles, pulling down scrolls, skimming them for three breaths, and returning them to the shelves. To onlookers, it seemed as though the youth was merely browsing pictures out of boredom.

"What is he doing?" an inner disciple muttered. "He has looked through thirty manuals in half an incense stick of time! Does he think he can cultivate a technique just by flipping pages?"

"Perhaps he was dazzled by the selection," another chuckled condescendingly. "If a person tries to grasp every branch, they end up with nothing."

Lu Chen paid no heed.

Inside his dantian, the Primordial Dao Origin Bloodline circulated like a warm golden river, synchronizing with the torrent of refined martial insights flooding his consciousness. Swordsmanship, spear forms, palm arts, footwork, and barriers were not isolated tricks, but different branches of the same primordial Heavenly Dao!

By the time he reached the end of the second floor, over one hundred martial arts had been digested and inscribed in golden ink upon the Wordless Scripture.

Suddenly, Lu Chen paused before a dusty bookshelf in the darkest corner of the second floor.

Tucked between two compendiums was a fragmented, soot-stained bamboo scroll, its edges frayed as though it had survived a great fire centuries ago.

Lu Chen picked it up. On the worn bamboo slips, three faded characters were inscribed:

Tide-Severing Spear.

Unlike ordinary manuals, this was an incomplete record penned by an ancient spear master who attempted to fuse the weight of mountain stone with the boundless fluidity of ocean waves. Because the concepts were contradictory, every disciple who had attempted it had suffered severe meridian backlash, causing the academy to abandon it as a "dead manual."

Buzz.

The Wordless Heavenly Scripture trembled violently within his soul!

Starlit ink flowed across the jade scroll, connecting the fragmented sentences and bridging the contradiction between water and earth with the supreme harmony of Primordial Qi!

Mystic-Tier Fragmented Art... Reconstructed.

Upgraded to Earth-Tier Low-Grade: Myriad Ocean Sovereign Spear!

A profound intent burst through Lu Chen’s mind, depicting a solitary warrior standing amidst roaring oceans, shattering tidal waves with a single thrust!

"Interesting," Lu Chen whispered, smiling faintly. "An unfinished Dao finds its completion here."

"That is a cursed manual."

A cool, melodic voice drifted from behind the bookshelf.

Lu Chen turned. Standing in the soft lamplight was Chu Qingxuan.

At seventeen years of age, her beauty under the warm lanterns was breathtaking. She wore a flowing snow-white scholar’s robe, her dark hair pinned with a single white-jade hairpin, framing a face so delicate and pure she seemed carved from moonlight. In her slender hands, she held an ancient sword manual.

"Senior Sister Chu," Lu Chen greeted her calmly.

Chu Qingxuan walked closer, stopping three paces away. Her starlike eyes swept over the tattered bamboo scroll in his hands, a faint line forming between her delicate brows.

"Thirty years ago, an inner court genius attempted the Tide-Severing Spear," Chu Qingxuan said, her voice soft as falling snow. "His meridians ruptured, and he was crippled for life. Why choose a dead path when there are dozens of complete sword manuals here?"

Lu Chen looked at the cold fairy of the Chu Clan. Beneath her aloof exterior lay a sincere dedication to the martial path.

"There are no dead paths in heaven and earth, Senior Sister," Lu Chen replied gently, his dark eyes meeting hers with calm conviction. "Only walkers whose vision was too narrow to see the bend in the river."

Chu Qingxuan froze, the words echoing in her mind like a clear bell.

For years, elders had told her that the Dao was rigid—that frost was cold, fire was hot, and to mix contradictory laws was impossible. Yet this seventeen-year-old youth spoke of the Dao as an ever-flowing river.

Looking into his tranquil eyes and ethereal, composed face, Chu Qingxuan felt an unfamiliar warmth flutter in her chest.

"Black Wind Mountain," Chu Qingxuan whispered, her eyes turning solemn. "Murong Ba met with the Blood Wolf Mercenaries outside the city gates this afternoon. Their leader, Xue Sha, is a ruthless killer at the Eighth Layer of Qi Condensation. In the mountain trial, they will hunt you."

She paused, lifting her cold-jade sword slightly. "If you wish, you and Kuang Yan may join my Chu Clan’s squad during the trial. Inside my perimeter, neither Murong Ba nor the mercenaries will dare touch you."

To be personally invited into the Ice Fairy's protection squad was an honor beyond reach for any genius in the city.

Yet Lu Chen merely smiled, shook his head, and clasped his hands in courteous refusal.

"Senior Sister Chu’s goodwill is appreciated, but dragons do not learn to fly beneath another’s wings," Lu Chen said, his tone serene yet unyielding. "If the wolf pack comes, they will only discover that the prey they sought was the hunter all along."

Chu Qingxuan looked at him for a long moment, then a soft, radiant smile blossomed across her face like a plum flower defying the winter snow.

"Then I shall watch how you hunt the wolves, Junior Brother Lu."