The road leading out of the Frost Province was a treacherous vein of black rock known as the Titan's Spine. To a normal traveler, it was a month-long death march through blizzards and hungry beasts. To Ye Feng, it was a morning stroll.
He moved with a steady, rhythmic pace, his father's old kitchen knife tucked into a burlap belt. Each step he took seemed to cover ten meters of ground, a subtle distortion of space that made him look as though he were gliding. This was the result of his "Hard Work"—thousands of hours spent running up vertical cliffs with boulders strapped to his back.
"HELP! BY THE ANCESTORS' GREEDY GHOSTS, SAVE ME!"
The scream shattered the mountain silence, followed by the sound of heavy thudding and the splintering of wood.
Ye Feng rounded a jagged bend and paused. A hundred yards ahead, a lavishly decorated merchant carriage lay overturned. Its silk curtains were shredded, and its wheels spun uselessly in the air.
Hiding under the main axle was a young man who looked like he had been built out of several large, well-fed circles. He wore robes of expensive sky-blue brocade that were currently covered in mud, and his fingers—stubby and covered in gold rings—were gripped tightly around a heavy iron lockbox.
This was Wei man-ho, known to the world (or at least his creditors) as Fatty Wei.
Towering over the carriage was a Silver-Back Frost Ape. This wasn't a normal beast; it was a Rank 2 Calamity, a creature with skin as hard as tempered steel and breath that could turn a man's blood into ice shards. It roared, a sound that caused an avalanche on the nearby peaks.
"Oh, shut up," Ye Feng muttered, his voice flat with annoyance. "You're ruining the atmosphere."
Fatty Wei peeked out from under the carriage, his eyes widening as he saw a lone teenager walking toward the monster with nothing but a kitchen knife.
"Hey! Kid! Run!" Fatty Wei squealed, his voice reaching a pitch only dogs could hear. "That's a Silver-Back! It eats Rank 1 cultivators for breakfast and uses their bones as toothpicks! My guards are already dead or halfway to the next province! Run, you idiot!"
Ye Feng didn't run. He didn't even slow down. He reached into his pouch, pulled out a small clove of wild garlic, and began peeling it.
"Rank 2, huh?" Ye Feng mused, looking the twelve-foot ape up and down. "Good muscle density. A bit lean in the haunches, but if I braise it with enough mountain wine, it might be edible."
The Ape, sensing it was being insulted, lunged. It brought down a fist the size of a boulder, intending to paste this "Mortal Trash" into the permafrost.
BOOM.
The impact created a crater ten feet wide. Snow and rock exploded into the air. Fatty Wei wailed, closing his eyes. "No! Such a young life, wasted! And I still haven't sold him my 'High-Grade Spirit Protection' charms!"
But the dust settled to a sight that defied logic.
Ye Feng was standing in the center of the crater. He had stopped the Ape's fist with his left hand—not even his palm, but his index finger. His feet hadn't even sunk into the ground. The "Rusty Pendant" around his neck glowed with a faint, mocking light.
"You're loud," Ye Feng said, his eyes flashing a brief, terrifying gold. "And you're messy."
He flicked his finger.
The movement was so fast Fatty Wei's eyes couldn't track it. A shockwave of pure, compressed kinetic energy—the "No-Hitch" force of ten thousand repetitions—ripped through the Ape's arm. The beast didn't just fly back; it spun through the air like a discarded toy, smashing through three ancient pine trees before landing with a sickening thud a hundred meters away.
Dead. Instantly. Its internal organs had been turned to jelly by the vibration alone.
Ye Feng walked over to the carcass, ignored the terrified merchant, and began inspecting the Ape's hindquarters with his knife. "A bit bruised. Wasteful."
Fatty Wei crawled out from under the carriage, his jaw hitting his chest. He looked at the dead Rank 2 beast, then at the teenager now expertly skinning it with a kitchen knife.
"You... you just... one finger..." Fatty Wei stammered. Then, his merchant brain clicked back into gear. His fear vanished, replaced by the glint of absolute greed. "Brother! Hero! Ancestor! My name is Wei Man-ho, but you can call me your most loyal servant! Are you an Immortal in disguise? A hidden disciple of a Great Sect? Do you need a manager? A publicist? Someone to carry your snacks?"
Ye Feng didn't look up. "I'm a farmer. My Grandma says I'm 'normal.'"
"Normal?!" Fatty Wei shrieked, looking at the crater. "If that's normal, I'm a skinny dancing girl! Listen, Brother Farmer, you saved my life. And more importantly, you saved my gold. In exchange, I, Fatty Wei, shall guide you to the Azure Cloud Sect. I know all the shortcuts, all the elders' favorite bribes, and which disciples have the most punchable faces!"
Ye Feng paused, his knife halting. He looked at the fat merchant. He saw the sweat, the greed, but also a strange spark of genuine loneliness in the man's eyes. Plus, having someone else carry the luggage sounded efficient.
"Can you cook?" Ye Feng asked.
"I can eat!" Fatty Wei replied proudly.
"Close enough," Ye Feng sighed. He tossed a massive hunk of prime ape meat at Fatty Wei. "Carry that. We're having stew tonight."
As the sun began to dip behind the Titan's Spine, the two of them set off. One was a "Normal" boy who carried the weight of a fallen empire in his blood, and the other was a greedy merchant who didn't realize he had just hitched his wagon to a star.
"So," Fatty Wei chattered, struggling under the weight of the meat. "What's with the rusty pendant? It looks like trash. I could get you a Jade one for—"
"Touch the pendant," Ye Feng said, his voice dropping an octave, "and I'll see how a 'Merchant Stew' tastes."
Fatty Wei gulped, sweat pouring down his face. "Understood! Iron is very fashionable this season! Extremely masculine!"
They walked on, leaving a trail of broken trees and shattered logic behind them. The journey to the Azure Cloud Sect had officially begun.