Chapter 397: Wutan City, Xiao Yan
Once he stepped out of the spatial rift, Ryū naturally dropped his Armament Haki shield — his Observation Haki had already picked up a human settlement roughly a dozen kilometers ahead, sizable by the look of it.
Which struck him as a little odd, honestly. His Observation Haki hadn't detected anything in this direction earlier at all.
Only once he'd closed most of the distance did the town's presence finally register.
What was going on there — had his Observation Haki somehow gotten worse?
That couldn't be right. He was eighteen years old, still very much in his prime — there was no reasonable way his abilities should be regressing at this stage.
Or maybe something in this world was actively interfering with his Haki's reach?
He glanced up at the thick blanket of clouds overhead, clearly signaling rain on the way.
"Probably the high spatial density of this Battle Through the Heavens world messing with Observation Haki's precision. Range seems unaffected, but the fine detail's taking a hit."
Ryū worked out the likely cause fast enough — and how did he land on it so confidently? Well... mostly because Yukari had just mentioned the exact same issue in the chat group, which more or less confirmed his own guess was on the right track.
Sure enough, everyone else in the group with some form of sensory ability was reporting the same minor interference — everyone except him, apparently.
Not a serious problem, though. Ryū noticed that the longer he kept Observation Haki active, the sharper its detail resolution became over time.
Meaning the earlier failure to detect the town wasn't a real limitation — just a temporary adjustment period, something his senses simply needed to calibrate to.
Sure enough, as the seconds ticked by, his Haki's fine detail steadily sharpened, gradually settling into the new baseline.
"Just an adjustment thing, huh. Makes sense. Well, whatever — not a big deal either way, I'm not here to fight anyone."
Setting aside the minor concern, Ryū let out a small breath and headed toward the town now within his sensory range.
A few more minutes passed, and — whether thanks to a stroke of good luck, or simply fate working in mysterious ways — Ryū found himself standing before a towering, weathered stone monument by the roadside, inscribed with three large characters he technically didn't recognize and yet somehow understood perfectly: Wutan City.
The moment he read those three characters, an entire avalanche of complaints welled up inside him, and he genuinely couldn't decide which one to voice first.
Ryū had no idea whether some goddess of fate was actively steering the outcomes of every dimensional world he visited, or whether this was simply a coincidence within a coincidence.
Those three ancient, weathered characters struck him as almost comically absurd — coincidental enough that he nearly laughed out loud on the spot.
Shaking his head, resigned, he set off down the wide public road leading toward this so-called Wutan City, step by step.
Through his Observation Haki, he registered that this town — in the original story, nothing more than a humble starting village — actually covered a surprisingly large area, its population nothing to scoff at either.
Not that it should have surprised him, thinking about it — the Dou Qi Continent was clearly far larger than Earth, its population correspondingly larger too. A "starter village" on a continent this scale could still comfortably qualify as sprawling and densely populated.
As he drew closer to the city, more and more pedestrians appeared around him — mostly traveling merchants, along with some returning... Dou Qi cultivators, presumably?
Ryū had no real grasp of what "Dou Qi" actually was, but he could clearly sense that something set these people apart from ordinary folk.
Much like how, without ever learning to draw on chakra himself, he could still tell instantly whether someone carried chakra, and roughly how much of it they had.
Ryū's outfit made him something of an oddity walking through Wutan City. Sure, plenty of people dressed distinctively enough here, but his particular style still drew a handful of curious glances — perhaps counting as its own distinct brand of "eccentric."
His clothes were straight out of the Naruto world, styled fairly close to how he'd have dressed back on his own Earth — a casual outfit, comfort over anything else.
But by Wutan City's standards, that casual style undeniably registered as bizarre, foreign attire.
He paid the occasional stare no mind, muttering idly to himself instead. "Wonder which timeline I've landed in, exactly. If this is right around the start of the story, maybe I'll get to witness that legendary 'fortunes rise and fall' moment firsthand?"
Though, honestly, he doubted it. Landing in Wutan City of all places, on his very first try — Ryū figured he'd probably already burned through most of his luck just getting here.
Running that low on luck and still catching some famous canon scene playing out live? That felt like asking for a bit too much.
Wutan City's architecture struck him as genuinely strange — vaguely reminiscent of classical Chinese architecture, but with plenty of subtle differences layered throughout.
Eastern elements were everywhere, unmistakably — hardly surprising, given this was an Eastern fantasy world through and through. Wouldn't be much of an Eastern fantasy setting without them.
Not "Eastern" in the sense of some washed-up wuxia knockoff, mind you — if the architecture had leaned that direction, Battle Through the Heavens's overall art style would've ended up considerably weirder than it already was.
Ryū's senses were sharp enough that, walking through Wutan City's streets, every stray fragment of conversation reached his ears, his endlessly-enhanced brain sorting and filtering the noise in real time.
"Mom... Mom, I want that rooster-shaped candy, it's so pretty!"
"Too much candy rots your teeth. No buying it — that money's better spent on an egg for your dinner, you little brat."
"Damn it, botched that job. Almost got caught, good thing I'm fast on my feet. Theft's a serious crime in the Jia Ma Empire — minimum ten, twenty years locked up for it."
"Ugh... only lasted ten breaths this time. My wife's about ready to give up on me..."
"What? You're pulling my leg — Xiao Yan, of the Xiao clan, suddenly lost all his cultivation? When did that happen? Did he cross someone and get crippled for it?"
"Shh, keep your voice down, you idiot. I'm an internal household steward for the Xiao clan, cousin — you think I'd get this wrong?"
"Huh? Isn't he only eleven? Guess that prodigy's career is over before it even started, then."
"Who knows! Either way, cousin here's staying well clear of him from now on. Better pick the right side early. That kid's got nothing left to offer anyone going forward."
"You sure you don't want to watch a bit longer, cousin? What if it's just a bad rumor?"
"Ha! Bad rumor, my foot. Cousin here's been watching him for three or four days straight now, not the slightest sign of recovery. Think I'm stupid enough to pick a side on a whim? I've been reading the situation carefully."
"So he's had nothing for three or four days already, then?"
"Why would I lie about that?"
"..."
Finally, something caught Ryū's ear enough to make him actually stop and listen — though, unfortunately, that particular conversation cut off shortly after, the two men drifting onto some other topic entirely. Probably the "cousin" figured he'd already said too much and risked exposing his source.
Interesting, though — in canon, word of Xiao Yan's fall from grace had apparently already spread through Wutan City by now. Maybe this very "cousin" was the actual source of the leak, whispering it to his younger relative.
Or maybe this so-called household steward was actually someone's pawn, deliberately planted to let the news dribble out gradually.
The rumor would spread from there, snowballing outward — one person telling ten, ten telling a hundred, until the whole city knew.
A shame, really — he'd missed his chance to witness the legendary "fortunes rise, fortunes fall" moment in person. From what he'd overheard, though, Ryū could at least place the timeline: this was right around when Xiao Yan was eleven years old.
Chapter two of the original novel, or somewhere around there, covered exactly this — an unexplained calamity befalling the eleven-year-old Xiao Yan, reducing him to the "useless washout" everyone in town would come to mock.
Ryū had a genuinely vivid memory of Xiao Yan, honestly — the protagonist who'd more or less single-handedly kicked off an entire wave of "useless trash turns out to be a secret prodigy" and "broken engagement" web-novel tropes. He'd been an avid web-fiction reader back in his old life, after all, so the name stuck.
In canon, Xiao Yan himself was also a transmigrator from Earth — no telling how similar or different his home Earth's culture might've been from Ryū's own, but broadly speaking, close enough to call the guy a fellow countryman, more or less.
Ryū found himself wondering — if he gave this particular "countryman" a bit of a boost, how differently might Battle Through the Heavens's plot end up unfolding?
Like, say, teaching Xiao Yan Transformation Jutsu and Shadow Clone Jutsu, so he could... occupy himself during those three lonely, "useless" years some other way?
Well — never mind, actually, he had no clue how to teach ninjutsu himself. Ryū, having zero real understanding of shinobi techniques, had to admit that particular mischievous idea wasn't going anywhere.
The thought had surfaced entirely on impulse, and Ryū didn't dwell on it much — as long as he wasn't actually hurting anyone, having a good time during this group event was really all that mattered.
Observation Haki blanketed the entirety of Wutan City in an instant, every last detail falling squarely within his awareness — full, comprehensive coverage that let him "see" absolutely everything.
Right down to a single ant, somewhere far off, dragging a grain of rice along.
Just then, Ryū let out a small, surprised "huh," followed by a dry laugh, murmuring to himself a moment later. "Almost forgot Wutan City isn't entirely full of pushovers — there's Ling Ying here too. Xiao Xun'er's secret bodyguard, if I remember right. Dou Huang-tier, I think?"
Dou Huang-level strength was already absurdly overpowered by Wutan City's local standards. On the wider Dou Qi Continent as a whole, though, it landed in a genuinely awkward middle tier.
Above it sat Dou Zong, Dou Zun, Dou Zun Peak, Half-Saint, Dou Sheng, and Dou Huang — no wait, Douhuang was the topmost tier — six ranks in total above it. Below it sat Dou Zhi Qi, Dou Zhe, Dou Shi, Da Dou Shi, Dou Ling, and Dou Wang, another six ranks below.
Which was exactly why Ryū found Dou Huang's standing on the Dou Qi Continent so genuinely awkward — strong enough to stand out, but not remotely close to the top. More than most, but nowhere near the best.
☆☆☆
-> 20 Advanced chapters Now Available on Patreon!!
-> https://www.pat-reon.co-m/c/Hollowborn
(Just remove the hyphen (-) to access patreon normally)
If you like this novel please consider leaving a review that's help the story a lot Thank you