The tension inside the Seven-Treasures Pavilion snapped like a drawn bowstring.
Xiong Wei grinned sneeringly, taking a step forward to grab Lin Xuan’s hood. "Stubborn brat—"
Before his fingers could graze the coarse wool, Lin Xuan moved.
He didn't waste energy on a flashy shout or an exaggerated martial stance. To Lin Xuan, combat was pure physics: force vector, contact area, and kinetic transfer. He shifted his center of gravity two inches to the left, letting Xiong Wei’s reach pass harmlessly over his shoulder.
In the exact millisecond Xiong Wei’s momentum carried him forward, Lin Xuan’s Fire-Water Dual Roots accelerated.
His Fire root generated a sudden, dense surge of thermal kinetic force in his left hip, while his Water root kept his fluid channels perfectly friction-free. He drove a lightning-fast palm strike directly into the side of Xiong Wei’s right knee—the exact weak point where the Iron-Bear young master’s weight was poorly distributed.
CRACK!
The sound of fracturing cartilage echoed through the quiet hall.
"AGH!" Xiong Wei let out a high-pitched shriek as his right leg buckled inward. The sheer kinetic density of Lin Xuan’s Level 1, Sub-Level 3 strike was far higher than Xiong Wei’s unrefined Sub-Level 4 body could absorb.
As Xiong Wei pitched forward, Lin Xuan spun on his heel, using the young master’s falling body as a physical shield against the four guards.
"Young Master!"
The four Iron-Bear guards shouted in panic, drawing their broadswords with a metallic CLANG. But their reaction time was far too slow for Lin Xuan’s calculated execution. This story is hosted at NovelPing.
Lin Xuan reached back, grabbing Lin Chen’s wrist with absolute precision. "Go."
Channeling a burst of compressed Fire Qi into the soles of his shoes, Lin Xuan launched them both forward like a released spring. They shot past the stumbling guards, clearing the grand ironwood doors of the Seven-Treasures Pavilion before Xiong Wei’s body even hit the brass floorboards.
"Catch them! Kill them!" Xiong Wei roared from the floor, clutching his shattered knee in agony, his face red with rage and humiliation. "Block the western gate!"
Outside, the crowded thoroughfare of Mistbrook was in total chaos. Pedestrians scattered as Lin Xuan and Lin Chen blurred through the street, their gray cloaks billowing behind them like shadows.
"Xuan'er, they're deploying the street guards!" Lin Chen called out, her breath steady as her Wood-Water Qi flowed smoothly under Lin Xuan’s pre-designed breath routing.
Ahead of them, three Iron-Bear patrol guards in heavy iron chestplates stepped into the street, raising heavy oak shields to block the narrow alley leading to the western exit.
"Sub-Level 1 foot soldiers," Lin Xuan observed calmly, not slowing his pace by a single inch. "Structural rigidity high, lateral mobility zero."
Lin Xuan reached into his belt, drawing two small, low-grade iron iron-mining wedges he had carried from Stonebrook. As they closed the distance to ten paces, he flicked his wrists, channeling a rapid thermal expansion cycle into the iron.
THWIP! THWIP!
The iron wedges flew with terrifying velocity, striking the bottom pins of the heavy wooden shield wall. The wooden frames shattered under the thermal shock, causing the guards to lose their balance and tumble sideways into the dirt. Find the original chapter at novelping.com.
Lin Xuan and Lin Chen leaped cleanly over the fallen guards, darting out of the western archway and plunging into the dense, foggy pine bamboo forest surrounding Mistbrook.
Ten minutes later, deep within the quiet mountain woods, the two siblings finally slowed their pace.
Lin Chen pulled back her hood, her cheeks flushed red from the sprint, but her eyes were shining with awe. "Xuan'er! You broke Xiong Wei’s leg in a single hit! He was at Sub-Level 4!"
Lin Xuan pulled off his own hood, wiping a single bead of sweat from his forehead. His expression remained completely flat, devoid of any excitement or pride.
"Sub-Level 4 in name only," Lin Xuan scoffed softly, adjusting the mahogany herb box safely tucked inside his robe. "His meridian density was hollow, his stance had three major structural flaws, and his reaction latency was over four hundred milliseconds. A larger tank with a rusted pump."
He looked back toward the direction of Mistbrook, a faint, cold smirk touching his lips.
"We have the Grade-2 Spirit-Cleansing Lotus," Lin Xuan said, turning back toward the Stonebrook road. "We return to the estate, refine your pill remedy, and continue our circulation optimization. Today was merely an empirical test of backwoods martial inefficiency."
He felt completely validated. In his mind, defeating a higher sub-level cultivator from a rival clan using pure analytical mechanics proved that his theoretical framework was flawless.
He had no idea that back in Mistbrook, a messenger bird had already been released from the Iron-Bear Clan manor, bearing news of the incident straight to the provincial trade roads—where Senior Disciple Lu Tian was currently descending from the heavens.