Chapter 3: A City Worth Protecting
By the time breakfast was finished, the forge was waiting.
The brothers wheeled their bicycles out into the street, mounted them, and began pedaling toward the family smithy.
Unlike ordinary bicycles...
These were training bicycles.
Every part had been reinforced with refined steel.
The wheels were thicker.
The chains were stronger.
Even turning the pedals required enough force to make an ordinary man collapse after only a few meters.
To Yun Che and Yun Ren, however, it served as another morning exercise.
The heavy resistance strengthened their legs while allowing them to cross the city without wasting time.
"Race you."
Before Yun Che could answer, Yun Ren shot forward.
"...You already started."
"Exactly!"
Yun Che sighed.
"One day he'll discover the meaning of a fair race."
Still...
He pushed harder.
The reinforced bicycle accelerated smoothly beneath him.
Mistforge was fully awake now.
Shopkeepers opened their doors.
Children hurried toward tutors.
Blacksmiths argued over iron prices before the first customers had even arrived.
And everywhere...
Bicycles.
A merchant rode one with two large baskets hanging from either side.
A messenger rang a brass bell while weaving between pedestrians.
Several guards pedaled toward the western gate in full armor.
An elderly woman balanced an impossible number of vegetables behind her seat.
No one stared anymore.
No one pointed.
The bicycle had quietly become part of everyday life.
Yun Che smiled.
Then smiled a little less.
Because not one of those bicycles had been built by his family's forge.
At first...
Only the Yun Smithy had known how to make them.
Business had exploded almost overnight.
People from neighboring villages had traveled to Mistforge simply to buy one.
Then...
Other blacksmiths had purchased bicycles.
Taken them apart.
Studied every piece.
Within months...
Copies appeared everywhere.
Some were better.
Some were worse.
Most looked almost identical.
His father had been furious.
His brother had complained for nearly a week.
Yun Che...
Had merely shrugged.
He had known it would happen.
Ideas were easy to steal.
Especially when there were no laws protecting them.
He had lost a fortune before ever earning it.
Yet strangely...
He wasn't bitter.
If anything...
It had taught him an important lesson.
Knowledge alone isn't enough.
If he truly wished to change this world...
If he wanted his inventions to remain his...
He first needed the strength to protect them.
Power came before influence.
Influence came before innovation.
Without power...
Even the greatest invention simply became everyone else's invention.
Yun Che glanced toward the mountains beyond the city walls.
One day...
I'll have both.
His thoughts drifted toward larger ambitions.
A motorcycle.
A car.
The concepts existed clearly inside his memories.
Unfortunately...
Concepts and reality were very different things.
He didn't even fully understand how a modern engine worked.
And even if he did...
Would it matter?
This wasn't Earth.
Machines powered only by fuel would never compete with cultivators capable of lifting boulders and outrunning horses.
No.
If he wished to create something worthwhile...
It would have to use Ki.
A Ki engine.
A Ki transmission.
Ki-powered movement.
That required a level of craftsmanship he simply hadn't reached yet.
Only after entering the Foundation Establishment Realm could cultivators freely manipulate Ki outside their own bodies.
Only then could he begin experimenting properly.
His father often joked that Yun Che spent more time inventing impossible problems than solving real ones.
He wasn't entirely wrong.
There had been one exception.
A flying machine.
Yun Che had actually managed to build a crude glider inspired by the ancient aircraft from Earth's earliest days.
Against all expectations...
It flew.
For nearly thirty seconds.
His landing had become local entertainment for an entire month.
Even afterward, the design had remained impractical.
The skies belonged to monsters.
Massive birds.
Winged beasts.
Creatures that considered anything flying to be food.
Until humanity ruled the heavens...
Flying machines were little more than expensive snacks.
Still...
The project hadn't been a waste.
Every failure taught him something.
And someday...
Those lessons would become part of his greatest creation.
His armor.
Not merely heavy armor...
The ultimate armor.
One worthy of protecting him anywhere in the world.
As they rounded another street, Yun Che slowed his bicycle.
Children's laughter filled the air.
The small city park.
He couldn't help smiling.
When he had first suggested building a dedicated place for children to play...
Most adults had looked at him as though he'd lost his mind.
"Why?"
"Children already have sticks."
"They can chase each other."
"What more do they need?"
Apparently...
Quite a lot.
Now the park was almost always full.
Young children climbed brightly painted wooden structures.
Others slid down polished ramps while laughing loud enough for the entire neighborhood to hear.
A group argued passionately over the rules of football.
Several swings moved back and forth beneath a large oak tree.
Swings had always existed in one form or another.
Slides...
Not so much.
At first, adults had insisted children would simply fall off.
They had been correct.
Children did indeed fall off.
Then they climbed back up laughing and did it again.
Yun Che considered that a successful experiment.
Football had become unexpectedly popular as well.
Cultivators appreciated anything that improved coordination and endurance.
Children simply enjoyed kicking the ball as hard as possible.
Everyone won.
"You've got that look again."
Yun Ren rolled beside him.
"What look?"
"The one where you're planning something."
"I'm always planning something."
"Exactly."
None of these projects had made Yun Che wealthy.
They had barely earned him anything.
But that had never really been the point.
He liked seeing people smile.
He liked watching children invent games using equipment he had helped design.
He liked that the city felt... alive.
Mistforge was small.
Everyone knew everyone else.
If someone's roof collapsed, neighbors rebuilt it together.
If a hunter was injured, meals quietly appeared outside their home until they recovered.
When winter became especially harsh, families shared firewood without keeping score.
The mountains forged more than steel.
They forged people who depended upon one another.
The weather was cold.
The winds were unforgiving.
The hearts of its people...
Were surprisingly warm.
Of course, Mistforge wasn't some perfect paradise.
Troublemakers who harassed the townsfolk rarely lasted long.
The city guards dealt with them swiftly.
If someone repeatedly stole, extorted, or preyed upon others...
They were escorted beyond the walls and told not to return.
In a land filled with monsters, there was little patience for those who chose to become monsters themselves.
Even so...
Justice had its limits.
The man who ruled Mistforge was no saint.
The City Lord protected the city because it was his responsibility.
He maintained roads.
Funded the guards.
Resolved disputes.
But power had a price.
If word spread that someone had discovered a rare treasure...
An ancient weapon...
Or a valuable cultivation manual...
The City Lord's interest often arrived before congratulations did.
Officially, he never stole.
Unofficially...
Few people refused his "requests."
Those who did generally regretted it.
Yun Che had long since learned another lesson about this world.
Good people existed.
Kind people existed.
But power...
Power had a way of bending morality until it resembled convenience.
It was yet another reason he intended to grow stronger.
Not to rule others.
Not to become famous.
But so that, one day, if he created something extraordinary...
No one could simply take it from him.
------------------------------------
The Yun Smithy never truly fell silent.
Even before customers arrived, the rhythmic chorus of hammers echoed through the workshop.
Clang.
Clang.
Clang.
To outsiders, every strike sounded the same.
To a blacksmith...
Every note carried meaning.
A skilled smith could tell whether steel was too hot, too cold, too brittle, or perfectly ready simply by listening.
Yun Che had grown up with those sounds.
Now they had become the rhythm of his cultivation.
"Today's orders."
Yun Jian handed each of his sons a stack of wooden tags.
"Three hunting spears."
"Two longswords."
"Eight horseshoes."
"One breastplate."
Yun Ren groaned dramatically.
"Horseshoes again?"
"They pay."
"I know."
"They're boring."
"They still pay."
"...Fair enough."
Yun Che smiled and carried his materials toward his forge.
To most people...
Blacksmithing looked like exhausting labor.
To Yun Che...
It was another training ground.
His heavy hammer rose effortlessly into the air.
It weighed nearly half a tonne.
A normal cultivator at the Peak Mortal Realm could lift it.
Very few could swing it continuously for hours.
Yun Che inhaled slowly.
Ki flowed through his body.
Not wildly.
Not explosively.
Calmly.
Controlled.
His muscles tightened.
Bones strengthened.
Every fiber of his body awakened.
This was the most fundamental technique every cultivator learned.
Body Enhancement.
Ki flowed through flesh, muscles, tendons, and bones, greatly increasing physical ability.
Without it...
Even wearing his armor would have been impossible.
With it...
Ten tonnes felt merely heavy instead of impossible.
Years of constant use had given Yun Che unusually refined control.
He no longer flooded his entire body with Ki.
Instead...
He directed exactly as much energy as each movement required.
No more.
No less.
His father often said that wasting Ki during ordinary work was the habit of amateurs.
Yun Che intended never to become one.
The hammer descended.
CLANG!
Instead of merely striking...
Yun Che concentrated Ki into his shoulders, elbow, wrist, and fingers at the exact moment of impact.
The movement became noticeably faster.
Almost unnaturally so.
This technique was known as...
Swift Strike.
It wasn't flashy.
No explosions.
No glowing light.
Simply perfect timing.
By focusing Ki only where it mattered...
The hammer accelerated dramatically during the final instant of the swing.
Whether forging steel or wielding a sword...
A faster strike often decided victory before an opponent even reacted.
Again.
CLANG!
Again.
CLANG!
Thousands upon thousands of repetitions.
Skill wasn't born from understanding.
It was born from repetition until the body stopped thinking altogether.
Several minutes later...
Yun Che changed techniques.
This time...
Instead of spreading Ki throughout the swing...
He gathered it into the hammerhead itself.
The energy remained dormant.
Waiting.
The instant metal met metal—
BOOM!
A deep shockwave rolled through the forge.
The glowing steel flattened beneath a single strike.
Nearby apprentices instinctively glanced over.
Yun Jian merely nodded once before returning to work.
That technique...
Was called Power Strike.
Unlike Swift Strike...
It sacrificed efficiency for overwhelming force.
The Ki erupted only at the moment of impact.
A normal swing became several times stronger.
At Yun Che's current level...
A full-powered strike possessed nearly ten times the force of an ordinary enhanced blow.
Against enemies...
Such a strike could shatter enormous boulders.
Against steel...
It compressed thick ingots into flat plates almost instantly.
Of course...
Using full power repeatedly would empty his Ki reserves far too quickly.
Most of the time he practiced with only a fraction of its true strength.
Mastery wasn't about hitting as hard as possible.
It was about choosing exactly how hard to hit.
Hours passed.
Sweat soaked through his clothes beneath the armor.
The forge burned hotter than most people could tolerate.
Yet Yun Che remained calm.
His Ki quietly formed another layer beneath his skin.
Instead of strengthening muscle...
It absorbed force.
Every vibration from the hammer dispersed harmlessly throughout his body.
The technique was called...
Damage Dispersion.
A careless blacksmith could permanently injure wrists, elbows, or shoulders after years of heavy work.
Damage Dispersion prevented precisely that.
It transformed destructive force into something the entire body could share.
The hammer still struck with tremendous power.
Yun Che simply refused to let that power destroy him.
Heat shimmered above the furnaces.
Ordinary people could only approach for brief moments.
Cultivators endured longer.
Yun Che...
Worked comfortably.
Ki coated his skin like an invisible second layer.
Not against blades.
Not against punches.
Against heat itself.
This was...
Elemental Defense.
The flames licked harmlessly against his arms as he withdrew another glowing blade from the furnace.
His skin remained untouched.
Without the technique...
Even Foundation Establishment blacksmiths would suffer terrible burns.
Five techniques.
Nothing more.
Nothing less.
Body Enhancement.
Swift Strike.
Power Strike.
Damage Dispersion.
Elemental Defense.
Many young cultivators eagerly searched for dozens of martial arts.
Rare manuals.
Secret techniques.
Yun Che deliberately ignored that temptation.
His father had taught him something years ago.
"A weak foundation cannot support a tall tower."
Until these five became second nature...
He had no interest in learning a sixth.
The afternoon passed quietly.
Orders were completed.
Customers came and went.
Eventually, Yun Che stepped outside to cool down.
He sat beneath the shade of the forge's awning and accepted a cup of cold water from his mother.
The breeze carried distant conversations from the street.
"...Found another body."
"...Near Black Pine Forest."
"...Again?"
Yun Che's attention sharpened.
Several city guards stood nearby speaking in low voices.
One of them looked pale.
"It wasn't wolves this time."
"No."
"The scouts confirmed it."
Another guard swallowed.
"A Shadow Python."
The surrounding conversation immediately quieted.
Even experienced hunters stiffened.
"They're sure?"
"They found its tracks."
"And..."
The guard hesitated.
"...Half the patrol."
Silence.
Yun Che frowned slightly.
He had read about Shadow Pythons.
Foundation Establishment Realm beasts.
Unlike ordinary giant snakes...
These creatures possessed an unnerving affinity for darkness.
They could flatten themselves against shadows until even experienced cultivators struggled to notice them.
Inside dense forests...
Where every tree cast shade...
They became nightmares.
Then there was the venom.
One bite rarely killed immediately.
Instead...
The poison spread rapidly through the bloodstream, weakening muscles and corrupting Ki itself.
The more one fought...
The faster the venom spread.
Against an unprepared opponent...
Death became almost inevitable.
One of the guards shook his head.
"We're organizing another hunting party."
"We'll need stronger cultivators this time."
Another muttered quietly,
"I hate those things."
"They don't fight."
"They ambush."
"They wait."
Then they kill."
The group slowly dispersed.
Yun Che remained seated.
He wasn't frightened.
Only realistic.
A Shadow Python...
He exhaled softly.
Definitely not something I want to meet right now.
Some monsters rewarded courage.
Others rewarded wisdom.
Knowing the difference...
Was one of the reasons Yun Che had survived thirteen years in a world where many children never reached adulthood.