"My divine power has gained an actual means of attack?"
Lu Zhao's hands trembled slightly despite himself. He lit a cigarette to steady his nerves, doing his best to calm down.
The deeper he went, the more unfathomable the old Taoist became.
Just as the old Taoist had said, Lu Zhao was hardly ignorant. On the contrary, he had received the finest education of the present era and had once been groomed as part of the Federation's core cadre.
He knew perfectly well that the essence of a divine power lay in its characteristics. The same divine power, in different hands, bore different characteristics. Even when the general direction was the same, the actual results could be worlds apart.
Take Lu Zhao's own Fate Bone, which came from Li Shaoqing: the man's power had been psychic detection, ultimately capable of building a three-dimensional map spanning over ten thousand meters inside his mind. Lu Zhao himself could manage only rough psychic detection, forming at most outlines in his mind. Yet he could also work telekinesis at the millimeter scale, wielding firearms to create a crushing, one-sided deterrent against any individual soldier.
But the old Taoist's method could actively alter characteristics—even add new ones. It had given the psychic power Lu Zhao had developed outward a psychic attack, the special province of inward development, lending it something of the flavor of cultivating inner and outer together.
It overturned the theory of divine power characteristics, too.
No "ancient method" could explain this. The man had to be hiding other secrets.
Lu Zhao pressed down the suspicion that grew ever thicker in his heart. At least, for now, the man had shown him kindness—and everyone had things they kept private.
With his refining spirit practice finished, Lu Zhao drank down two and a half bottles of Lang Tequ and began a day of refining essence into qi.
[Life Force: 35.7]
Knock knock knock!
Liu Qiang's voice came from outside the door.
"Brother Lu, emergency assembly! There's a mountain search mission—everyone has to go."
* * *
Midday, the sun blazing overhead.
The border defense station had sent out over a hundred officers to search Ant Ridge. Everyone sweated buckets under the sun, while down at the foot of the mountain tents had been pitched for the special investigation team to stay in.
The grumbling was general, and Liu Qiang joked, "Not a single one of them down there has better schooling than Brother Lu."
At once the whole crowd burst into laughter.
Lu Zhao laughed along. He was used to wind and sun, and with his life-force development so advanced, he hardly felt the heat. It was Zhang Like who suffered: as battalion commander he had to lead by example, but a man accustomed to being a minor boss, suddenly turned laborer, was soon gasping for breath.
Lu Zhao picked his moment and, with no one the wiser, dug out the Fate Bone and recited the oral formula once in silence. The Fate Bone simply vanished from sight, just like the space ability Lu Zhao had watched a teacher perform back in his school days. The principle behind it lay beyond anything Lu Zhao understood.
The divine powers of this world came in a thousand strange varieties, and great divine powers all wielded the strength to overturn heaven and earth. Lu Zhao had never laid eyes on a great divine power—how was he to comprehend an immortal who had lived five hundred years?
'I wonder whether someday I, too, might wield the power to move mountains and fill seas.'
His thoughts began to reach further afield, no longer confined to the question of how to escape his predicament. Shaking off the Chen family's influence was only a matter of time; how to walk the road ahead was what called for long, careful planning. Even joining the military meant choosing among regions, units, and functions.
"Old Lu."
Zhang Like came over and asked in a lowered voice, "Did you find it?"
Lu Zhao shook his head. The thing had already been sent into the Primordial—no one could possibly find the Fate Bone.
"Doesn't matter if you didn't. We're not the ones getting chewed out anyway. It just means a few hard days for the brothers."
Zhang Like took out a map marked with the prisoner's escape route and the areas to be searched. Lu Zhao glanced at it and noticed that the back mountain had been left out entirely. "We're not searching the back mountain?"
Zhang Like explained, "If the prisoner has already reached the back mountain, he won't double back. And we don't have the manpower to expand the search."
"This is a chance to sweep the back mountain clean," Lu Zhao suggested. "Especially the ground beyond the routes out to the outpost—we haven't swept it in three years."
Between Ant Ridge's outer zone and the forward outpost lay a vast stretch of unknown country. No mountain trails, no patrols. So long as the demon beasts didn't charge out, they were left alone.
To Lu Zhao's mind, that was a hidden danger. Never mind how many demon beasts were in there—what if someone exploited the blind spot right under their noses and built a smuggling route?
The Miye Sanjiang region had always been a chronic menace to Nanhai, and the most immediate danger Lu Zhao and his fellows faced. He had fought gun battles with desperados out of Miye Sanjiang more than once.
"No money and no men."
Zhang Like spread his hands. "We're just a battalion-level unit. Holding down this one stretch of Ant Ridge is already plenty."
"Fair enough."
Lu Zhao felt utterly helpless. One phrase—"no money"—and he was pinned to the spot; there wasn't a thing he wanted to do that he could. His own abilities mattered, of course, but without the right environment and platform it was hard to accomplish anything. This Ant Ridge border defense station sometimes couldn't even issue life supplements on time. Meanwhile, regions that endangered social stability even more than this one were everywhere.
A full day turned up nothing, and coming down the mountain there was no escaping the tirade of a Lü Jinshan who was jumping with rage.
This time, the louder Lü Jinshan cursed, the more Lu Zhao wanted to laugh.
He was getting desperate.
May 29th: mountain search.
May 30th: mountain search.
May 31st, the Dragon Boat Festival: mountain search.
Three days in a row with nothing to show for it, and the special investigation team lost patience and pulled out early. At four in the afternoon heavy rain came pouring down; to avoid casualties, Zhang Like decided on the spot to recall the team.
"Zhang Like, I order you to continue the mission!"
Lü Jinshan's call came through, and everyone sheltering from the rain heard it clearly.
Zhang Like answered, "Station Chief, visibility on site is under thirty meters, and the river channels are already showing signs of small-scale flash flooding. To avoid casualties, the mission must be suspended."
Lü Jinshan ordered him without mercy: "This is an order from Team Leader Lin. On top of that there's a Martial Marquis supervised case. Even if the mountain collapses, you keep searching."
A Martial Marquis supervised case.
Under the weight of that phrase, Zhang Like had to pause and weigh things—and Lu Zhao sensed that this was indeed no simple matter. This fugitive was not as straightforward as the official account made him out to be.
In the end, Zhang Like suspended the mission anyway.
At that moment, even the slowest man among them could smell the gunpowder. There were checks and balances on power, true, but on the whole the station chief's word was law, and this was the first time any of them had seen Zhang Like stand up to Lü Jinshan.
This was terribly bad for unity.
The rain slackened and the sky darkened. As everyone made ready to return to camp, Lu Zhao, walking at the foot of the mountain, suddenly felt a prickle of being watched. He whipped around—only to see birds and beasts scatter into flight from the treetops far off.
"What is it?"
Zhang Like went on alert.
Lu Zhao stared for a good while, but the feeling of being watched did not return. "Someone was watching us," he said. "Or it might have been a demon beast. It's already fled, though. Want me to go after it?"
Zhang Like shook his head. "Too dangerous. It's run, so there's no point in a dogged chase. Worst case, we write an extra report when we get back."
If not for Lü Jinshan's demand, they had the right, in theory, to refuse to assist the mountain search. The border defense and the special investigation team were not in the same system; border police were responsible only for emergencies—counterterrorism, major violent crimes, disaster rescue. Yet now they were pulling over a hundred men away to search a mountain, leaving the rest of Ant Ridge's wilds unpatrolled. If something really went wrong, Zhang Like would have to answer for it—and Lu Zhao was his greatest card.
Ordinarily he shielded Lu Zhao; in turn, Lu Zhao guarded against any major dereliction of duty on his part. He could not bear to let Lu Zhao take the risk.
On the fourth day, with the border defense station's men grumbling without end, Lü Jinshan had no choice but to halt the operation.
That same day, Lü Jinshan received an official reprimand.
Chapter 14