Chapter 56: In the Sea

The authorities deployed mechanical equipment to search the site of the shipwreck.

Many severed limbs and mangled flesh were recovered, a large portion of which had already entered the bellies of fish.

Most were damaged beyond recognition, making it impossible for them to determine whether Zhang Ji was among them.

Shortly after, the authorities announced that the incident was the work of pirates, and subsequently broadcast news regarding the Five Forms Sect.

"In the early hours of December 18th, Councilor Xiao Ning was targeted in a terrorist attack... According to investigations, the assailant is Li Long, a true successor of the Five Forms Sect... Arrest warrants have now been issued for the upper echelons of the Five Forms Sect... The wanted list includes: Sect Master Yan Ruifeng, Tiger Hall Elder Zheng Chengze, Crane Hall Elder Liu Shan, Leopard Hall Elder Wang Quan, Snake Hall Elder Chen Anhe, true successor Li Long, true disciple Zhou Hao, true disciple Gu Shuangshuang, true disciple Shen Han, and true disciple Zhang Ji..."

Not a single senior member of the Five Forms Sect was spared; every last one of them was placed on the wanted list. Even those who were already dead were added to the roster, backed by a remarkably high bounty.

The authorities were releasing false information, leading Chen Anhe and the others currently overseas to believe that Li Long and his associates were still alive and merely wanted fugitives.

Should Chen Anhe and the others catch wind of the news and attempt to return to provide reinforcement, they would walk right into the authorities' trap.

-----------------

Amidst the boundless ocean.

A turbulent wave rolled past, lifting a male corpse covered in burn marks and missing his entire right leg. Clutched tightly in his right hand was a small golden goblet inlaid with a blue gemstone.

No, calling it a corpse was somewhat inaccurate.

For his chest appeared to be rising and falling in a slow, steady rhythm.

Suddenly, his eyes snapped open.

Within those eyes flickered a hint of bewilderment, a trace of confusion, along with lingering resentment and fury...

Zhang Ji's form drifted with the ocean waves while fragmented memories flashed through his mind.

He vividly remembered the final moment when Liu Shan and Wang Quan pushed him into the sea, though he had still sustained heavy injuries.

Then, mustering the very last remnants of his spiritual power, he manipulated the water currents to propel himself a distance away.

After that, he had slipped into total unconsciousness.

At this present moment, he had no idea where he was.

He could only feel a searing, agonizing pain throughout his entire body, especially in his right leg.

Wait...

"Where is my right leg?"

Zhang Ji could no longer perceive its existence.

He forced his arm to reach down and touch the area. It was gone, severed cleanly about five inches above the knee.

Zhang Ji felt a wave of disorientation. In his memories, it seemed he had been struck by a massive piece of metal propelled by the shockwave, resulting in a clean amputation.

"Splash~!"

A wave pushed Zhang Ji forward, splashing water across his face and jolting him back to full consciousness.

A missing leg was not fatal; in this world, there were numerous ways to resolve it.

One could install prosthetic limbs, utilize biotechnology for regeneration, employ specialized martial arts for recovery, or resort to alchemical techniques, magic, advanced-tier medicinal pills, and treasures from pocket realms...

Zhang Ji adjusted his emotions, pulling himself out of his dazed state.

His primary objective was to find a way to survive.

Zhang Ji assessed his physical condition.

Pain permeated his entire body. With the slightest exertion, every single inch from the outside in throbbed as if his whole body had been injured.

And indeed, that was the case.

The shockwave, the intense heat, the radiation unleashed by that device...

For a C+-tier martial artist to survive two such blasts was nothing short of a miracle.

Being left with merely a severed leg and a critical, near-death condition could already be considered an act of supreme fortune.

Zhang Ji closed his eyes slightly, abandoning any unnecessary struggle, and attempted to mobilize the surrounding water currents.

Although the [Mystic Heart Flow] was heavily restricted by the environment, it also reaped massive advantages in specific settings.

For instance, at this moment, even though Zhang Ji's primordial energy was completely depleted, his stamina was down to scraps, and he remained in a critical, near-death state, he was still capable of thought and possessed a sliver of mental focus. Immersed within this ocean filled with water currents, he could still execute the martial arts of the [Flowing Water School] with almost zero consumption of energy.

As the frequency of Zhang Ji's mental waves shifted, the surrounding seawater resonated with his mind, beginning to obey his command.

With a single thought, a fish swimming past him was pierced straight through its flesh by a hidden undercurrent, sliced instantly into fillets by the water, and pushed right to Zhang Ji's lips.

Zhang Ji opened his mouth, taking the fish slices to chew and swallow slowly.

Even this simple motion caused immense pain.

As the muscles in his face moved, he could feel a throbbing agony across his entire countenance.

At the time, he had used both arms to shield his head as best as he could, but the lower half of his face had still suffered from the fallout.

Fortunately, his eyes were unharmed.

Had his eyes been compromised, his chances of survival in this situation would have plummeted by several folds.

Having consumed some food, Zhang Ji recovered a tiny fraction of his physical strength after a brief while.

He moved his limbs slightly, utilizing the dragon-form method of force-generation to extract wisps of primordial energy from his flesh and blood.

Extracting primordial energy in such a condition might seem like courting death, but in reality, it was quite the opposite.

Upon acquiring a trace of primordial energy, it was transformed within Zhang Ji's body, then instantly converted into a warm current coursing through him via the snake-form force-generation technique.

Five Forms Unified—Celestial Snake Stance.

It was not merely a matter of restoring stamina; it also possessed the function of enhancing the body's regenerative healing powers.

Nourished by the transformed Celestial Snake primordial energy, Zhang Ji felt the pain in his body ease slightly, and his injuries were brought under control.

He let out a sigh of relief. With this, the probability of him dying had diminished significantly.

Closing his eyes, Zhang Ji began to meditate and visualize to restore his mental energy.

Along the way, several fish approached him, attempting to feed on his flesh, but they were effortlessly killed by Zhang Ji using his water-control techniques, turning into nourishment for him.

Unbeknownst to him, how much time passed before moonlight descended.

The goblet in Zhang Ji's hand was lifted by a water current up to a height of three meters in the air. The surrounding moonlight vanished, all drawn and concentrated into it. After a long while, the cup contained a small fraction of a cup of lunar essence.

He drank the small portion of lunar essence.

The healing speed of the injuries across Zhang Ji's body accelerated once more, and he recovered a considerable amount of mental and physical energy.

Roughly half an hour later, Zhang Ji sat up straight amidst the ocean.

Beneath him, the seawater acted as a pillar supporting his body.

Zhang Ji raised his hand, bringing it up before his eyes to inspect it.

His arms were severely burned and covered in scars, but fortunately, his hard qigong mastery was profound enough that his bones had escaped damage, leaving only severe superficial wounds to skin and muscle.

He lowered his gaze; his abdomen was likewise covered in burns and lacerations. Some cuts had scabbed over, while raw flesh remained exposed, revealing the rippling fascia underneath.

As for his legs, his right leg was completely gone from the mid-thigh down, while his left leg was in better shape, bearing only minor burn marks.

He reached up to touch his cheek.

His forehead was relatively fine, but the feedback from the lower half of his face was far from optimistic, feeling even worse than the injuries on his abdomen.

Zhang Ji's right ear was also mostly missing, heaven only knew what kind of shrapnel had blown it away.

It was a miserable state, but at least he was still alive.

Whereas Elders Wang Quan and Liu Shan had already...

Before Zhang Ji could sink into sorrow, he suddenly felt his left foot brush against something.

A current swept past, lifting a sharp-toothed fish out of the water.

It wanted to devour Zhang Ji's flesh, but clearly, it failed to break his defenses, and now it was destined to become Zhang Ji's meal.

...

In merely three days.

Zhang Ji had recovered close to peak condition.

The combination of the Celestial Snake Stance and the auxiliary power of the moon chalice was truly formidable when it came to healing injuries.

Aside from his missing right leg and the abundance of scars marking his body, his overall condition did not differ much from his previous state at full capacity.

Naturally, the loss of his right leg did have consequences, reducing his combat prowess by roughly forty percent.

Without a fulcrum to generate explosive power, the agility of his footwork and the force behind his strikes would be vastly diminished.

Moreover, extracting primordial energy had become noticeably slower.

However, Zhang Ji's primary concern at the moment was not his combat strength, but rather determining where he should go.

By observing the locations of sunrise and sunset, he managed to roughly gauge his direction.

Yet, currently lacking any landmarks and entirely unfamiliar with the detailed map of this world, figuring out his destination posed a significant problem.

He had no desire to return to the Eastern Pole Country anytime soon.

That place was currently unsuitable for his cultivation and growth.

Going back would only reduce him to a wild savage, forced to practice martial arts stealthily out in the wilderness—which would be far less efficient than simply drifting across the ocean.

"The Roman Empire is in this direction, right? Probably..."

Zhang Ji muttered to himself, whereupon the seawater beneath his feet began to propel him forward at high speed, plunging straight toward the horizon.

His speed was immense. Though it fell short of the nearly two hundred kilometers per hour he could achieve running on land, he was still moving at over a hundred kilometers per hour.

Even in this world brimming with black technology, the majority of ocean vessels could not match his pace.

While journeying forward, Zhang Ji continued to practice his martial arts.

He found it somewhat difficult to train in the Five Forms Fist for the time being. With his right leg missing, his force-generation lacked continuity, making even the execution of the Five Forms Unified technique clumsy, let alone achieving a simultaneous mastery of all five forms.

Therefore, he could only attempt to practice the [Iron Body Skill].

The [Iron Body Skill] imposed no strict requirements on physical completeness; it merely demanded that the body be capable of recovering from the injuries sustained during training, accompanied by the correct vibrational frequency and breathing methods.

After this harrowing incident, Zhang Ji grew once again dissatisfied with his hard qigong mastery, which already far surpassed that of ordinary grandmasters.

Had his body been tough enough, he would not have suffered such severe injuries so easily and nearly perished.

Just imagine, if he possessed the Vajra Sect's [Vajra Indestructible Divine Skill] and had brought it to major success, he could have physically withstood that missile head-on and shattered it directly with his fists.

How could he have ever been reduced to such a wretched state?

Although collecting moonlight out at sea was difficult, and Zhang Ji currently lacked external auxiliary items, after drifting upon the ocean for about five days, he still managed to cultivate the essence of the [Iron Body Skill].

His innate talent now vastly outclassed what it had been at the very beginning.

Without the aid of resources, practicing such a martial art would not leave behind any disabilities or lingering sequelae.

Had resources been available, mastering such a skill to manifest its crystal essence in a little over a day would have been completely normal.

In less than twenty days, he would have enough time to push a grandmaster-level martial art like the [Iron Body Skill] to completion and acquire its crystallization.

...

Time flowed onward.

Zhang Ji counted the sunrises and sunsets, enduring all manner of trials upon the sea.

Fierce gales whipped up colossal waves hundreds of meters high, slamming him ruthlessly back into the depths of the ocean.

Torrential downpours resembling waterfalls stretched for hundreds of miles, causing him to lose his bearings temporarily.

An alien marine beast with teeth like steel was driven away into the depths, vanishing into the abyss after being struck by his [Waterfall Drop].

An island-like colossal whale passed by his side, spouting a pillar of water straight into the sky that rivaled the height of the waterspout he had conjured, before escorting him for a stretch of the journey and pointing him in the right direction.

"Moo~ oo~!!"

Zhang Ji stood up upon the whale's back, gazing ahead, where the faint outline of a coastline had finally emerged.

The giant whale changed course roughly five hundred meters from the shore, heading off into the distance.

"Moo-moo-moo~!"

The deep yet resonant call caused Zhang Ji's mind to vibrate.

"Farewell!"

Standing on one leg atop the seawater, he waved at the departing giant whale, and instantly, the currents surged forward, carrying Zhang Ji and delivering him safely to the shore.