Divine Arts Tinged with Imperfection

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“Hey, hey, hey, don’t leave, Xiao Yang!”

“Why shouldn’t I leave? So you can trick me again?” Now that Yang Tang was on familiar terms with Old Man Yan, his speech had grown casual.

“How have I tricked you? I just want to ask you for another piece of calligraphy!” Old Man Yan wailed, raising his voice. “Besides, it’s not like I’m asking you to write for free. Aren’t you about to take the college entrance exam? I can show you a bright path—how about it?”

“A bright path? Heh, keep your bright path for yourself. I’m heading back.” With that, Yang Tang cupped his hands in a half-mocking salute, mounted his little scooter, and rode away with an air of ease.

“That rascal,” Old Man Yan muttered, watching Yang Tang go, half-laughing and half-scolding. “Hah, turns out he’s got a backbone after all!”

Just then, Song Chushi and his wife emerged from the side hall. Cui Xiaoming, indignant, complained, “Xiao Yang really doesn’t know what’s good for him. All you asked for was another piece of calligraphy. Grandpa was giving him an opportunity, and yet he—”

“Silence!” Old Man Yan glared daggers at Cui Xiaoming, finding her more and more displeasing. “Xiaoming, didn’t your father ever teach you not to accept charity with indignation?”

Cui Xiaoming wanted to retort, but Song Chushi quickly tugged her sleeve, smoothing things over for his wife. “Grandpa, doesn’t that make Xiao Yang rather interesting? He doesn’t think his calligraphy now is enough to earn him a bright future. Maybe he believes one day it will?”

At these words, Old Man Yan shot his grandson Song Chushi a glare as well and sneered, “Both scripts that Xiao Yang created have already taken shape. If he dedicates himself to study, he may well reach the heights of the great calligraphers of old—Wang Xizhi, Ouyang Xun. With a single piece from Ouyang, one could secure a seat in the literature academy. What do you think of that, Little Stone?”

Song Chushi was left speechless, words caught in his throat.

Early the next morning, while Yang Tang was sipping his porridge, a sudden flash of clarity signaled the completion of his physical enhancement. The Sea of Mana had opened, and the skill “Celestial Tone Purification” had solidified!

“Where is this Sea of Mana?”

With the Sea of Mana opened, he automatically gained the skill “Inner Vision”!

“Inner Vision?”

The moment Yang Tang uttered those words, he abruptly felt his perspective detach, as if he were a high god looking down upon a translucent skull and brain, and a pure blue orb the size of a fava bean nestled between brain and brow.

Was this blue orb the Sea of Mana? It was so tiny!

Just as a mustard seed can contain Mount Sumeru, possessing a single point of mana, the Sea of Mana appeared as it did now; with ten thousand points, it would look no larger!

How much mana did he have now?

Neither his six attributes nor his mana had any concrete quantitative measure. The amount would become clear when using skills.

Yang Tang felt a wave of helplessness. While the inner vision still lasted, he continued to “see through” his own translucent neck, organs, blood vessels, and meridians—in short, no hidden danger within his body could escape detection. The only regret was that inner vision could not be used on others, and for now, he himself was in perfect health, with not a trace of disease.

After disengaging inner vision, Yang Tang pondered: What exactly could “Celestial Tone Purification” do?

Another flash of clarity: The mutated skill “Celestial Tone Purification”—for three seconds, aside from bleeding, all other hidden status effects on the target are removed, restoring the body to its optimal, normal state as it was one cycle ago. As an active skill, it takes one second to cast and costs seventy-two mana!

After carefully reading the skill description, Yang Tang was shocked. Restoring the body to its best normal state from twelve years ago—what kind of sorcery was this? Reversing age? Or was it only a “temporary state,” after which the body would be even worse than before using the skill?

These possibilities tumbled through Yang Tang’s mind, leaving him frozen, still holding the bowl mid-air as if about to eat. Unbeknownst to him, his mouth was already an inch away from the rim, and the white porridge poured straight down into his lap.

“Oh no, oh no, oh no—” Feeling the hot splash, Yang Tang snapped back to reality and rushed to the bathroom to clean up.

Fortunately, his parents had left early that day, or else he’d have gotten another scolding for this.

After cleaning up, Yang Tang returned to the dining room and hurried through the rest of his breakfast, his mind still preoccupied with Celestial Tone Purification. He had two major doubts: first, whether the restoration was only temporary; second, what would happen if the recipient was under twelve years old?

A sudden flash of clarity: If the target is younger than twelve, only hidden status effects are removed!

“What about the temporary state issue?”

No answer from his intuition.

Yang Tang felt a pang of frustration. He had wanted to test Celestial Tone Purification on his parents, but now he didn’t dare. For now, he’d have to find a rather nasty individual as a test subject—if something went wrong, so be it. If not, he’d call it a lucky gain.

“But who should I try it on? Ah, he’ll do!” Muttering to himself, Yang Tang pulled out his phone and dialed Wu Lie. “Hello, Uncle Wu? It’s Yang Tang!”

“Haha, so you’ve finally returned from Shenhai, and only now remember to call me?” Wu Lie sounded in good spirits.

“I was mostly worried about those desperate followers of Zhang Jun,” Yang Tang said bluntly. “I heard they’ve been killing recklessly!”

“What, you’re scared now? Then what did you do back then?”

“Back then? I—I didn’t do anything!” Yang Tang would never admit to shooting Zhang Jun.

“If you really did nothing, why would you be afraid of Zhang Jun’s people...”

Yang Tang fell silent.

“All right, I won’t tease you anymore. Watch the news tonight.” With that, Wu Lie hung up.

“Watch the news? That means Wu Lie’s people have already tracked down Zhang Jun’s gang.”

Realizing this, Yang Tang breathed a sigh of relief, but decided to wait until Wu Lie caught Zhang Jun’s crew before testing Celestial Tone Purification on one of them.

After biking to school, Yang Tang had barely set foot in the classroom when another note was passed to him: “How dare you stand me up, hmph!” The words were followed by a cartoon bun-face, looking furious.

With thoughts of the college entrance exam and the effects of Celestial Tone Purification filling his mind, Yang Tang had no patience for a schoolgirl’s games. He casually tore up the note and strode directly to Bai Keqing’s seat. “If you have something to say, say it.”

Bai Keqing looked at him, stunned, before stammering, “Qin—Qinchuan Grand—Grand Restaurant—”

Instant realization dawned on Yang Tang, and he sneered, “That? I’m not selling. Tell them to stop bothering me!” With that, he strode back to his seat.

Bai Keqing’s little heart was wounded beyond words. She’d invited Yang Tang not just for the poetry sale at Qinchuan Grand Restaurant, but her other feelings could hardly be voiced in front of the whole class. Indignant and frustrated, she wanted nothing more than to stick pins in a doll and curse Yang Tang.

By lunchtime, before Bai Keqing could figure out how to get back at Yang Tang, his “I’m not selling” had already given rise to a multitude of rumors among the senior year students—there was even talk that Yang Tang was “selling himself.”

Hearing Tang Xun, the dorm monitor, gossiping about this as he ate, Yang Tang nearly popped his eyes out. “Who the hell started that rumor?”

“No idea, but that’s what people are saying. Some even claim you’ve latched onto some influential boss, earned his favor, and that’s why yesterday at the school gate, when it came to Lu the class monitor’s distant cousin’s car, you just smashed it without a second thought!”

“I—” Yang Tang was at a loss to defend himself. “By the way, where’s Lu Qin?”

“Haven’t seen her—she didn’t show up this morning,” replied Duan Yibin.

Yang Tang was now more exasperated than angry.

After lunch, Yang Tang went as usual to the basketball courts, only to find Liu Yu and Glasses in a shoving match with some other students in one corner.

“What’s going on?” Yang Tang walked over, and everyone froze. Especially the boys who’d been shoving Liu Yu and Glasses—when they saw Yang Tang, their eyes flickered with fear. “Which class are you from? Looking for trouble? Get lost!”

Apparently, they recognized Yang Tang. After exchanging glances, not one of them dared say a word—they all fled at once.

Liu Yu grinned. “Old Yang, you’re still the most intimidating!” Glasses gave a thumbs-up as well.

“What happened just now?” Yang Tang asked casually.

Liu Yu pointed at the nearby ditch, where a half-grown puppy lay, drenched in mud.

Glasses explained, “Those first-year brats were awful. This puppy isn’t even six months old, and they broke both its front legs. They were about to stomp on its left hind leg when Liu Yu and I saw and stepped in. That’s why there was a scuffle.”

Yang Tang shrugged internally—he’d killed dogs himself before. But then he thought, wasn’t this the perfect test subject for Celestial Tone Purification? He reached down, gripped the pup by the scruff, and hauled it out of the ditch. “I’ll take care of this dog. You guys play basketball—I’m going to wash it.”

“Huh?”

“Its front legs are both crippled. If you’re going to keep it, it’ll need surgery. That won’t be easy.”

“No worries. I’ll manage.” With that, Yang Tang carried the puppy toward the northwest corner of the soccer field, where several spigots stood—players often rinsed off there after games.

Passing through the sparse thicket between the basketball and soccer fields, Yang Tang silently invoked Celestial Tone Purification. After a one-second delay, a faint, almost invisible green light sank into the puppy.

The half-dead puppy, its eyes half-shut, instantly widened them, looking at Yang Tang with a mixture of gratitude, reverence, and a deep, instinctive fear.

Yang Tang couldn’t quite decipher the dog’s expression, but he did notice that the two front legs, which had been hanging lifelessly, were now twitching as if to grasp something. “Your forelegs are healed?” He even flicked the pup’s left forepaw with a finger.

“Woof.”

The puppy gave a low whimper, gingerly extending its left paw to touch Yang Tang’s finger, no longer the fierce, reactive bite it might have given before the injury.

“Huh? Really healed? Is it really this miraculous?” Yang Tang was astonished. A quick inner vision revealed that just this one use of Celestial Tone Purification had consumed almost two-fifths of his mana.

In the Jin dialect: “Duke Wen stayed in Di for twelve years. Hu Yan said, ‘Storing strength for one cycle allows one to go far.’” Thus, twelve years make a cycle.

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