Chapter 3

Chapter 3: The Bandit's Manual

Black Serpent's roar of rage was swallowed by the thunderous SCREECH of steel meeting reinforced flesh. Xiao Feng met the furious, Qi-imbued downward slash not with a block, but with his bared forearm. Nanobots surged instantaneously, not just hardening bone and skin, but weaving microscopic lattices of impossible density beneath the surface.

CRACK-THUD!

The glowing dao bit deep, vibrating violently in Black Serpent's grip. Sparks flew – not from metal on metal, but from where the blade met a strange, dark sheen that rippled like mercury beneath Xiao Feng's skin at the point of impact. Agony, white-hot and sharp, lanced up his arm, but the humming machines within dampened it instantly, converting the sensation into cold data streams: Force: High. Qi Signature: Earth-Aligned, Layer 1 Refined. Structural Integrity: Compromised at angle of impact.

Target Overextended. Guard Open. Vulnerability: High. The thought sliced through Xiao Feng's consciousness, cold, efficient, and utterly alien. Black Serpent, reliant on brute Qi-enhanced strength, had committed fully. His torso was exposed.

Xiao Feng twisted his body with unnatural fluidity, letting the blade slide off his humming arm with a final, grating shriek. His right hand, vibrating with predatory hunger, shot forward like a striking serpent – not a fist, but a grasping claw aimed precisely at Black Serpent's exposed throat.

The bandit leader's eyes, moments ago blazing with fury, widened in primal terror. He threw himself backward, abandoning his weapon. The dao clattered to the dust, its malevolent glow snuffed out instantly. But Xiao Feng was faster, propelled by the humming power within and the honed reflexes of Skin Refinement pushed beyond human limits. His fingers scraped the rough, sweat-slicked skin of Black Serpent's neck.

Contact.

The humming within Xiao Feng didn't just intensify; it detonated. The ravenous void where his spiritual roots should have been screamed open. Black Serpent's eyes bulged impossibly wide. A visible, sickening wave of grey rippled outward from Xiao Feng's fingertips, racing across the bandit leader's neck and face like fast-acting decay. His powerful Qi aura, moments ago blazing like a beacon, flickered violently, dimming as if choked. A guttural, wet gasp tore from his throat – the sound of life being physically siphoned. His muscles spasmed, once-powerful limbs collapsing like puppet strings cut. Strength drained away, visible in the sagging of his frame, the hollowing of his cheeks, the desperate clawing at Xiao Feng's iron grip becoming feeble scrapes.

"N-no…" Black Serpent choked, his voice a papery whisper. His skin tightened over bone, desiccating before the horrified eyes of his men and the frozen Xiao Clan guards. "...demon..." The potent energy Xiao Feng craved – the structured, cultivated Qi of a true Layer 1 practitioner – flooded into him. It was a torrent compared to the trickle from the first bandit, cold, potent, and utterly intoxicating. It wasn't just power; it was knowledge. Flashes of disciplined training, the feel of earth Qi drawn into the dantian, the crude pathways carved through his meridians – fragments of Black Serpent's hard-won cultivation flooded Xiao Feng's senses alongside the raw energy. The pain in his arm vanished, replaced by a surge of alien vitality that made his own Skin Refinement feel like brittle clay. His senses exploded: he heard the frantic thrum-thrum-thrum of every bandit's terrified heart, smelled the copper tang of blood and the acrid stench of voided bowels, saw the individual dust motes dancing in the slanting afternoon light, felt the minute tremors in the earth beneath his boots.

Black Serpent's final exhalation was a dry, empty rattle. His body slumped, a leathery husk held grotesquely upright only by Xiao Feng's unyielding grip. Xiao Feng released him, letting the desiccated corpse crumple onto the dust beside the first victim like discarded trash. He flexed his hand, feeling the humming power coursing through him, amplified, satisfied, yet somehow… colder. Emptier, despite the stolen fullness.

Silence, deeper and heavier than stone, crashed down. The remaining bandits stared, mouths agape, faces bloodless. Then, as one, their nerve shattered. A ragged, animal cry erupted – "Demon! Flee!" – and they turned, scrambling over each other in blind panic, abandoning weapons, loot, and the withered remains of their leaders in their desperate flight into the woods.

"After them!" the wounded guard captain croaked, staggering forward, his sword trembling in his grip. "Cut them down! Don't let them spread word of… this!"

"No." Xiao Feng's voice cut through the chaos, flat, resonant, vibrating with the alien hum beneath his skin. It wasn't loud, yet it froze the guards mid-step, turning them towards him with expressions caught between nascent awe and bone-deep, primal dread. He pointed a finger, unnervingly steady, at one bandit who had stumbled and fallen in the scramble, a lanky youth with a bleeding scalp wound, now scrambling backwards on his elbows, eyes white-rimmed with terror. "Him. Bring him. Alive."

The guards hesitated, a flicker of conflict crossing their faces – fear of Xiao Feng warring with ingrained obedience and the horror of what they'd witnessed. After a taut second, they obeyed. Two seized the whimpering bandit, dragging him roughly to Xiao Feng's feet, their own hands shaking.

Xiao Feng looked down at the terrified youth. The humming within him had quieted to a low, satisfied thrum, like a predator digesting its kill. The stolen Qi pulsed warmly, a constant, cold fire in his core. He needed more than just this sip. He needed sources. He needed knowledge. He needed their resources.

"Your hideout," Xiao Feng stated, his voice devoid of inflection, yet carrying the weight of absolute command. "Where is it?"

"I-I won't tell!" the bandit stammered, trying to curl into a ball. Tears streamed down his dirty face. "Y-you're a monster! You'll suck us all dry!"

Xiao Feng knelt slowly, deliberately. The movement was smooth, predatory. He brought his face level with the bandit's. His eyes, reflecting the dying light, held no warmth, no pity, only a chilling, inhuman focus that seemed to pierce the youth's soul. He reached out, his movements agonizingly slow, and placed his right hand – the hand that had drained Black Serpent – on the bandit's uninjured shoulder. The hum beneath his skin vibrated against the youth's flesh, a tangible, terrifying promise.

The bandit screamed, a raw sound of pure terror, anticipating the withering death.

Xiao Feng didn't absorb. He simply held. The vibration intensified slightly. "I can take your life slowly," Xiao Feng whispered, his voice soft, resonant, and utterly terrifying. It vibrated in the bandit's bones. "Piece by piece. Feel it wither. Or…" He leaned infinitesimally closer. "You can tell me where your leader kept his treasures. His secrets. His cultivation." The last word vibrated with the hum, emphasizing its significance. "Choose. Now."

The bandit broke instantly, words tumbling out in a hysterical flood. "T-The cave! Two miles north! Hidden behind the waterfall on Black Creek! Black Serpent's den! He kept his things there! His pills! His book! P-please! Please don't kill me!" He sobbed uncontrollably.

Xiao Feng held his gaze for a long, terrifying moment, the hum a constant threat, then released him. The bandit slumped, gasping, tears mixing with the dirt on his face. "Tie him. Secure him," Xiao Feng ordered the guards, standing. He didn't look at them, his gaze fixed northward, towards where the bandit had pointed. A hidden cave. A cultivator's den. Possibilities hummed within him, louder than the nanobots, a dark symphony of potential. "We go. Now."

The hidden cave behind the roaring curtain of the Black Creek waterfall was a dripping, oppressive maw. Dank air, thick with the smell of mildew, wet stone, stale sweat, and something faintly metallic, filled their lungs. Crates of pilfered goods – cheap silks, pungent spices, mundane weapons – were stacked haphazardly, evidence of Black Serpent's banditry. But in a small, drier alcove at the rear, separated by a worn hide curtain, lay a semblance of order. A rough cot, a heavy iron-bound chest, and a small, sturdy wooden table holding only two items: a small, unadorned jade vial containing a few pungent, low-grade Qi restoration pills, and a book.

Xiao Feng ignored the pills for now. He picked up the book. Its cover was worn, cracked leather, unmarked, smelling faintly of earth and old blood. He opened it carefully. The pages were brittle, yellowed at the edges, the ink faded to a dull brown but still legible. Intricate diagrams of seated postures filled the margins. Swirling lines depicted energy flow through the body's meridians, converging on a central point in the lower abdomen. Dense, archaic script filled the pages, explaining concepts, breathing techniques, meditative focuses.

It was a cultivation manual. A foundational one, intended for initiates treading the very first steps. The title, etched in slightly bolder script on the first page: "The Whispering Brook Qi Gathering Technique."

Li Na, hovering nervously nearby, clutching her arms against the cave's chill, gasped. "Young Master! Is that…?"

Xiao Feng traced a finger over a key diagram. It showed wispy lines of ambient energy – depicted as gentle streams – being drawn from the surrounding world, guided along specific pathways, and coalescing into a swirling pool within the body's core – the dantian. His mind raced. The nanobots hummed, not just analyzing the visual information, but cross-referencing it with the Qi signature they had absorbed from Black Serpent, with the fragmented sensory echoes of his cultivation process.

Qi Gathering. The foundational step. Drawing the world's ambient spiritual energy into oneself, refining it within the dantian, building the reserves that fueled all cultivation arts. The very thing his lack of spiritual roots had barred him from. The very thing the Sword Saint Sect had declared him fundamentally unworthy of, a verdict that had sent him on the three-month journey to shame.

But he had absorbed Qi. Directly. Forcefully. From a cultivator. He had felt its structure, its pathways. The nanobots were his roots. Twisted. Ravenous. Efficient. Could they… interface with this process? Not just steal the refined product, but replicate the source? Could they draw the ambient energy directly, without needing the intermediary of a living battery? Could they filter the world's chaotic energy into usable power, simulating the dantian described in the brittle pages?

The implications were staggering. A sustainable source. Growth without the constant, visible horror of draining living beings. Power drawn from the world itself, filtered and amplified by the cold machines within him. A path forward that wasn't solely painted in blood and desiccation.

He closed the manual, his grip tightening on the worn leather. A cold, determined fire ignited in his eyes, replacing the hollow despair of the failed journey and the reactive hunger of the ambush with something far more dangerous, far more alien: calculated purpose. The stolen Qi pulsed warmly within him, a dark seed taking root.

"Li Na," he said, his voice still carrying that faint resonance, but now layered with a new, chilling intensity. "We stay here tonight. Guard the entrance." He looked at the terrified bandit, now tied and gagged in the corner, shivering uncontrollably, then at his own guards, their faces pale and strained in the flickering torchlight, their eyes avoiding the two desiccated corpses near the entrance. "All of you. Do not disturb me."

The cave, with its roaring waterfall veil, felt less like a refuge and more like a crucible. Inside Xiao Feng, the machines hummed, studying the stolen manual, while the stolen Qi burned like a cold star, illuminating a path both terrifying and irresistible.