The Four Manuals of Heavenly Craft

The Great Yong Dynasty has stood for three hundred years. Its court is riddled with deep-rooted corruption, vassal kings rule their own territories, eunuchs monopolize power, and the lines between the martial world and the imperial court have long since blurred. It is said that a hundred years ago, the last heir of the Mohist School split up and hid the secret manuals containing the core techniques behind the Four Great Inventions of China: papermaking, printing, gunpowder, and the compass. Each was hidden in a different part of the martial world. Whoever obtains one can command the resources of an entire region, while collecting all four can open the legendary Heavenly Crafts Treasury and grant its owner power enough to upend the balance of the imperial court and the martial world.

Mo Shi, a streetwise youth, was an apprentice at the Shen family blacksmith shop in Green Tile Alley outside Bianliang. By chance, he is caught up in a manhunt targeting the four manuals. Carrying half of a family heirloom manual on papermaking, he steps into a treacherous martial world. He must face the greed of orthodox sects and the encirclement of vassal king forces, while also uncovering the old case of the Crow Guards’ massacre of his family ten years ago. Amid flashing blades and flying swords, he protects the craftsman’s devotion behind four thousand years of inherited inventions. From a boy who knows only how to forge iron, he grows into a master craftsman and swordsman who unites the four Heavenly Crafts manuals and ends conflict through the power of craftsmanship.