This land had a neatly ordered landscape, standardized secret realms, and clearly defined ecological territories. Everywhere bore the tidy marks of deliberate design.
There were no players from beyond this world and no System pop-ups. Everyone was a native, following the righteous path of cultivation and settling disputes through strength alone.
Mo Yufan was refined and elegant, with the bearing of a gentleman, yet in the eyes of the world, he was the most unconventional of cultivators.
Easygoing and slippery, practical to a fault, he never cared for empty praise. If he couldn’t win, he backed down. If the odds turned against him, he withdrew. He never fought to the death head-on, and always seemed like a schemer who relied on cheap tricks and petty cleverness.
No one knew that every carefree detour he took was part of a carefully laid plan.
He possessed the exclusive talent of a spirit painter: “Spirit Ink Creation.” Whatever he saw, he could reproduce in ink. His copies perfectly replicated the form, spirit, aura, and patterns of their subjects, and were impressively intimidating. But they always had a fixed flaw in their combat power and dissolved as soon as they touched water.
He never relied on his cultivation to overpower an opponent.
As he traveled across the mountains and rivers, he memorized waterways, terrain, ravines, and every blind spot, quietly reshaping the landscape and planting traps, tunnels, and escape routes.
In every confrontation, he played games of truth and deception, feigning weakness and maneuvering carefully. He never relied on brute force to break a deadlock, but instead used terrain, human nature, and preparations made in advance to decide the outcome.
When cultivators fought, they competed in cultivation levels, physical strength, and the power of their techniques.
When Mo Yufan faced an opponent, he competed in foresight, patience, and a chess game laid out across an entire landscape.
He had no desire to become the supreme ruler, nor any interest in the secrets of heaven and earth.
With his pair of spirit-ink eyes, he traveled the continent and saw all its myriad wonders. Step by step, yielding and planning ahead, he became the wandering traveler most skilled at plotting and playing the game in this orderly world.
