Body Tempering Sixth Stage.
The advancement should have filled Zǔ Zhòu with satisfaction. Instead, he stood in his private courtyard at midnight, increasingly frustrated by a puzzle that shouldn't exist.
"Void Rending Palm," he muttered, positioning his body in the opening stance.
The technique was elementary by his standards—a Void Refinement method that tore space itself. He knew every detail: the precise angle of the wrist (47.3 degrees), the spiral pattern of qi circulation (counterclockwise helix with 3.7 rotations), the mental state required (detached observation of reality's fragility).
His body assumed the position perfectly. His mind held the complete theoretical framework. His qi began to circulate in the exact pattern required.
Nothing happened.
"Again." He reset, checking each element. Stance, breathing, circulation, intent—all flawless. The knowledge was there, crystalline in its perfection. Fifty thousand years of experience guiding every micro-movement.
His palm thrust forward. The air didn't even ripple.
"Impossible," he growled, trying once more. The technique should work. Even accounting for realm limitations, a degraded version should manifest. A Void Refinement technique performed at Body Tempering should at least create air distortion, perhaps a minor spatial tremor.
Instead, his palm met empty air with all the mystical force of a mortal's slap.
He switched techniques. "Heaven Severing Sword Intent."
This one didn't even require movement—pure will manifested as cutting force. He'd used it to bisect immortals, carve through dimensional barriers, write his name on the surface of stars. The comprehension was perfect, each aspect of sword intent clear as mountain water.
He projected his will. Reality remained unsevered. Not even a grass blade trembled.
"Soul Consuming Gaze." A technique that devoured consciousness through eye contact. He caught a night moth, stared into its compound eyes with the full weight of his killing intent.
The moth flew away, unharmed and apparently unimpressed.
"WHAT MANNER OF JOKE IS THIS?" His roar sent actual moths scattering, but only through volume, not technique.
He tried seventeen more techniques over the next hour. From the mundane (Enhanced Punch) to the esoteric (Temporal Reversal Palm), each attempt met the same result. Perfect theoretical knowledge, zero practical application.
Finally, exhausted and furious, he collapsed into meditation position. Not to cultivate, but to think. The problem wasn't his knowledge—that remained intact. The issue was translation from theory to practice.
"Like knowing how to paint but having no hands," he muttered. Then paused. "No. More specific than that."
He dove deep into self-examination, past the soul where the Laughing Demon mark writhed, into the junction between consciousness and flesh. And there, finally, he found it.
A lock. Not placed by Heaven—this was more fundamental. A basic rule of existence itself.
Knowledge and experience were separate things.
His mind contained the knowledge of techniques, but his body had never experienced performing them. The muscle memory, the cellular understanding, the physical comprehension—all absent. It was the difference between reading about swimming and actually entering water.
"A comprehension lock," he breathed, understanding dawning. "Not imposed by enemies but by reality itself. Knowledge requires vessel capable of expressing it."
To test his theory, he attempted something simpler. A Body Tempering technique he'd observed Liu Wei practicing—Iron Skin Breathing. Basic, crude, but within this body's theoretical capability.
He moved through the forms, and this time felt... something. Not success, but potential. Like a key finding a lock's edges without quite fitting.
"The body can learn," he realized. "But it must actually learn, not simply be informed."
He spent the next hour on basic techniques, observing how his body responded. Each attempt taught the flesh something new. Not the grand techniques of his past, but fundamental building blocks. How to channel qi with killing intent. How to project will through physical motion. How to align body and mind for supernatural effect.
By dawn, he'd managed a degraded version of Crushing Palm—a Foundation Establishment technique reduced to Body Tempering capability. His strike shattered a stone garden ornament, the force perhaps one percent of the technique's true power.
"Progress," he said, examining the rubble. "Pathetic, crawling progress, but progress nonetheless."
The implications were staggering. His vast repository of knowledge remained useful but not immediately applicable. Each technique would need to be rebuilt from ground up, adapted to his body's current limitations, trained until flesh remembered what mind knew.
"A prison made of ignorance," he mused. "My knowledge is a library written in a language my body cannot yet speak."
He returned to his chambers to find the temporal anchor servant organizing the soul crystals from the previous night's extraction.
"Your expression suggests discovery, Young Master. Unpleasant discovery."
"Astute observation." Zǔ Zhòu explained the comprehension lock, watching the servant's fractured perception process the information across multiple timestreams.
"You know all but can do nothing," the servant summarized. "Like a master chef with no ingredients."
"Worse. A master chef who must relearn that fire is hot, knives are sharp, salt enhances flavor. Every basic assumption must be rebuilt through direct experience."
He pulled out jade slips, beginning to document the issue. If he couldn't immediately apply his knowledge, he could at least create a training regimen to reacquire capabilities efficiently.
"Comprehension Lock Analysis," he wrote. "Physical techniques require bodily experience. Spiritual techniques need soul adaptation. Mental techniques demand consciousness restructuring. No shortcuts exist—reality demands payment in practice."
The writing helped crystallize his understanding. The lock wasn't a flaw but a feature. It prevented exactly what he'd attempted—beings with inherited or stolen knowledge from immediately accessing power beyond their development.
"Heaven didn't need to lock my knowledge," he realized. "Reality itself enforces the limitation. How wonderfully impartial."
But if the lock was natural rather than imposed, it could be worked with rather than against. He began designing workarounds:
"Method One: Gradual Adaptation. Start with techniques one realm above current level. Degrade them until barely functional. Practice until body accepts, then slowly restore toward full power."
"Method Two: Comprehension Absorption. Cannot steal theoretical knowledge, but can absorb practical experience from others. Hunt cultivators using similar techniques, extract their muscle memory."
"Method Three: Accelerated Experience. Use temporal scar energy to experience decades of training in days. Compress learning curve through time manipulation."
Each method had merits. Combined, they could restore his capabilities far faster than normal cultivation would allow. Not the instant power he'd hoped for, but achievable within years rather than millennia.
"The lock makes me mortal," he said to the servant. "Forces me to climb rather than fly. But I've climbed before. The path is longer, not impossible."
"And the destination?"
"The same. Devour Heaven, remake reality, laugh at the cosmic joke of existence." He smiled, and reality shivered slightly. "The lock only affects techniques, not intent. My will remains divine even if my flesh is pathetic."
He spent the remaining morning hours creating detailed training schedules. Which techniques to pursue in which order. How to build foundation skills that would support grander abilities. Where to find cultivators with complementary experience to absorb.
"A ten-year plan to reach Core Formation with equivalent combat power of Nascent Soul," he calculated. "Compressed from the thousand years it should take. The lock slows but doesn't stop."
As the sun rose fully, he felt oddly grateful for the limitation. Instant power would have been boring. This forced journey, this mandatory relearning, would let him appreciate each regained capability.
"Besides," he told the servant, "I'll understand techniques more deeply by rebuilding them. Find improvements my past self missed. Create new horrors from familiar foundations."
The comprehension lock had transformed from obstacle to opportunity. Like all prisons, it existed to be escaped. And the escape itself would forge him into something more terrible than simple restoration could achieve.
Knowledge without experience was mere theory.
But knowledge directing experience? That was the path to transcendence.
"Come," he told the servant. "We have training to begin. I need to teach this pathetic flesh what godhood feels like, one broken bone at a time."