The Martial Prodigy: Fists That Shatter Worlds

Xavier is a cultivator who wants only to become an immortal. He kills without hesitation and pays no attention to his family, and while his mind is elsewhere his parents are murdered by his enemy Jasper. In remorse he seals his own immortal veins with black iron and swears he will never become an immortal. When he wakes he is a five-year-old boy called Theodore, the child of the third branch of the Chen family, a martial arts household in Q City in the 1910s. His sister Renee looks after him. With his veins sealed, Theodore wants nothing to do with martial arts and barely speaks. Then he finds by accident that some of his old skill is still in him. When he tests it he shatters the Chen family's trial stone, and people take it for the work of a grandmaster. The first and second branches have been eyeing the third branch's property, and they come around to find out who did it. At the family meeting they set up a duel as a trap. To protect Renee and their home, Theodore has to show what he can do. He brushes off the servants sent to provoke him, then beats one Chen fighter after another on the platform, including the head of the family, and the third branch keeps its house. The head of the Zhang family, the Chens' sworn rival, arrives with his own fighters to challenge the school and take over the Chen business. Theodore beats both of the fighters Zhang puts forward. Zhang then brings in the warlord Hawk, who marches troops into the city and, calling it a tournament, orders every martial arts family in Q City to hand over its property. Theodore defeats Hawk's adjutant, then beats Hawk himself using a tree branch as a sword. Behind Hawk there is a Japanese faction. A swordsman from Japan comes with men who have been strengthened by a cultivator. Theodore works out where their strength comes from, beats them one by one and snaps the swordsman's blade. The cultivator behind them then shows himself. It is Jasper, and he has come to draw on the worship of Q City's people to rebuild his power. The Chens fight him and are driven back.