Author’s Note:

  Welcome to God of All Elements.

  I want to be transparent about how this story is written. I am bedridden due to a physical disability and write using only a mouse and an on-screen keyboard. Because of this, typing out full prose is physically impossible for me.

  I use AI as my scribe. I design every technical blueprint, every cultivation step, every plot twist, and every character arc in a meticulous, step-by-step process. The "Engineering" you see in the story is my own work; the AI simply helps me turn those blueprints into the narrative you see here.

  I have spent months and over 110,000 words building this engine. If you enjoy "Hard Magic," technical progression, and a protagonist who wins through logic rather than luck, I hope you'll stick around.

  Thank you for reading.

  — GroundSquirrel

  To understand why the Xie family was destined to break—or be broken—one first had to understand the valley that caged them.

  The Green River Village was not a place of great importance in the grand cultivation world. It was a speck of dust on the map of the Azure Province, nestled in the cleavage between two towering, jagged peaks known as the Twin Wardens. These mountains were steep, their summits eternally shrouded in a mist that locals claimed was the breath of sleeping spirits, though no true cultivator had visited in generations to confirm it.

  From the heart of the East Warden flowed the White-Silk Stream, cold and rapid, rushing down over sharp rocks. From the West Warden came the Mud-Iron Brook, slow, heavy, and rich with mineral sediment.

  They crashed together at the valley’s northern throat, stone grinding against stone, water foaming white before the violence slowly bled away into a wide, heavy current that bisected the village like a scar.

  This main artery was the Green River.

  It was not a murky, swamp-like green, but a brilliant, translucent emerald, as if liquid jade were flowing over the riverbed. The elders said the color came from the Verdant Spirit Moss that grew deep within the underwater caverns of the Twin Wardens, a rare algae that filtered the water until it was sweet and pure. It was the lifeblood of the valley. It fed the crops, watered the beasts, and in the evenings, it glowed with a faint, phosphorescent light that made the water look like a highway of fallen stars.

  But like all things in the world, the river divided as much as it provided.

  At the northern bend, where the water was purest and the spiritual energy—the Qi—was thickest, stood the Wang Manor.

  It was a sprawling estate of white-washed walls and blue-tiled roofs, surrounded by a grove of peach trees that bloomed out of season. The Wang family were traders, merchants who had monopolized the flow of goods in and out of the valley. They had money, they had guards, and rumors whispered they even had a connection to a sect in the city. Their home sat on the high ground, overlooking the river with the quiet confidence of those who had never been challenged for ownership.

  Further downstream, where the river widened and the banks turned muddy, lay the homes of the common folk.

  Here, the houses were not white-washed villas. They were mismatched clusters of thatch, bamboo, and gray stone, leaning against each other for support against the valley winds.

  In one of the furthest houses, clinging to the edge of the arable land where the soil turned rocky and stubborn, lived the Xie family.

  Inside the Xie family’s main room, the air was dim and cool, carrying the bitter scent of drying herbs soaked deep into old, smoke-darkened wood. The space was small—carefully kept, obsessively clean—but nothing inside it was new, and nothing had been replaced before it absolutely failed. The floor was packed earth, swept so often it shone like polished stone.

  Xie Dazhu sat at the rough-hewn table, a small pile of copper coins and a few jagged pieces of silver spread carefully before him, arranged and rearranged as if a different order might somehow make them more numerous. He was a big man, his shoulders broadened by forty years of carrying heavy loads, but his face was lined with a weary exhaustion that sleep could no longer cure. His large, calloused hands moved with careful precision, as if the coins might shatter if treated too roughly.

  “Three hundred and fifty copper,” he murmured.

  His fingers paused.

  “Two taels of silver.” his voice a low rumble. "If we sell the winter grain early... maybe another fifty copper."

  Across from him, his wife, Li Mei, was mending a torn tunic. The needle flashed in the sunlight filtering through the window lattice. She had once been called the beauty of the village, though years of labor had dulled any such titles. What remained was something sturdier—clear eyes, steady hands, and a gaze that did not flinch from hard decisions.

  She stopped sewing and looked at her husband. “Will it be enough?” she asked—not looking at the money, but at her husband.

  Dazhu sighed, rubbing his face. “The Wang Patriarch won’t lower the price,” Dazhu said quietly. “Even for a low-grade Earth manual. To us, it costs a lifetime.”

  “It’s not about the silver,” Li Mei replied.

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  Dazhu looked up.

  “It’s about Mingzhi.”

  At the mention of their son, the heavy atmosphere in the room shifted. A mixture of pride and anxiety settled over them.

  "He was up before dawn again," Dazhu said, a faint smile touching his lips. "I heard him on the roof. He fixed the leak in the thatch. He didn't just patch it; he re-wove the entire northern corner using a new pattern. He said the old weave trap moisture, but if he angled the straw at forty-five degrees, the wind would dry it faster."

  Li Mei chuckled, shaking her head. "That mind of his. He looks at a roof and sees a geometry puzzle. Yesterday, he reorganized the pantry. He calculated exactly how long our pickled vegetables would last down to the day."

  "He is fourteen, Mei," Dazhu said, his voice turning serious. "The cutoff for forming a seed is fifteen. If he doesn't start cultivation this year..."

  "He will be a farmer forever," Li Mei finished the sentence, her voice tight.

  Silence stretched between them. They both looked toward the open door, toward the fields where their son was currently working.

  "He works harder than any man in the village," Dazhu said, his fist clenching on the table. "And he is smarter than the Wang children combined. But in this world, without Qi, a smart farmer is just a farmer who suffers with more awareness."

  Li Mei reached across the table and covered her husband’s rough hand with hers. "We have saved for six years. We denied ourselves meat. We patched our clothes until they were more patch than cloth. We did it for this."

  "It’s a gamble," Dazhu warned, though his resolve was hardening. "The manual is old. And his constitution... the village doctor said it was strange. Neutral. Weak."

  "Since when has our son let 'weak' stop him?" Li Mei asked, her eyes fierce. "Give him the chance, Dazhu. Even if he fails, let him fail knowing his parents believed in him. Don't let him wither here wondering 'what if'."

  Dazhu looked at the small pile of silver—their life savings, their safety net against famine. Then he looked at the door.

  He swept the coins into a leather pouch and pulled the drawstring tight.

  "I will go to the Wang Manor tonight," Dazhu stated, standing up. "I will bow. I will beg if I have to. But I will bring that book home."

  The scene shifted outside, away from the dim anxiety of the hut and into the blinding reality of the fields.

  The heat was physical, a heavy blanket that pressed against the earth. The cicadas buzzed in a deafening, rhythmic drone from the trees lining the riverbank.

  The Xie family’s land was on the periphery, where the fertile silt of the Green River gave way to the rocky foothills of the West Warden. It was difficult land. The soil was full of stones, and the water table was low. Growing anything here required twice the effort for half the yield.

  Yet, looking at the southern patch, one would not guess the land was poor.

  The rows of common rice—not Spirit Rice, just simple, mortal grain to feed the belly—were unnaturally straight. The irrigation channels were not just dug; they were engineered, lined with flat river stones to prevent erosion and angled perfectly to maximize the flow from the meager stream.

  In the center of this ordered geometry stood a boy.

  Xie Mingzhi was fourteen years old, but he stood with the poise of someone much older. He was not bulky like the Wang boys who grew strong on spirit-meat. He was lean, wiry, with muscles that looked like whipcord under his sun-browned skin.

  He wore a faded hemp tunic, sleeveless and stained with the gray clay of the riverbank. His trousers were rolled up to his knees, revealing legs scarred by briars and sharp rocks.

  He paused in his work, leaning on his hoe to wipe the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand.

  Under the layer of grime, his face was striking. He had the kind of bone structure that would one day turn heads—high cheekbones and a strong, defined jawline. His nose was straight, and his hair, black as a raven's wing, was tied back in a utilitarian topknot to keep it out of his eyes.

  But it was his eyes that held the true story.

  They were a startlingly clear brown, bright and alert. They didn't have the dull, glazed look of a laborer beating the earth for survival. They were scanning, analyzing, processing.

  He wasn’t just hoeing the ground. He was listening to it.

  The soil tension in row four is increasing, Mingzhi thought, his gaze narrowing on a patch of dirt that looked slightly lighter than the rest. The drainage is blocked by silt accumulation. If I don't clear it, root rot will set in within three days.

  He didn't groan or complain. He simply adjusted his grip on the hoe, calculated the angle of impact, and struck.

  Thud.

  He pulled the earth back.

  Thud.

  He moved with a rhythm that conserved energy. He had learned long ago that his body fatigued quickly. His breath came short and shallow if he pushed too hard, a tightness creeping into his chest long before his muscles truly tired. The village healer called it a "deficiency of vitality," a symptom of his mixed, neutral constitution. His five elements were a chaotic soup, none strong enough to support the others.

  So Mingzhi compensated with leverage, balance, and patience—forces that did not care how weak a body was. He never fought the earth; he persuaded it to move.

  He moved to the next stalk. He checked the leaves for pests. He found a small beetle, plucked it off with gentle fingers, and tossed it into the grass away from the crop.

  "If the Wangs cultivated this land," he murmured to himself, his voice raspy from thirst, "they would just flood it with Water Qi. Brute force."

  He looked at his straight, healthy rows of grain growing in the rocky soil. A small, private smile touched his lips.

  "I don't need Qi to make straight lines. I just need eyes."

  He continued to work as the sun began its slow descent toward the Twin Wardens. The shadows of the mountains stretched across the valley, cooling the air. The green river shimmered as the evening light hit the water, turning it into a ribbon of fire and jade.

  On the ridge overlooking the field, a figure sat on a small wooden stool.

  It was Grandfather Xie, perched on a low wooden stool at the ridge’s edge. A thick wool blanket was wrapped tightly around his shoulders despite the lingering heat, as if warmth itself struggled to remain in his bones. His face was gaunt, and each breath came as a dry, rattling wheeze, loose in his chest like leaves caught in a hollow gourd. He watched the boy working below with a gaze that held two emotions in uneasy balance—pride sharp enough to ache, and sadness too old to express aloud.

  He saw how the boy paused, pressed two fingers into the soil, rubbed the damp earth between them, and only then adjusted the irrigation channel by a handspan. He saw the precise, economical movements. He saw a mind meant for unraveling the mysteries of the heavens, currently bent toward coaxing rice from stubborn earth.

  The old man coughed, a deep, racking sound that shook his frail frame. He recovered, wiping his lips with a trembling hand, and cupped his hands around his mouth.

  "Mingzhi!"

  The sound carried over the quiet fields.

  Down in the rice paddy, the boy stopped mid-swing. He planted the hoe in the earth and stood up straight, stretching his back with a wince. He turned toward the ridge, shielding his eyes against the setting sun.

  A genuine smile broke through his focused expression, transforming his face from that of a serious worker to a beloved grandson.

  "I'm coming, Grandfather!"

  He grabbed his tools, slinging the hoe over his shoulder. As he climbed the slope, his steps slowed, breath tightening in his chest, but the golden light caught his silhouette all the same—casting a long shadow that stretched far beyond the rocky fields, toward the Twin Wardens, toward the jagged peaks that sealed the valley from the wider world.

  Mingzhi did not look at it. He was smiling at his grandfather, thinking only of the work left to be done before nightfall.

  But the mountains waited all the same.