Yuan Learns Recoil Blast

Yuan Guang learned Recoil Blast under Arc’s unsentimental instruction, turning a lesson about Barriers into a focused air attack. The technique made his Recoil Fist more concentrated at the cost of control: a hand-sized cylinder could channel the shockwave into a powerful, narrow blast, but the same containment that magnified its force sent the recoil back through his arm and body. Its first successful use was therefore also a warning about the preparation needed to wield it safely.

Training and Technical Principle

Arc began from Yuan’s existing instincts rather than treating the technique as an isolated trick. He had already combined Item Materialization with the Recoil Fist, and Arc recognized his natural affinity for these methods. Yuan explained that guns felt like an extension of himself, a familiarity Arc acknowledged without warmth. She then directed his attention to an application of Barriers he had missed: a barrier need not merely defend, but could shape and direct force.

To demonstrate, Arc formed a tiny cylindrical Barrier at her fingertip, extending it to three times the finger’s length. It repelled air and resembled a rifle barrel, with her hand serving as its handle. The image supplied the technique’s governing idea: constrict and guide the air rather than letting a shockwave disperse. Yuan’s first look at the method was thus not a conventional firearm, but a finger transformed into a barrel by a carefully shaped Barrier.

Yuan’s First Recoil Blast

Asked to think of another use for the Barrier, Yuan enlarged the cylinder until it enclosed his whole hand. Its greater radius would prevent him from firing bullets, but that was beside the point: he did not intend to use a bullet. He wanted the Barrier to contain the Recoil Fist’s shockwave and stop it from spreading out. Above Headshot Forge, he aimed his enclosed palm at the clouds of gunsmoke hanging in the air.

For this attempt, Yuan did not reduce his output as he did with Sniper’s Bore. He poured out the amount of power he ordinarily used for a normal Recoil Fist, sending qi from his core along his arm until it reached his palm. There it erupted. The Barrier canalized the pulse into compressed air, and the blast tore a hole through the gunsmoke in an instant, announced by a supersonic boom.

The shot succeeded, but its force was not confined to the target. The cylinder held the blast as designed; the resulting backlash travelled along Yuan’s arm and threw him backward. Without ground support, the effect was like firing a cannon with his bare hands. He crashed into Arc’s workbench hard enough to send discarded bullets to the floor. The same containment that prevented the shockwave from dispersing had left the recoil to strike him directly.

Limits and Further Development

Arc named the technique Recoil Blast and set its strengths against those of Yuan’s other attacks. It covered less area than Recoil Fist and had less range than Sniper’s Bore, but delivered a forceful concentrated punch. It was not simply a stronger version of either technique: its advantage lay in focusing a powerful shockwave, while its shorter range, smaller area, and punishing blowback imposed clear constraints.

Yuan’s arm remained sore from the wrist down after the cylindrical Barrier vanished. He recognized the danger himself: without dispersion, he bore the full recoil, and pushing the shot too far might have shattered his bones. Arc warned that the technique would require a setup before he could use it. She offered him a hand after his fall and pointed out that he already had the tools needed to refine it. The scene leaves the method learned but not yet mastered; its successful first discharge establishes both what the Barrier can accomplish and what Yuan must solve before relying on it.

Significance

Recoil Blast develops from Yuan’s practical understanding of firearms into a technique made possible by his cultivation tools. Arc’s finger-barrel demonstration gives him a model; his decision to scale the cylinder around his hand turns that model into a new use for Barrier and Recoil Fist together. The sequence makes experimentation part of his training: Yuan identifies a possible application, commits his usual output, and discovers through the physical consequence that directing force also redirects its cost.

The technique’s name captures that cost without obscuring its achievement. Yuan does clear the gunsmoke, proving that the Barrier can focus a shockwave into a narrow, forceful attack. Yet the recoil throws him into the workbench, converting success into a practical lesson about preparation, support, and control. Recoil Blast therefore enters his repertoire not as a consequence-free upgrade, but as a potent option whose user must account for the force returning along the same arm that launches it.