How Does the Earth-Traveling Art “Travel”?
The Earth-Traveling Art is Tuxingsun's most recognizable ability. In Investiture of the Gods, he says, “This disciple is skilled at traveling a thousand li through the earth.” This does not mean digging an ordinary tunnel and crawling through it. Earth itself becomes the medium of travel. Other people stand upon the ground; Tuxingsun can travel by means of it. That is the legendary premise the story asks the reader to accept.
When a Barrier Becomes a Road
For an ordinary person, soil, walls, and difficult terrain restrict speed and direction. For Tuxingsun, those solid barriers no longer constrain movement in the usual way. He can enter the earth, travel through it over great distance, and emerge elsewhere. “Traveling a thousand li through the earth” does not measure the speed of excavation. It describes the transformation of the earth from obstacle into a route unavailable to anyone else.
What Advantage Does It Give Him?
The art changes the relationship between the character and the space of an encounter. Conventional roads, fortified boundaries, and lines of sight cannot fully contain him. He can avoid a direct approach, reach distant places rapidly, or appear from an unexpected position. Where others must climb over an obstacle or travel around it, he can use that same terrain as his passage.
Why It Defines Tuxingsun
Tuxingsun's name, movement, and role in the story are all closely connected to earth. The art does not merely make him faster. It gives him a different rule of space: others see a barrier where he sees a path. Because it overturns the ordinary limits imposed by terrain, the Earth-Traveling Art is the clearest key to understanding Tuxingsun.