The locust trees of Qianchuan Hall had shed another round of leaves. The old eunuch who delivered his meals was now the third, a man surnamed Ma who was a little hard of hearing.
Whenever he brought a meal, he would linger at the door and chatter about how His Highness ought to put on warmer clothes, whether Chen Du was listening or not.
The patrolling imperial guards had also changed again. After Tiejun came a man surnamed Sun, after Sun came Zheng, and now, after Zheng, came Qin.
Another year passed.
Chen Du sat cross-legged in the most secluded library on the second floor of Qianchuan Hall. Tall bookshelves surrounded him, enclosing him in a small, quiet space.
His eyes were closed, his breathing long and steady. Anyone who did not look closely might have thought he was asleep.
But if a Xiantian expert had been present and used internal vision to look inside his body, they would have seen a world-shocking sight.
The liquid true essence in his dantian was overflowing to an incredible degree, as thick as a pool of mercury that had been refined countless times.
Every drop of true essence was slowly spinning, giving off an extraordinarily faint hum as it turned, softer even than the beating wings of a gnat!
Chen Du had cultivated to Houtian Perfection.
From the early stage to the middle, from the middle to the late, and from the late stage to perfection—he had covered in one year a path that took an ordinary martial artist ten or even twenty years, leaving the eldest prince so far behind he couldn't tell north from south.
Over that year, his life had been as calm as a pool of stagnant water. Each day, he did only three things: read, eat, and meditate.
Sitting quietly among the piles of old books, he had pushed his cultivation to the very end of the Houtian realm at an almost leisurely pace.
The greatest credit for this naturally went to the Wisdom King Vajra Art.
This supreme martial art, which he had defied heaven to derive from the Vajra Skill, had surpassed the limits of Houtian martial arts in rank.
The Wisdom King Vajra Art's cultivation method was unlike any other. Rather than relying on brute force to break through vital points, it used the Wisdom King's wisdom to illuminate the self, merging the body's true qi with Buddhist cultivation principles, balancing hardness with softness and cultivating both the inner and outer self.
At profound levels, it rendered not only the flesh, sinews, and bones indestructible, but also tempered the mind until it was as clear and pure as vajra.
Practicing this art carried almost no risk of qi deviation, because subduing inner demons was its foremost principle.
With his eyes closed, Chen Du circulated the Wisdom King Vajra Art through another full cycle in his body.
True essence flowed slowly through his meridians, and wherever it passed, a dark golden light flickered faintly beneath his skin. It flashed only once before quickly fading, so fast it seemed an illusion.
Over the past year, he had long since mastered the art to the point where he could unleash and restrain it at will. When he circulated it, the Wisdom King manifestation was majestic and solemn; when he stopped, his aura receded to normal, leaving him looking no different from the frail scholar he had been three years ago.
But even that was not enough to explain how he had crossed three minor realms in a single year.
What had truly allowed his cultivation to progress so much faster than ordinary people's were the several Houtian martial arts he had created over the past year, each one specifically designed to support the Wisdom King Vajra Art.
The first was called the Lotus Heart Tranquil Skill. It was an internal cultivation method he had distilled from three Buddhist internal cultivation manuals and one Daoist meditation method in Qianchuan Hall, specifically to help refine the true essence of the Wisdom King Vajra Art.
When an ordinary martial artist meditated for one shichen, circulating true qi through the body thirty-six times was already the limit, because the meridians could not withstand being scoured for too long.
But the Lotus Heart Tranquil Skill was founded on the Wisdom King's wisdom: the heart remained still as a lotus pedestal, and qi flowed of its own accord like a clear spring. During meditation, the meridians throughout the body entered a state of extreme relaxation and stability, allowing true essence to circulate a hundred times without harming them.
Chen Du meditated with this method for three shichen each day, with more than ten times the efficiency of an ordinary person.
The second was called the Wisdom King Visualization Diagram.
It was closer to a Buddhist Chan visualization method, a set of visualization principles he had devised himself after reading seventeen Buddhist scriptures in Qianchuan Hall.
When meditating, he closed his eyes and visualized a manifestation of the Immovable Wisdom King. From the Wisdom King's brows and eyes to the folds of his robes, from the vajra in his hand to the lotus pedestal beneath his feet, every detail appeared clearly in his mind.
The clearer the visualization, the more smoothly the Wisdom King Vajra Art circulated, and the faster his true essence was refined.
Later in his cultivation, he no longer even needed to deliberately circulate the art. As long as he visualized the Wisdom King manifestation, the true essence in his body would automatically circulate along the most perfect route.
Either of these two Houtian martial arts would have been enough to serve as a sect's supreme legacy.
Yet Chen Du had created them merely to make his cultivation a little faster.
For he knew that although he had more time than anyone else, his road was also harder to travel than anyone else's.
Beyond Houtian Perfection lay Xiantian, and the barrier between Houtian and Xiantian had stopped countless people of extraordinary talent in the Xuanye Realm over the past several hundred years.
The eldest prince, Su Yuanzhang, had taken sixteen years to advance from the first-rate level to Houtian. Another four years had now passed, and according to the latest court gazette in Qianchuan Hall, he remained in the Houtian realm, having yet to break through even to the middle stage.
After reaching Houtian, the difficulty of every step increased exponentially.
Chen Du slowly brought his cultivation to a close and opened his eyes.
He looked down at his hands. His ten fingers were slender and fair, his nails neatly trimmed. To anyone who saw them, they were a scholar's hands.
He gently circulated his art, and for a brief instant, an exceedingly faint dark golden sheen appeared on his skin. It was even more subdued than candlelight, as though veiled by a sheet of frosted glass.
Yet this time, circulating the art seemed to cause no disturbance at all...
Only the cover of an old book that had lain on the shelf before him for who knew how many years lifted slightly at one corner in that silent instant, then gently fell back into place, stirring a tiny speck of dust that drifted slowly through a shaft of light.
That was all.
If Zhou Tiejun had stood before him at that moment, he would only have thought that the seventh prince looked well and that his skin seemed a little better than the last time they had met. He would have sensed nothing else.
Chen Du placed his open hands back on his knees, a trace of satisfaction flashing in his eyes.
This was the effect he wanted. He did not want to attract anyone's attention.
But restrained as he was, he knew full well that the mutated wild boar that had nearly killed him three years ago probably could not withstand even one of his fingers now.
At Houtian Perfection, he was only one final step away from Xiantian.
But at that very step, he had remained in place for a full month.
With his heaven-defying comprehension and martial art creation at Lv7, he was confident that, as long as a Xiantian martial art were placed before him, he could grasp its mysteries in a very short time.
He returned to the bookshelves on the first floor, drew out the Xuanye Jianghu Chronicles once more, and turned to the page about the Sword Pavilion. The simply drawn sword still stood silently on the page, its tip pointing skyward, silent and sharp.
The Hanging Temple, the Mahavairocana True Scripture.
The Yandang Yun Family, the Cloud Sea Heart Sutra.
The Sword Pavilion, the Nine Swords of Heaven’s Inquiry.
But as before, he had time in abundance.
Ten years in the Xuanye Realm amounted to only one day on Blue Star.