Choosing Cultivation Techniques

The Library Pavilion stood at the very center of the academy and had five floors. All books on the first through third floors were open to students free of charge, while borrowing books from the fourth and fifth floors required payment.

Wang Hong took a turn around the first floor and nearly got lost among the rows upon rows of bookshelves.

Everywhere he looked were books on Confucian classics, Legalist governance, Mohist mechanisms, military strategy, the Hundred Schools of Thought, poetry, and songs.

He did not see a single book on martial arts. This floor was presumably filled with Civil Academy books, so Wang Hong followed the stairs to the second floor.

Sure enough, the second floor was entirely filled with martial arts books. Before his eyes were titles such as "Iron Sand Palm," "Thirteen Sword Strikes of Life-Taking," "Three Little Tips for Practicing Lightness Skill," "The Story I Had to Tell About Big Saber Song San," "Eight Trigram Palm of the Swimming Dragon"...

Wang Hong's eyes were dazzled by the vast sea of martial arts manuals before him. He first took a rough tour of the entire second floor to get the general idea.

Then he picked out several cultivation techniques he needed at this stage and flipped through them one by one, comparing them.

"Cloud Smoke Swordplay" possessed elusive, ever-shifting sword forms that were difficult to predict. It contained one hundred and twenty moves, with nine thousand six hundred variations.

"Dragon Image Fist" was forceful and heavy. Once mastered, it could grant the strength of one dragon and one elephant.

"Water-Cutting Saber Technique"—draw the saber to cut through water; only speed mattered! It was a method for cultivating swift saber techniques.

"Thunderclap Spear" was as fast as thunder and as swift as a swimming dragon, leaving opponents unable to guard against it.

Yet Wang Hong searched the entire second floor and failed to find even one method for cultivating internal energy. He estimated he would have to search higher up.

After climbing to the third floor, he found nothing but Civil Academy books again. He continued up to the fourth floor, where, as expected, every book stored there was a method for cultivating internal energy.

There were only a few sparse bookshelves on the fourth floor, with books scattered thinly across them. The total number was probably only a little over a hundred.

"Bright Illumination Scripture," "Purple Cloud Cultivation Method," "Yin-Yang Meridian Cultivation Method," "Six Extremes Cultivation Method," "Dharma Strict Heart Sutra," "Muscle-Tendon Cleansing Cultivation Method"...

Wang Hong casually picked up a book. The first thing that caught his eye on the title page was a few large red words: "Eight taels of silver required for borrowing"!

"Why don't they just rob people? Even bandits who waylaid travelers weren't this ruthless."

He flipped through the other books and found that the required silver ranged from one to ten taels. Zhang Tiemao had spent three taels of silver to learn internal energy, so that should have been the cheapest internal cultivation method.

"Never mind. I'll look first. Reading them here is free anyway."

Wang Hong began carefully reading through the books one by one again. In the end, he chose the "Muscle-Tendon Cleansing Cultivation Method," feeling that it shared the same lineage as the "Basic Eight Forms of Cultivation" he had practiced before.

However, borrowing the "Muscle-Tendon Cleansing Cultivation Method" cost nine taels of silver. Over the past half year, Wang Hong had spent seven or eight tenths of his silver.

"Martial arts really burn through money. I'm spending three taels every month now, and I'll probably spend even more in the future. I need to make a trip to Qingyang City when I have time."

When Wang Hong left the Library Pavilion, he had borrowed only a copy of "Thunderclap Spear" and "Basics of Spear Techniques."

In Qingyang City, a twelve- or thirteen-year-old boy with ordinary features wore blue clothes, with the four words "Qingyang Academy" embroidered in gold thread over his left chest. He drew waves of envious looks from passersby. Only the huge burlap sack slung over his shoulder diminished his appearance somewhat.

Wang Hong carried the huge burlap sack into an apothecary called World-Saving Hall. He had come to this shop half a year ago, and its prices were fairly reasonable.

"Shopkeeper, do you buy medicinal herbs?"

"We do! Of course we do. Please have a seat, young sir." The shopkeeper was a kind-looking old man. He had someone serve Wang Hong tea, then called over two young assistants to fetch a bamboo mat and spread it on the floor before pouring the contents of the sack onto it.

Amid the huge pile of miscellaneous herbs, two small wooden boxes rolled out as well. The assistants opened them, only to see that one box was packed full of Ginseng, while the other contained half a box of Purple Ganoderma.

"Th-this much?" The two assistants were so astonished their mouths could have fit an egg. It was their first time seeing someone sell so much Ginseng and Purple Ganoderma at once.

Ordinary herb gatherers would be doing well if they found one stalk of such precious medicinal herbs in ten days or half a month. There were roughly more than a hundred stalks of Ginseng here, along with forty or fifty stalks of Purple Ganoderma.

The old shopkeeper squatted down as well and carefully inspected the herbs one plant at a time. It took him more than half an hour to sort through them all.

"Young sir, there are one hundred and thirty-seven stalks of Ginseng in total. Two are twelve years old, while the rest are between three and six years old."

"There are fifty-three stalks of Purple Ganoderma, including three that are ten years old, five that are nine years old, ten that are eight years old..."

"There are forty-two stalks of Solomon's Seal, including three that are ten years old, nine years..."

"One hundred and eighty taels of silver in total. What do you think?"

Wang Hong waved his little hand and nodded in agreement, though inwardly he was wildly excited. He had never seen so much silver before.

Besides, these medicinal herbs had merely been gathered from the cleared space half a year ago. Now, inside the space, there was an entire patch of Ginseng and Purple Ganoderma more than twenty years old.

Looks like I'll have to pull out all those worthless herbs when I get back. Such a huge sack only sold for one tael of silver—less valuable than plucking a hair from a stalk of Ginseng. Wang Hong pondered this to himself.

"Young sir, thank you for favoring this small shop. This bottle of White Jade Powder is a gift for you. I hope that if you gain anything in the future, you will still sell it to this shop." The old shopkeeper handed Wang Hong a small porcelain bottle.

Wang Hong hurriedly accepted it. This White Jade Powder could regrow flesh and mend bones, making it essential medicine for martial artists.

"Thank you, old shopkeeper. These medicinal herbs were gathered by several friends and me over many trips into the mountains, and we saved them up for a long time. Of course, if we gather medicinal herbs in the future, we'll bring them here again."

After Wang Hong left World-Saving Hall, the hundred-odd taels of silver in his arms felt heavy. He found a deserted spot and tossed one hundred taels into the space.

At Zhang's Blacksmith Shop in the western part of the city, a bare-chested middle-aged man was sweating like rain as he hammered an iron block.

"Master! I want to have a weapon forged. Do you take custom orders here?"

The middle-aged man tossed aside his hammer and threw the iron block into the furnace. "Come with me!" He turned and headed toward the rear courtyard.

When they reached the courtyard, Wang Hong saw rows of weapon racks filling the entire place. All eighteen kinds of weapons were present. He saw more than a dozen styles of long spear alone.

"Take a look first. Once you find a style you like, I'll tailor one for you."

Wang Hong went over and tried every kind of spear. The heavy iron spears weighed more than a hundred jin, and with his current strength, he could only barely lift them. The whitewood-shafted ones, meanwhile, felt too light.

In the end, he chose an iron spear. Its shaft was relatively slender, etched with cloud patterns that were both attractive and prevented slipping. The spearhead was willow-leaf-shaped and eight inches long, while its red tassel was one chi long. It likely weighed around thirty or forty jin.

Seeing that Wang Hong had made his choice, Blacksmith Zhang came over and helped measure his height, hand length, arm length, and other dimensions.

Then Wang Hong selected a hundred-forged steel saber from the weapon racks, spending twenty-five taels of silver. Since the spear would take another two months to forge, he also bought the spear he had just selected for practice, spending forty taels. He paid another ten taels as a deposit. The silver he had only just received had not even warmed in his hands before nearly half of it was gone.

After returning to the academy, he immediately went and borrowed the "Muscle-Tendon Cleansing Cultivation Method."

He returned to his little room, took several manuals, and slipped into the space. Seeing the thriving medicinal plants inside, Wang Hong hardened his heart and pulled them all out.

He kept only Ginseng, Ganoderma, Solomon's Seal, and five stalks of Fo-ti. Folk legends said that Fo-ti which grew for a thousand years would take human form, and consuming it would allow one to become immortal. Wang Hong had deliberately kept several stalks to see what they would grow into.

He also kept a few very ordinary antidote herbs and Healing Medicine herbs. He had yet to find anything better, so he kept several in case of emergency.

There was also that raspberry plant. Wang Hong could not bear to pull it out either. He and his little brother usually liked eating small snacks, so he would leave it as something to nibble on.

The rice and wheat in the space were now growing more and more abnormally. At first, they ripened every five days, but now they took eight days to mature, and each grain was as thick as a finger.

He had harvested several hundred jin in total, all of which remained in the space. He did not dare sell any of it, since it differed too greatly from ordinary rice and wheat.

Living in the academy's communal dormitories, it was inconvenient to take them out and cook them. He did not even know what they would taste like once cooked.

Still, their appearance was peerless. Each grain was finger-sized and golden in color. Even held in the hand, it felt heavy.

After peeling away the husk, the rice grains inside were crystalline white and gave off a faint fragrance of rice. He tossed a grain of raw rice into his mouth and slowly chewed it, filling his mouth with fragrance.

Wang Hong could barely wait to find a place and secretly cook some to eat.