"Gongzi, I bought the things for you." Ji Zhong took out a small stack of booklets and handed them to Chen Luo. Chen Luo accepted them. They were indeed the Literary Gazette the coachman had recommended earlier.
Chen Luo carefully leafed through the Literary Gazette. It was about fifteen or sixteen pages long and contained quite a few poems, arranged by category. Some were advancement poems written by Confucian scholars who had reached the "Poem Creation Realm," while others were commentaries on the poetry of famous scholars and Great Scholars.
After the sections on poetry came annotations on several classics by a few teachers. These people had not yet reached the level of "authoring books and establishing doctrines," so they could only expound on certain classics from their own perspectives. The pieces were not very long.
The final section was actually a ranking list. It ranked the top hundred Confucian scholars and the top hundred teachers, though Chen Luo had no idea what the rankings were based on.
"The Confucian scholars' list is called the Talent Ranking. It ranks them according to the strength of the talent qi within their bodies," Ji Zhong explained. "The teachers' list is called the Mountain Sea Ranking. It ranks them according to how much feedback from the Heavenly Dao they have obtained within the Mountain of Books and Sea of Learning."
Chen Luo glanced at Ji Zhong. "Your name isn't on it!"
Ji Zhong: (╬◣д◢)
Ji Zhong: One day, sooner or later, I'll make it onto that list.
Chen Luo: "Then hurry up. You've already reached the Poem Creation Realm. From here on, you'll have to fight your way onto the Mountain Sea Ranking."
Ji Zhong: (▼へ▼メ)
Chen Luo smiled and then returned to the matter at hand. "Are there many Literary Gazettes like