Entering the Door? True State!

"Then do try to persuade him more."

Shen Yunqing smiled, skipped over the joke, and said to the two of them, "You should go take a look in front of the stone tablets too. Each class has limited places, and today is already the second day of our academy's recruitment. In other words, aside from today, there is only one day of comprehension time left. You two had better hurry."

Li Yuanzhao quickly said, "Then what if Class A's places are full?"

"Then you can only go to Class B, but don't worry. In a month, there will be a test. If you have confidence, you can challenge Class A and swap classes."

Shen Yunqing smiled and said, "No matter which class you are in, it is not something settled once and for all. Cultivation is competition: competing with the heavens, competing with demons, and most importantly, competing with people!"

"If you want to obtain the most resources and the best treatment, you must stand above the masses before you have the qualifications."

In the Divine General Residence, as direct descendants, their parents would prepare cultivation resources for them, but at Tan Palace Academy, everything had to be fought for by themselves.

Hearing this, Li Yuanzhao hurriedly pulled Li Hao toward the stone tablet Li Yun and his sister were observing.

Clearly, that was the stone tablet for a high-grade cultivation method.

Before this stone tablet, there were only a dozen or so people comprehending. Before the other stone tablets, there were twenty or thirty people each. The stone tablet for comprehending mid-grade cultivation methods had the most people. After all, though most people were confident, they still chose to play it safe.

Li Hao swept a glance over it. Recorded on the stone tablet was a fist technique.

Fist techniques were practically required cultivation methods for martial artists. Once one had trained fists and feet to mastery, cultivating other weapons would also yield twice the result with half the effort.

He browsed through it carefully, and words appeared before his eyes:

{You have comprehended the superficial level. Record it?}

Li Hao chose yes.

Very soon, a record of this fist technique appeared on the panel, but its level was not beginner, nor was it perfect or Supreme Perfection.

High-grade cultivation method: Wind Severing Fist (True State)

One step, reaching the limit!

Li Hao did not feel surprised by this.

During the five years he had followed Second Master to fish, the old man, upon learning that he had not inherited a soul in the ancestral hall, had been angry, but in order to let him protect himself in the future, he had also given him some pointers on fist techniques in daily life.

Thus, on the panel, aside from Sword Dao, another path had been recorded: Path of the Fist.

It had already been raised to... sixth stage! Aside from Path of the Fist, the other paths, Path of the Physical Body, Sword Dao, and Imperial Dao, had all been raised by Li Hao to sixth stage! Over these five years, he had been busy every day, and many of his art skills had improved greatly.

Fishing fifth stage, chess fifth stage, cooking sixth stage, Painting Dao fifth stage.

Poetry and books third stage, zither playing third stage.

The total number of Art Skill Points they had brought was 27.

Now that he had used 24 points, he still had 3 points in surplus, kept for a rainy day.

Li Hao had originally wanted to raise a single path to the limit first, but after feeling things out, he discovered that any dao realm had thresholds every three stages.

From third stage to fourth stage, one needed to enter the heart.

When the Path of Cooking was raised to the full experience of sixth stage, the prompt said he needed to comprehend the spirit of cooking before he could continue raising it.

If entering the heart could be achieved through focus, through heartfelt and constant love, then Entering Spirit required comprehension. It required grasping the dao's charm.

Cooking and preparing dishes required making delicacies that broke tradition, injecting a soul into the dish.

Chess was the same.

Placing a piece was not merely about victory or defeat. It also required one's own wisdom and spiritual charm, the so-called godlike move, an astonishing play, a marvelous stone beyond worldly limits and insight!

Li Hao knew this was not merely a requirement of the panel. If there were no panel and he practiced normally, once he reached a certain realm, he would also need to enter the heart and Entering Spirit. According to Second Master, this was a state of mind one had to reach when cultivating any cultivation method.

Otherwise, at most, one would only be a second-rate expert, finding it difficult to reach the summit.

If you wanted to be strong, first enter madness!

He had heard that above Entering Spirit, there was an even higher realm: entering sainthood.

But even Second Master, who was known as the Fist Saint, had only reached Entering Spirit in his state of mind regarding fist techniques and had not been able to enter sainthood.

The word "saint" was supreme in Great Yu, an existence that could not be offended.

Whether Fist Saint, Sword Saint, and so on, none of them were the Saint Realm. Such titles were more of a laudatory honorific, meaning they had reached an extremely high peak in a certain path, close to a saint!

Li Hao guessed that when he reached ninth stage in the future, he might need the state of mind of entering sainthood.

It was hard to imagine what kind of state that was.

However, at present, he had not even managed Entering Spirit.

Spirit, just like the word itself, spirituality, Flash of Insight, soul!

He had to do something beyond the norm and extremely exquisite before he could possess his own Flash of Insight, just like... a Heaven and Man Grandmaster, possessing his own grandmaster's path!

As the panel successfully recorded it, a great deal of information about Wind Severing Fist poured into his mind. Li Hao merely closed his eyes slightly and quickly finished digesting it.

It was as if he had bitterly trained this fist technique for fifty years. He knew every move of the fist technique like the back of his hand and had already broken beyond Supreme Perfection. Not only had he filled in the flaws of the fist technique, he had also deeply comprehended the true meaning at its core.

Just as its name implied, the fist could sever wind and break wind. It could be like saber and sword, possessing destructive power beyond fists and feet!

This high-grade cultivation method, in his hands, was enough to erupt with might comparable to a top-tier cultivation method.

Li Hao withdrew his gaze from the stone tablet and turned to look at the dozen or so people around him. He saw that they all wore focused expressions, staring earnestly at the stone tablet, carefully comprehending it. Some lips squirmed, as if following the cultivation method's description on the stone tablet, reading it over in detail and comprehending its meaning.

The descriptions of some cultivation methods were obscure and difficult. Simply understanding them was already hard, but most of those who could come here had martial clans behind them and had been influenced by the martial path since childhood. Some general and obscure terms could also be understood.

Li Hao saw that Yuanzhao at the side had also become absorbed, his small eyes moving left and right line by line with the words on the stone tablet.

He did not disturb him. He swept another glance around and saw that Li Yun and his sister were also crouched before the stone tablet, their faces solemn. Sometimes they sank into thought, sometimes they furrowed their brows, their wrists turning lightly along with it, as if practicing in their minds. They were extremely focused, so much so that they had not even noticed his and Li Yuanzhao's arrival.

They were all a group of hardworking children... Li Hao sighed inwardly, then turned and left.

There were even more people before the other two stone tablets nearby. Some people had gained some comprehension and began waving and practicing in the open space, but their postures were awkward. After practicing for only a moment, they felt it seemed somewhat different from what they had conceived in their minds, then returned to the stone tablet to continue comprehending.

Li Hao did not squeeze over to record the cultivation methods on those stone tablets. The Li Family least lacked cultivation methods below high-grade.

As his gaze turned, Li Hao suddenly saw, in a corner at the edge of the square, Shen Yunqing, who had brought him here earlier.

Before him, there was actually a chessboard.

Li Hao was stunned, and his eyes immediately lit up. He walked over.

"Let's see how you escape this time!"

"Heh, didn't expect this move, did you!"

Across from Shen Yunqing, the gray-robed old man could not help laughing loudly. On the chessboard, he already held every advantage. It was impossible to turn the game around. This round was secure.

Shen Yunqing sat cross-legged, ignoring his old friend's smugness. He scratched his ears and cheeks as he racked his brains, but in the end, he still slumped and said helplessly, "Fine, count it as your win."

"What do you mean, count it as my win? It was my win to begin with!" the gray-robed old man said irritably.

Then he reached out and said leisurely, "Hand it over, you. That Drunken Wind Brew. We agreed!"

Shen Yunqing curled his lip reluctantly, took out the wine gourd at his waist, and handed it to his old friend. "We agreed on one mouthful. Take it easy."

"I'm not like you. I keep my word," the gray-robed old man said irritably. Immediately, he opened the wine gourd, tilted his head back, and poured it down with a glug, glug, glug.

Shen Yunqing was so frightened that he hurriedly snatched it back and said furiously, "We agreed on one mouthful!"

"This is one mouthful. My throat hasn't swallowed yet."

"Do you have a straight gut or what!" Shen Yunqing hugged his gourd with a face full of heartache, peered into the gourd's mouth, and his heart went half cold.

"I'm still keeping the account for that earlier game of chess you owe me."

The gray-robed old man chuckled, then suddenly sensed something and turned his head to look. He saw a handsome, elegant youth with red lips and white teeth standing at the side, dressed in brocade so exquisite and luxurious that noble air pressed on the senses.

"Mm? A young master of the Divine General Residence?"

The gray-robed old man recognized the sleeve patterns and jade pendant. His expression drew in, turning serious, and the words of rebuke that had just reached his mouth immediately changed course.

"You're playing chess," Li Hao said with a cheerful smile.

Having lived two lives, as someone with a mature mind, the first words at the start were often knowingly pointless nonsense, nothing more than a fuse to open the conversation.

"Why aren't you comprehending the cultivation methods?" Beside them, Shen Yunqing looked at Li Hao in surprise.

Everyone else was seizing every breath before the stone tablets to comprehend, yet this kid was something else, actually still having the leisure to stroll over here.

Could this kid be thinking of having them secretly give him pointers?