The four-year-old Zhang Yan watched from the side, grinning from ear to ear.
Little did he know that his good big brother had already prepared a whole stack of training plans for him, just waiting for him to enter the academy.
That night, Zhang Wan sat cross-legged on the bed, circulating his cultivation technique and swallowing spiritual energy.
Although there was a mountain spring near Quanjian Village that contained a thin amount of spiritual energy, the spiritual energy in the surrounding area was not merely inferior to that in the academy's private courtyards—it was even a little worse than that in the academy's shared dormitories.
At present, circulating his cultivation technique to absorb spiritual energy and accumulate cultivation could only be considered better than nothing.
But apart from circulating his cultivation technique, he did not have much else to do.
Thus, he meditated all the way until dawn.
Only after collecting the experience points for the new day did he go to sleep.
The next day, Zhang Wan, Zhang Lingshu, and Zhang Changlin finished preparing the remaining mu of farmland and planted Snow Grass.
Afterward, Zhang Wan went out to look for the other children from the village.
Unfortunately, of the friends who had played together back then, he was still the only one who had broken through to the Postnatal realm. Among the children a little older than him, only four or five had broken through.
But they were still young, and everyone gathered together for a period of time every year, so they were not distant from one another.
Several of them wanted Zhang Wan to guide them in tempering their qi and blood, but Zhang Wan refused.
It was not because he was stingy.
Rather, without the academy and its medicinal meals, training on their own could easily squeeze their bodies dry and leave behind injuries that were difficult to recover from.
Zhang Lingshu could continue training at home only because he assisted her with his cultivation.
As for the pseudo-spiritual plants grown in the village, they could not enjoy them either.
All the produce had to be handed over to the sect, leaving not even half a bit behind.
The reason Zhang Changlin and the other people of Quanjian Village were still willing to grow pseudo-spiritual plants for the Jade Bone Sect was that although they could not obtain the pseudo-spiritual plants they cultivated themselves, their descendants could enter the academy and gain the opportunity to practice martial arts and break through to the Postnatal realm.
However, this rule applied only to ordinary people.
After someone like Zhang Wan broke through to the Postnatal realm and became an outer sect disciple of the sect, two-tenths of the pseudo-spiritual plants grown by his family could be kept for personal use.
A difference of one realm meant vastly different treatment within the sect.
After Zhang Wan explained the pros and cons, his friends sighed and let the matter drop.
After that, Zhang Wan sought out the village's other Postnatal martial artists and chatted with them.
Although he had studied at the Beginner Martial Arts Academy for nearly six years, learning quite a bit of martial arts knowledge and hearing many things about the Martial World from the instructors, he had never truly come into direct contact with it.
Thus, he wanted to learn more from the village's veteran Postnatal martial artists.
He already knew from the academy that the Jade Bone Sect was located within the Wu Kingdom, which spanned more than ten thousand kilometers, and was one of the kingdom's six True Core powers. He also knew that the Jade Bone Sect was the weakest and had the shallowest foundations.
But as for the precise relationships between the six sects, Zhang Wan had seen only the shallowest part in the knowledge taught at the academy.
From these veteran Postnatal martial artists, he could gain a true understanding of the current situation in the Wu Kingdom.
The village's veteran Postnatal martial artists did not hide anything from him. Seeing that Zhang Wan was willing to listen, they told him everything they knew.
The Wu Kingdom's six True Core powers were the Book Sword Sect, Thousand Corpse Sect, Blazing Fire Sect, Hundred Flower Palace, Mountain Moving Hall, and Jade Bone Sect.
The first five powers were all long-established True Core powers that had stood in the Wu Kingdom for nearly a thousand years. They were immensely powerful. Only the Jade Bone Sect was a newly established True Core power, founded by Old Ancestor Jade Bone three hundred years ago.
It had been established the most recently, had the shallowest foundations, and was the weakest of the six sects.
Moreover, when Old Ancestor Jade Bone had established his sect in the Wu Kingdom, it had amounted to forcibly snatching a territory from the other five sects. As a result, the Jade Bone Sect had conflicts with all five of them.
The six sects would not go so far as to unleash a True Core-level war, but conflicts among their disciples below that level never ceased, and bloody battles broke out from time to time.
According to the village's veteran Postnatal martial artists, two years ago the Jade Bone Sect's disciples had even clashed with disciples of the Blazing Fire Sect in a small-scale conflict, resulting in many deaths.
They were also constantly at odds with the other four sects.
After hearing this, Zhang Wan felt somewhat heavy-hearted.
He knew that the Martial World would not be peaceful, but he had not expected the Jade Bone Sect's relationship with the other five sects of the Wu Kingdom to be so hostile, or the frequency of these killings to be so frighteningly high.
"At this rate, once I graduate from the academy, one wrong move and I'll be dragged into it." Zhang Wan muttered. As long as he still wanted to make a living in the Jade Bone Sect, it was impossible to evade the sect's orders.
If the Jade Bone Sect sent him to battle the other sects, then unless he wanted to flee to the ends of the earth with his entire family, he would have to obey.
But just hearing about such battles made them sound extremely dangerous.
To protect himself, he would have to spend a massive amount of experience points to raise his strength and stay alive.
Yet he also did not want to show himself too conspicuously and attract attention.
Keeping a low profile and developing steadily was his current policy.
"It's best to prepare in advance and find a position in logistics. That way, unless the Jade Bone Sect suffers a great calamity and everyone has to take the field, logistics personnel will be much safer."
His conversation with the village's veteran Postnatal martial artists had given Zhang Wan a great deal.
Sure enough, an old person in the family was as valuable as a treasure.
"In that case, cultivating a skill is imperative."
"Only by possessing a decent skill can I stay in a logistics position without raising suspicion."
Zhang Wan remained at home for several days. Through conversations with the village's veteran martial artists, he gained a fuller understanding of the Jade Bone Sect's internal situation, as well as the status of martial artists proficient in various skills within the Wu Kingdom's Martial World.
In the end, Zhang Wan decided to first practice two skills.
Talisman Master and Spirit Planter.
All six of the Wu Kingdom's True Core powers cultivated pseudo-spiritual plants on a large scale, so the inheritance of Spirit Planters was relatively easy to obtain.
He had also helped grow pseudo-spiritual plants at home for several years, so he had some experience.
Mastering this skill would be relatively easier.
Once his Spirit Planter level improved, he would then learn to draw talismans.
With his foundation in Spirit Planter abilities, he would be able to grow spiritual plants himself and make talisman paper, talisman ink, and talisman brushes, saving a huge sum of money.
At that point, he would at most need to find a way to obtain one talisman inheritance. It would be simpler than learning other skills.
Later, if he had enough time and experience points, he could also learn alchemy.
If he could cultivate spiritual plants himself, the cost of alchemy could likewise be reduced by more than half.
"I'll first learn to cultivate spiritual plants and use that to secure a logistics position in the Jade Bone Sect."
"Then I'll learn talismans."
"But I can hide the talisman skill for now and treat it as a trump card."
"If, in the future, being merely a Spirit Planter is no longer enough to let me remain safely in the rear, I'll reveal my identity as a Talisman Master, add more weight to my bargaining chip, and continue lurking in the logistics department."
Zhang Wan was very satisfied with his simple plan.
The simpler it was, the easier it would be to carry out, and the less likely it was to expose him.
And with the existence of experience points, mastering these two skills would not be difficult.
Zhang Wan happily spent a month at home.
During that period, he still did not invest any experience points into his cultivation. He merely trained hard every day, occasionally invested experience points into Stacked Force Palm and Nine Step Movement Technique, and used the lingering aftertaste of comprehension to study these two martial techniques.
The various figures on the system panel changed slightly as a result.
Host: Zhang Wan (ten years old) Realm: First Level Postnatal (5.5/120) Realm Bottleneck: None Cultivation Technique and Martial Skills: Bronze Iron Art, Sixth Level Postnatal cultivation technique (14/114, First Level Postnatal formula comprehended); Stacked Force Palm (3.3/155); Bone Piercing Finger (103/103, 1.2/46); Nine Step Movement Technique (4.7/127) Available Experience Points: 8105
At the end of January, Zhang Wan brought Zhang Lingshu, who had trained at home for a month and looked thoroughly fed up with life, back to the academy in a rune carriage.
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