By the babbling little river, a boy gripped the wooden sword in his hand and stared intently at the white-haired man flying toward him on a sword.
"You have excellent aptitude. Would you like to come with me?" the white-haired man said.
Though he was young, how could he fail to see the scene of the wind howling through the azure skies? He was just about to agree when a stubborn voice rang out beside him. "Take me with you!"
The speaker was his playmate, and the loser of their most recent "sword duel."
The boy knew how stubborn his companion was. Take today's "sword duel," for instance: he had lost count of how many they'd had. But because his companion had lost once before, he stubbornly refused to stop until he'd won it back.
The boy thought, Then we can go cultivate together.
He had forgotten many of the details, but he still remembered the white-haired man's eyes. As clear as a stream, yet as lofty as the sky.
The white-haired man looked at them with those eyes, at the two little boys who had been inseparable since childhood. A smile of unfathomable meaning played at the corners of his mouth.
"I'll take only one disciple," the white-haired man said.
He repeated, "You're both exceptional, but I'll take only one of you."
What should they do? the boy wondered.
But he had only an instant to think. The next moment, he was shoved into the little river.
Splash!
The sound of water exploding.
His friend—the friend who had played with him bare-bottomed, his childhood friend, still just a child—had shoved him into the water without the slightest hesitation!
Through the rippling water, he saw his "friend's" expressionless face, and the white-haired man's gaze, still as tranquil as ever.
Then a frost-white streak of sword light shot into the heavens.
His little companion and the white-haired man were wrapped in that dazzling, splendid sword light. Like a bolt of lightning on a clear day, they had come abruptly and gone just as abruptly.
As in the countless tales of immortals seeking the Way, they passed by the pitiful, ordinary mortals without a glance.
All they left behind was a wound that would never heal, a truth he could never believe, and countless nights when he jolted awake from dreams!
Jiang Wang opened his eyes. The pitch-black night surrounded him, wrapped around him. The dormitory was exceptionally quiet. Ling He and Du Yehu breathed slowly, their breaths following a distinctive rhythm.
Jiang Wang knew they were practicing the Basic Breathing Technique. Though it was a rudimentary method, only inner disciples could be taught it. It was the Zhuang Kingdom Dao Academy's time-honored foundational art, unchanged for a hundred years.
There had been little suspense in the Maple Forest City Daoist Academy's inner-court selection. Ling He, Du Yehu, and Zhao Rucheng had all become new inner disciples, their names entered into the Daoist Jade Registry enshrined in the Sacrificial Hall.
They still couldn't be considered full-fledged Hemp-Robed Daoists, however, not until their Dao Veins manifested.
Vein-Opening Pills were worth a fortune and nearly impossible to obtain. Even with the Maple Forest City Daoist Academy supported by the state, it couldn't hand them out to every disciple for free. As the most outstanding among the outer disciples, they had been selected for the inner court, but they would generally still need to endure at least a year and accumulate enough Merit before qualifying for a Vein-Opening Pill.
Only the outer disciple who ranked first in yearly contributions could exchange their Merit for a Vein-Opening Pill. It was a special incentive the Dao Academy offered its outer disciples. Now that Jiang Wang had emerged from this cohort, no one else could hope to follow his path.
Even so, Jiang Wang had earned enough Merit for a Vein-Opening Pill only through bloody, life-or-death battles. And now there wasn't another West Mountain Bandit within a hundred li of Maple Forest City for him to hunt.
Join the Dao Academy as an outer disciple and cultivate diligently. Defeat countless rivals to enter the inner court. Then continue training while accumulating Merit through missions, until at last you were awarded a Vein-Opening Pill and stepped into the transcendent realm. That was the usual path for cultivators in the Zhuang Kingdom—a broad, sunlit road whose destination was plain to see.
But compared with those whose Dao Veins manifested at birth, allowing them to enter the inner court and begin cultivating the Dao from the start, these youths who rose through the outer ranks truly wasted too much time.
On the path of cultivation, one slow step meant falling behind at every step. That was why Jiang Wang had risked his life to complete missions as an outer disciple, and it was also why Fang Pengju had been unable to restrain his greed. No one wanted to wait all those extra years!
So Jiang Wang understood Fang Pengju's desperation, but he couldn't forgive the methods he'd used.
Among exceptional martial artists like them, who yearned less for transcendence—Ling He or Du Yehu? Yet neither had stooped to anything so despicable.
Jiang Wang's father had once said, "A person is defined by the choices they make." Jiang Wang had always believed it.
And earlier, he too had been caught in a difficult choice.
Everyone knew cultivators were ranked in nine grades, with the first as the highest and the ninth regarded as the beginning of transcendence. The mark of achieving the ninth grade was forming a Dao Vortex, from which Dao Essence arose naturally.
Cultivators had spent an immeasurably long stretch of history investigating this first step into transcendence in meticulous detail.
The spine was regarded as the great dragon of the human body, and the Dao Vein was hidden within it. Once the Dao Vein manifested, a cultivator could use the power of their blood and qi to nourish it, thereby generating Dao Essence. Dao Essence was the foundation of all Daoist arts, as well as the basis of transcendence.
Take Jiang Wang's Earthworm Vein, for example. Every time he roused the "Earthworm," he had to expend a considerable amount of blood and qi. Only after it traversed the entire great dragon of his spine could it generate a single Dao Essence. A cultivator at Jiang Wang's level could perform Pulse-Opening cultivation at most twice a day, accumulating two Dao Essence. It wasn't a matter of insufficient effort; his body simply couldn't take more. The drain on his blood and qi was too great, damaging his vitality and spirit. It was completely counterproductive.
After accumulating Dao Essence, the next step was to guide it with the mind and arrange the corresponding formation points according to the Foundation Array Diagram. Once the formation was complete, a Dao Vortex would emerge.
As a cultivator who had already opened his Vein, Jiang Wang had naturally been taught the Foundation Array Diagram by the Maple Forest City Daoist Academy. It was the Return to Origin Formation, used throughout the Zhuang Kingdom, and consisted of eighty-one formation points. In other words, even if he arranged the Foundation Array Diagram without a single mistake, he would need at least forty-one days—nearly a month and a half—to truly become a ninth-grade cultivator. (The two Dao Essence he had previously accumulated had been exhausted in battle.)
Before this, Jiang Wang hadn't had anything to agonize over. But now he had unexpectedly entered the Great Void Illusion Realm and inherited Zuo Guanglie's "True Insight Ruins Blessed Land," unlocking the corresponding Sword Discussion Platform and Dao Evolution Platform. That had given him a new dilemma.
Yesterday, after obtaining the Return to Origin Formation Diagram, he had invested all 1,850 of his Merit into a simulation on the Dao Evolution Platform, hoping to test how it worked. In the end, he had obtained the incredibly intricate Celestial Star Formation Map. Its Foundation Array Diagram had three hundred and sixty-five formation points!
Setting aside the difficulty of arranging the Celestial Star Formation Map, even if he could perfectly reproduce the Foundation Array Diagram, it would take at least half a year for him to form his first Dao Vortex.
After that, advancing from the ninth grade to the eighth required forming three Dao Vortices, while advancing from the eighth to the seventh required nine.
By that reckoning, the whole process would take far too long!
There was no doubt that the Celestial Star Formation was superior to the Return to Origin Formation. But the lengthy time required to lay its foundation was what made Jiang Wang hesitate. He needed to raise his cultivation as quickly as possible to catch up with those whose Dao Veins had manifested at birth, yet time waited for no one.
But after waking from his dream that night, he had made his choice.
Jiang Wang closed his eyes and guided the single Dao Essence he had generated through Pulse-Opening cultivation the day before, moving it slowly within his spine. In the hazy world he sensed while controlling his Dao Essence, there stretched an immeasurable, boundless expanse.
Because the great dragon dwelled there, this place was also known as the Spinal Sea.
But in the stories cultivators passed down by word of mouth, it had a far more resounding name—the Heaven-Connecting Palace!
To traverse the Heaven-Connecting Palace and open the Heaven and Earth Gate was to cross from a beginner cultivator to an intermediate one.
Within the boundless Heaven-Connecting Palace, a single Dao Essence was as small as a speck of dust. Yet it didn't drift with the current. Instead, it resolutely and stubbornly carried out Jiang Wang's will. It moved and moved, until at last it came to rest at its intended destination.
That was the position of the Sun Star in the Celestial Star Formation Map.
As the Dao Essence came to a halt, Jiang Wang seemed to see once more the eyes of the white-haired cultivator from his childhood.
He would never forget, when he was pushed into the water—
Those eyes seemed to say to him—
"The path of cultivation is a struggle."
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