Choosing a Technique

Ugh, it was time to choose a manual. Whether a carp could leap through the Dragon Gate would be decided here.

The day after they joined, several youths of fifteen or sixteen, dressed in fine clothes, brought all forty-odd children to a separate three-story building on the Herb Gathering Hall estate: the Library Pavilion.

The first floor of the Library Pavilion held a vast collection of books on herbs, medicinal ingredients, and medicines, which disciples of the hall could borrow. The second floor was a guard post, where eleven of the hall's young experts stood watch. The third floor was the Secret Manual Room, where more than a thousand manuals on sabers, swords, external arts, and internal cultivation methods were stored under strict guard.

The Medicine King Gang was a highly respected force in Ping Province's martial world, with a legacy stretching back several centuries. It had always considered itself a neutral organization and tried to stay out of martial-world disputes. Moreover, from the day it was founded, it had never had its own martial arts techniques or cultivation formulas. It had simply been a gang devoted to medicinal ingredients.

The Medicine King Gang's main business was gathering and refining medicinal ingredients, and that was how it had built its fortune. It often traded precious medicines with other small gangs in the martial world in exchange for cultivation formulas, thereby acquiring techniques to practice.

Faced with a choice between life-saving medicine and cultivation formulas, those small gangs had little choice but to trade their manuals for the medicine. Most of the manuals were low-level cultivation guides and not particularly valuable. But over the centuries, the Medicine King Gang had accumulated so many martial arts techniques and cultivation formulas that they could practically be piled into a small mountain. It was never short of them.

The Secret Manual Room of the Herb Gathering Hall in Zhuqi County alone contained several hundred entry-level manuals for the Herb Gathering Apprentices to choose from. There were also hundreds of intermediate and advanced martial arts manuals—an almost alarming number.

Other small gangs were lucky to possess a few manuals, or perhaps a dozen. Even the major gangs in Ping Province's martial world usually had no more than a few hundred. The Medicine King Gang's collection was absurdly vast by comparison.

But having many manuals did not mean the Medicine King Gang was strong.

There were hundreds, even thousands, of gangs of all sizes in Ping Province. The Medicine King Gang had long ranked fifth among them and had never broken into the top three. The reason was simple: its manuals were too chaotic. Things had become so muddled that masters often did not know what their disciples were practicing, and disciples often had no idea what their masters were practicing. Masters could not guide their disciples' martial arts, so most disciples had to teach themselves.

Take Herbalist Wang, for example. He practiced an external martial art called the Eagle Claw Technique, and his hand skills were exceptionally powerful. But Ye Qin and the other four had to choose their own techniques from the Secret Manual Room; they would not be learning the same martial art as Herbalist Wang. If they chose external arts, Herbalist Wang could at least offer them a little guidance. If they chose internal cultivation, he would be unable to teach them in any depth.

Fortunately, the Medicine King Gang's main business was gathering and preparing medicinal ingredients, and it had wide-ranging connections with nearly every gang in Ping Province. Its weakness in martial arts did not prevent it from being a major force in the province. In Ping Province's martial world, the Medicine King Gang was renowned for its bewildering variety of techniques. Other gangs had no idea what its disciples might know, and did not dare provoke them lightly.

The second floor of the Herb Gathering Hall's Library Pavilion.

The youths in fine clothes led the children into the building and up to the second floor.

The spacious hall was completely empty. In an area several hundred paces across, there were only eleven cushions, each occupied by a stern-looking young man sitting cross-legged with his eyes closed as he cultivated his inner strength. In front of each man lay a sharp weapon, either a sword or a saber.

The arrival of several youths in fine clothes with a large crowd of children startled them.

The youths looked at the eleven young men with envy and trepidation. The men were around twenty to thirty years old, each wearing a cold expression. They were all senior disciples who had joined the Herb Gathering Hall early, core disciples personally taught by the Hall Master, Vice Hall Masters, or elders. They were secluded here in the Library Pavilion to cultivate, and their status far surpassed that of ordinary disciples like the youths. The one at their head was especially impressive: he was Hall Master Li's personal disciple, with exceptional talent for martial arts.

Ye Qin looked around curiously at the empty second floor. He had no idea who the eleven young men guarding the place were, so he felt no fear of them. Still, the oppressive, murderous atmosphere kept him from speaking.

One of the youths in fine clothes stepped forward respectfully and cupped his hands toward the young man at the head. "Senior Brother Xie Yun, the forty-odd newly admitted Herb Gathering Apprentices and Medicine-Making Apprentices are all here. Vice Hall Master Ji instructed us to bring them here. Please choose manuals for them so they can begin learning martial arts." After speaking, he stepped back.

At the center of the hall, the tall young man at the head finally opened his eyes and nodded to the youth. Then he stood and glanced over the children, saying coolly, "My name is Xie Yun. From now on, you can call me Senior Brother. The rules of the Herb Gathering Hall are these: each Herb Gathering Apprentice may choose only one low-level martial arts manual and take it out of the Secret Manual Room. No one may choose more than one. Medicine-Making Apprentices may choose two low-level manuals. Every apprentice may practice only their own manuals. Anyone caught practicing someone else's will be severely punished."

Ye Qin was taken aback. How come the Medicine-Making Apprentices in the inner hall were allowed to choose one more technique than the Herb Gathering Apprentices in the outer hall? Wasn't that a raw deal?

The children in blue glared at the five children in white. The five white-clad children were completely unafraid. They held their heads high, as if to say, "That's right, we get to learn one more technique than you. What are you going to do about it? Want to fight? Come on, who's scared?"

If not for the youths in fine clothes and the young men, the two sides might have come to blows right there.

Yang Yicheng, Feng Xiao, and the others also sneered and muttered a few curses, deeply resentful. Along with some of the other Herb Gathering Apprentices who weren't afraid of trouble, they quietly discussed when they should give those arrogant brats a beating to soothe their anger.

After the young guard at the head announced the rules, he led them up to the third floor and opened the door to the Secret Manual Room.

Ye Qin had already squeezed his way to the front, snagging a good spot. As soon as the door opened, he and the other children rushed inside.

The other apprentices put their quarrel aside and hurried in after them. Getting their hands on a manual was what mattered. They had to make sure the others didn't snatch up all the good ones first.

The Secret Manual Room on the third floor was enormous. Three long rows of bookshelves stood inside the chamber, every shelf packed with books. Many were thick with dust. The first row held low-level manuals, the second intermediate manuals, and the third advanced manuals. Secret techniques were not kept in a place like this.

Ye Qin searched the first row of shelves at lightning speed, hoping to find a decent manual. But the moment he picked up a low-level one, he was dumbfounded. He couldn't make heads or tails of the characters. He opened the book and stared blankly at the page. How was he supposed to know whether the manual was any good, or what he would be practicing in the future?

Ye Qin grew anxious and turned to see how the other children were faring.

Most of the children in blue were in the same boat. They stood there dazed, holding one or two low-level manuals. Most came from farming families, had never attended school, and couldn't read.

The five children in white, meanwhile, were reading the manuals smugly. They either came from well-off families or had connections, which was how they had entered the inner hall. Naturally, they had gone to school and learned to read. They hadn't learned much, but it was enough to make sense of what the manuals said.

The young guards had already expected this. Besides guarding the Secret Manual Room, one of their duties was to help choose manuals for these newly admitted apprentices who knew nothing.

The young man walked in, his face cold, and pointed to the shelves as he coolly explained what kinds of manuals were there to the children in blue.

"All the manuals here are organized by type. Saber manuals, sword manuals, spear manuals, bow manuals... weapons, lightness skills, external arts, internal cultivation, and techniques that cultivate both inside and out. We have every kind of manual found in the martial world. Just tell me what kind of technique you want to learn, and I can recommend a specific manual."

He explained everything in great detail, as though he knew nearly every manual in the room inside and out.