Appointment and Sponsorship

The next day.

The warm sun was gone, dark clouds shrouded the sky, and the first rain fell silently upon the earth.

Zhang Chen stood on the training ground, letting the raindrops soak his head.

Whenever he deliberately looked toward a certain spot, it stood empty. Yet the image of a short, thin, but incomparably steadfast youth appeared there.

He rubbed his eyes and shook his head with a bitter smile.

Three people had left the courtyard yesterday. The last of them had been his usual conversation partner.

"Duan Xuan..."

"What is it, Senior Brother Zhang?"

Zhang Chen gave a derisive laugh and blinked his eyes uselessly, refusing to let the tears fall. "Sigh, why am I always going blind and seeing things? Junior Brother's departure sounded an alarm for me. I need to cultivate martial arts seriously too. Otherwise, next time, the one leaving might be me."

"Senior Brother?"

When Zhang Chen turned around, that familiar face appeared before him, head tilted to one side, startling him badly.

Several hundred pounds of muscle trembled at once as he leaped three or four meters backward.

He rubbed his eyes hard. The person before him was none other than Junior Brother Duan Xuan, whom he had been too reluctant to see off in person!

"Why did you come back? Weren't you supposed to leave? Weren't you supposed to go home and have a good cry, beg Grandpa and plead with Grandma, call to heaven with no answer and cry to earth with no reply, then finally accept reality and go hunting, or become someone's thug? Or... I get it. I haven't fucking woken up yet!" Zhang Chen blurted out a whole stream of words.

Duan Xuan took small bites of the dry flatbread he had brought from home that morning. "Why should I leave? Master has already allowed me to stay. I've paid the tuition too. If Senior Brother refunds it—refunds it—I'll leave immediately."

"Impossible, absolutely impossible! If you can't break through to Bright Force in two months, Master won't keep you. Master wouldn't harm someone like that either! Get out of here, brat. You're no longer part of Broken Mountain Martial Arts Hall. Coming in now counts as stealing techniques, understand? Master will break your legs! Go on, hurry. I'll pretend I never saw you."

Duan Xuan pursed his lips, spread his stance, and assumed the Broken Mountain Fist posture.

Whoosh—

With an explosive crack, Duan Xuan's fist shot straight out. The first move of the Opening Mountain Form, Breaking Ground!

The speed was so great and the sound so loud that Zhang Chen's pupils contracted sharply. "How is that possible? Junior Brother, your blood and qi are so abundant, and your Broken Mountain Fist is so powerful. You broke through to Bright Force in one night?"

Duan Xuan nodded.

Zhang Chen's dumbfounded expression turned into a grin, and the massive man lunged at him.

Like a fierce tiger pouncing on a lamb, he clamped Duan Xuan tightly in his embrace. "Awesome, awesome, awesome!"

When joy came, the spirit soared.

Zhang Chen bustled about all day as though he had been injected with chicken blood.

After lunch, Zhang Chen pulled Duan Xuan into a shady spot and said, "Junior Brother, I found some suitable posts for you. There are five in total. Want to hear them?"

"I couldn't ask for more. Please go ahead, Senior Brother." Killing people and taking their goods was not Duan Xuan's style. Killing Two-Scar and the other two last time had truly been out of necessity. Finding an honest side job, practicing martial arts while earning money, was the proper path. As for not having enough money for pills... Duan Xuan felt that occasionally acting as a righteous hero was not a bad solution either.

"Originally, only two were suitable for a kid like you, but since you've reached Bright Force, I'll tell you about the other three as well. First, guarding homes and courtyards. You can rest assured about the place I found for you. The pay is a little higher than the other posts—1,100 coins and half a jin of meat. You get four days off each month, but the work is mostly in the middle of the night. Second, escorting boats. This isn't government work, but a post offered by merchants in the county who do business outside. You work four days out of every seven. If there's cargo to escort, you can't take time off. The pay is 1,200 coins and half a jin of meat. It's more dangerous than guarding a home, but you have a little more free time. Third, temporary martial constable at the county office. You get to wear the government's name, so ordinary people usually won't dare provoke you. But in the end, it's only a piss-small official post, responsible for station security, delivering letters, and such. The danger is simply unpredictable. The pay is 1,400 copper coins, without meat. Still, the hours are flexible. Aside from your shifts, you'll have two to three shichen every afternoon to return to the martial arts hall and rest. Fourth, guarding the government granary. I don't recommend that one, because the hours are similar to guarding homes—they're both at night. If you cultivate martial arts during the day and don't get enough rest at night, your progress will definitely suffer."

Duan Xuan listened carefully, swiftly analyzing the several posts his senior brother had described.

"First, guarding homes and guarding granaries are definitely out. My nighttime rest cannot be taken up. Traveling by water doesn't suit me either. There are water bandits on the waterways, and if one's water skills are lacking, it's easy to die at sea. The government post is not bad—being a martial constable for the martial arts hall. Maybe I could build some connections, and I'd still have enough time to cultivate..."

"The last one probably won't interest you, Junior Brother. It's guarding the herb garden for Benevolent Harmony Hall's pharmacy. Benevolent Harmony Hall and Golden Jade Hall are the two places personally authorized by the imperial court to sell martial arts pills. But recently, Benevolent Harmony Hall has been suppressed everywhere by Golden Jade Hall, and its strength has already fallen to rock bottom. Seizing that vast stretch of mountain swallowed by Wolf Stronghold was already the last twitch of a spent crossbow. The place is on the mountain Wolf Stronghold once claimed. Since I picked a daytime post for you, the pay isn't high—only 900 copper coins and one jin of meat. The hours are all right, though. You'll have more than a shichen free in both the morning and afternoon. But this work is extremely dull. You'll be keeping company with the mountains while earning several hundred coins less than other posts. I recommend the third one..."

"Senior Brother, I choose guarding the herb garden!"

"Huh?" Zhang Chen vigorously shook Duan Xuan by the shoulders. "Junior Brother, how great would it be to eat the emperor's grain? Maybe you'll meet some important figure in there who'll let you rise step by step to the clouds and enter the official ranks from then on. Isn't that a hundred times better than guarding some herb garden?"

Duan Xuan shook his head and thanked Zhang Chen for his goodwill, but he had his own thoughts.

First, his system had [Trap] and [Hunting].

If he set those two skills aside because of a post, it would not be worthwhile.

Besides, the herb garden was very quiet. He could focus on training without fear of being disturbed.

The government posts would not work. They were too mobile, and he would have to go out on assignments from time to time.

His martial arts aptitude was poor to begin with. He did not want unrelated matters like these to delay his cultivation.

Seeing that Duan Xuan had made up his mind, Zhang Chen could only pull a letter of recommendation from his chest. It bore the seal of Broken Mountain Martial Arts Hall and the name Chen Feng.

"Junior Brother, there's actually another path you can choose. You can find someone to sponsor you!"

"Oh? What is sponsorship, and how do I find it?"

"I like that attitude of yours, digging into a question until you break the casserole and reach the bottom." Zhang Chen immediately poured out the words he had been holding back for days. "Sponsorship means some faction sees your potential and believes you'll have great prospects in the future. So before you've made your rise, they support you with real gold and silver, helping ease the burden of your martial arts expenses. They form a good bond in advance. Take Lin Hu, for example. A few days ago, you were the victim. Don't tell me you've forgotten that? Liu Xuan'er and Han Peng are disciples of Dragon-Elephant Academy. To enter such a huge academy, the examinations are extremely strict, and they only recruit disciples at Dark Force or above. But in order to keep promising seedlings, they send people to wander through the major martial arts halls and select sponsorship candidates. Their minimum requirement for candidates is Grade-A aptitude. That's why Liu Mingze and Lin Hu receive extra subsidies every month. They use them to buy pills that replenish blood and qi, meat, and anything else beneficial to martial arts cultivation. As far as I know, Dragon-Elephant Academy sponsors Lin Hu with twenty taels of silver each month, along with forty jin of meat and ten packets of Blood-Qi Powder. Only top-tier clans and Dragon-Elephant Academy could make such a grand gesture. But top-tier clans reserve that level of treatment for Dark Force retainers."

"So that was it. No wonder Liu Xuan'er suddenly appeared in the outer city. She came to recruit young martial artists with Grade-A aptitude or above, to become affiliated disciples of Dragon-Elephant Academy. And they were so lavish from the start. This martial arts academy is rather interesting!"

"Still, Junior Brother, we have to know ourselves. Even if you choose sponsorship, don't pick a place like Dragon-Elephant Academy. You can look among the merchants, small families, escort agencies, and so on nearby. Look, under normal circumstances, someone with blood and qi as weak as yours couldn't possibly become a Bright Force martial artist even with five more months. Yet you did it. You also have great perseverance and unique insights into martial arts. How long have you even practiced Broken Mountain Fist? Yet your progress has been so fast! Many small establishments like sponsoring people like you. But you'll have to try your luck!"

Duan Xuan was not particularly interested in this sort of thing. On one hand, he preferred cultivating quietly and keeping a low profile. With the system by his side, even if his cultivation progressed slowly, he would still learn something and eventually improve.

On the other hand, Duan Xuan did not want to waste time on something with such slim chances of success.

After exchanging a few more words with Zhang Chen, Duan Xuan took the afternoon off and headed for Benevolent Harmony Hall's clinic.