Clearing after snowfall

"The other sects have no such hard requirement. Only ours..."

"I heard it was a rule the sect master established when he first founded the sect. Who knows why."

Song Yan listened. Lin Qing had told him these things when he first joined the sect.

"Our Dongyuan Sect has the Ten Arts of Mind Cultivation."

"Although the 'ten arts' are called ten arts, they aren't actually limited to ten skills. The number ten is both the sum of the ten most common arts and a collective term for all the 'unorthodox paths' in this world."

Wendao Gorge was already visible in the distance.

The Dongyuan Sect's ten arts were music, board games, calligraphy, painting, archery, mathematics, flowers, wine, food, and tea.

In the cultivation world, there were many others, such as carving, divine agriculture, smelting, and even farming, poetry, and sitting in stillness.

"Sitting in stillness?"

The newly admitted disciple sounded puzzled.

"Basically... staring into space."

"...?"

"These arts offer no substantial help with cultivation. They're merely refined pursuits for cultivating one's character and temperament.

"So you must take care to keep things in proportion, junior brother. After all, neither of us is a heaven-favored prodigy with peerless aptitude. There's no need to think so far ahead. Just complete the sect's assignments in your day-to-day life."

"Yes, senior brother. I'll remember that."

Upon reaching Wendao Gorge, Song Yan went a different way from them.

Before his time in Silent Valley, he had always felt this was a waste of time. Each time, he would casually pick whichever Heart-Cultivation Academy was closest, merely to complete his assignment.

Later, after learning from the Five-Star Pulse Seizing art that playing Go, calligraphy, and painting could help strengthen Divine Sense, he had always chosen to play against others.

In fact, Song Yan had known a little Go even before entering the Dongyuan Sect to cultivate.

Back in Shiliang Town, when he had learned to read and write as a child, his private tutor He Lao had known how to play, as had his grandfather. Sometimes Master He would even come to play against his grandfather.

Through constant exposure, Song Yan had picked up the rudiments.

But...

Song Yan was mentally weary today and did not intend to play Go. It took too long.

The Heart-Cultivation Academy for board games was called Yitian Academy, and its disciples had a saying...

Once you entered Yitian Academy, you played Go all day.

Go was something one could easily become absorbed in, delaying cultivation.

Painting, meanwhile, was too difficult for Song Yan. Drawing strange, misshapen things would damage his state of mind.

Better to practice some calligraphy and cultivate his character and temperament.

The Ink Way Academy stood beside the Painting Academy.

The ten Heart-Cultivation Academies were all built along the two banks of Wendao Gorge.

It was said that when the Dongyuan Sect's sect master first arrived here, he had roamed freely along the shores of Spirit Source Great Marsh.

Upon reaching Wendao Gorge, he had gained an insight and broken through, and so named the place Wendao Gorge.

With the Spiritual Qi here already abundant, many disciples and elders now cultivated and contemplated the Dao along its banks in pursuit of a breakthrough.

The Ink Way Academy was on Wendao Gorge's northern bank.

Before entering the Ink Way Academy, Song Yan faintly heard someone lecturing in the Painting Academy opposite...

"...Some cultivators nowadays simply believe these arts of mind cultivation waste time and hinder cultivation."

Many elders in the sect were advanced in age, unable to further their cultivation, and fond of the arts of mind cultivation, so they often lectured and taught at the various Heart-Cultivation Academies.

"In this old man's view, these people fail to attain the Great Dao purely because their own aptitude is mediocre and they have had no fortuitous encounters."

"To blame their lack of prospects for attaining the Great Dao on the arts of mind cultivation is truly laughable."

"Little do they know..."

"...how many Great Power patriarchs in the cultivation world have woven their understanding of the Great Dao into the arts of mind cultivation, concealing it within game records and paintings..."

Standing outside the courtyard, Song Yan listened with interest for a while.

According to this elder, the arts of mind cultivation were mostly studied by great cultivators of profound realms who, upon encountering a bottleneck, could not break through for hundreds or thousands of years.

The paintings such True Persons and great sages created, the game records they recorded, with time and effort they could otherwise have spent cultivating...

Naturally brimmed with Dao resonance and possessed wondrous, unexpected effects.

"..."

At first hearing, it seemed to make some sense.

But on closer thought, what did this have to do with ordinary disciples like them, for whom even Foundation Establishment remained a distant prospect?

Could genuine works left behind by those so-called Dao patriarchs and immortal lords really fall casually into the hands of ants like them...?

Shaking his head, Song Yan turned and headed for the Ink Way Academy.

Having no elder lecturing was the norm at the various Heart-Cultivation Academies, just like the Ink Way Academy before him.

Unlike the crisp clicks of stones being placed in Yitian Academy, the disciples here generally arrived without a word, quietly completed their prescribed work, then left without a word.

In the middle of the courtyard's several rooms, a disciple sat practicing calligraphy with a brush, some unfinished talisman papers set beside him.

He was this month's steward disciple for the Ink Way Academy.

The position chiefly involved managing and selecting the content for that month's calligraphy-based mind cultivation.

It was an easy job, and came with extra Spirit Stones.

Song Yan had once greatly envied such chores, but the position could only be assigned to someone with a certain proficiency in the relevant art of mind cultivation.

Mediocre at everything, he naturally had no such good fortune.

He casually found a spot and sat down. Before him lay an exquisite calligraphy model, along with the four treasures of the scholar's study-brush, ink, paper, and inkstone-for copying it.

"The Clearing After Snowfall Calligraphy Model."

"This senior brother's choice really suits the occasion."

It was the sixteenth day of the winter month, and snow happened to be falling.

Outside were cold mountains and heavy snow; inside were a warm stove, brush, and ink. As Song Yan lifted his brush and put ink to paper, there was quite the air of a refined scholar.

The Clearing After Snowfall Calligraphy Model contained twenty-eight characters in all.

It had originally been written by a master calligrapher of the mortal Ancient Jin Kingdom, and later came into the possession of a Great Power in the cultivation world.

Rumor had it that this person had been trapped at a bottleneck for several hundred years. One day, amid heavy snow, he copied the calligraphy model, suddenly comprehended the Great Dao, and broke through in a single morning.

Just then, the snow stopped and the sky cleared, daylight shining brightly.

From then on, this calligraphy model of only twenty-eight characters gradually grew famous, and cultivators called it the "Twenty-Eight Pearls."

"Whew..."

After roughly an hour, Song Yan slowly set down his brush and let out a soft breath.

The heavy snow outside had stopped at some point. Looking out from Wendao Gorge, he could take in the entire snowy landscape along Spirit Source Marsh.

His state of mind was peaceful, his thoughts tranquil.

"These arts of mind cultivation really do have some effect."

His aim had been achieved, and the sect's prescribed work had been completed along the way.

That would be enough for today.

Song Yan rose, left the Ink Way Academy, and headed back toward Outer Disciple Peak.

"Hey, senior brother, that person just now... doesn't he look a little familiar?"

Seeing him leave, two disciples nearby began whispering to each other.

"How strange. I thought he looked familiar too, but assumed I was imagining it."

"Ah..."

The man seemed to wake from a dream. "I remember now. Isn't he that Outer Sect Disciple called Song Yesheng?"

The other disciple understood at once. "So it was him."

When the Xuanyuan Sect had come demanding an explanation that day, all the disciples on the Dao-Entering Terrace had remembered their sect master's world-shaking cascade of Sword Qi clouds, and with it, the Outer Sect Disciple who had stood at the center of that maelstrom.

"I heard he was originally at Qi Refining, fifth layer, but got embroiled in the sect's external affairs, and his cultivation fell to Qi Refining, First Layer in the fighting."

"After such tremendous rises and falls, even the best state of mind would inevitably be affected."

"Yes, he really is pitiful. A calamity out of nowhere..."

"I'm afraid he has no hope of reaching Foundation Establishment in this lifetime."

Suddenly, a shadow fell behind the two cultivators, and an upright voice sounded. "Gossiping behind someone's back shows neither respect nor care for a fellow disciple, and also disturbs the other disciples' mind cultivation..."

The Ink Way Academy's steward disciple looked seventeen or eighteen, but his expression was stern.

"Today's work is void!"

"Senior Brother Sun! Don't..."

Ignoring their wails, the steward disciple surnamed Sun walked straight to the desk where Song Yan had been sitting and gathered up the sheets of calligraphy he had left behind.

"Hmm..."

"Restless and impatient at first, gradually settling in the middle pages, then serene and tranquil on the last sheet..."

His rigid expression finally showed a trace of softness.

"This is the effect the arts of mind cultivation ought to have."

Song Yan had not heard what the others said.

He headed straight for his cave abode.

"Come to think of it..."

"Wasn't there some sort of calligraphy model inside the clay figurine that little girl from the Xie Household gave me...?"

It seemed he had heard Xie Xing mention it in passing that day.

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