Three Stages

A stone tablet stood beside the Luo Shen Residence's training ground. It was pitch-black from top to bottom, taller than a person, and its surface was smooth as a mirror, with a faint spiritual light flowing across it. When the Luo God Clan's children turned six, they all had to come before the tablet and press a hand against it to test their talent for Spiritual Energy. They were tested again at twelve, this time to measure their cultivation realm. This tablet was the Spirit Testing Stele.

A Heng stood in front of the stele, so nervous that her palms kept sweating. She wiped her hands on the hem of her clothes again and again, until the fabric was crumpled into a ball. "X-Xiao Yan, do I really have to be tested? I've only been cultivating for a little over a month..."

"Do it." Xiao Yan leaned against a nearby pillar with his arms folded, smiling as he spoke. "Hehe, a test will give me a better idea of where you stand, too."

A Heng bit her lip and turned back around. Taking a deep breath, she closed her eyes and pressed her right hand against the pitch-black surface of the stele. Quite a few people had gathered around the edge of the training ground. Luo Lan was naturally among them, holding his hands, which were still a little red after having their bandages removed, and craning his neck to watch. Luo Zhi stood beside him, even more nervous than A Heng. She clutched Luo Lan's sleeve so tightly that he grimaced, but he did not dare make a sound. Luo Su had come too, standing a little farther away with a cold expression, though her gaze remained fixed on A Heng. Several other Luo God Clan children had heard that Guest Elder Xiao from the Lower Plane was going to test a mortal girl's spiritual talent, and they had gathered out of curiosity, chattering away.

The spiritual light flowing across the stele's surface paused slightly when A Heng pressed her palm against it. Then, a faint point of light slowly lit up at the very bottom. It was a pale green, so faint and weak that it resembled a tender shoot just emerging from the soil in early spring. Slowly, the light climbed upward, passing the first notch, then the second. When it reached the third, it stopped. Several large, ancient-looking characters gradually appeared on the stele:

"Sensing, third stage."

At the edge of the training ground, the Luo God Clan children froze for a moment. Then a chubby little boy let out a snort of laughter.

"Only the third stage..."

"I was already at the fifth stage when I was six..." A Heng's hand was still pressed against the stele. She stared blankly at the large characters, her slightly dark face gradually turning pale. Her lips pressed tightly together, and her eyes immediately reddened. For more than a month, she had risen before dawn every day and sat in the courtyard for four hours at a time, following the method Xiao Yan had taught her. She sensed heaven and earth, sensed the grass and trees, sensed the things flowing through the wind, the sunlight, and the soil. Even when her legs went numb, she refused to get up. She had thought she would be very good.

She slowly withdrew her hand from the stele and lowered her head, not daring to turn around and look at Xiao Yan. She was afraid of seeing his disappointment. But no sigh came from behind her. Instead, she heard laughter, and A Heng spun around.

Xiao Yan leaned against the pillar, looking at the stele, at the words "Sensing, third stage." At first, he was stunned, his eyes fixed on the characters without moving for a long while, as though he could see something very, very far away through them. Then he smiled. At first, the corners of his mouth merely lifted a little, but his smile grew wider and harder to contain. In the end, he clutched his stomach and bent over against the pillar, laughing until tears gathered at the corners of his eyes.

Everyone at the edge of the training ground was stunned. Luo Lan gaped, looking from Xiao Yan, who was laughing too hard to straighten up, to A Heng, who was on the verge of tears. For a moment, he did not know what to say. A Heng's tears finally fell. "Xiao Yan... y-you're laughing at me..."

"No." Xiao Yan straightened up, wiping the tears from his eyes and waving a hand, though he still could not keep his laughter from bubbling out. "I'm not laughing at you."

He walked over and crouched down in front of A Heng. Looking into her tear-filled eyes, the smile on his face gradually softened. "A Heng, did you know? Many years ago, in a place very, very far away, a young man stood in front of a stele just like this one. It only lit up to the third stage for him, too, and the people around him laughed at him just like this. What they said was much nastier than anything these little ones said."

"Th-then what happened to him?" A Heng asked quietly through her sobs.

Xiao Yan smiled but did not answer immediately. He merely reached out and gently patted her head. "After that, he reached the highest point in that place."

A Heng stared at him, her tear-filled eyes gradually widening.

"A little over a month to go from a mortal who had never cultivated before to the third stage of Sensing." Xiao Yan stood up and turned to look at the Luo God Clan children who had laughed just now. He said mildly, "You reached the fifth stage at six because you started soaking in spiritual liquid when you were three. Has she soaked in a single drop?"

The children's faces flushed bright red. The chubby little boy even shrank behind his companions, no longer daring to make a sound. Luo Su, who had been standing in the distance all this time, walked over. She looked at the stele, then at A Heng, and a rare smile appeared on her icy face. "The third stage in a month. You couldn't find one among ten of the clan's children who could do that."

A Heng looked at Luo Su, then at Xiao Yan. The tears on her face had not yet dried, but the corners of her mouth could not help turning upward.

That evening, Xiao Yan went to the small courtyard where A Heng lived. Her grandfather, the honest old medicinal herb farmer, had long since recovered from his injuries. He was sitting in the courtyard weaving a new bamboo basket. When he saw Xiao Yan come in, he hurriedly stood up, awkwardly wiped his hands on his clothes, and went to pour him some water. Xiao Yan stopped him, sat down on a stone stool in the courtyard, and took several things out of his Storage Ring.

The first was a jade bottle containing twelve emerald-green pills.

"These are Essence Nourishing Pills. Take one every year, sir." Xiao Yan pressed the jade bottle into the old herb farmer's hands. "Once you've taken them all, you won't suffer any more serious illnesses for the rest of your life."

The old herb farmer held the jade bottle in trembling hands, his lips quivering. For a long time, he could not get a word out. He kept trying to kowtow to Xiao Yan, but Xiao Yan caught him and held him up.

The second was a handwritten booklet. "This is a cultivation method I wrote for you. Your physique has an affinity for grass and trees, so I wrote this method to suit it. It's much faster than the one you're using now."

A Heng accepted it with both hands and hugged it tightly to her chest as though she had obtained a priceless treasure. Xiao Yan hesitated for a moment before taking out the third item. It was a small bronze lamp the size of a palm, with a ring of fine, intricate flame patterns carved into its body. There was no oil or wick in the bowl, only a wisp of extremely faint, pale golden flame curled up at the very bottom, sleeping quietly. It was the small bronze cauldron he had bought at the Hundred Herbs Hall when he first entered Luo Shen City. Over the past few days, he had melted it down with his own hands and refined it into this lamp, then sealed a wisp of his own source flame inside.

"A Heng." Xiao Yan placed the lamp in her palm. "Keep this lamp safe. From now on, no matter what happens, if you really can't bear it anymore, light it."

A Heng looked down at the little bronze lamp in her palm, then looked up at him. "What... what will happen when I light it?"

"When you light it, I'll know," Xiao Yan said. "No matter where I am, I'll come."

A Heng froze. She lowered her head and looked at the lamp, at the wisp of pale golden flame curled up inside, sleeping quietly. After looking at it for a long time, she finally spoke, her voice very soft. "Xiao Yan, you're leaving, aren't you?" Xiao Yan was silent for a moment, then nodded.

"To find your wife?"

"Mm."

A Heng did not cry. She simply hugged the lamp and the booklet tightly to her chest, then raised her head and looked at Xiao Yan with great seriousness. "Then I'll cultivate hard. When you come back, I definitely won't still be at the third stage."

Xiao Yan looked at her clear, stubborn eyes and suddenly remembered the young man from many years ago, who had stood before the Testing Magic Stone Tablet and been mocked by everyone, yet had gritted his teeth without a word. He smiled and said, "All right. When I come back, if you've reached the Spirit Movement Realm, I'll take you as my disciple."

At those words, A Heng's eyes lit up. "R-really?"

"Really."

"Pinky promise!"

Xiao Yan froze for a moment, then chuckled and held out his little finger, hooking it around her thin, dark one. At some point, the old herb farmer weaving the bamboo basket beside them had stopped working. Looking at the two hooked fingers, one large and one small, his eyes reddened on his deeply wrinkled face. He set down the basket and came over, awkwardly rubbing his hands together in front of Xiao Yan. After struggling for a long while, he finally managed to say, "Young Master Xiao, I... I'm a rough man, and I don't know how to speak well. This girl's had a hard life. Her parents passed away early, and she's suffered a lot living with an old man like me. From now on... from now on, I'm entrusting her to you."

Xiao Yan stood up and looked at the honest old man before him. He nodded solemnly. "Sir, you can rest assured."

Suddenly, a flurry of hurried footsteps sounded outside the courtyard gate. A figure in fine clothes came charging into the courtyard, panting, his face full of anxiety. As soon as he entered, he shouted at the top of his lungs, "Xiao Yan! You're leaving?! Why didn't you tell me you were leaving?!"

It was Luo Lan. Before Xiao Yan had a chance to speak, the boy darted up to him and dropped straight to his knees with a thump, wrapping his arms around Xiao Yan's leg. "I don't care! Wherever you go, I'm going too! If you don't take me, I won't get up!"