At this point, a relieved smile had spread across Strategist Ji's slightly ashen face. He looked at Li Yan and asked, "Are you willing to formally become my disciple?"
Having already made his decision, Li Yan thought no further and answered, "Yes."
"Good! Your master has always been indifferent to ceremony and dislikes cumbersome formalities. Kowtow to me three times, and you will be admitted." With that, he adjusted his posture and sat upright behind the table, his expression solemn. Three sticks of incense curled upward before him from the little cauldron on the table, lending him all the bearing of a sect master.
Li Yan rose, straightened his coarse cloth clothes, and knelt before the incense table. He respectfully knocked his head against the ground three times before Strategist Ji.
Strategist Ji stroked his beard. A faint flush rose on his ashen face, and his smile deepened. "Heh, good. You may rise."
Li Yan stood, joy showing on his face. Once upright, he bowed again, then returned to kneeling at the table to listen to his master's teachings.
Strategist Ji said, "Now that you are a disciple of the Wood Shadow Sect, I will teach you our sect's introductory method."
Li Yan froze at these words. Seeing his reaction, Strategist Ji asked, "Do you have a question?"
After a brief hesitation, Li Yan replied, "No. Please continue your instruction, Master."
Hearing this, Strategist Ji did not press him. He continued, "All disciples of our sect must study martial arts and herbal medicine. Martial arts, however, are the foundation upon which those of us in the martial world establish ourselves and preserve our lives. Many precious medicinal plants and flowers also grow in places rarely trodden by humans, beyond the reach of ordinary people. Thus, new disciples generally spend their first few years cultivating martial arts. Only after attaining some small success may they begin studying herbal medicine. Martial arts are further divided into internal cultivation methods and combat techniques. Internal cultivation is the mother of martial prowess. No matter how thoroughly you master a combat technique, without internal cultivation to support it, you cannot unleash its true power. At most, you would merely be brawling like an ordinary person. But with powerful internal cultivation, even common boxing techniques can split mountains and shatter stone, or wound someone with a plucked leaf. Such is their might. That is why internal cultivation methods are the foundation upon which every sect stands, and why each sect treasures them."
Strategist Ji patiently explained everything to Li Yan, speaking for the time it would take to drink several cups of tea. He covered the categories of internal cultivation, the great sects, the divisions of martial attainment, acupoints, meridians, and more. He also brought out an exquisitely carved wooden figure. Its body was bare, crisscrossed with red and blue lines and covered in densely packed dots. Beside the dots and lines were annotations in regular script as tiny as flies' heads. This wooden figure actually depicted the various meridians and acupoints within the human body, and he explained each of them to Li Yan in detail.
"What I have
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explained above forms the foundation of cultivation. You must remember it in detail and must not make the slightest mistake. Now, let us discuss our sect's cultivation method. As I told you earlier, internal cultivation is the mother of martial prowess. Our sect's internal cultivation method has ten levels and is called the 'Wood Yin Technique.' Its power is astonishing. By absorbing the essence of plants refined through our sect's secret method, it strengthens the body and opens the meridians throughout it, filling the body with vital energy. Internal force then circulates swiftly through the entire body, while a rich reserve of internal power accumulates in the dantian. In mortal combat, it unleashes extraordinary fighting strength, beyond anything the cultivation methods of worldly sects can compare with. Even now, I have only reached the peak of the third level."
Li Yan was deeply shocked, disbelief plain on his face. His master's current martial prowess already made him a match for ten thousand men, yet he had only reached the third level of the Wood Yin Technique. If he cultivated it to the tenth level, would he not possess the abilities of an immortal walking the earth?
Strategist Ji glanced at Li Yan and continued slowly, "Before cultivating this technique, however, you must first practice our sect's 'Breath Guidance Art.' This art guides the essential energy of heaven and earth, then awakens the energy in your dantian. Only after successfully awakening that energy can you formally begin cultivating the Wood Yin Technique."
At this point, Strategist Ji smiled faintly and swept back both broad sleeves of his black robe. His fair, slender hands appeared above the table. In his left hand was a book that looked like metal yet was not metal, like jade yet was not jade. With his right hand, he drew from it a sheet of paper slightly larger than its pages. The paper was densely covered in writing and clearly was not a page from the book. Judging by the ink, it seemed to have been written quite recently.
As Strategist Ji moved, Li Yan noticed the peculiar material of the book in his master's left hand. He had read quite a few books since childhood, but had never seen anything made of such a material. Moreover, one third of the book was distinctly different in color from the remaining two thirds, as though someone had glued two books together.
Only then did Li Yan recall that, from their meeting yesterday until his master had taken out the paper just now, his master seemed to have used only his right hand. Whether testing him with needles yesterday or doing anything else, he had never used his left. Presumably, he had been holding this book inside his sleeve the entire time.
This could not help arousing his curiosity. What sort of book would make someone unwilling to part with it for even a moment? But he knew this was not something he could ask about now. After all, he had only just become a disciple. Perhaps later, once he grew more familiar with his master, he could satisfy his curiosity.
As though he had not noticed the curiosity in Li Yan's eyes, Strategist Ji passed him the sheet covered in writing and said, "This is our sect's Breath Guidance Art. I will teach it to you now. Afterward, study it carefully on your own. If there is anything you do not understand, I will answer your questions and clear up your doubts. Breath is divided into the innate and the acquired. While an infant is in its mother's womb, it possesses innate breath and can breathe without using its mouth or nose. After birth, a person begins breathing through the mouth and nose. This is acquired breath, but in gaining it, one also loses innate breath." This explanation took another full quarter of an hour. Once he finished, Strategist Ji said no more. He watched Li Yan bow his head in thought, occasionally picking up the wooden figure and the Breath Guidance Art instructions to study them closely. Then he drew his hands together, concealed them once more within his broad sleeves, and rested them against his abdomen before closing his eyes to meditate.
Li Yan spent a good while studying. Only after finally making certain that he had memorized the method of practice and several key circulation routes through the meridians did he feel at ease. Having never encountered internal cultivation before, he had feared that it might be too profound and leave him with a host of questions, embarrassing him in front of his master. Now that he felt his understanding was correct, he relaxed considerably. After another moment's thought, he told himself, Perhaps that is only because this is an introductory method.
He looked up at his master and said somewhat awkwardly, "Master, I believe I have gained a basic understanding of this introductory method."
Strategist Ji opened his eyes and looked at Li Yan with a smile. He slowly questioned him on several crucial points. Seeing Li Yan answer without hesitation, he looked thoroughly satisfied. "Then begin practicing this method today. I estimate that you should awaken the energy in your dantian in as little as three to five days, or ten days to half a month at most. Also, now that you have memorized the method on that sheet, hand it back to me for destruction. It is not that I distrust you. This is standard practice among the great sects of the martial world. Apart from retaining the original cultivation manuals, everything is passed on through direct oral instruction. Even if a few words are occasionally committed to paper, they must be destroyed immediately afterward, lest those pages be accidentally lost or seized by villains. Even the original cultivation manuals are generally entrusted only to the sect master."
Li Yan saw nothing improper in this. Putting himself in their position, he understood that something upon which a sect's very existence depended could hardly be left casually on paper. Otherwise, the great sects would have no secrets to speak of.
He respectfully handed the sheet containing the Breath Guidance Art back to his master. Strategist Ji accepted it with a smile and tucked it into his broad sleeve. As for how he would dispose of it, Li Yan would not ask about such matters. Then Strategist Ji pointed at the wooden figure covered in meridian routes and said, "Take this with you. This is something
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you will need to spend a long time studying and memorizing."
As instructed, Li Yan picked up the wooden figure from the table. He guessed, however, that it was merely a more finely carved model. Every martial sect probably had similar aids for beginners. Otherwise, it would be difficult indeed to explain clearly through words alone these meridians and acupoints that could neither be seen nor touched. He then took his leave of Strategist Ji and left the stone house.
After watching him leave, Strategist Ji narrowed his eyes slightly and stared at the doorway. A while later, he let out a lingering sigh and murmured to himself, "His aptitude is considerably worse than the last one's. Who knows how long it will take him to reach the peak of the first level? Yet I have less and less time left. This poison grows ever harder to suppress. Ah!" With that, he swept his right sleeve toward the door several yards away, and it closed without a sound. Had Marshal Hong witnessed this feat, he would surely have been frightened out of his wits. Even the supreme Transformation Realm experts of the martial world could not accomplish something like this so effortlessly from several yards away. To attempt it at all would require at least a Transformation Realm expert, at less than half that distance, sinking energy into his dantian before unleashing a furious surge of internal power. Even then, the door would probably have shattered into pieces.
After doing this, Strategist Ji extended his left hand from his sleeve. The book that resembled neither quite metal nor quite jade, along with the sheet containing the Breath Guidance Art, appeared on the table. With practiced ease, he opened the book about a third of the way through, where the colors seemed to divide, and laid it flat on the table. He placed both hands on the latter portion of the open book and silently channeled his mysterious cultivation art into it. After some time, the book still showed no reaction. He then turned it in several directions, horizontally and vertically, pouring internal power into it or tapping it, but the book remained unchanged. Finally, he made a strange gesture. Picking up the book, he pressed its latter two-thirds section against his forehead, much as a scholar facing a difficult problem might habitually press a book to his brow and close his eyes in thought. He remained utterly motionless. A long time later, a sigh sounded in the room. "Still no good. I have tried every sort of method these past few years, yet I still cannot open it. Just what level must I reach before I gain this opportunity? If this book contains a way to resolve the fire poison in my body, only... ah." After sighing, he picked up the sheet containing the Breath Guidance Art with his right hand. Without any visible movement, the paper suddenly burst into flame and turned to ash in an instant. "Internal energy taking material form"—this was a marvel heard of only in the legends of the martial world. Even the greatest living martial experts could only use internal power to reduce objects to fragments or powder. Not one could conjure fire from nothing.
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