The next day dawned cold and clear. It was getting to be the time of year that Muchen would ordinarily be planning his trip south for the winter. A traveling merchant couldn't stay at an inn every day, and camping outside in the snow was a terrible experience. Especially since he didn't have access to any kind of modern camping gear.
He did have access to cultivation-fueled superhuman feats, though, which opened up some options. With Xinyi's help Muchen had already surpassed an ordinary mortal's tolerance for bad weather. If he could figure out a way to make money, there was no need to let the weather dictate his behavior.
Of course, he couldn't make any concrete plans at the moment. Right now he didn't even know how long it would take to dig up any useful information once they reached the capital.
Muchen shook off his thoughts of the future and went through a quick round of calisthenics to wake himself up before putting away his bedroll. His rudimentary cultivation let him ignore the chill in the air and admire the sight of untouched wilderness surrounding him. While his current lifestyle was a little lacking in creature comforts, it was hard to complain about waking up in such natural beauty.
It didn't take long before he was ready to set off. Huichen plodded forward as steadily as ever, while Xinyi rested beside him on the cart's bench seat, retracted into her shell. Her supernatural demonstration last night had really taken it out of her.
The forest soon gave way to cultivated fields. Occasionally they would pass by the distant figure of a farmer hard at work on some errand or another. They finally drew near a small village when the sun was almost directly overhead.
On a whim, Muchen turned off of the main road and guided his cart along the glorified dirt path that led to the village. He responded to the suspicious gazes of the villagers with cheerful smiles and waves as he made his way to the village square.
Calling it the village square was being generous. Just as the town's main street was just a dirt path that was broader than the others, the square was simply a small field located near the center of the village. Muchen drove into the very center of the field before bringing Huichen to a halt.
The village wasn't much to look at, but there was one benefit to doing business in such a place: it was free. There was no tax on goods coming into town, nor was there any permit or fee required to set up a stall in public. No doubt if Muchen tried to abuse their hospitality he would be treated to a difficult conversation with an angry group of farmers, but as long as he acted like a reasonable person he'd be able to do business without taking a single wen out of his own pockets.
The tricky part in a place like this was finding customers. Muchen unlatched the tailgate at the back of the cart and lowered it down to give himself some shelf space. He then folded up the nicest looking of his traveling blankets and laid it over top of the bare wood. That done, he fetched a few of the pots and knives he'd bought from Heshan Town and laid them out as artfully as he could.
With that, he was open for business. He took a seat on the tailgate next to his wares and did his best to look approachable. He could have tried going door to door in order to drum up business, but he figured it was better to let natural curiosity do the work and bring his customers to him.
It took half an hour before his patience was rewarded and he was approached by a middle aged woman in rough homespun clothes. If his memories of years on the road were accurate, he was looking at the town busybody. If he managed to make a sale the whole village would know about it shortly.
She studied the goods on display before turning her gaze to Muchen."You selling pots?"
"This cookware was made by the finest workshop in Heshan Town," he replied, gesturing towards the pots with a theatrical flourish, "using high quality iron ore smelted on the spot to make a product with a non-stick surface and remarkably even heat distribution."
She stared at him for a moment. "You're selling good pots?"
Muchen gave her his best professional smile. "The best."
"How much?"
"Ordinarily, I'd charge four hundred wen," he said. "But for you, I can let one go for three hundred and fifty."
It was, in his opinion, a perfectly reasonable price. Sure, she'd be able to get a pot for less if she made the trip to Heshan Town, but that was over a day away. Even back on Earth merchants still charged a delivery fee.
She scowled. "I'm not spending more than one fifty for a pot."
"I'm afraid I can't cut the price any further," Muchen said, shaking his head. "I'm barely making anything at three fifty."
He was willing to come down on the price a little bit, but he certainly wasn't ready to take a loss. It was a pity, but sometimes the person in front of you just wasn't fated to become your customer.
The woman waited to see if he was willing to budge on the price. When it became clear that he wasn't going to meet her expectations, she turned and marched away in a huff. He had a feeling that the whole village would soon hear about his unreasonable asking prices.
He waited around for another hour, only to have his worst fears confirmed. Whether because of lack of interest or because of negative rumors, he wasn't approached by another potential customer. Well, it had always been a bit of a long shot, trying to sell iron goods this close to Heshan Town.
He still had a smile on his face as he put his goods away and hooked Huichen back up to the cart. They made their way out of the village and had resumed their travel along the main road when he heard a grumpy voice from the seat next to him.
"Why stop in the middle of the day?" Xinyi asked. "Aren't we traveling slowly enough already?"
"You knew I was a traveling merchant when you decided to stick with me," Muchen said. He was doing his part by helping her cover. The occasional delay was just part of the process.
"Even if things went well you were only going to earn, what," she asked, "maybe half a tael of silver?"
"There's an old saying," he replied. "Life's about the journey, not the destination."
"If you're going to take time off the journey to dawdle around for a couple of hours," Xinyi said, "you might as well spend that time cultivating."
"It's hard work to cultivate immortality," Muchen replied. "What's the point if you don't live your life along the way?"
Xinyi grumbled a bit under her breath, but didn't bother pursuing the argument any further. Muchen suspected that she was more fatigued than persuaded, but that was all right. The world was big enough to contain both of their chosen paths.
The physical exercises she put him through that evening were intense. Muchen wondered at first if she was retaliating against him for the midday delay, but soon enough he didn't have the spare mental capacity to focus on anything but what he was doing.
After half an hour of work, she was happy with his physical form as he swung the knife. Then she started to lecture him about the use of his spiritual energy. He did his best to follow what she was saying, but when she finished the explanation and was about to have him resume practice, he couldn't help but raise his hand and interrupt.
"I'd like to use my spiritual energy to hit harder like how you describe," he said, "but I thought that wasn't possible until you start building a foundation."
When Muchen picked up the memories of life on the Qianzhan Continent, he'd also picked up a bit of the world's common sense. After all, it behooved anybody who worked in sales to be able to identify the rough level of cultivation of new people that you met. Usually it was safe to err on the side of being more deferential, but if you went too far there was the danger that a cultivator might think you were deliberately mocking him. That kind of thing rarely ended well for the mortal involved.
The basic rule of thumb was that at the Meridian Opening stage, a cultivator enjoyed greater strength and speed than ordinary men. At the Foundation Building Stage, a cultivator could mobilize his spiritual energy to empower his body in short bursts of massively superhuman performance. During Core Formation, a cultivator could begin to channel his spiritual energy into minor effects on the outside world, like setting a sword ablaze or freezing an enemy with a touch. Golden Core cultivators could greatly affect the world around them, riding around on their flying sword while raining lightning and fire down on their targets.
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Muchen was presently in the early stages of Meridian Opening. Accordingly, he hadn't even thought about actually doing anything with his spiritual energy other than building it up and then using it to open more meridians in the future.
"Who told you that?" Xinyi snapped. "At Foundation Establishment even the least talented hack can use his spiritual energy, but no student of mine is going to take that long. Now stop thinking and start following directions."
Muchen gave her a wry smile and put away his doubts before doing his best to mobilize his spiritual energy as he'd been told. He had his own thoughts about how to live his life and how to allocate his time, but he wasn't dumb enough to argue with an expert on her area of expertise.
He worked hard, but he didn't experience a breakthrough during the first day of practice. Nor the next. Nor the next. It wasn't until the fifth day of practice, after repeating the same strike fifty times, Muchen thought he was swinging the knife faster on strike fifty-one. It could have been a trick of the mind.
"Focus!" Xinyi called out. She had long since traded in the sword she used to demonstrate techniques for a willow branch, which she used to whack Muchen in the side. He shifted his body as he absorbed the blow.
The next swing of the knife was definitely faster. Muchen paused, trying to absorb what had just happened.
"The simple is complex, the complex is simple," Xinyi said. "You've heard of the profundity of simplicity?"
Muchen nodded. He'd never been much for philosophy, but he'd at least picked up some of the basics from pop culture. A neophyte looked at a mountain and saw a mountain. A student with a little bit of knowledge saw the accumulation of sediment over top of a skeleton of solid rock, shaped by the forces of nature and the accumulation of time. A master saw a mountain.
He took a moment to try and figure out how that kind of insight would apply to swinging a knife. His reward was another whack from the willow switch, this time on the back of his head.
"Put that out of your mind! There should be no room for anything but your next swing," Xinyi said. "Simple! Simple! Simple!"
She punctuated each phrase with another whack from the switch. Muchen lowered the knife and rubbed at the back of his head. He'd never had a teacher before who didn't want him to understand what he was doing.
Xinyi's gaze softened as she saw his confusion, and she sighed. "Other cultivators start their martial practice at a young age. They spend their lives fighting or training to fight. As a dilettante, any attempt to read your opponent, respond to his actions, or fool him with a feint... it's all doomed."
Muchen frowned. "What's the point of all this, then."
He could understand if the idea was just to stay fit and increase his spiritual energy by the way, but he'd gotten the impression that he would come out of Xinyi's training with at least some ability to defend himself.
"If you're incompetent at almost everything, you can at least learn to do one thing well!" Xinyi said. "Tricks are useless in the face of absolute strength! You must learn to put all of your power into one overwhelming blow."
"If that doesn't work?"
She looked at him for a moment, then sighed. "Eventually I'll get around to teaching you a movement technique as well."
Part of him rankled at the idea that he would only ever be able to try one move before running away. On the other hand, he could see how being really good at running away would come in handy in a wide variety of situations.
He only had a moment to think things over before another swat on the back of the elbow let him know that the time for talking was over. Muchen worked through another fifty swings of the knife that Xinyi deemed to be acceptable before she declared that they were done for the day and left him to the meditation that had long since become a daily routine.
Ever since he'd made his connection to the dao and taken the first real step on the road of cultivation, the experience of meditation had changed. Before he had been fumbling around in the dark, carrying out actions by rote in the hope that they would work properly.
Now, he could feel the energy flowing into him as he connected with the world around him. It wasn't as obvious as it had been when Xinyi had granted him that one moment of clarity, but it was better than nothing. And it was his own ability.
He could tell that his meditation was working. He could feel the warm pool of energy gathering just behind his navel. He also felt like there was something missing. A connection that wasn't being made. Like a word was stuck on the tip of his tongue. He didn't dwell on the feeling, not wanting to fall out of the meditative state, but just noted it down to worry about later.
Even if he wasn't progressing quite as quickly as he could have been, he could at least feel that he was making progress. The doorway to the next level of cultivation was still far off in the distance, but he was getting a little bit closer every day.
He was also better able to weather the martial practice Xinyi was putting him through. While the first session had left him capable of little more than collapsing into bed, after a few days to adjust he was back to his usual cultivation schedule. Well, mostly. An hour of strenuous exercise still took a toll on him. While it was invigorating to feel the spiritual energy entering his body to be stored in his dantian, Muchen had to call it a night when he felt himself slipping from meditation to slumber. He was hardly advanced enough in his cultivation to sleep comfortably sitting up, let alone skip sleep altogether.
The clear but cold weather held through the next day. When they passed a small village, Muchen decided to take another try at selling his products. Now that they were nearly a full week's travel away from Heshan, he figured villagers would be more interested in buying goods from the now far-off center of ironworking.
He managed to sell two pots and three knives in the two hours he was willing to invest, all at a fifty percent markup from what he'd initially paid. In order to close the last deal, he'd accepted eggs in lieu of half the cash. He gave the customer credit for one wen per egg. The usual price in town was fifteen or twenty wen per dozen, so it would eventually be a little extra profit.
They hit the road again and didn't reach the next farming village until the middle of the afternoon. Muchen managed to make one sale on the way through, but didn't stop to set up shop. He wanted to wait until his profit margins were a bit healthier before he started spending the time to really clear out his inventory.
Once again, they camped out in a clearing just off the side of the road. And once again, Xinyi pulled him to practice after dinner.
She stared at him for a moment, before clearing her throat. "While it's all well and good to win through overwhelming power, I forgot that you were so weak."
Muchen wasn't thrilled at the description, but he didn't argue. After all, it was true that there weren't many cultivators out there who he could expect to overpower in a fight.
"So, instead of teaching you one thing, I'm going to teach you two," Xinyi continued. "Today you'll learn the Simpleton's Saber: blocking technique."
Muchen couldn't hold his tongue. "That name..."
"It's a technique of my own design!" Xinyi said. "You should be honored."
What could he say? "Thank you."
"Now, try and get your knife between yourself and the attack," she said.
Muchen blinked. He stood still, hoping for more detailed instruction. Instead, Xinyi stepped forward and flicked her wrist,sending the tip of her sword towards him with deceptive quickness.
Muchen heaved his knife upward, barely managing to get it there in time to clash with Xinyi's sword. The shock of impact rattled through the grip and caused an ache in his arm, but at least the sword was stopped. He wanted to ask her to go a little easier on him, but before he could say anything the sword vanished.
He pushed his knife out in front of him, surprised by the sudden lack of resistance. At the same time, he saw another flicker of motion as Xinyi struck again, from the other side this time. He desperately wrenched his knife back across his body and was rewarded with another loud clang and bone-rattling impact.
Xinyi withdrew her sword more slowly this time. She studied him for a moment, then sighed and sheathed her sword. He was about to sigh in relief when a willow branch materialized in her hand. He was grateful that she wasn't going to be coming at him with live steel, although he couldn't shake the ominous feeling that she just didn't want to have to hold back so much.
Over the next half an hour he was beaten black and blue. That wasn't to say that he was completely unable to intercept the willow branch. Xinyi had a devilish instinct for keeping her strikes just at the upper limit of his ability to defend himself. He managed to catch three strikes out of four, but that still meant plenty of stinging welts all up and down his arms, legs, and torso.
Cultivation was supposed to make the body tougher and more resistant to damage and pain. If that was the case, Muchen hadn't progressed far enough in his cultivation to reap those benefits. Well, that or Xinyi could bypass that sort of thing.
As he grew more fatigued he gave up trying to react to what she was doing and simply started to guess where she was going to strike. That resulted in one comfortable interception, then one complete whiff. That was followed by a lecture.
"The purpose of this practice is to hone your reflexes," Xinyi said. "If you have to think about what you're doing, you'll be too slow. If you're just going to guess where each attack is coming from, you might as well cut your own throat and save me a lot of trouble."
It was hard to appreciate the noble sentiments behind Xinyi's actions when his whole right side was one giant ache—soon to be one giant bruise, unless he missed his guess. He knew intellectually that if she really wanted to hurt him he would be in much worse shape, but it was hard to focus on that thought through all the immediate pain.
Muchen responded to her comment with a smile that was more like a grimace and an accepting nod.
"You need to stop thinking so much. Let your body react, no second guessing," Xinyi said, then clapped her hands together. "All right, time to practice the Simpleton's saber: attack technique."
Muchen grunted in acknowledgement and willed his aching arm muscles through the familiar motion. If he ever managed to impress somebody with his fighting prowess, the most important thing to remember was to come up with a good lie about the name for the technique.