Year 658 of the stable Era
Thirtieth day of the sixth month
Bailong Shen sighed as another scream interrupted the silence of his cultivation, followed by a loud crack as someone, somewhere, tried to break a wooden wall in frustration.
It didn’t work, of course. The Teal Mountain Sect had done well to ensure that the testing rooms for the exam were strong enough to endure their applicants. It wouldn’t do to keep interrupting the applicants to do repairs, as they were supposed to be cultivating in isolation. Well, semi-isolation anyways.
In what seemed a stroke of genius compared to the sheer absurdity of their test, the Teal Mountain Sect had decided to house the applicants in groups rather than forcing them all to spend the six months in solitude.
Which was a very good idea in Shen’s eyes. Closed door cultivation was a dangerous thing, and was reserved for advanced cultivators for a reason.
Well, reserved wasn’t quite the right word for it. That would imply that lower ranked cultivators were being excluded from it, as if they wanted to do it but would face opposition if they dared to try and cut themselves off from the world to train.
No, cultivators below the third stage refused to do it for a reason: the isolation was too much to bear.
Like many cultivators Shen had heard the horror stories. Heard how the weight of solitude grew until it was overwhelming, compounding against any failure until it cracked the mind like an egg, driving cultivators to madness and suicide. There was a reason that mortals used it as a punishment for their worst criminals.
Which in theory, meant that he should be thankful to have some companionship to prevent a long, slow slide into madness.
Ah, if only that were the case…
The endless scales of karma had not been kind to Bailong Sheng when deciding the four people he would be serving his time with.
Lee Han he had expected. His rival had a way of sticking to him like a prickly chestnut, no matter how slim the odds, so he couldn’t find it in his heart to feel particularly surprised when his name was announced as part of the Shen’s group. What he hadn’t expected was to also be matched with that loud Zhao Lan fellow, the one that had tried to push him around in the gardens.
It had been relentless dealing with the two of them every day for the first month, their symphony of haranguing only halting once Lee Han realized that he also couldn’t stand Zhao Lan’s constant bragging. He’d made that very clear that such provincial wealth could hardly stack up to Lee Clan’s holdings, and added something snarky about how they might reach a level worth acquiring in a millennia or two.
An excellent way to silence Zhao Lan in the short term, as he’d been shocked into red-faced silence, but a poor for the long term as once Zhao Lan recovered his senses he’d declared a feud against Lee Han.
This had taken the form of constant shouting matches, five sparring matches (all lost) and a very short-lived rumor campaign.
The last one had lasted about day before Zhao Lan gave up on it, having realized that excluding Shen there were only two other people he could complain to, and neither of them particularly cared one way or another.
Chao Ren tended to ignore the group and would often disappear into his room for days at a time, attempting to emulate true closed door cultivation to the nearest extent he could manage. If it weren’t for the fact that Shen occasionally saw him exercising in the courtyard, he’d have thought his junior was dead.
And indeed, he was Shen’s junior. In one of their rare interactions, he had learnt that Chao Ren was only 16 to his 21, a surprising difference given that he was a full head taller than Shen.
After that Shen always made an effort to greet the lad and attempt to strike up a conversation when they met, if only to prevent him from falling prey to the dangerous lifestyle that he seemed intent on pursuing. The most it got him were non-comital comments about the weather, but at least it was something.
Xia Bao, on the other hand, was always open for amicable conversation, which worked perfectly for Shen. He also was the reason that their courtyard had a small fishpond in the corner, as he had a special allowance for his diet.
Each morning he would scoop a small net’s worth of shrimp out and cook them into 8 bowls of shrimp fried rice, which he ate at different intervals throughout the day. On occasion, he’d share some with the rest of the group, which they all appreciated.
The sect had given each of them a bag filled with a couple hundred food pills, enough to last the one hundred and eighty days of the test with some to spare, but mere satiation couldn’t match a real meal.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
Shen had a few thoughts as to why he needed to eat so much of the stuff, but until he learnt more it would be hard to narrow down whether it was because he was a fellow yaoguai, or if he simply had some sort of unique physique or cultivation. Not all clans were as well known as the southern Lees or the Bailongs, after all, and it was bad manners to simply ask him out of the blue.
As he lay back on the floor of his room, staring at the seamless ceiling above, Shen found his thoughts wandering to their construction. The walls of their temporary residences were some variety of northern birch, stronger than ironwood and bereft of any joints or nails.
A mortal craftsman would have had to spend months carving such a building, assuming they could even find a sufficiently large tree, but Shen doubted that it had taken a wood cultivator more than a day or two to grow and shape the rooms.
That was the thing about cultivation. What was an impossible task for some was often a triviality for others.
Ask a sword cultivator, an earth cultivator, and a formation expert to make each make a shelter, and the differences would be drastic. The earth cultivator could easily raise a stone house, the sword cultivator could turn a tree to planks in minutes, and the formation expert could shape a shelter of pure force to stave off the elements.
But depending on the knowledge each possessed, even those results would also be as different as heaven and earth.
If the earth cultivator had a fine control of details and a knack for architecture, they might be able to craft an elegant building, but if they lacked you were more likely to end up with a stone hut comprised of three flat slabs. Similarly, depending on the formation expert’s skill, you could either get a fine residence complete with furniture or a utilitarian dome that you couldn’t leave without letting the rain in.
And if you were a sword cultivator… Well, there was a reason so many of them insisted that sleeping in the rain was a ‘test of resolve’.
Yes, strength was important to cultivation, but so was the knowledge to use it properly. For example, as sturdy as this building was, Shen knew that without at least a good coat of lacquer it was unlikely to last more than a few years under the elements.
For another, Shen knew that he wasn’t going to make any progress if he didn’t take a break to stretch his legs.
Sitting up, he rolled his neck around to loosen up the stiffness that he’d built from the hours he’d spent in the meditative pose the Beginner’s Teal Jade Mind Refinement Technique called for.
It was a good technique.
Unlike its namesake mineral it was actually quite flexible, as its method for honing the mind was quite compatible with other techniques. As with the other two manuals, it made use of the small slab of spirit jade the sect had provided as a catalyst. When struck, the ring of the jade would resonate with the mind, calming emotions and crystalizing thoughts.
By meditating in this state, Shen would be able to gain a better understanding of the workings of his mind, allowing him to remain calm and collected even under the most stressful of situations. Shen struck the jade one last time as he left, feeling the chime resonate with him. He was getting close to mastering the technique, he could feel it.
Sliding his door opened, he took in a deep breath of the fresh air as the warmth of the sun wash over him. The… late afternoon sun? Judging by its position, he’d spent been meditating for a bit longer than he’d anticipated.
Thankfully, Xia Bao was still around. He was usually out around this time of day as he, like Shen, preferred to practice his body cultivation outdoors. Shen appreciated how it made it easier to find conversation. Knocking on doors might disturb the occupant’s cultivation, and it also made him seem lonely.
“Afternoon Shen,” the man said with a wave, chopsticks in hand. He was standing on one leg in the middle of the courtyard, bowl of rice in hand. Shen had to applaud his dedication to efficiency, as he was the first cultivator he’d met that ate this way.
“Afternoon Bao,” Shen replied, matching his informality.
“So you heard the latest news then, ey?”
“How could I not? Shen replied with a laugh. “I think that’s the hardest anyone’s hit one of these walls in a while. The sound of the bone alone…”
“It must be some sort of qi reinforcement in the wood. There’s is no other explanation for how it’s this hard.”
“It could just be a varietal you’ve never heard of. Perhaps from The Brushstroke?”
“Can’t be. Northern birch’s a temperate species. The only things that grow in The Brushstroke are weird tropical stuff.”
“What about the Sword Continent?”
“Too cold. It’s winter three seasons out of four on the blade, and the tang’s barely got anything bigger than a shrub.”
“And you’re sure that it isn’t just the Northern Continent sub-species?”
“Nope, it would be rose pink if it was.”
“You really just know everything about trees, don’t you,” Shen chuckled.
“My great grandfather was a vaunted wood cultivator,” Xia Bao replied, launching into a now familiar tale, “He travelled all across the realm in his youth, collecting seeds from every land he visited. When I was a child he used to love telling us about all the trees he’d seen. He even gave us little scrolls with pictures of them. He was an amazing calligrapher.”
“Mhmm,” Shen nodded back. He couldn’t really relate to that sort of familial familiarity, but it was nice to hear about it.
“Shame he stopped showing up after I turned fifteen.”
Oh? He hadn’t told this part of the story before. “Did something happen?” Shen asked.
“Closed door cultivation.” Xia Bao replied, finishing off his bowl, “He was struck by a revelation when one of my second nephews asked why he couldn’t have beef and shrimp in his dumplings, and promptly secluded himself to meditate on it. Been six years since and we haven’t heard so much as a peep from him”
“MHMM,” Shen nodded, more empathetically than before. Now that he could relate to. “Hopefully his cultivation is progressing better than ours.”
“I hope,” Xia Bao laughed. “I’d love to see him some time this century.”
“So, seeing as you’re done with your meal, would you care for a spar?” Shen asked, gesturing to his empty bowl. “It’s been a while since we last traded pointers, and I think I’m on the verge of a breakthrough.”
“Aiya! You bastard, you were already stronger than me last time!”
“I need to avenge my pride. That leg sweep was cheating.”
“I can’t help that your outer balance is so much worse than your inner balance,” Xia Bao replied, lowering his second leg. “There’s more to body cultivation than those muscles you’re so proud of.”
“We’ll see about that,” Shen said, flexing into a martial salute. “Get r-“
“BAILONG SHEN!” A familiar voice rang out across the courtyard, cutting off his next words.
Ah.
So much for his rematch.