CHAPTER
16
Progress at Last
I
The moment Hao Zhen sat down, Tian Jin asked, “There were a couple of cultivation methods in Ke Li’s spatial ring, right? Can I have a look at them?”
Instead of answering, Hao Zhen directly produced the three cultivation method jade slips from his spatial ring.
“What has your experience with the Blazing Light Method been so far? Good? Bad?” Tian Jin asked as Hao Zhen handed him the jade slips.
“Rather bad, I think,” Hao Zhen said.
After giving him a nod, Tian Jin closed his eyes.
Cultivation methods were nothing more than collections of incantation and images that cultivators needed to chant and visualize in order to establish a connection with their crux, allowing them to use the spiritual power emanated by it. Like virtually everything magical, they were divided into grades, corresponding to what spiritual realm they were usable to.
In theory, the Blazing Light Method Hao Zhen was using wasn’t any worse than the cultivation methods Ke Li had, as they were all red-grade, and as such could all be used up to the eleventh level of the Red Spiritual Realm. There was no such thing as sub-grades, either. All cultivation methods of the same grade were equally effective. That didn’t mean, however, that they were all equally difficult to comprehend.
From what Hao Zhen had heard, a cultivator could find a particular cultivation method incredibly easy to comprehend, easily memorizing its incantation and images, and another cultivation method of the same grade almost impossible to memorize. Because of that, it was ideal for cultivators to try using as many different cultivation methods as possible until they found the one that was right for them.
Hao Zhen didn’t think his aptitude with the Blazing Light Method was outright terrible, but it definitely wasn’t good. Sometimes he forgot part of its incantation, and it took conscious effort to keep the chant going in his mind. On the other hand, he had heard that if he managed to find the perfect cultivation method for him, he’d be able to chant it subconsciously, without even thinking. As for the images inside it, Hao Zhen didn’t even bother trying to visualize them.
Visualization was by far the hardest part of cultivation, and Hao Zhen was completely unable to reproduce even a fraction of the Blazing Light Method’s images in his mind’s eye. This was part of the reason his cultivation speed was so slow. You could only use a cultivation method to its full potential if you could properly visualize all of its images successively while chanting its incantation. If you couldn’t do so, your control over your spiritual power and the rate at which you absorbed spiritual energy wouldn’t be nearly as great.
“All right.” Tian Jin opened his eyes. It had been less than a minute since Hao Zhen had handed him the three jade slips. “This one is probably the easiest one,” he said, handing Hao Zhen one of the jade slips back, and then the other two. “These two are pretty similar to the Blazing Light Method, so I don’t think you’ll have much luck with them.” Tian Jin’s spatial ring then flashed, and a dozen or so jade slips appeared in front of him, all of which he handed to Hao Zhen. “Have a look at these ones, too.”
Hao Zhen looked at the pile of jade slips in front of him, then back at Tian Jin. He almost asked him where exactly he had gotten so many cultivation methods from, but then remembered who exactly he was talking to. He wouldn’t be surprised even if Tian Jin said that some of them had dropped from the sky, falling into his coincidentally open and outstretched hands. Instead, Hao Zhen decided to ask something else. “Out of curiosity, what’s your affinity with these cultivation methods?”
At that, Tian Jin frowned, hesitating. Finally, he sighed. “About the same, really.”
“That being?” Hao Zhen asked. He was almost certain of the answer, but he still wanted to check.
“I … I’d say it’s about perfect.”
Sure enough. Hao Zhen had to resist the urge to roll his eyes. “How much did you memorize of the three cultivation methods I handed you just now?”
“All of them,” Tian Jin said, no longer hesitating now that he had already revealed the truth. He looked at Hao Zhen with a mixture of anxiousness and expectation.
Hao Zhen gave Tian Jin a blank look, and once it became clear that Tian Jin hadn’t been joking, he simply shook his head, incredulous. Tian Jin’s talent was even more absurd than he had thought it’d be. In a couple of seconds, Tian Jin had done what took the average cultivator several years. This insane level of talent sealed the deal. If there had been any doubt left in his mind about his theory that Tian Jin was some kind of protagonist, the revelation just now had erased them. Maybe Tian Jin’s level of talent was common in violet-grade organizations or something, but in a red-grade sect like the Blazing Light Sect?
Pushing those thoughts to the back of his head for the moment, Hao Zhen picked up the first jade slip and sent his spiritual power into it. Memorizing it was only made harder by the fact that, at the same time he was going through its contents, he had to keep the chant of the Blazing Light Method going, and paying attention to two things at the same time wasn’t quite the easiest thing. After a while, he had an idea.
When the sect gave new disciples a jade slip containing the Blazing Light Method, they also included a small booklet in which the incantations of the Blazing Light Method were written. After all, new disciples didn’t have a cultivation method, so they couldn’t control their spiritual power, and that meant they couldn’t use jade slips. Then, after memorizing the incantation on the booklet, they’d be able to use it to use to control their spiritual power, and then access the cultivation method jade slip so that they could start memorizing the images of the Blazing Light Method.
“Tian Jin,” Hao Zhen said, opening his eyes. “Would you happen to have some pen and paper?”
“I don’t think so?” Tian Jin said, shaking his head, a slightly surprised look on his face. He had probably been expecting something about his aptitude for cultivation, and not this seemingly random question. “Why?”
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“Hmmm.” They could probably find some pen and paper if they asked around or even come up with an alternative way of writing down the incantation, but maybe there was something else they try could try first … “Would you mind chanting out loud the incantation of one of the cultivation methods?”
“Er … Sure?” Tian Jin shrugged, still a little confused. Words then started coming out of his mouth, but they sounded vague and indistinct, muffled. After a while, Tian Jin stopped. “How about it?”
Hao Zhen smiled to himself, pleased. The reason why cultivation method incantations were so hard to memorize was that they had magical properties that made reading and remembering them much more difficult than normal texts. He didn’t know how exactly that worked, considering these incantations were also written in the Common Tongue, but right now wasn’t the time to ponder how the world worked. What mattered was that since, when spoken out loud, cultivation method incantations had similar magical properties—except, in this case, they weren’t hard to read, but to hear—meant that they could be transmitted orally.
He then explained the situation to Tian Jin, who quickly understood what he wanted from him.
“You want me to recite the incantations for you?” Tian Jin asked.
“Just once or twice of each one,” Hao Zhen said, “so that I can pinpoint which one I find easiest to understand. Then we can look for pen and paper, and you can write down the incantation of that cultivation method so that I can work on memorizing it. We should be able to save a lot of time that way.”
Tian Jin didn’t need to consider his plan long before agreeing to it, and about an hour later, Hao Zhen had his new cultivation method: the Drifting Moonlight Method. It was one of Tian Jin’s cultivation methods—none of Ke Li’s worked for him—and although Hao Zhen’s aptitude with it wasn’t perfect, it was good enough that they ended up not needing to even procure a pen and paper. Hao Zhen managed to pretty accurately remember the incantation after the second time Tian Jin recited it, so he asked Tian Jin to repeat it a couple more times, and before long he had all the words memorized.
His affinity with it wasn’t perfect—it still took him about half an hour to finish memorizing it—but it was much better than his affinity with the other cultivation methods, and once he viewed its jade slip, using its incantation to control his spiritual energy, he saw that he could easily see its images, and although it would probably take a while, he was confident he’d be able to memorize them given enough time.
With that out of the way, they moved on to Ethereal String Puppetry.
“Are you sure it’s fine?” Hao Zhen asked Tian Jin. They were still on the stage in Tian Jin’s courtyard, standing up and facing each other, much like they had been before they started sparring.
“You don’t need to worry about me,” Tian Jin assured him.
“All right, then,” Hao Zhen said. He also didn’t think there would be any problems with it, but considering what happened last time someone used Ethereal String Puppetry on Tian Jin … well, he just wanted to make sure the other boy was completely fine with the idea.
He then started channeling his spiritual power into the Ethereal String Puppetry skill seed in his crux. Feeling the connection between himself and the spiritual skill strengthening, Hao Zhen conjured an Ethereal String with a thought, watching as it extended out of his chest and burrowed into Tian Jin’s. Tian Jin stayed still. The Ethereal String was visible only to himself, and even if Tian Jin could see it, he wouldn’t have dodged anyway, since the whole purpose of this was him trying out the spiritual skill.
The next moment, he felt some kind of connection between himself and Tian Jin. It felt as if he had just gained an entirely new body—one that he could move just as naturally as his own. With a thought, he tried to move Tian Jin’s arm. Nothing happened, however.
Tian Jin was frowning. Was something wrong?
“Tian Jin?”
“Oh,” Tian Jin said, breaking out of his daze. “Right. Sorry. I forgot. I think I resisted just now. Try again.”
“Hmmm.” Hao Zhen narrowed his eyes. It looked like Tian Jin wasn’t all that fine with this, after all. Still, Tian Jin didn’t seem too bothered by it, and Hao Zhen really needed to get some practice with the skill, so he decided to continue. Once again, he willed Tian Jin’s arm to move, and this time there was no resistance as Tian Jin’s arm rose up to chest level.
Hao Zhen then tried moving Tian Jin’s other arms, then both arms at the same time. Through it all, Tian Jin had a strange expression on his face. Instead of going any further, Hao Zhen decided to check whether Tian Jin was still okay. “Everything all right?”
“Yeah,” Tian Jin said, looking up at him. “It just feels a bit weird, my body moving on its own, now that I’m not resisting it. You can keep going.”
Nodding his head, Hao Zhen went on to try to move Tian Jin’s legs, and before long he had Tian Jin walking around the stage.
Over the next few hours, Hao Zhen explored the limits of what exactly he could do with Ethereal String Puppetry, also trying out some commands instead of direct controls, which were required if he wanted to also control Tian Jin’s ability to use his spiritual power. As it turned out, he could use Ethereal String Puppetry to make Tian Jin do virtually anything Tian Jin could do himself. The moment Tian Jin started putting up even the smallest amount of resistance, however, Hao Zhen found himself completely unable to affect his actions in any way.
They had already expected this, however. Even Ke Li, who had been a level higher than Tian Jin couldn’t fully control him, so there was no way Hao Zhen, who was a step lower, would be able to pull it off. Nevertheless, Hao Zhen spent some time practicing his ability to fight back against Tian Jin’s attempts to resist, and although they didn’t make much progress on that front, they did make some.
They had to take a couple of breaks for Hao Zhen to recover his spiritual stamina, and after the fifth one, Hao Zhen decided to call it a day. Even though Tian Jin seemed like he could still go for a couple of hours, Hao Zhen had also expended quite a lot of mental stamina trying to impose his will on Tian Jin. Moreover, Hao Zhen was already quite pleased with how the day had turned out. Considering how pathetically he had performed earlier, when Tian Jin tried to test his combat ability, it felt nice to make progress in other areas. He wasn’t a lost cause, after all.
Hao Zhen also didn’t want to hog all of Tian Jin’s time. After all, Tian Jin also needed to cultivate and do his own training.
In their breaks, Hao Zhen showed Tian Jin the swords, pills, and talismans in his spiritual ring, and they went through them one by one. As it turned out, the swords were indeed magic artifacts of the lowest quality, only barely better than mundane weapons. Tian Jin also recognized all of the talismans and explained each of their uses. As for the pills, only some of them were familiar to him, so they decided to ask Duo Lan about them later, as she was supposed to be some kind of alchemy genius.
Duo Lan being brought up reminded Hao Zhen of the matter with Bao Yun, and now that they were done for the day, Hao Zhen decided to broach the subject. He hadn’t been able to think of the right way to put it yet, but he figured that it wouldn’t be wise to delay this conversation any further.
“What exactly do you think of Bao Yun?” Hao Zhen asked, directly, not bothering to skirt around the subject. He already figured that being straightforward was for the best with Tian Jin.
They were still on the stage, sitting down, having been there all morning already.
“Senior Sister Bao?” Tian Jin repeated. He frowned, confused. “What do you mean?”
“Well, I’m pretty sure she—”
Tian Jin suddenly went still. “Give me a moment,” he said. He then stayed quiet for a few seconds before saying, “Duo Lan just sent me a sound transmission.” He stood up. “She has something important to tell us, and wants us to head over to her place right now.”
Something important…
Frowning, Hao Zhen also got to his feet. “Did she say what it was about?”
“No,” Tian Jin said, “but she didn’t seem particularly worried or concerned. Anyway, you were saying something about Senior Sister Bao?”
“We can talk on our way,” Hao Zhen said, shaking his head.
Yesterday, Tian Jin had said that Bao Yun mentioned that there was something important she had to prepare for—something Tian Jin would learn about soon. Now Duo Lan had something important to tell them. Maybe it was just a coincidence, but maybe…
They set out, heading to Duo Lan’s house.