Shen Lan only gave Lu Wu two books, but the second seemed to be a collection of mystical techniques, spells, and a martial art that all complemented the Rampant River Running cultivation method.
Ji Kang on the other hand had received three smaller technique books. They were a movement technique, a sword martial art, and a collection of techniques and spells that didn’t require an elementally attuned cultivation method.
This disparity in availability of comprehensive manuals seemed to suggest two things to Ji Kang. The first was that Lu Wu’s cultivation method was indeed Shen Lan’s personal cultivation method as she possessed such a book of suitable techniques specifically tailored to Rampant River Running. The second thing it implied was that although Shen Lan had given Ji Kang three options for cultivation methods she had known from the beginning which he would choose.
Both of the other options had elemental attunements and so would have little use for such generalized techniques when a user of those cultivation methods would be better served by techniques that shared the same attunements.
It seemed that Shen Lan had a very good understanding of Ji Kang’s personality and ambition.
When Yu Shuren emerged from the basement Lu Wu repeated his blatant bragging almost word for word. Ji Kang was actually very interested in what cultivation method Yu Shuren had chosen so he used the opportunity to ask about the manuals Yu Shuren was given in detail.
It turned out that Yu Shuren had chosen the Harnessed Flame cultivation method that Ji Kang had turned down, he was also given a suitable collection of spells, a flame aspected movement technique and a spear martial art.
Now that all three of the boys had reached Qi Condensation they were no longer confined to the courtyard, so they often wandered about the sect and were occasionally sent on errands by Shen Lan to deliver messages or retrieve materials she had ordered, from the mortal town at the base of the mountain.
Of course whenever Lu Wu was assigned an errand either Ji Kang or Yu Shuren were the ones to actually complete it.
One of the earliest errands Ji Kang was sent on was to go pick up three simple weapons Lu Wu had ordered for them. Two swords for Ji Kand and Lu Wu and a spear for Yu Shuren.
Yu Shuren and Ji Kang’s weapons were simple with excellent craftsmanship by the standards of the mortal blacksmiths Lu Wu had ordered them from, but Lu Wu’s sword was a beautiful and deadly work of art.
The blade could serve as a mirror, the hilt was chased with gold, and had a miniature jade dragon sculpture on the pommel from which the tassel hung like a stream of fiery breath. The sword was truly a beautiful thing to behold and Lu Wu wore it at all times.
Ji Kang tried to make a bet with Yu Shuren that they would eventually have to kill someone who tried to steal it, but Yu Shuren refused to take the action, clearly sharing a similar conviction.
The subsequent weeks flowed past in a busy routine for Ji Kang.
Every morning at dawn he would go on a run on the mountain paths to practice his movement technique. Swallow’s Step consisted of two volumes, one dedicated to moving long distances at a sustainably swift pace, the second dedicated to possible combat utilizations.
The technique showed Ji Kang how to lower his weight and expel qi in such a way as to speed up or quickly stop. These were the only two spells inside the technique manual, the rest of the book gave suggestions for how to utilize them and a series of exercises designed to help the cultivator master the expanded movement options they gave.
If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.
Every martial art will have its own footwork section and the combat volume of Swallow’s Step merely meant to compliment such an existing footwork system, mainly consisting of instructions for performing enormous jumps or midair direction changes.
In the beginning Ji Kang found that attempting to use either spell while running on the narrow, twisting mountain paths invariably led to launching himself into a tree or off the path. With daily practice though, he was soon able to use them appropriately, he soon found himself able to sprint at superhuman speeds and perform hairpin turns even at his top speed.
Starting an hour before noon and lasting until three hours after, Ji Kang would perform the first of his daily mediation sessions, taking in the abundant Primeval Qi through his designated Yang meridians and expelling it through his Yin meridians.
In the late afternoon and evening he sparred with Lu Wu and Yu Shuren, sometimes limiting themselves to just mundane martial arts, sometimes including their movement technique and the few mystical spells for combat that they were able to master and use reliably.
Ji Kang was surprised to discover that he was talented with the sword. At first Lu Wu, who had received some prior training with the weapon, would dominate every bout, but very soon Ji Kang found he could match Lu Wu blow for blow.
Lu Wu seemed to have learned his lesson about laziness from having been the last to cultivate to Qi Condensation. Ji Kang had to acknowledge Lu Wu’s newfound persistence, which was expressed in their daily sparring as well as Lu Wu’s daily cultivation schedule that was almost as full as Ji Kang’s own.
In the late evening Ji Kang would study the various spells, mystical techniques, and magical theory in the fourth book that Shen Lan had given him until it was time for his midnight meditation session, which was immediately followed by sleep, until the next morning when he started over again.
All of this time spent meditating caused a steady, noticeable increase in the amount and density of qi Ji Kang could store inside his dantian. Judging from what he read in Yin-Yang Nourishing, going at this pace he would likely reach Foundation Establishment in two to three years.
Ji Kang had investigated the situation with the tournament Shen Lan had mentioned, and the next would occur in just over a year. He knew that with his cultivation he would have no chance to win, but he should be able to scrape by above the lower cutoff for the Inner disciples who would be demoted.
After all, Yu Shuren, Lu Wu and Ji Kang weren’t the only disciples to have directly joined the Inner Sect by being accepted as a disciple by an elder. In fact there were just over a dozen similar cases of disciples who had joined the Inner Sect with absolutely no prior cultivation since the last tournament.
It was however, very unlikely that any more such disciples would be accepted before the next tournament had passed, since any who did would almost certainly not have enough time to make a good showing.
Those other twelve new disciples were their competition.
One morning while performing the kata described in Yin-Yang Nourishing that was supposed to play a role in reshaping Ji Kang’s meridians, he was dwelling on something about this situation that had been bothering him.
The Azure Grove Sect was among the top ten sects in the Nation of Zhu. Assuming this was an average year for the number of new recruits, then within an average two year period the Inner Sect would gain around fifteen disciples. The tournaments at the different levels of the sect balancing out so that the number of new disciples promoted from the Outer Sect is canceled out by those lost to demotion.
No one Ji Kang had spoken to had known exactly how many Core Formation elders there were in the sect, but the general consensus seemed to be that there were around 2,000 and that the Azure Grove Sect had been steadily growing a small amount year by year in recent memory. It generally took between 40-80 years for cultivators with the talent necessary to join the Inner Sect to cultivate to Core Formation, and once they reached that level their lifespan would be extended to a maximum of 300 years.
This meant that the average new elder was 60 years old with around 240 years of life remaining. If they lived out the rest of their life in peace then they would see 120 of these two year disciple recruitment-tournament cycles, and over the course of their tenure as elder roughly 1,800 new disciples would join the Inner Sect.
This disparity suggested an incredibly high mortality and failure rate before, and possibly even after, reaching Core Formation.
Ji Kang sighed, it seemed the road of cultivation was treacherous, but then his eyes flashed with determination. He would be among the few, no matter what.