Ji Kang upended a bucket of water that he had pulled up over the side of the boat from the river, over his head, sluicing away the sweat and grime. Having finished his sword practice and now feeling less gross he estimated the time.

He had started his sword practice before dawn and continued until well after. It was now approaching mid morning. He was considering starting his cultivation meditation, but it was a little too early. If his day meditation session was too long the next night session would need to be the same length and he was getting sick of disrupting his sleep.

Cultivation had given him a much more energetic and robust body, but he wasn’t anywhere close to doing away with his bodily needs yet. Nascent Soul imperial system cultivators were able to subsist on eating wind and drinking dew, but for lowly Qi Condensation cultivators it was almost the opposite situation.

Unlike a Nascent Soul cultivator, a Qi Condensation cultivator’s body was more mundane than mystical, so the enhanced senses and strength came at the cost of increased appetite. There was a common technique to allow low rank cultivators to suppress that appetite when it was inconvenient, like when the three boys had been walking through the forest at the start of their journey, and there were nutrition pills, but over time not eating would inevitably cripple a cultivator.

So unless there were legitimate reasons to do so, most Qi Condensation cultivators wouldn’t use those techniques and pills on a day to day basis.

This also meant that Ji Kang tried his best to fit in a healthy amount of sleep into his schedule. It was more inconvenient for him than it was for Lu Wu or Yu Shuren because of his unusual cultivation method, but he was more than happy with that trade off.

Ji Kang’s ability to sense qi was rudimentary, but in the few times that he and Lu Wu had cultivated side by side in the past week and a half, Ji Kang had been able to gauge his own cultivation progress against Lu Wu’s and he was very satisfied with the results.

Lu Wu was a B grade talent, but Ji Kang believed that he was actually cultivating ever so slightly faster than him. This was fantastic news for Ji Kang. One of the things that had remained in the back of his mind, bothering him in his free moments, was his lacking cultivation. He was afraid of his cultivation level falling behind that of his peers.

This awareness of his own weakness was one of the main reasons he chose Yin-Yang Nourishing as his cultivation manual. Although he didn’t have a comprehensive and powerful set of techniques that matches his elemental attunement like Lu Wu and Yu Shuren, he could cultivate faster than he would otherwise be able to.

Any difference in power between him and others at the same level could be compensated for by his cunning and ruthlessness, but if his opponent was at a higher cultivation level that was much harder to handle.

Each stage on the cultivation ladder was a large gap in power, and this only became more true with every subsequent stage. Foundation Establishment cultivators had access to much more potent spells and were capable of operating at a much faster speed than Qi Condensation cultivators.

Their senses were sharper, they could process information noticeably faster, and their bodies were capable of moving at higher speeds. They were as much improved from Qi Condensation cultivators as Qi Condensation cultivators were from mortals.

A Qi Condensation cultivator still operated within the intrinsic limitations of the human body. A Qi Condensation cultivator who had entirely reshaped their meridians and was ready to advance to Foundation Establishment had effectively reached the absolute peak of the human body’s potential. So that was the starting line for Foundation Establishment cultivators.

This wasn’t an impossible gap to cross, but it gave a decided advantage in a fight.

It was ill advised to fight a cultivator one stage higher than you and it was outright suicide to fight a cultivator two stages higher than you.

Core Formation cultivators could almost move faster than Qi Condensation cultivator’s eyes were able to detect or their brain could process. The moment a Core Formation cultivator decided to kill someone so far below them, it was as good as done.

This exponential power growth was common knowledge even among mortals, so Ji Kang had been determined to advance as quickly as possible from the outset.

Ji Kang was standing on the deck thinking about this when he suddenly heard a voice from three paces behind and to his right.

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“You are from the Azure Grove Sect?” A gravelly voice asked.

Ji Kang spun around, terrified. Recently he had been developing something of a sixth sense for danger or other people’s presence, and he had employed that slightly supernatural awareness to great effect back in Anwon, but he had no idea there was anyone behind him until they spoke to him.

Once they said something they must have stopped any efforts at stealth because it had seemed to Ji Kang’s senses that a person had suddenly materialized behind him. Either that or the man had moved so quickly it had appeared to Ji Kang that he had teleported.

The man behind him was obviously a powerful cultivator from the context but Ji Kang would have guessed that even if he had only seen the man walking down a street. He had an extraordinary bearing. It was as if he existed in perfect harmony with the world around him while still exuding the impression that he was distinctly himself and not a part of anything else.

He wore crimson robes edged with crisp white borders. His sleeves were embroidered with flames, and his skirt had stylistic depictions of raging waves.

The man appeared to be around the same age as Ji Kang, but that was belied by the obvious depth of wisdom in his eyes. He had black hair that hung freely down to his waist, proud eyebrows and a handsome face. This was clearly a person who put great effort into appearing casually beautiful.

“Answer me quickly, I don’t have all day.” The man prodded after a moment’s pause.

Ji Kang started from his inner thought and bowed deeply while cupping his fists, not daring to look at anything higher than the senior’s bamboo sandals.

“Yes, senior. I am Ji Kang, inner disciple of the Azure Grove Sect, how may I be of service?”

“Me and my sect brother need impartial witnesses. You can act as a representative of your sect in observing and remembering the truth of this event. Are the other two cultivator’s on board also from your sect?” The unknown man asked.

“Yes, Senior.” Ji Kang answered, still without looking up.

“Excellent.” The man said before his voice suddenly rang as if from the air itself all over the boat. “Disciples of the Azure Grove Sect, your presence is required on deck.”

In concert with this almost deafening instruction, the senior’s aura washed over the boat. Ji Kang’s knees buckled from the sheer psychic pressure and the blood drained out of his face.

Lu Wu and Yu Shuren hurriedly came up from below, winding their way through the crowd of mortal crewmates who were kneeling on the deck, trembling and sweating from the brief exposure to the man’s aura.

Ji Kang was desperately praying to deities he wasn’t sure he believed existed, begging them to moderate Lu Wu’s arrogant attitude.

One of the first pieces of advice Ji Kang had received from his sect mates upon becoming a cultivator was to avoid doing anything that might anger a senior cultivator. Encountering an unknown senior in the wilderness without a senior from their sect also being present could easily be a deadly misfortune.

In fact, any interaction with unknown senior cultivators was almost always a bad thing for young cultivators. There were plenty of tales of fortuitous encounters and seniors who were impressed by a junior and gave them pointers, but these instances of positive outcomes were by far the minority. Most of the time, when a senior cultivator intentionally made contact with a junior out in the wild, it was not a good thing for the junior.

Generally when you spend too much time around a person who could mulch your body with a flick of their wrist, bad things tend to happen to you, who could have guessed it. This held true to a lesser extent even if the senior in question only had the best of intentions. Senior cultivators were an entirely separate level of lifeform from their juniors, situations they considered nuisances were often life threatening dangers for a junior.

When Lu Wu and Yu Shuren arrived in front of the man in red they both bowed deeply.

“We are Lu Wu and Yu Shuren of the Azure Grove Sect senior.” Lu Wu spoke, not saying anything more than necessary.

“Mmm, you may raise your heads. I am Dai Liang of the Red Sea Sect. As I was saying, my sect brother and I require impartial witnesses for a dealing we are having with a group of Golden Wind Sect disciples nearby. I happened to see that you three were passing by and I decided to invite the three of you to observe as representatives of your sect.” Dai Liang said.

Ji Kang and the other two breathed sighs of relief. The Red Sea Sect and Golden Wind Sect were two of the top ten cultivation sects in the Nation of Zhu, just like the Azure Grove Sect. In fact, the Red Sea Sect and the Azure Grove Sect had a historically friendly relationship with each other.

With this explanation the three boys from the Azure Grove Sect knew they were under no threat of being killed by this senior off hand. If they were being invited by him to act as witnesses to an interaction between elders of the Red Sea Sect and members of the Golden Wind Sect, they were actually going to be very well looked after.

If they were to come to harm because of this, the Red Sea Sect would suffer a serious blow to their reputation. Of course this was only if this senior who introduced himself as Dai Liang was telling the truth, but he almost certainly was.

A Core Formation cultivator like him had no need to deceive Qi Condensation cultivators. If he was a demonic cultivator and he wanted to bring them somewhere, he could easily do so by force.