The white-faced heretic's body had been sheared clean in two, yet the halves did not match. His right arm had been struck away long before the killing blow, and so even in death he lay lopsided.
Jiang Wang landed before the corpse and let his hand go slack. The long sword split into fragments beyond counting, and they rained down onto the road.
Its task was finished.
The blade had been ordinary steel and nothing more. No common sword could endure so long a flooding of Dao essence.
And once more Jiang Wang felt, with perfect clarity, that his Heaven-Access Palace stood empty. Those lively, lovable little things that had spun within him — not one remained.
Before the ownerless grey mist could spread, he returned to the official road. He noticed a portion of it drifting toward the verge, where some invisible force met it and wore it slowly down to nothing.
Formation patterns, he thought — engraved into the road itself.
He waited a while longer. Thunder rolled in from far away and grew near, and Zhang Linchuan crossed the last distance in a few bounds to land at his side.
"Junior Brother Jiang did not leave the road, I trust?"
For all the fighting he had done, his robes remained immaculate, his topknot in fine order. In every gesture, his breeding showed itself.
"I met... the heretic from Tangshe Town."
"You struck the blood from his body. He was bound to come and take it back, or else flee the Zhuang Kingdom entirely."
"I killed him."
Zhang Linchuan's eyebrow jumped. "What?"
Jiang Wang pointed toward the place where the heretic had fallen. "I only wonder whether the body is of any use. Whether it might yield a clue."
Zhang Linchuan recovered from his surprise and shook his head. "These men carry flawed souls. Searching their memories yields nothing even while they live, let alone after they die. I killed several just now — every one the same."
"I see." Jiang Wang felt no real disappointment. It was enough that the white-faced heretic was dead.
Nor did he hold it against Zhang Linchuan that he had pursued the enemy at once rather than stayed to guard him. He was no delicate thing in need of guarding, and Zhang Linchuan was not his nursemaid.
Besides — without the pressure Zhang Linchuan brought, the heretic would never have broken and run with no will to fight left in him. And his companions would never have granted Jiang Wang the chance to face him alone.
Zhang Linchuan glanced at the patch of road where the mist had dissolved, and sighed. "The formation patterns here are corroded. It must be reported, so the magistrate can send men to repair them quickly."
The two horses, at least, had not bolted. Jiang Wang shook the reins, and his mount set off at a lively trot.
It was then that he felt it — somewhere in his Heaven-Access Palace, in a place he could not name, a bead of Dao essence tumbled loose. Then another, and another, five in all. And each was fuller than before, rounder.
It did not make good all he had spent, but it was an unlooked-for gift.
Only now did he truly understand what the senior Daoists had labored to teach. Dao essence: the first beginning of the Great Dao. Its birth was no simple sublimation of blood and vigor. It was the perfect fusion of will and force — the truest answer given by the spirit of living things to the origin of heaven and earth.
The sun was still high when they returned to the Dao Academy, so the two of them went directly to Dong A's courtyard to report.
The gate stood open, but the courtyard was empty save for Fang Heling, pacing with the look of a man who had run out of ways to amuse himself.
Catching sight of the two of them coming in empty-handed, his eyes brightened.
He offered Zhang Linchuan a properly respectful greeting first, and only then said, in the tone of one offering comfort, "It seems Senior Brother Zhang's outing bore no fruit... Well, even for a talent such as yourself, being saddled with a newcomer who understands nothing is asking rather much."
He did not, of course, count himself a newcomer. The Fang family had stood a hundred years and produced no few cultivators; battles between cultivators held no mystery for him. Whereas this fellow named Jiang came out of some little town — what could he have seen of the world?
Jiang Wang could not be bothered to answer.
Zhang Linchuan, however, had leisure enough for sport. "Oh? Then Heling's own harvest must have been considerable."
"It went smoothly enough, I suppose." Fang Heling managed one strained gesture toward modesty before the boasting poured out of him.
While they were combing the Fulai Inn for clues, someone had been watching from the shadows. Li Jianqiu struck without hesitation and took the man alive. An errand with little hope in it had, on the strength of one living prisoner, suddenly acquired a direction.
How much of that was owed to Fang Heling was very hard to say.
"And where has Junior Brother Li gone?" Zhang Linchuan asked.
Fang Heling faltered, briefly embarrassed. "In the room. Master Dong is searching the man's soul with a secret art."
Dong A performing the search, Li Jianqiu attending him — and Fang Heling not even qualified to stand and watch. The measure of his contribution was plain enough.
It would not do to intrude, so the two of them waited in the courtyard with Fang Heling for company.
Jiang Wang said nothing. He closed his eyes and guided the new Dao essence toward the places where it ought to hang suspended, while the other two traded idle talk in fits and starts.
Fang Heling was pleased with himself. Dong A had said from the outset that the mission's Dao Merit would be split one part to nine. Jiang Wang had clearly returned with nothing, while their side had brought back a living captive. This was the first step in opening the gap.
Before long, Dong A came striding out in his black Dao robe with Li Jianqiu behind him.
Meeting Fang Heling's expectant gaze, Li Jianqiu shook his head.
Dong A said, "This one's soul is flawed. This seat recovered only scattered fragments — nothing of consequence."
Fang Heling scrambled to make himself useful. "Precautions so thorough! There must be a tight organization behind these people. This matter is anything but simple!"
Dong A neither agreed nor disagreed. He simply looked at Zhang Linchuan.
So Zhang Linchuan set out everything that had happened after Tangshe Town, without a drop of embellishment. As for the particulars of Jiang Wang's two clashes with the heretic — Dong A would not ask, and Jiang Wang need not tell.
He was a proper disciple of the Dao Academy, not a prisoner. He was not required to submit to interrogation.
Hearing him out, Dong A only nodded. "Jiang Wang did well."
The words sounded cold. But to anyone who knew Dong A's temper, they were praise of a rare kind.
Both teams had submitted fresh clues, and neither had produced a resolution; the mission could not be reckoned a success. Even so, Dong A allotted five points of Dao Merit to each of them, by way of encouragement.
For Zhang Linchuan and Li Jianqiu it hardly mattered; they had come along only to shepherd junior brothers through a first graded assignment. Their own senior brothers had once led them the same way.
For Jiang Wang and Fang Heling, five points was no trifle — half the reward of a mission of the ninth grade, the lowest there was.
Ninth-grade missions paid between ten and one hundred points. Eighth-grade missions paid between one hundred and five hundred, the sum floating with the difficulty.
Dong A did not linger. Having judged the mission concluded for the present, he dismissed his disciples.
That done, Fang Heling set about coaxing the other two out for wine. Jiang Wang thought it over, and decided to go and see the Hall of Dao Merit.
The Hall of Dao Merit stood directly opposite the Hall of Worship, which said everything about its importance.
The whole chamber was bare of furnishings but for one thing: a Dao Merit Roll, hanging above an offering table and shedding a soft, misty light.
There were no guards. The Roll could protect itself. It was a spirit treasure in its own right — or more precisely, the roll enshrined in Fenglin City was a child-roll, its true body kept at the National Dao Academy, where it received the incense of the whole kingdom.
Jiang Wang had come for no better reason than to see something of the world.
Before the Roll stood a hemp-robed Daoist of middling height, hands folded at his waist, gazing up at the listings in abstraction.
His face could not be seen from behind. Still, within the Inner Court, anyone Jiang Wang did not recognize was certain to stand above him in cultivation.
Because all of them were his seniors.
He did not disturb the man. He went to the Roll on his own, gathered his spirit, and fixed his gaze upon it. The clear light rippled faintly, and a flood of information passed through his mind.
This was only a child-roll, showing what pertained to the Fenglin City Dao Academy alone. The true body, it was said, encompassed all things without exception. That, for him, remained very distant.
Even so, the exchange listings dazzled him. It was the prices beside them that made him want to turn around and walk out.
The cheapest Meridian-Opening Pill cost one hundred Dao Merit. Its true worth was far higher; as disciples of the Dao Academy, they simply enjoyed a measure of support from the Dao Gate. A second Meridian-Opening Pill would cost one thousand five hundred points. That, presumably, was what the pill was actually worth.
Beyond that, the cheapest standard-issue Dao sword started at five hundred.
Jiang Wang considered his own five points of Dao Merit. Well. He had come to broaden his horizons, and nothing more.
A roll, being a roll, naturally carried rankings. Only now did he discover that Zhang Linchuan — whose depths he could not begin to sound — placed no higher than third on the Fenglin child-roll.
Second was a man named Wei Yan, not a Dao Academy disciple at all but a military officer of the city garrison. From the name alone, one might guess at some connection to Wei Quji.
And first, with one thousand three hundred points, was Zhu Weiwo, acknowledged throughout the academy as its Eldest Senior Brother — a man who showed his head and never his tail. Jiang Wang had always heard the name and never once seen the man.
Consider: Wei Yan in second place held only seven hundred points, near enough to Zhang Linchuan's own, and both were left far behind by Zhu Weiwo.
Jiang Wang paged further down, found Li Jianqiu at seventeenth, and severed his connection to the Roll.
"A junior brother newly come to the gate?"
The senior brother from before had, it seemed, been waiting for him on purpose.
Jiang Wang turned toward the voice, and found himself looking at a warm and gentle smile.
"Greetings, Senior Brother. This one is Jiang Wang, not long entered the Inner Court."
"Greetings to you as well. My name is Wang Changxiang." His features were nothing out of the ordinary, but his smile made him remarkably easy to like. "Well then — until next we meet."
"Until then." Something turned over in Jiang Wang's chest. On the Roll he had just consulted, this man stood seventh, far above Li Jianqiu.
Of course the Roll tallied merit and not personal strength. Yet in a certain sense, it did reflect something true.
Back in the Outer Court, he and his sworn brothers had stood head and shoulders above the crowd and met no one they could not beat. Entering the Inner Court had taught them how high the heavens were.
Li Jianqiu, Zhang Linchuan, Wang Changxiang — each carried an air entirely his own, and not one was anything less than exceptional. Jiang Wang judged himself no match for any of them.
If a single academy in Fenglin City produced talent in such abundance, what then of all Qinghe Commandery? What of the whole Zhuang Kingdom?
And those prodigies whose names rang across the world, at whom the heroes of every nation lifted their heads to look — what manner of splendor must they possess?
Thinking on it did not discourage him. On the contrary, a fighting spirit without limit came alight and burned in him.
At the very least, he now stood upon the road to the extraordinary. He had entered the same arena as those dazzling figures. What, then, was left to fear?