Cultivation was not a matter of shutting yourself in and grinding day and night. Experience of the world, and battle, mattered just as much. That was one reason the Emperor of Zhuang had raised the Merit Board — to push cultivators out to complete missions. Not because the court could not handle such things itself, but because that training raised the efficiency of cultivation. And Zhuang was not alone; every state and school under heaven had similar systems.
Take Little Grove Town. After slaying the wrath ghosts, Jiang Chen's Celestial Palace had given birth to more than a dozen new Dao essence crystals — not through channeling cultivation, but born naturally in the lingering afterglow of fierce battle.
Dao essence was the perfect union of will and force, the true response of all living spirits to the origin of heaven and earth, the foundation of all strength, the root of the extraordinary.
This was why Zhao Yan treated everyone to a night at the pleasure house — as cultivators, they needed to round out their life experience.
Ling Chuan, upright as ever, would not join such company. So he got the job of picking An'an up from school and taking her out to play.
Du Hu was eager. Jiang Chen half-reluctant, half-not — he made a show of refusing for An'an's sake, but once Zhao Yan quickly "arranged" for Ling Chuan to watch her, everything was settled to everyone's delight.
And Huang Azhan — he was drinking with Du Hu when he heard of this fine thing, and practically dragged himself along hanging onto Du Hu's leg. Fortunately, Young Master Zhao had deep pockets and did not mind a few hangers-on.
The finest pleasure house in all Maple City: the Three-Scent Pavilion. The most luxurious private room. The most expensive girls.
Since moving out to live with An'an, the brothers rarely gathered outside lessons. Three rounds of wine in, Jiang Chen asked the girls to leave.
"Hey, hey, don't go!"
"Sisters, dear sisters, let me go home with you!"
Red-faced, tearful — that was Huang Azhan. He had just drunk seven or eight rounds with every girl there, and he was deep in his cups. He would have walked them all the way home, unwilling to part, eager to leave his boyhood behind in this place. But the girls laughed and refused, filing out one by one.
They were cultivators, after all — they would not really carouse. For a cultivator, preserving one's yang essence was essential until the Gate of Heaven and Earth was opened.
So Jiang Chen stayed clear-headed throughout.
Du Hu, really, only wanted to drink. Where and with whom came second.
Only Huang Azhan grieved at the departure. He looked to Zhao Yan for help — in his eyes, the two of them were kindred spirits. But Zhao Yan only shook his head. The girl he had specially requested had not come; his disappointment showed. "Cheap goods and powder. Dull."
"This is cheap? This is!" Huang Azhan nearly jumped out of his shoes. "Look at the size of that cup! No — the roundness of those robes. No — the whiteness of that pin..."
He gave up at last, and wailed: "Wuwuwu, where is any of this cheap?"
Jiang Chen: "..."
Zhao Yan: "..."
Du Hu slapped a hand over his head. "Drunk, then sleep. You'll find everything in your dreams."
Ignoring Huang Azhan, who had sprawled across the table and was snoring like thunder, Jiang Chen did a calculation and said: "Lately I've done some missions here and there — fifteen points of Dao merit. With the twenty-five I saved before, that's forty. I don't need my merit right now. Let me transfer it to you. Whoever of you gets enough merit first, trade it for a Meridian-Opening Pill."
By "you," he meant Zhao Yan and Du Hu — and, of course, Ling Chuan, who was absent. These were his brothers; if he started ranking them, it would only make things awkward. Better that whoever had the most merit take it first.
Manifesting one's meridian was the great matter, the first step into the extraordinary. The sooner, the better.
"I don't want it." Zhao Yan lounged back in his chair. He never seemed to care about cultivation, coasting on talent.
"I don't need it either." Du Hu drained a cup, and said suddenly: "I'm leaving."
"Leaving? Where?" Jiang Chen asked.
"Earlier, Wei Feng asked if I wanted to join the army. I thought it over for a few days. I've decided. I leave tomorrow."
It came so abruptly that Zhao Yan sat straight up: "Brother Hu, think it through."
"I have." Du Hu grinned. "Wei Feng says I'm better suited to the martial path. I think so too."
That much was true — Jiang Chen and Zhao Yan both knew it. Du Hu's physique was extraordinary, his blood vital, a born seed of the martial way. But all of Zhuang cultivated the Dao above all. Zhuang had few martial strongmen.
Even the nominal supreme commander of Zhuang's armies, Grand General Huangfu Duanming, was a Dao cultivator. The whole state lacked soil for other schools — including the martial. Even Wei Feng himself cultivated Dao arts.
If Du Hu chose this road, he would go a long time without a systematic path, only scattered fragments of martial cultivation methods.
Not that the martial way was weak. The reason Zhuang had kept peace for so long under the State of Yong's hungry gaze was the support of the Daoist schools. The Zhuang court's spine was not hard enough to embrace all schools like Qin and Chu did. Zhuang cultivated the Dao above all — and could only do so.
But Jiang Chen could not bring himself to block him. He knew Du Hu's nature too well. A fire burned in that man's chest — fierce, wild, unwilling to lose, refusing to be left behind by Jiang Chen. Those Dao classics gave him a headache; they simply did not suit him. And his body, his blood — truly gifted. In a land where the martial way flourished, he would have been a celebrated genius.
"Who is recruiting for Wei Feng?" Jiang Chen asked.
"The Nine River Black Armor has openings. A few spots were assigned to our Maple City. Wei Feng thought I fit, so he recommended me."
Du Hu's bold honesty had evidently pleased the soldier — after Little Grove Town, Wei Feng had struck up a friendship with him.
As for the Nine River Black Armor... that was nearly the pride of Zhuang, the strongest killing force in the whole state, its name greater even than the White Feather Army that guarded the capital Xin'an.
In fact, because of the Black Armor, Nine River City — a single city — was often called Zhuang's fourth county. Nominally under Daishan County, it enjoyed high autonomy. The city lord of Nine River City was also the Black Armor's commander; the tradition ran from the founding of the state. That showed how special it was.
"Even in the Black Armor, you'll still need Dao merit." Because Du Hu was enlisting, Jiang Chen had already decided to transfer his merit to him.
"No need." Du Hu shook his head again. He was not being modest — he was not a modest man. He said openly: "Since I'm walking the martial path, I won't take a Meridian-Opening Pill. I'll walk the oldest, most traditional road of the martial way!"
The martial tradition: a cultivator does not rely on pills, but forces open the Dao meridian with raw blood qi. It was called "ancient" because one in a thousand succeeded. The best of the failed became cripples; most died on the spot.
Mind you — twice-daily channeling cultivation, refining blood qi, condensing Dao essence, was already the limit of ordinary cultivation. To gather vast blood qi and ram it straight through the Celestial Palace, to manifest the meridian — how dangerous was that?
But because of that danger, those martial madmen worshiped it as orthodoxy.
If he succeeded, the rewards were enormous. A martial cultivator who opened his meridian this way often surpassed the ordinary.
Jiang Chen and Zhao Yan were both silent. They could feel the tiger's resolve.
"So, transfer the merit to the eldest. Mine, too." Du Hu cut off his own retreat as if it were nothing, grabbed the wine jug, and drank half of it down.