Night had fallen deep. Jiang An'an had long since been coaxed to sleep, mumbling softly in her dreams, occasionally smacking her lips.
Jiang Chen sat cross-legged, the five centers of his body turned skyward.
His mind sank into the Celestial Palace. The star chart formed by Dao essence blazed above his head, intricate and vast.
An unknown black candle hung at the center, and the earthworm of his Dao meridian's true spirit circled it slowly.
Jiang Chen waited, calm and unhurried.
He had chosen the Starfield Array as his foundation diagram, expecting half a year to complete it. But his harvest since opening his meridian had been extraordinary.
First, the Violet Dawn Sword Art's nine forms trained his qi and blood, letting his body endure more meridian surges. Then the Four-Spirit Body Refining Art multiplied his surge count. Though his true spirit was only an earthworm, more surges meant more Dao essence devoured. And the Essence Control Art passed down by Dean Dong let him arrange the diagram with hardly a flaw...
Then came the battle with Xiong Wen — his Dao heart advanced, his Dao essence swelled, and change loomed close.
Midnight came. The Zi hour was the beginning of a new day. A starting point.
Jiang Chen silently worked the Essence Control Art, shifting the last smooth orb of Dao essence into the star chart — exactly the position of the Lunar Star.
From the Solar Star it began; at the Lunar Star it ended. Then the Three Enclosures trembled together, all Twenty-Eight Mansions blazed. The entire Starfield Array blazed with light, illuminating the Celestial Palace!
For an instant, Jiang Chen's mind went blind.
When his sight returned, a mysterious, dreamlike vortex spun at the heart of the Celestial Palace, starlight bobbing in its depths.
It was less a vortex, more a revolving river of stars. In the moment of its birth, nine Dao essence orbs leapt out of the spiral.
The Dao vortex was complete. Dao essence would now be born on its own.
Jiang Chen knew his foundation was laid. From this moment, he had truly stepped beyond the mortal — into the ninth-rank Roaming Meridian realm!
He had opened his meridian on the fifteenth of June before Huanzhen Temple; he laid his foundation at home on Flying Horse Lane on the sixteenth of October. Four months in all.
He could not yet measure the full difference between the Starfield Array and the common Primordial Array.
But he noticed something: that unremarkable earthworm had abandoned the black candle and climbed toward the star spiral. When it reached the vortex, it leaped!
It pierced through the spiral, its body faintly touched with starlight, subtly more spirited than before.
A Dao meridian's true spirit strengthened by crossing the vortex. That was why no one judged a cultivator's future by inborn talent alone.
But that was a slow, day-by-day process. A change this visible was unheard of.
Perhaps this was one of the Starfield Array's marvels?
Jiang Chen could not say. But he wanted more changes. He wanted them badly.
After crossing, the earthworm swam lazily back to the black candle, seeming tired. It coiled around the candle and stilled.
The beauty inside the Celestial Palace that night left Jiang Chen spellbound.
He came back to himself and noticed the lip-smacking had stopped.
He heard Jiang An'an's drowsy murmur: "Brother... I think I saw stars. So many stars."
Jiang Chen sat silent a while. He knew she was not awake.
He rose gently, tucked the blanket around her with soft movements, and slipped silently into the courtyard.
He wanted to practice his Dao arts — to cash in the paper-sharpening of the arts faculty.
Starlight does not ask after the traveler.
Jiang Chen never spared an ounce of effort he could give. Heaven does not carry a man across the river — a man crosses himself.
...
The academy's standard system ran four grades of Dao arts, twelve ranks total.
D-Rank arts were the foundation of the system. D-Rank low-grade arts mostly manifested as enhancements.
Take the five elements: Flame Attach, Edge, Solidify, Clarity, Vitality.
Flame Attach layered fire-element power onto weapons. Edge reinforced blades with metal-element power. Solidify strengthened the body with earth-element power. Clarity cleared the mind with water-element power. Vitality drove away fatigue and stirred life with wood-element power.
Academies differed in details, but the shape held. The three great Dao traditions all taught the same.
In theory, the ninth-rank Roaming Meridian realm could use every D-Rank art. In practice, individuals differed. Some struggled for years with D-Rank mid-grade arts. Some had a gift for metal, some for water.
Instructors hammered one lesson: know what you are good at. Sharpen your strengths, patch your weaknesses — build your own combat system as fast as you can.
Jiang Chen tried Flame Attach first. He knew the basic hand seal by heart, and he had nine whole Dao essence orbs to spend.
The seal he had rehearsed a thousand times finished in two breaths. His left hand gripped the sword; his right pressed two fingers and swept along the blade.
Flame erupted!
The longsword lay across the night, fire burning in the moonlight.
No tools. No tricks.
This was transcendent power. This was a Dao art!
Tears stung Jiang Chen's eyes. He wanted to go back in time and tell the small boy he had been: you can. You will.
He wanted to tell his father, bedridden all those years: I can. I will.
Jiang Chen swept the sword, using the Violet Dawn Sword Art's channeling to snuff the flame.
Then Edge. Then Solidify. He wanted to try every basic art he knew, and he went on until his Dao essence ran dry.
He found he mastered basic arts of every element at the same speed. No difference at all. In the boastful phrasing: he was good at all of them.
Water. Fire. It made no difference.
But a man's strength had limits. He could not cultivate everything.
Dean Dong had said it more than once: cultivation was the root of the Dao; arts were only its guards. Even a genius with boundless energy should pour his heart into the root.
Jiang Chen planned to try other arts once his essence recovered — wind arts, thunder arts. But the most basic thunder art was B-Rank. Without some special fortune, he would not grasp it until the seventh-rank Heaven-Piercing realm.
His talent across the five elements looked equal. In his heart, though, he leaned toward fire and wood.
Wood, because his master Dean Dong excelled at it. Fire, because — of course — of that battle outside Huanzhen Temple, of that man who burned like a brilliant sun.
Zhuo Lie had never even known his name. But Jiang Chen had learned so much from him, received so much. And so he favored fire.
Whatever directions he chose, his combat options would multiply beyond counting. His power would grow by more than double.
For the beast-clearing mission ahead, that was excellent news.
Jiang Chen set his art directions as dawn broke.
Facing the morning light, he completed his first meridian surge of the day in the courtyard. The earthworm true spirit seemed to devour Dao essence more easily now.
After two surges, his body felt only slightly tired. He stopped.
He washed, made his bed, and went out to buy breakfast for Jiang An'an.
Street vendors pushed their carts, calling their wares. Bean curd simmered in pots. Oil cakes steamed.
The smoke of mortal life — the stairway to the clouds.