To cultivate is first to cultivate the mind.
Realm is the root of cultivation, the Dao arts are but weapons that guard the path, and yet it is the temperament of the heart that carries a cultivator forward. With the melancholy of his heart dissolved, this night's cultivation went with unusual smoothness. His thoughts were clear and his Dao heart untroubled. That Star-Entangling Earthworm passed again and again through the Star River Dao Vortex, and all at once it sloughed off its worm-skin, and forth came a lively little serpent.
It was the mark of an evolution, from the Earthworm Meridian to the Serpent Meridian. And as with the true spirits of all other Dao meridians, the amount of Dao essence it drew in had grown from a single mote to three.
Only one thing differed: this serpent-spirit coiled about the Celestial Palace still bore starlight on its body, and was livelier yet.
Left to its ordinary course, the second Dao vortex would have been established on the thirteenth day of the eleventh month. Yet Jiang Chen already stood at the critical threshold, two days early. And, easily foreseen, with the blessing of the Star-Entangling Spirit Serpent meridian the pace would only quicken further.
The founding of the first Dao vortex marks the laying of one's foundation; it means that, from then on, a cultivator's Dao essence can be born of itself. But from the second vortex onward, one must prepare to build the small Zhou Heavenly cycle. Only when three Dao vortices answer one another, folding into a single whole, can Dao essence truly beget itself without end; and only once that small cycle stands firm can it support the expansion of the Celestial Palace.
Which is why the eighth rank was known as the Cycle realm.
Building the small Zhou Heavenly cycle was no simple matter — one could not simply raise three Dao vortices and expect them to turn. If the vortices did not match, they might even collide and ruin the path of cultivation entire. Those three vortices were called the Minor Three Talents, and the ideal cycle demanded not merely sound logic but a concurrence of intent; according to the bent of each school and person, the Talents differed — rivers, lakes, and seas; wind, elegance, and ode; even gold, silver, and bronze…
For Jiang Chen, long had he weighed the matter deeply.
His first Dao vortex was the Sun. The Starfield Array begins from the Sun star; the sun rises, and the world grows light. Yet from the Sun vortex also branched many a mighty construct — Sun, Moon, Year, threading through the long river of time.
He had no need to hesitate. The second vortex, by all right reason, was the Moon. The Lunar Star was bound to nearly everything he now possessed; only the moon could illumine the heart. The Sun-vortex's twin was likewise condensed from the Starfield Array's diagram and bore no difference in outer seeming — it hung, too, above the Celestial Palace.
The two spheres of Star River Dao Vortex ran side by side, casting the Celestial Palace into clearer light.
The Star-Entangling Spirit Serpent swam gaily between them, each mote of Dao essence rolling down like a bead of jade. Together the two vortices spawned sixteen motes of Dao essence a day; and the serpent's own throughput was threefold the earthworm's — nourishing its meridians in four daily sessions, that is, twelve motes more.
At such a pace, barring some mishap, the third sphere could be established thirteen days hence. Once that was done, so long as the small Zhou Heavenly cycle did not fail him, Jiang Chen would step, firm and true, into the Cycle realm.
…
The county academy entrance exam that had held so many hearts in suspense was over. Li Yun and Wang Hao, both well known to Jiang Chen, had passed cleanly into the county Dao Academy. Zhang Yuan had not sat the exam at all; he meant instead, through next year's Three-City Trial, to seize a place straight into the national Dao Academy — indubitably faster than the road Li Yun and the others must walk, climbing through the three-county joint competition. And only Zhang Yuan, the strongest of them, was entitled to stake a whole year on such a wager.
When Li Yun departed, Jiang Chen and the rest saw him off outside the city walls. These students who had won into the county academy were the finest of the city Dao Academy, and many had come to see them off. Wang Hao especially was all but lost amid the crowd — the Wang kin took pride in him, and several clan elders would not cease their exhortations.
"Brothers, when do the rest of you mean to come to the county academy?" It was Li Yun's last question, put even as he looked at Jiang Chen. "Or will we simply meet again at the national Dao Academy?"
Since the affair at Upright Brush Peak, Li Yun had plainly loosened a great deal. In his eyes, of all these companions, the one with the best hope of entering the national Dao Academy at a leap was Jiang Chen.
Zhao Yan plastered on a grin and said, "I'll fight to catch up to you, senior brother, quick as I can. And if I can't — then I beg you to go a little slower, and wait for us."
Li Yun had come to know him somewhat, and laughed: "Then you'd best put in some effort, or your old senior will be too old to wait many years."
"I'm working plenty hard, senior brother Li!" Zhao Yan fumed. "Two whole hours of cultivation every single day!"
"And at least four hours holed up in the Three-Scent Pavilion." Huang Azhan's tone was more envy than contempt as he sniffed sourly: "And you never bring your senior along."
"Then bring the silver along yourself, senior brother!"
"That your senior brother should haunt the pleasure house with you at all is a favor to your face — when others invite him, does he go? He wouldn't even glance their way!"
"That's only because no one else in the world would ever ask you!"
Jiang Chen paid no mind to their daily bickering; he looked at Li Yun with a smile and said, "It seems to me, senior brother, you won't be staying long in the county academy either. When the day comes, will you seek a post in the Ministry of War, or govern a frontier of your own?"
"Once I leave the national Dao Academy, I'll likely make for Three Mountain City," said Li Yun. "I keep feeling I should go and do something there."
Zhao Yan and Huang Azhan, who had been laughing, both fell silent. They had taken part in the beast-culling action at Three Mountain City, and so understood all the better what moved Li Yun's heart.
Three Mountain City held a strange charm — born not of the land itself, but of the people who lived upon it.
Of them all, the one with the most tangled feelings was probably Jiang Chen. Beyond bowing with folded hands, there was little else he could bring himself to say.
Ling Chuan made his courtesy and said, "Then may you rise on the clear wind, senior brother. Do not look back."
Li Yun pressed a hand to his sword and rode away — and truly he did not look back once.
On the way back into the city, at a corner of the gate, Jiang Chen caught sight of a figure cradling a plump orange cat — come, perhaps, to see someone off, yet standing there alone for some reason. The figure seemed very lonely.
Meeting the turn of Jiang Chen's gaze, it only nodded slightly, with no more feeling in that gentle regard. Jiang Chen nodded in return, and was then jostled off by Zhao Yan.
…
At the night of the fifteenth day of the eleventh month, the monthly Blessed Land challenge began on time as ever, and Jiang Chen always set this day whole aside to prepare for it. He had no wish to be judged in default for failing to appear — though even should he accept, he could not escape defeat, of course.
This night was no exception.
His two spheres of Star River Dao Vortex in hand, his Violet Dawn Sword Art at the realm of the sublime, the Azure Dragon chapter of his Four-Spirit Body Refining Art complete, and his body of Dao arts grown quite proficient — yet he was slain on the spot.
This time it was worse still: he could not even discern the means that had killed him — if he ever kept a record of his journeys through the Ethereal Realm, the title could well be "The Thousand Ways of Jiang Chen to Die."
With all honors, he had fallen to Blessed Land #26, the Cave Spirit Source, whose monthly yield of Merit had shrunk to fifteen hundred and fifty points; with what he had kept aside, his hoard came to three thousand three hundred and ninety.
His means of attack were now sufficient, and the Dao arts of the academy lay open to him in plenty; he begrudged wasting Merit on anything more. The Blessed Land, after all, had been a windfall — sooner or later someone would drive him out of it, or before that day came, he might grow strong enough to hold his ground.
For a long while he wavered within the Ethereal Realm, and then his gaze turned to the Sword Dueling Platform — a ninth-rank one, mounted to fight adversaries.
Suddenly he recalled the day he had barred the gate of Riverview City with a single sword, and the words that graybeard of the Lin clan had spoken then —
"Let us see whether he is truly matchless across the whole Roaming Meridian realm!"
Now, by his own proud reckoning, his combat strength had indeed achieved that much throughout Maple City, Three Mountain City, and Riverview City. But what of the whole wide world?
Here, in this mystery-bound Ethereal Realm.
And what of it?