Chapter Sixty-Eight: The Swift Stallion

I have gathered a considerable amount of spiritual energy; perhaps it would be worth making the crossing to take a look. I wonder how things stand in that immortal abode now.

When this thought arose in Wang Zhenling’s mind, the spiritual water he had acquired from the Blackwater Shrine and from Lili should have been enough for a round trip.

Yet on reflection, with only that little spiritual water and nothing urgent to accomplish, it seemed to carry no great meaning.

So Wang Zhenling forcibly suppressed the impulse and spent each day in Jiedeli reading and cultivating.

Even so, everything happening in Danning County, and even throughout Xiaomi Commandery, continued to reach his ears without end.

The Wang clan of Danning was a great local family, deeply rooted in the region, and no news could be hidden from it.

Added to this, Feng the Scholar and others at Chen Bushi’s side would occasionally come to visit, bringing all manner of intelligence to Wang Zhenling in an unbroken stream.

From them he learned that every county and township was drilling troops in preparation for the encirclement and suppression of Wuji Mountain.

They also told Wang Zhenling not to worry: once the county militia set out, Chen Bushi would naturally recruit him again into the county forces.

As long as he performed a few more meritorious deeds during the campaign against Wuji Mountain, it would be easy to restore his former office, or even rise another step higher.

Beyond watching the changes in the outside world, the most important matter was cultivation.

From the Qi Refining stage to the Out-of-Body stage lay the process known as condensing qi into solidity, then using that solid foundation to build the divine chamber, and within the divine chamber nurturing the primordial spirit.

If the divine chamber were a hen’s nest, then the primordial spirit was the chick hatched within it.

The primordial spirit was fragile; only inside the divine chamber could it be nourished and strengthened.

Thus cultivation at this stage in truth involved two things. One was, of course, forging the Moonwheel Celestial Palace, that incomparably intricate divine chamber.

The other was nurturing the primordial spirit.

For ordinary cultivators, the divine chamber was not complicated; from the qi-solidifying realm to forging a one-inch divine chamber took only a few months.

But for them, the primordial spirit had to be slowly warmed and strengthened within the chamber, and that took a very long time, often three full years.

This was also called the three-year nurturing of the divine embryo.

As for Wang Zhenling’s cultivation of the Moonwheel Celestial Palace, from the Nine Heavens Primordial Yang Longevity Creation Diagram, the intricacy of its divine chamber was tenfold, even hundredfold more troublesome than that of ordinary people, and it required even more time.

Yet the process of nurturing his divine embryo was faster.

First, because of the Moonwheel Celestial Palace, which could continuously transform the fortune of the official administration into nourishment for the primordial spirit.

Second, because the sun-moon tempering method within the Primordial Chaos Dragon-Tiger Grand Elixir Thunder Art that Wang Zhenling himself practiced was an exceptionally profound technique for refining both primordial spirit and body.

The two complemented each other, causing the growth of Wang Zhenling’s primordial spirit to accelerate at an astonishing pace.

When Wang Zhenling had been in office, he had stolen a great deal of fortune but refined very little of it.

Now that he had settled his mind to cultivate, he was refining, one by one, the fortune he had accumulated in the past.

Coupled with taking in lunar yin by night and solar brilliance by day, refining sun and moon together, cultivating both life and destiny, his progress became extraordinarily swift.

Aside from cultivation, Wang Zhenling simply stayed obediently at home reading.

At times he would also seek out the clan head, Wang An, to ask about scholarship and related matters.

In his previous life, Zhenling had already received a higher education. A broad-based education trained a student’s logic and vision, not specific knowledge.

Thus compared with the people of this world, who had not undergone logical training or been shaped by specialized methods of study, Wang Zhenling appeared exceptionally intelligent.

Added to that were the insights from his former life, which made him all the more discerning.

However, without guidance, there was always the danger of becoming self-willed and straying onto a wrong path.

It was much like those so-called self-taught geniuses of later ages, or, to put it bluntly, people who thought without studying and then invented their own histories and produced pseudoscience.

Fortunately, the Wang clan was a great scholarly family, though not one founded upon a fully distinct and exceptional family doctrine.

Still, they followed the proper path, and with Clan Head Wang An offering occasional guidance, these problems were resolved.

Even the Wang clan head was astonished. He had originally been examining Wang Zhenling only as part of his duty as clan head.

He had not expected Wang Zhenling to be so brilliant, and could not help but feel secretly alarmed: Seven had truly judged people well. He always told me that this Thirteenth Brother was no ordinary man, a thousand-mile steed and a unicorn among our Danning Wang clan. I did not quite believe it before, but now I do.

For when he tested Wang Zhenling, he found that his mind was broad and flexible, often able to infer many things from a single example.

Each time he pointed something out to Wang Zhenling, he discovered that not only could he comprehend it, he often understood even more than that, much of it things Wang An had never even considered before.

Thus he could not help but take Wang Zhenling more seriously still.

Under ordinary circumstances, the clan head ought to have been pleased by this. Yet when he thought of the clan’s choice and Wang Zhenling’s own choice, he could not help but admonish him, saying, “Within the Hongdu Gate School, the classics are not valued as highly as essays, rhapsodies, and even music and melody. But in the Imperial Academy of the Grand School, the Confucian classics are held in the highest regard. I know you can compose poems and lyrics, and they have a certain freshness and spirit. Still, since you intend to follow the path of filial recommendation and later go to study at the Imperial Academy, you must read more of the Confucian classics.”

Wang Zhenling assented, knowing that in this world the traditional means of nurturing talent, whether through the Imperial Academy or the family teachings of great houses, all centered on Confucian learning.

And those so-called great houses were often descendants of the Five Directions Sovereigns.

These were all families with the qualification to found a new dynasty, each possessing immense latent power, and by no means wholly loyal to the court or to the Son of Heaven.

As for the present Son of Heaven, since he had established the Hongdu Gate School in order to cultivate private retainers loyal only to himself, he could not teach the same learning as was offered at the Imperial Academy.

Thus the Hongdu Gate School had taken an unorthodox path, teaching various forms of prose, rhapsody, calligraphy, painting, and even theories concerning the Great Way.

As a transmigrator, Wang Zhenling could plagiarize some poetry and prose from another world. If he wished to establish himself in the Hongdu Gate School, that would naturally make things much easier.

But if he intended to establish himself in the Imperial Academy, he would have to rely on Confucian learning alone, not such things.

That was why Clan Head Wang An had reminded him.

Of course Wang Zhenling understood this principle.

However, from his present perspective, Confucian learning was the acknowledged scholarship of this world, the source of power, and the key to revealing the truth of the world.

Wang An sighed a few times more and said, “It is a pity your studies are still somewhat lacking. If only you could study until true awakening, and blend the principles into your own flesh and blood, so that when sacred light arises you may perceive the Way. Then our Danning Wang clan might yet produce a great Confucian scholar.”

For although the Danning Wang clan had already decided to stand with the present Son of Heaven, and even that Wang Yue had entered the Hongdu Gate School and would in future become a student of the emperor, and a trusted intimate of his, the Danning Wang clan still, at its core, inherited the tradition of Confucian learning and placed great importance upon it, regarding it as the proper path.