Chapter 61, Three Years Dormant

Translator: StarReader

 

Autumn passed, and winter came.

 

Since Su Chen returned from Lou County, three years came and went in a blink of an eye.

 

Su Chen was seventeen now. He had grown taller, no longer the skinny and weak kid from his younger days, but rather a young man with clear features and a calm, composed demeanor.

 

These years were spent in the Medicine King Estate’s Errand Hall, cultivating quietly, doing errands, and rarely bothering with matters of the Wu Region’s martial world.

 

Only now and then did he overhear his fellow senior brothers’ affairs in the Medicine King Group.

 

Those disciples who had entered the sect alongside Su Chen and paid homage to Pharmacist Li Kui as their master had long since completed their apprenticeships and left.

 

Kong Xinqiao left during the second six-month elimination, following Su Chen into the Errand Hall.

 

Zhang Tieniu joined the Security Hall during the third elimination.

 

He wasn’t doing Yang Caizhi any favors.

 

Rather, disciples eliminated in the first two rounds were assigned to the Errand Hall, and he had no desire to go there. Only those eliminated in the middle two rounds could enter the Security Hall. The last disciple would join the Hall of Affairs.

 

Zhang Tieniu, however, took a liking to the Security Hall. Though the Hall of Affairs was superior in status to both the Errand Hall and the Security Hall, Zhang Tieniu needed a good head on his shoulders to become a pharmacist and shop manager but lacked it, so he naturally held no interest in it.

 

Only Yang Caizhi was single-mindedly determined to join the Hall of Affairs. This left Zhang Tieniu alone as Qin Huihui’s only remaining rival. To display his senior brother airs, Zhang Tieniu took the initiative to withdraw third and chose not to compete with Qin Huihui for a spot.

 

When Butcher Zhang found out about it, he nearly beat Zhang Tienniu half to death in anger. However, since the deed was done, there was no turning back. Qin Huihui had grown disheartened after successive eliminations and, along with Yang Caizhi, became the last two standing. She reasoned that membership in the Security Hall was not all bad and did not wish to quarrel with Yang Caizhi; thus, she chose to withdraw.

 

Yang Caizhi ended up having the final laugh, as he became a disciple of the Hall of Affairs and learned herb dispersion and preparation at the pharmacy. He stood to become a healer, even a pharmacy manager someday. Of course, Li Kui’s two favored disciples, Wang Fugui and Li Jiao, fared best among all. They had entered, respectively, the Swordsmanship Hall and Alchemy Hall—prestigious paths toward becoming esteemed pharmacists and rising to senior management in the organization.

 

…

 

Su Chen heard about this and felt a pang of sadness. Just a few short years ago, of his group that joined the Medicine King Group together, some were now in the lowest rung’s Errand Hall, while others had risen to the top-tier Swordsmanship Hall. Their situations were as different as night and day.

 

Su Chen merely reflected on his situation without giving it much thought, never once complaining about Li Kui. He didn’t have the time anyway; since entering the Errand Hall to tend to the herb garden, he had been busy nonstop for these past few years.

 

He was preoccupied with tempering his body through inner sight, cultivating his Middle Dantian. He was also occupied with researching herbal techniques and devising various body tempering formulas and tonic recipes on his own—all aimed at finding the most effective methods for his cultivation. Furthermore, he was focused on memorizing the concluding verse of the Wanderer’s Journey: The Mayfly Chapter, cultivating the first stage of the cultivation method, Dormancy, to absorb the drifting spiritual energy from the environment.

 

Additionally, he traveled extensively across the thirteen counties in the Wu Region, gathering spiritual materials. His schedule was packed every day, leaving no time to concern himself with the martial affairs of the Wu Region or to complain about anything else.

 

The hard work paid off, for Su Chen’s Middle Dantian had progressed from early second-rate cultivation to a late first-rate realm, achieving perfection in his cultivation. His True Qi was exceptionally robust, rivaling that of martial practitioners with decades of experience who had reached the pinnacle of the first-rate realm.

 

For the majority of martial cultivators, reaching the status of first-rate expert marked the peak of their martial path. The distinctions between these experts lay in the depth of their inner strength and the excellence of their martial skills. Further advancement was nigh impossible.

 

Above the first-rate realm was the mysterious and powerful Grandmaster Stage, a realm that remained out of reach for most cultivators at this point in their journey.

 

The Grandmaster Stage, however, was not something one could achieve merely by cultivating in the Middle Dantian. It demanded a sliver of one’s will to venture into the mysterious Upper Dantian, where inner sight revealed the spirit, granting an extraordinary perception. This was a rare and elusive stage, akin to searching for answers in the vast expanse of the martial world with no clear path.

 

Across the thirteen counties of the Wu Region in the martial realm, only seven experts attained such heights. Leading them all was none other than Daoist Han Shan, followed by five prominent figures from the region’s major factions: Han Ya, leader of the Heaven Falcon Group; Li Shuo, head of the Caravan Guards; Han Pingshan, master of the Iron Sword Group; Sun Baihong, leader of the Medicine King Group; and Liu Hong, head of the Whale Gang.

 

Rumor had it that Mao Ziyuan, the leader of the White Lotus Society in Lou County, was also a Grandmaster, though his whereabouts were unknown, leaving his true power shrouded in mystery.

 

As for Su Chen, he remained uncertain about his own standing. Was he merely a first-rate martial artist, or had he attained the status of a Grandmaster? Just four to five years prior, during one fateful occasion, Su Chen had ventured into the Upper Dantian, discovering within it a minuscule Spirit Mountain and glimpsing his own spirit. At that time, his martial cultivation was still in its infancy; he hadn’t even fully mastered the Lower Dantian, making any notion of becoming a Grandmaster seem like a distant fantasy.

 

In the years since, Su Chen dedicated himself to refining both the Lower Dantian and Middle Dantian, eventually elevating his True Qi to a first-rate level. But does that truly make him a Grandmaster? Among the martial circles of the Wu Region, encounters with other Grandmasters were exceedingly rare, leaving Su Chen in the dark about how he stacked up against others.

 

In truth, Su Chen cared little for such distinctions. Over the past three years, his connection to the martial realm of the Wu Region had grown increasingly distant.

 

…

 

Su Chen dedicated these past years to researching only one thing: the volume of cultivation manuals he had obtained from Han Mountain Daoist Temple. Every day, he set aside an hour to first read through the general principles of The Mayfly Chapter in Wanderer’s Journey and then focus on cultivating Dormancy.

 

The general principles of The Mayfly Chapter were exceedingly profound, discussing the brief life of a mayfly that came into existence in the morning and died by nightfall. It was not easy to grasp its deeper meaning. However, as he read it day after day, the saying practice makes perfect applied here too. It was only a matter of time before he uncovered its secrets.

 

Su Chen felt that despite his cultivation of Dormancy over the years, he absorbed quite a bit of spiritual energy, yet there were no signs of any breakthroughs within him, leaving him puzzled as to where the issue lay.

 

Before becoming a cultivator, the eight spiritual arts recorded in the immortal book could not be practiced at all.

 

The rest of his time was spent focusing on spiritual materials. Every time he went on an errand across the Wu Region, he would seize the opportunity to search for materials along the way.

 

Su Chen managed to gather various types of spiritual materials over the years. However, his progress was slow and arduous. Each talisman required a completely separate set of materials, which were not interchangeable with one another. The difficulty in collecting talisman materials was immense; they had to be sourced from all over, and it was often a fruitless endeavor.

 

Nevertheless, Su Chen still managed to collect some bits and pieces.

 

For example, a Golden Fox Brush was obtained from an old brush shop in Lou County. Another item was half of a fragmented Scarlet Sand Ink, acquired from a down-on-his-luck scholar in Wucheng County. This scholar had once come from a lineage that included a former candidate for the regional examinations, who had received commendations from high-ranking officials in the region. However, after their family’s decline, they were forced to sell this inherited Scarlet Sand Ink as a last resort for living expenses, hoping to fetch seven or eight taels of silver.

 

While passing by, Su Chen happened upon this and left ten taels of silver for the scholar, quietly taking possession of the spiritual ink without causing any fuss. Another acquisition was a cracked Water Spiritual Inkstone, which Su Chen stumbled upon in an isolated village schoolhouse in Danyang County.

 

The old teacher at the school had discovered this blue stone in a mountain spring and fashioned it into an inkstone, unaware of its magical properties. He noticed strange insects crawling over the inkstone and believed it was cursed, throwing it in a ditch.

 

Upon hearing of this, Su Chen rushed to the scene, sensing the strong water spiritual energy within the inkstone. Overjoyed, he left five taels of silver for the teacher and quickly departed. These discoveries were quite troublesome but still manageable. What Su Chen dreaded most was encountering situations like the one in the old brush shop in Lou County or running into the Daoists from Han Mountain.

 

Therefore, he always approached his missions with extreme caution, taking months to thoroughly investigate and ensure there were no signs of Daoists from the Han Mountain Daoist Temple nearby before acting. When he did make a move, he left behind a substantial amount of silver and left without a trace.

 

The odds of Han Mountain Doist Temple’s Daoists tracking him down were slim at best.

 

After spending three years painstakingly gathering materials, Su Chen managed to complete a set of spiritual ink, spiritual paper, spiritual brush, and spiritual inkstone—the components needed for a talisman. This particular set was classified as Golden Warrior Talisman materials. Other types of talismans still lacked resources.

 

According to the immortal book in the jade slip scroll, this Golden Warrior Talisman provided an incredibly powerful protective barrier to its wearer, capable of withstanding blades and spears, as well as common spiritual arts. It also augmented the user’s strength, likening them to a vajra warrior.

 

Su Chen understood the arduousness involved in sourcing the spiritual materials. After finally assembling this complete set of metal spiritual materials, he decided to craft a talisman. He hoped to see just how potent the Golden Warrior Talisman would be.

 

He certainly did not want to face the disappointment of investing three years into gathering these materials only to find that the resulting talisman fell short.