Chương 31: Gold

Jianyi opened his eyes, feeling exhausted despite having slept for six hours. His fear had been confirmed, and piercing purple eyes had haunted his dreams. He had found himself back in their old home in his tiny room. The eyes had roamed through the streets while he had ducked below the window, trying to evade its gaze. Fear had made it hard to breathe. His body shivering and sweating. But in the end, he had prevailed. Another night evading the hunter.

While still lying in bed, he thought that it might have something to do with the progress he had made the day before. His soul, will, and spirit being tightly connected and his will being able to tap to a larger degree into the strength of his soul might have triggered the nightmare. The balance he had achieved thanks to his Celestial Core Card had been disrupted. His thoughts stuck with his core card. He now had had it for three months and still hadn't been able to use it.

He understood the reason, after all, he needed to open his dantians to enter cards into his body, which he couldn't do until his meridians were opened, but he still felt impatient. He got up, though slower than usual. The exertions of the previous day had left him sore and seemed to have set him back on his path to recovery. He made it into the shower and let hot water run over him. As he turned off the water and dried himself off, his thoughts wandered to the upcoming spear assessment.

The elder hadn't said anything about the shape the assessment would take, but he assumed that it was based on sparring, as people could not be expected to know the details of the Fivefold Spear Art. That would make it difficult to perform well. He thought his technique would help him against those without much experience, but against disciples of comparable competence, his weakness would come into play. And then there were, of course, those who had superior capabilities and fitness.

He would have to see how that would go, but maybe he could get Minghao to make this morning's training a spar. Every little bit would help, he thought, as he gripped his spear a bit tighter and left his room.

Being in a reflective mood, he took a moment to enjoy the beauty of the courtyard. The ponds and their connections, the koi swimming inside. The tranquility of the bamboo grove and the intense and pleasant scent of the herb garden. One thing he had noticed about the sect was that the seasons seemed to affect it a lot less than the outside world. Therefore, the herb garden was in a constant state of growth while the nights had become quite chilly elsewhere. He allowed himself to dream for a moment.

Imagined a world where he had defeated the demons, won the Celestial Confrontation, and where he could live in a place like this. So peaceful, so beautiful, focused on growing, exercising with the spear just for the sake of it, maybe learning alchemy to help create powerful artifacts… He sighed, if he could ever get there, it would be a long, long time—but it seemed something worth fighting for. It was an interesting thought.

So far, he had always just thought about becoming a cultivator, taking revenge, and defeating the demons. Never had he thought about the time after. Maybe, having taken the first small steps on his path allowed him to think a little more ahead—even if it was just a wild dream. Minghao, entering the courtyard, stopped further daydreaming.

"Good morning!"

"Good morning, Minghao. Yesterday, I forgot to ask about the spear assessment. Can you talk about what that is?"

"Yes, that is not a big secret. The first assessment is a single spar. The responsible elder will judge where you stand and assign you to one of three groups. The second one in a few months, I don't know for sure because things change from time to time, but I would guess that it is two to three spars, maybe combined with some other test. The final one is simple because it is just the year-end tournament." This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

"Where do you think I will rank?" Minghao shrugged.

"You will see tomorrow. Speculating would not help at all. Let us rather practice." Jianyi nodded. The retainer was, of course, right, but he could not shake the feeling that his friend and teacher would have said if he believed him to be ready for the top group.

"Go through Circling Sky a few times. Afterwards, we can spar a bit."

Breakfast was a quiet affair, as usual. Jianyi had largely taken over the preparation of the simpler meals. They were fortunate that Elder Sun was happy to have the same basic food they did. This morning, he prepared congee, tea eggs, and of course, tea. He brought those to the elder, then ate with Minghao, before going to the alchemy lab where he dusted the tables, made sure the cauldrons were clean, and placed the vials the elder would need for the day's session of essence creation.

From what he could discern, the elder had an enormous throughput of cards and essences he produced. It made sense, though. There were thousands of cultivators in the Fivefold Spear Sect alone. Countless others in other sects and even independent ones that might have served their time on the frontlines and decided to live a different life afterwards. All of them needed pills, potions, arms and armor, and all the other things that required essences to make.

Often, wealthy mortals would use essence-based products as well. The Empire had billions of citizens, and even though only one in a hundred could become a cultivator, that was still millions of cultivators gobbling up whatever essences could be produced. So far, he had seen the elder only work with common and uncommon cards—and he suspected that was to some extent for his benefit, to give him a chance to observe the process for something that he might be able to do himself in the not-too-distant future.

Making essences from rare cards would require him to be able to juggle five different qi strands, which seemed very far away for somebody who still had a long way to go to become a master with two. And that did not even take into account how incredibly expensive it would be to even get a rare card to transform. Thinking about getting one and then messing up the extraction gave him goosebumps. Destroying that much money seemed like sacrilege to him. Elder Sun entered the workshop and got to work immediately.

He was working on a bunch of uncommon cards. One after another, they burned up, and new essences filled the vials that Jianyi stoppered.

"Teacher, how much does a common card cost? In gold, I mean."

"Mhh, in general, that is not a trade that happens frequently. Gold is just too worthless to cultivators, so trading for essences, or, of course, other cards, is much more common. Sometimes, other natural treasures or even artifacts.

"There are some alchemists who sell potions for gold, but that is rare, and therefore gold has little value as it doesn't help you progress in your cultivation."

"I understand, teacher, but I lack all sense of the values involved. Today, you have processed 20 uncommons so far. Could I buy a house with this? Or ten?" The elder laughed loudly, even wiping away a tear.

"You really are a breath of fresh air in this house, Jianyi!" Had what he had said been that absurd? He couldn't imagine that cards were that much cheaper; if so, he would take the gold that the elder had put into the storage ring for him and buy himself a card or two once his dantians were open.

"To answer your question, a good starting point might be to assume that a common is worth a hundred gold. Per rarity, you should, in general, assume a factor of 10. So the twenty uncommons would be worth twenty thousand gold. That would probably be enough to buy large parts of the city." Jianyi looked at the elder with an open mouth. For most of his life, they had been spending a few silvers a month; the amounts involved just didn't make sense for him. He shook himself.

It was a different world that he lived in now. He would need to adjust his thinking. As they wrapped up the alchemy session, the elder raised his finger to get his attention.

"Jianyi, when you are done with the opening of your meridians, come to me. There are different ways to open your dantians, and we need to make sure that you choose the right one. I assume it will still take a few weeks, and by then you should have heard a lecture on the topic as well. I am sure it will be helpful, but we should still discuss it." He nodded and expressed his thanks. The next, and hopefully final attempt at opening his gates, heart, and stomach, still loomed large in his mind.

The Ancestral Pathway Preservation Pill had affected him in more ways than one. He felt like his last attempt had left his pathways in significantly less distress than all previous ones. That meant that theoretically, he could also go for the next attempt sooner, but he would wait and see what program the outer sect offered. Unless there was an urgent need, he would likely stick with his rhythm of taking breaks of two weeks between attempts.

His final chore for the morning, before he had to get ready for the introductory lecture in the outer sect, was a quick run to the central kitchen to gather the groceries they needed for the next few days. He used the opportunity to tell Huang Jingyi that he would still try to do his dishwashing job, but would need to understand his new schedule first.

"You have been doing well over the last few months. I must say we don't have many disciples who not just start as a dishwasher but also stick with it for any length of time.

"As long as you want the job, it is yours. Depending on your schedule, we could also consider raising you to a kitchen helper." Jianyi bowed his head.

"That is very kind of you. Hopefully, I will have clarity in the next day or two. Thank you!" Shortly after, he returned to his room and changed into one of his mother's clothes. It would likely be the last time for a while, as he suspected they would get their sect robes soon.