Chương 156: Chapter 155: Shixiong

Yang did not know how long he had been sitting, lost in his own thoughts, when movement at the door drew his attention. Senior Brother Jiang Zhen Hao came inside, his face breaking into a wide, familiar grin.

"Junior Brother Yang," he said, pausing to retrieve a chair from his storage and settling in beside the bed.

"No. Yang Shidi. You gave all of us quite a scare."

"I am sorry, Senior Bro—""Shixiong," Zhen Hao Shixiong corrected gently.

"We share the same master now."

"I am sorry, Shixiong, for making everyone worry." Yang amended, his brow furrowing.

"But what exactly happened? The only information I've received is that I advanced two realms and apparently drained an important artifact belonging to the True Talisman Peak." Zhen Hao Shixiong let out a sharp laugh.

"Oh, you destroyed the entire competition. You didn't just drain your own doorway's barrier. You drained all of them. Every single one on the platform. The other participants had nothing left to do. The event had to be held again a couple of days later." His expression shifted, balancing sternness with lingering amusement.

"It was terrifying, honestly. Every elder in the arena descended on the platform to try to sever your connection, but they couldn't budge you. That much qi would have killed a lesser cultivator, it would have killed me. It took Peak Master Zheng Yi himself to finally break your hold, and by then, you'd drained the lot." Yang felt a pang of genuine guilt and appreciation at hearing it.

Peak Master Zheng Yi had come down himself, had been the one to actually pull him free, and had said nothing about it when he came to offer Yang a position of being his direct disciple. There had been no mention of it, no use of it as leverage. Just a rather pompous speech followed by a sincere offer. At Yang's guilty expression, he let out a dismissive sound.

"Don't let it weigh on you, Shidi. It was just qi, and it was an accident. The sect is not so poor and beyond reason to begrudge you for it. Most disciples thought it was hilarious. The sect now has to work harder to prevent such things from happening again because I know at least two dozen people currently plotting to see if they can replicate your feat." Yang nodded, his mind drifting back to the question that had been gnawing at him.

"Zhen Hao Shixiong, why did your master want me as his disciple?" Zhen Hao Shixiong was quiet for a moment, looking mildly at a loss.

"Shidi, only our master can answer that." He caught the flash of anxiety in Yang's eyes and hurried to clarify, "But you don't need to think too much about it. Master is wonderful. He just... sometimes knows things."

"Knows things?" Yang's voice came out more incredulous than he intended. But he believed it, or at least found it plausible. He himself occasionally knew things through the bead. What was to stop a cultivator thousands of years old from having his own mysterious awareness of things? The more pertinent question was what exactly his master might know about him. He put that aside for now. He was at peace with his decision. He had a feeling that some of his questions were going to be answered soon, regardless.

"Yes, and don't sound so disbelieving." Zhen Hao Shixiong scolded.

"I can't tell you more because I myself don't know the specifics, but the consensus among the Shixiongs is that it relates to his Dao path."

"You don't know your Master's dao path?"

"Shidi. We don't even know with confidence whether he has found it." At Yang's bewildered expression, Zhen Hao Shixiong leaned back and explained properly.

"Don't take Liu Te as your reference point," he said with a slight eye roll.

"Or rather, don't take cultivators like Liu Te as examples. Those who are open about their Dao path tend to be the ones following the most common and straightforward paths, because those are difficult to conceal. Most cultivators do not disclose their path at all." He paused.

"I don't have a path myself yet, so I can only share what our master and Shixiongs have taught me." Yang leaned forward, which Zhen Hao Shixiong noticed with a short chuckle before continuing.

"The cultivation system becomes less and less structured the further you advance. I imagine with your reading habits, you have noticed that techniques rarely carry you across more than a certain number of cultivation levels." Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

"I assumed the more advanced ones were simply kept away from outer sect disciples," Yang said.

"No, that is not it. Think about it, Shidi. What is the final stage of cultivation? What are we ultimately cultivating toward?" The question stopped Yang. He had read about the major realms through Nascent Soul and had seen references to stages beyond it, but the details had been thin. The texts he had encountered mentioned ascending to an upper world but said nothing concrete about what came after.

"Exactly," Zhen Hao Shixiong said, reading his silence correctly.

"There is no final stage. Cultivation is endless."

"But what about after ascending?" Yang asked.

"Then you continue cultivating in the upper realm. Shidi, there are sect records in White Cloud Sect of cultivators who descended back into this world after ascending. It is an endless road. Only death is the end, and even stagnation does not mean others cannot continue past those same realms." He paused.

"But we are getting ahead of ourselves. The point is this. Until Nascent Soul, you work on refining the body. After that, cultivation shifts toward the soul. And once you reach that stage, a structured path, however good it is, is only you following the road someone else has already walked. If you want to reach the heavens, you must eventually tread a path that is yours alone. One that is fated to you." Yang was quiet, absorbing this.

"Our master's last confirmed advancement was reaching the Void Refinement stage. That was more than two thousand years ago. Whether he has advanced further in the time since then, no one can say with certainty except perhaps the Sect Master and the Grand Elders".

"Shidi, Cultivators as a general rule do not announce their Dao paths openly. Their path is the foundation of their cultivation and their strength. If someone knows your Dao path, they know how you are built, your very essence and from that they can work out how to come against you." Zhen Hao Shixiong's expression was serious.

"It is not that our master doesn't trust us. It is that sharing it with us would put us in danger. Others may think twice before confronting a Void Refinement cultivator directly. But what stops them from going after the Golden Core and Nascent Soul disciples around him to extract the same information?" Yang went into contemplation.

"You never said much about any of this before," Yang said after a moment.

"When we discussed cultivation paths." Zhen Hao Shixiong nodded.

"Shidi. Your sect is your family. Your master is your father. Your Shixiong and Shidi are your brothers. What I can discuss openly with a friend or junior brother is different from what I can discuss with my Shidi or my Shixiong. Information in a sect is like information in a household. There are things you discuss with friends and relatives, and there are things you guard for the sake of your closest kin."

Yang thought back over the months of conversations with the group and realised that while snippets about Zhen Hao Shixiong's master and Shixiong had surfaced here and there, they had always been surface-level. No one had pressed for details. No one had pushed to know more than was offered. Even a mortal family kept its private matters within its walls.

"I understand, Shixiong." Zhen Hao Shixiong gave a satisfied smile.

"Good." He straightened in the chair, his expression shifting into something more businesslike.

"Now. To the actual matters our master tasked me with."

"Master wants you to move to Soaring Cloud Peak and meet our other Shixiong before the disciple ceremony."

"Ceremony?"

"Yes. You are going to be the direct disciple of a peak master. Of course, there is going to be a ceremony. An elaborate one." He held up a hand at Yang's expression.

"You don't have to do much. Serve tea, light incense for the ancestors, and receive the formal acknowledgement. Simple." His expression shifted into something that resembled a well-meaning, scheming relative sharing old advice.

"And Shidi, I will tell you now. There are advantages to the ceremony. The meeting gifts from the elders and peak masters alone are going to make you a considerably wealthier cultivator than you currently are. They tend to splurge more when showing off." Yang processed this and found he did not hate the sound of it. He was currently a cultivator whose primary resources consisted of competition prizes, points, and some leftover spirit stones.

More resources would be useful after all; cultivation was an endless resource-draining pit.

"See, you're already smiling." Zhen Hao Shixiong looked amused.

"Now," Zhen Hao Shixiong said, leaning forward with his hands clasped, "tell me what kind of living space you would like. We have courtyards, cave residences, palaces—""A cave, please," Yang said.

"Ah. Staying traditional." Zhen Hao Shixiong nodded approvingly.

"All right, what kind of cave would you want?" He had to actually think about this. Yang had never actually chosen a place to live. The hut he had grown up in was where his grandpa had settled before he was born. The caves in the forest had been chosen based on shelter and defensibility. The inns along the road were chosen based on what he could afford. His current cave residence on the outer sect peak had been assigned to him. He had never once selected a home based on what he actually liked.

He did not know what he actually liked. It was a rather jarring realisation. At his extended silence, Zhen Hao Shixiong's expression softened.

"Shidi, you are a direct disciple of Soaring Cloud Peak now. You don't have to settle. This is your sanctuary. What do you enjoy?" Yang gave him a grateful nod, but he was still uncertain.

"Perhaps... tell me what you like to do, and we'll work from there," Shixiong suggested.

"I like learning and practising craft," Yang said.

"I would also like space to eventually learn other crafts. Alchemy, tool refining, formations, whatever I can get to." Zhen Hao Shixiong tapped his chin, looking contemplative.

"Practical. I can work with that." He looked at Yang with a mischievous glint in his eye.

"But tell me, how do you feel about a fifty-foot marble fountain of yourself at the entrance?"