Chapter 375 – Life 103, Age 17, Martial Master 1

Following the banquet, all the former Disciples returned to their rooms to cultivate. We had been warned several times that winning the previous competition hadn’t guaranteed us membership in the Hall of the Herb Sovereign, and everyone appeared eager to spend this trip making their final preparations for whatever lay ahead.

For me, this was somewhat problematic. To cultivate pill qi, I needed to use a powerful Qi Gathering Formation that would cause issues for the formations inscribed on the underside of our carriage—formations that were both greasing the wheels and shielding us from attacks. To cultivate moon spade qi, on the other hand, I needed to use a spirit fire, which I didn’t want anyone to know I had.

Neither of these problems was unsolvable. For example, instead of using a spirit fire, I could use an Attunement Pill to cultivate moon spade qi—which was likely what everyone else was doing. After taking a moment to consider my situation, however, I couldn’t help but feel like locking myself away to cultivate would be a waste of a perfect opportunity to learn more about this continent.

So, after taking a moment in my room to organize my thoughts, I walked back up to the observation room on the third floor.

Aside from the onyx table and chairs, the place was entirely empty. And, since this room took up the entirety of the third floor, there was a lot of unused space toward the front of the carriage.

Moving up to where I could just see the tops of the heads of the two giant earthstrider bison, I took a plush sofa out of my inner world and positioned it to give me a good view out the front window. Then, I placed a small table in front of this sofa and set my pill furnace down atop it.

Performing alchemy in a public space where I could easily become distracted was far from a good idea, but that wasn’t what I was planning to do. Instead, I just wanted to spend more time examining herbs and studying ways to join them together more naturally, without needing to rely on any spirit fires or toxic energies. Focusing entirely on this task might have been more efficient, but keeping an eye on the outside world didn’t require too much attention, and it might allow me to learn valuable information.

From this position, high up in the carriage, I was able to get a much better sense of the local terrain than when we had been walking along the side of the road.

The flower and grass-covered hills that surrounded the city no longer looked natural in any way. From this vantage, I could see that the spacing between the hills was far too regular, and the streams that ran between them were laid out deliberately to ensure that every hill had sufficient access to water.

Near the city, these hills were close together and covered in Rank 1 and 2 herbs. As we got further out, though, the herbs transitioned to Ranks 3 and 4. The hills with these higher-level herbs were spaced much further apart, but this room wasn’t wasted. This was where the city grew its mortal food crops.

After a couple of hours of travel, both the hills and the mortal crops faded away. They were replaced with small, scattered mountains that served as gardens for Rank 5 and 6 herbs.

Staring at this scene, it took me longer than it should have to figure out what was going on.

Low-level herbs didn’t require much energy, so they could be grown close together. They also grew rather quickly, so they were perfect for planting near the city, where everything would need to be harvested before the end-of-year festival destroyed it.

As for the scattered mountains, these were the city’s outer layer of defense. Invading beasts would be drawn by the high-level herbs, where Kings and Emperors could dispatch them before they caused any trouble for the mortals who lived in the city’s farming villages.

On the Nine Rivers Continent, nothing like this had been necessary there. Occasionally, a few random beasts would wander out of the wilderness and snack on people’s herb gardens, so herbalists had needed to hire mercenaries to protect them. But no one would have even considered protecting their cities with this kind of layered defense. There simply weren’t enough dangerous beasts around to make it worth the effort.

Considering the number of demon beasts that infested the Hero’s Domain, however, this was something I would need to remember when I began looking to set up cities of my own.

After passing the mountains where the city grew its Rank 6 herbs, we entered untamed lands where the terrain became more varied and chaotic. Patches of blasted landscape told tales of clashes between powerful cultivators, and a wide swath of torn-up earth marked the passage of a herd of demon beasts.

Not long after entering this wilderness, the earthstrider bison veered to the right, pulling our carriage off the road and into the foothills of a distant mountain range. At first, I expected this to cause our carriage to start bumping and swaying as it passed over the rocky, uneven terrain. However, the bison tapped into their internal energy and smoothed the land below them. Because of this, if I hadn’t been looking out the window, I wouldn’t have even been able to tell that we had left the road.

Hours began to pass one after another, and aside from the occasional wild animal in the distance, there wasn’t much to see. Occasionally, the bison would turn this way or that, making me think that we were avoiding inhabited areas, but I never saw anything that allowed me to confirm this suspicion.

After over an entire day of travel, not a single other person had come up to the third floor. Everyone had stayed locked away in their rooms. Emperor Chan didn’t even provide us with any more meals. All we had to eat was whatever we had brought in our storage bags.

This situation wasn’t too surprising in and of itself. What was surprising was that not a single one of the pampered former Disciples said a word of complaint. They just stayed in their rooms and worked hard to make the best use of their time.

---------------------------------------------------

Midway through the second day of our journey, the bison came to a stop at the edge of a river. I had already watched them trample across half a dozen streams and tributaries, but crossing a two-kilometer-wide river must have been a bit much for them.

To get us past this obstacle, the elderly Beast King, Qongqor, jumped from the side of the carriage onto the head of one of the bison. Then, channeling his water qi, he turned the surface of the river into a solid bridge.

Without needing even a single word of command, the bison trundled onto this water bridge, and we continued on our journey.

When both carriages were successfully across, the Beast King jumped back to the carriage and entered through a door on the second floor.

I expected not to see the man again until we came upon another obstacle that the bison couldn’t deal with, but only minutes after disappearing into the carriage, Beast King Qongqor walked up the stairs and joined me on the third floor.

“You know, you Disciples are always too focused on your studies. I don’t know that I’ve ever seen a single one of you smart enough to bring a couch along like this. It’s good to see that at least someone knows how to relax.”

Keeping a small portion of my mind on what was happening in my pill furnace, I looked over at the old man and gave him a polite smile. “Their futures are going to be decided by whatever happens once we reach the City of Selfless Courage. It’s only natural for them to want to do their best.”

“Aye, not sayin’ it ain’t, but them seeds ‘re already in the ground. We’ll be in Selfless Courage within the month. They might be able to advance another stage before then, maybe two, but that’s not gonna be enough to change anything.”

I nodded my head in silent agreement. While the meridians they got by advancing from Master 1 to Master 3 would give the former Disciples access to more qi, this wouldn’t be overly helpful. The formations on the furnaces here could typically supply all the energy one might need. More important were their affinities, experience, and the power of their blessings, but these would be difficult to change during our short time in this carriage.

As our conversation fell into companionable silence, Qongqor placed an empty bowl on my table and pulled out a bag of marble-sized longan fruit. Then, without saying a word, he began to peel the fruit, toss them into his mouth, and spit out the pits into his bowl.

When he saw that I was looking at him, he didn’t say anything. He just grabbed a handful of fruit, then passed me the bag.

Deciding to follow his lead, I shelled one of the longans and tossed it into my mouth. Extracting the pit was a bit harder than the old man made it look, but the sweet, musky flavor was worth the hassle.

After another minute or two of silent contemplation, Qongqor looked over at me. “What ‘cha think about that girl? Think she’ll make it to Selfless Courage with us?”

It took me a second to remember who he was talking about. When I did, I shook my head. “No, she seemed a bit too taken with that gift of hers, and that was only a greeting gift. By now, she has to be wondering what she’ll get if she joins them.”

The old man let out a muted chuckle. “Aye, and I’m sure Chan did little to convince her otherwise. She might’ve gotten lucky, having him along. Might’ve saved her a bit of heartbreak at the Palace, ya know?”

I let out an amused snort. “Maybe, but if she actually thinks that joining an Emperor-level faction will make it any easier to advance to Sovereign or Spirit, she’s in for a rude awakening.”

The old man bobbed his head. “Eh, you’re not wrong about that. If she has the talent, rising up with a four-star’s gonna be easier than fighting for a place in the Temple—less people to compete against, ya know? But there, she’ll have to worry about fightin’ off them other sects. In the Palace, she’d only have to worry ‘bout beatin’ up people her own age.”

When our conversation lapsed into silence once more, I decided to probe the old man for information. Unfortunately, though, he was exactly who he appeared to be—an old wagon driver. Sure, he was able to tell me stories about all the Sovereigns he had met back when they were still ‘young kids like me,’ but there was little of substance to these tales.

That said, as a wagon driver, Qongqor was able to provide me with one item of immense value: an atlas with up-to-date maps of the Heroes’ Domain. These maps didn’t just show the political boundaries of the 117 different Sovereign realms. They also showed where the major roads and waterways were.

After I flipped to a map halfway through the book, Qongqor snorted and shook his head. “Just ignore the south. The map’s a bit old, and some fool hero down there’s been tearing it apart the past few years. He’s likely gone and created a whole new mountain range or two by now. Will be a while before things settle out well enough that mappin’ it’s not just a waste of time.”

While the old man had been more than happy to let me look at this atlas, it was far too valuable for him to just give away. Thankfully, though, that wasn’t necessary. After just a single touch, it had been copied into my library, where I could review it at my leisure.