After having their souls pushed to the limit, my fellow competitors were utterly exhausted. So, after being teleported to the entrance of an inn, everyone went directly to their rooms and fell asleep. Seeing this, I was relatively confident that no one would be able to stir up any trouble, so I decided to go out and explore the city.
Before I left, however, I visited my four teammates and laid down a few detection formations that would notify me if anyone decided to leave their rooms. Hopefully, I was just being paranoid, but the idea of one of my teammates bumping into Jon and making a random bet was terrifying.
By doing a bit of asking around, I learned that we had been teleported to Rocky Shoals City, on the eastern edge of the Nine Rivers Domain, halfway between its borders with the True Martial and Heroes Domains.
Upon first setting out, I didn’t have much of a goal in mind, so I just followed the rise and fall of the land until I found a nice hill that gave me a good view of my surroundings. There, for the first time since… Possibly for the first time… I saw a spectacular sight: the ocean.
Unable to stop myself, I leapt on top of a nearby building and settled down to enjoy the view.
Tiny waves that were barely visible rippled across the horizon. At least, they looked tiny. However, considering the distances involved, I couldn’t say for sure.
As these waves moved, they threw out great gouts of water qi. Then, as this qi fell back down into the churning seas, it pulled on the waves, amplifying them, causing them to become several times larger than they had started. If these waves had been allowed to reach the shore, they would have instantly killed any nearby mortals. However, they were stopped in their tracks by a massive breakwater.
I watched as a wave that was over 20 meters from crest to trough crashed into this breakwater.
After the water erupted in a grand explosion, I thought the show was over, but then, a series of small figures jumped from the dying wave, aiming for the shore.
Whatever these creatures were, the city’s residents didn’t seem too fond of them. Before they had even made it halfway to their destination, they were torn to pieces by blasts of qi.
Taking a moment to look around in other directions, I realized that Rocky Shoals had a much different layout from most of the cities that I had seen. Instead of being surrounded by walls and defenses on all sides, Rocky Shoals was almost entirely focused on defending against attacks from the ocean.
Did this city not have to worry about land-based assaults? Or were the ocean creatures just so vicious that the residents didn’t have time to worry about anything else?
Realizing how much I still didn’t know about this world, I decided to visit a place where I might be able to learn some of it: the Scholar’s Tower.
Being such an important landmark, I was able to locate the Scholar’s Tower easily enough. Sadly, though, when I arrived, it was already quite late, and visitors were no longer allowed entry.
However, thanks to my position in the Palace of the Herb Sovereign, my Martial Emperor-level cultivation base, and a copious number of spirit stones, the attendant who greeted me was more than happy to give me a short tour.
I still wasn’t allowed to sit down and read anything, but I didn’t have time for that anyway. I needed to get back to the inn and prepare for the upcoming competition. So, I just followed my guide and casually ran a finger across the spines of every book we passed.
After exploring all three floors of the library—including the floor that only the Tower’s scholars were supposed to visit—I gave the attendant my thanks and left.
Had this library provided me with any secret tomes of forbidden knowledge? I highly doubted it, but I wouldn’t know until I had several weeks to sit down and sort through my gains.
The next morning, I gathered up my teammates and brought them out to the front of the inn, where the team from the True Martial Domain was already waiting for us. Shortly after we arrived, the Nine Rivers’ team walked out to join us.
Mere moments after the last woman from the Nine Rivers stepped out of the inn, a portal appeared and beckoned us forth. The first to react were the young alchemists from the True Martial Domain, who rushed forward with hurried steps.
As this group scrambled to be the first through the portal, a couple of their members shot withering looks at both Jon and myself. They were trying their best to appear strong and resolute, but their pursed lips and cold gazes were unable to hide their true emotions. They were afraid. They had already suffered one devastating loss, and they were worried that they wouldn’t be able to make a comeback.
I doubted their ability to turn things around, but I wished them the best of luck.
Once everyone from the True Martial Domain was gone, Jon and I glanced at each other, and the look that I saw in his eyes did scare me.
Jon wasn’t angry, or afraid, or even contemptuous. He held himself perfectly upright, filled with nothing but supreme confidence in his inevitable victory. This made me glance worriedly at Mandakh and the others. According to the formations that I had set up, no one had left their rooms, and no one had any visitors. Could Mandakh have shouted a challenge at Jon through the wall? I didn’t think so, but…
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Jon waved a polite hand, signaling for me to enter the portal.
I returned this gesture with a martial salute and led my team forward.
We stepped out into the middle of the open courtyard of a palatial villa. White walls surrounded us on all sides, with each wall lined with several nooks that were only large enough for a cushion and a small writing desk.
This time, Elder Jalari was the only one who showed up to greet us. The urgamal must have decided that this second test didn’t warrant their personal attention.
Once everyone was present, Jalari closed the portal and clapped his hands to get our attention. “Welcome to the second round of the preliminaries. Today, we will be testing your understanding of several important subjects—including herbology, philosophy, and leadership. As I said yesterday, this isn’t just a test to see who is deserving of a place in the Temple. It is to see if any of you are suitable for a position as the personal protégé of an elder. So, even if you don’t understand the reasons behind our questions, try to answer them to the best of your ability.”
With a flick of a finger, Elder Jalari extracted several stacks of paper from his storage bag and sent them flying toward fifteen of the writing desks in the surrounding nooks.
“This test will last twelve hours, but you may leave whenever you are finished. Use your time wisely.”
After only a moment of hesitation, our group broke apart, with everyone heading in a different direction.
Sitting down in my chosen alcove, I opened the test and got to work.
List all known properties of the Purple Thunderflame Ganoderma. Include all known information about its natural habitat and any special precautions that herbalists need to take when transplanting it into a new environment. Provide detailed information about any pills that it can be used in, as well as their effects.
Pulling out a brush and a bottle of prepared ink, I wrote down everything I knew about this herb, even if it was only tangentially related to the question as posed. Then, I turned to the next page.
The first few questions were rather easy, but it wasn’t long before I encountered a problem. The seventh question requested detailed information about the Flying Fang Radix—a type of herb that I had never even heard of. Based on its name, I doubted this herb was native to the Western Island, but that was all I could say for certain.
I could have just skipped this question, but doing so would have only given Jon an opening. So, I turned my focus inward and began searching through my mental library.
While I had purchased copies of every available book in both the Hall of the Herb Lord and the Palace of the Herb Sovereign, I hadn’t yet taken the time to read most of them, and I barely remembered most of the information from the books that I had read. However, it was all stored neatly away in my mental library, waiting.
Unfortunately, though, after a quick survey, I found that most of these books only mentioned herbs that were commonly found on the Western Island. I didn’t find a single mention of a “Flying Fang Radix.”
So, I expanded my search.
My salvation came from a small book that I had copied from the Scholar’s Tower. Not the Tower in Rocky Shoals, though. The Tower I had visited back in Proud Eagle City.
I hadn’t been able to spend much time there, but one of the books that I had copied was a travelogue that a Martial King had written during his journey to the Isle of Beasts. This King didn’t seem to know the first thing about herbalism, so this travelogue didn’t have much to offer me, but it did have a few snippets concerning the Flying Fang Radix, as well as a few other random herbs.
Would being able to list a few scattered details about the natural habitat of a couple of herbs make any real difference in my final score? Probably not, but I wrote them down regardless.
Was this cheating? Maybe, but Elder Jalari hadn’t prohibited us from using outside resources. He hadn’t even taken away our storage bags. In fact, he hadn’t mentioned rules at all. He had only given us a time limit.
Suddenly realizing a potential issue, I reached into my inner world and pulled out a Rank 6 privacy formation. This wouldn’t be enough to stop any of the elders from spying on me, but it should
be enough to stop most of my competitors.Letting out a sigh, I returned my focus to the test paper.
Shortly after I did, however, I heard a commotion behind me.
Turning, I saw Jon hand Elder Jalari a stack of papers. Was he already finished? How?
Combing through so many books in my mental library had taken more time than I would have liked, but not that much time. How long had it been? Three hours? Four?
It didn’t matter.
The elders might reward Jon for finishing early, but I couldn’t worry about that. I could only focus on the paper in front of me and do the best job that I could. So, lowering my head, I got back to work.
While the first part of the test had a few difficult questions, they were all rather straightforward. The second part, though…
Explain this quote: We join spokes together in a wheel, but it is the center hole that makes the wagon move.
I flipped to the second page.
Explain this quote: Under normal circumstances, water will overwhelm fire. However, when there is a kettle between them, the water will boil away, while the fire endures.
Jumping forward, I checked what awaited me in the third section of the test.
Emperors bear the ultimate responsibility for the lives of their subjects, but it is the local Lords who know best what the people need. Therefore, Emperors will often provide resources to their Lords, with the Lords then responsible for distributing these resources to the people. All too often, Lords cheat and lie, stealing resources from their superiors and harming the people. How can we best prevent this?
This… was going to be difficult. What kind of answers were the elders looking for? How were we going to be judged? What were the criteria? Without knowing this, how was I supposed to ensure my victory? If I answered these questions from a Legalist viewpoint, the elders might decide to mark me down just because they had wanted a more Daoist answer.
Instead of trying to emulate one of the continent’s standard four philosophies, I decided to write down answers that were consistent with the complex blend of philosophies that composed my soul. The elders may or may not appreciate this, but my answers would be honest, at least.
Deep in concentration, I barely noticed the passage of time. So, when I set my brush down, finally finished, I was surprised to find that the sky had already turned pitch black. Had it really only been twelve hours? That… didn’t seem right. Had Elder Jalari chosen not to interrupt me?
Standing, I turned and walked over to the elder, who was sitting under a tree, meditating. As I approached, he held out a hand and accepted my papers without even opening his eyes. Then, he tapped the air to his right, creating a portal to send me back to the inn.
Before passing through, I took one last look around the courtyard. As I did, a shiver of fear ran down my spine, and my heart began pounding rapidly. Everyone was gone. I was the last one here.
What if…
Sprinting through Jalari’s portal, I rushed back to the inn, hoping that no one had done anything stupid.