CHAPTER 6

ZOAWEI

Zoawei was the name of the name of the town, according to the sign at the entrance where Tang Jian and Zhang Huan were standing at the moment.

The carriage and the horses had suddenly disappeared, just as they had appeared once they got out of it.

“We’ll be staying here for a short while.”, Zhang Huan said, looking at the town. “Let’s go.”, he said as he went in, followed by Tang Jian.

Tang Jian had only ever seen his village and the other surrounding villages, and this was his first time walking into a town.

The houses back in Tang Jian’s village were very crudely built. So when he looked at the buildings in this town, even though they were quite simple architecture wise, seemed quite luxurious to him.

“This place is at least twenty times the size of my village.”, he said as he looked around in awe at everything.

“This is quite a small town. In fact, it’s barely considered a town.”, Zhang Huan said.

Tang Jian noticed that Zhang Huan wasn’t being arrogant, but he genuinely thought what he spoke.

Just what kind of place is this Sun Temple? He wondered as they walked passed a small crowd.

“Senior, didn’t you say that this is a town of Immortal Cultivators?”, Tang Jian said as he looked around at the people walking around who looked no different from the people back in his village.

“If you don’t count Chen Wei,”, Zhang Huan spoke, “then I’m the only Immortal Cultivator you’ve met. If you mean why they don’t give off an aura like me, that’s because they are too week. Most of them are Qi Consolidation Cultivators. You can’t notice the difference because you’re weaker than them.”

Tang Jian also noticed that Zhang Huan was hiding his aura and looked just like a kind old man at the moment.

As they walked pass a small stall, the vendor tried to bring their attention to his stall.

“Come, come. I have some really good stuff here with me.”, he said.

Tang Jian noticed that he had several rings in his stall, all neatly arranged.

“Storage rings. Ranging from one cubic foot to three cubic feet. The cheapest one is only twenty low grade Qi stones.”, he said to Tang Jian with a wide smile.

Tang Jian was about to ask him some questions when Zhang Huan said to him, “Don’t bother, they are the most inferior kind.”

He didn’t even bother looking at the rings and kept on walking. Tang Jian gave the vendor a sheepish smile and followed after him.

The vendor just ignored them and continued hawking at the pedestrians.

“What were those rings?”, Tang Jian asked, though he had guessed what it was.

“Storage rings. Like this one…”, Zhang Huan said, raising his hand and showing a ring on his index finger.

“As the name suggests, they have storage space inside them that can store anything that is not alive and preserve it for a long time. It is not the ring itself that has the storage space, but rather the stone.”, he explained as Tang Jian listened carefully.

“The stone itself is nothing special, but it has a spatial formation set up on it made by a formation master. You may not understand some of that, but you will once you live among cultivators.”

“What about Qi stones?”, Tang Jian asked again.

“Qi stones are just stones naturally infused with Qi in them. You can use them to cultivate, but they are mostly just used as currency.”

As they chatted, Tang Jian noticed that they had reached an area that had a number of inns there. Zhang Huan led the way to one of these inns that looked pretty average. It wasn’t one of the good ones, but wasn’t bad either.

There was a middle-aged clerk at the front eating noodles when they walked in.

Zhang Huan took out a medallion from his sleeve and said, “We’d like a room, please.”

“I’m sorry, brother, we’re full-”, the clerk was saying as he looked up and saw the medallion that Zhang Huan was holding in his hand and nearly choked on his noodles.

Upon seeing the medallion, he immediately stood up and said frantically, “My lord, pardon Su Jie’s rudeness just now”, he bowed deeply, “I was not expecting my lord to visit out of the blue like this. Please, allow me to lead you to your room, my lord.”

He started leading them to the room.

The room was quite simple. There was just a painting of the rising sun on one wall. A table with two chairs on the side.

Once they were in the room, Zhang Huan and Tang Jian sat on the chairs facing each other as Su Jie closed the door behind him as he left the room after making sure they were comfortable.

Zhang Huan, as usual, flipped his hands and there appeared two cups of tea. Tang Jian now knew that they came from his storage ring.

“You have one more advantage that your predecessors did not. Do you know what that is?”, Zhang Huan asked, looking at Tang Jian as he sipped on his tea.

Tang Jian thought for a moment and then shook his head.

“Your age.”, Zhang Huan replied. “Before you, the youngest receiver of the Fire Pearl was seventeen years of age. They were all well into their Cultivation journey. You, on the other hand, are only twelve and have not yet started your journey. Your Cultivation can be shaped to handle the power of the Fire Pearl. And you have more time on your hand. It may only be few years, but these few years can make all the difference in the world.”

“When will I start cultivating, then ?, Tang Jian said eagerly, after finding out the importance of the time he had on hand.

“Today. But before that…”

Su Jie opened the door and walked in, followed by two female servants who had trays of food in their hands.

As the servants were setting up the plates, Su Jie said with a smile, “All the dishes are made from the best Qi infused ingredients and are specialties of Zoawei, and the meat is also from a mid-stage Qi Condensation Fierce Beasts.”

“Of course, everything has been diluted so this young brother can digest it easily.”, he said while looking at Tang Jian. “I’m assuming my lord has brought this young brother here to commence his Cultivation. In that case, brother, you must eat to your heart’s content.”, he spoke with a smile.

“I won’t be bothering you anymore. If you need anything, just ring this bell Please enjoy your meal.”, he put a small bell on the table, bowed and left as the servants finished setting up the food. Without saying a word, they followed him out of the room as well.

Tang Jian looked down at all the food served on the table. He could easily tell this food was completely different from anything he’d ever had, even without listening to Su Jie’s words. He used his chopsticks to pick up a dumpling from one of the plates and looked at it closely.

“What did he mean by Qi infused ingredients?”, he asked Zhang Huan as smelled the dumpling.

“It is exactly what it sounds like.”, Zhang Huan said as he picked up his chopsticks, ”It might be considered a specialty in this remote town, but it’s still an inferior method to make food for Cultivators. They just take regular ingredients and infuse them with Qi. In the major sects, they have gardens to grow Qi infused grains and vegetables.”

“As for the meat,”, he said while looking down at a meat dish, “it’s from a Fierce Beast. They are beings who are naturally born with a Dantian. Their cultivation grows naturally as well. Of course, that doesn’t mean that they can grow infinitely strong if they live a long life. Their strength is limited by the quality of their blood. About ninety-nine out of a hundred are low breed. You probably have few back in your village too.”

Tang Jian thought about Old man Kui Ah’s story and the giant Hawk.

“What about your horses?”, Tang Jian asked, suddenly remembering the four fiery horses.

“Of course, they are Fierce Beasts too. And quite rare ones at that.”, Zhang Huan said, looking proud.

“Senior, earlier you said that anything alive cannot be stored in a storage ring.”, Tang Jian said, remembering his earlier words.

“They are not in my storage ring.”, Zhang Huan said, but spoke no further about it.

“Now focus on the food. Although this is not the best, it still has to be diluted so your body can handle it. So it’s all the same for you.”, saying that Zhang started eating.

Tang Jian also dug into his food. As soon as he swallowed the first bite, he could feel a strength rushing through his body. The taste of the food as well could not be described in words. After the first bite, he simply could not resist taking a second, a third, and before he knew it, all the plates were clean.

“Hmm. It actually wasn’t bad.”, Zhang Huan said, finishing his own food. He looked over at Tang Jian and said, “You feel energized to the point where you feel like you could burst any moment, don’t you?”

Across the table, Tang Jian was indeed feeling energized.

“It’s time to channel that energy into cultivation. Let’s go.”

Zhang Huan got up and walked out of the room, Tang Jian following behind him.

When they walked out of the inn, there was a carriage waiting for them. It was a simple carriage with two horses pulling it, nothing like Zhang Huan’s. Su Jie was sitting in the front with the reigns in his hands.

“I hope you liked the food, my lord?”, he asked with a smile.

“It was really good.”, Zhang Huan genuinely said, “Tell the cook I really liked it.”

Su Jie seemed very happy and relieved at the praise as his smile widened.

“Where are we going?”, Tang Jian asked as they got in the carriage.

“Somewhere special. If the nearby sects and clans find out about this place, they would end up waging a war for it.”

Tang Jian didn’t know how to respond to that, so he just sat there without saying a word and tried to anticipate what he would see.

There were no windows in the carriage, so Tang Jian couldn’t see anything outside.

“Try to meditate whenever you can.”, Zhang Huan said from the side. “A steady mind and a calm heart are essential for cultivation. It also helps you be in control of your emotional state, which in turn can help you make rational decisions.”

Tang Jian decided to follow Zhang Huan’s advice and sat cross-legged to meditate.

“Close your eyes and take a deep breath and slowly exhale.”, Zhang Huan instructed in a soothing voice.

He taught Tang Jian some breathing exercises as Tang Jian meditated.

This went on for a few hours, and when Tang Jian’s first session of meditation ended, he truly believed Zhang Huan’s earlier words. His mind was at peace and his heart was calm.

At that moment Zhang Huan said from the side, “We’re here.”

He got out of the carriage with Zhang Huan and found himself in front of a lake. A lake that looked completely ordinary.

They just stood there facing the lake as Su Jie turned the carriage around and left without saying a word.

Tang Jian looked at the lake which was even smaller than the lake back in his village.

This is the ‘somewhere special’.?, he thought to himself, a little disappointed.

He looked over at Zhang Huan from the corner of his eyes as if asking ‘now what?’.

“You thought it would be some grand location?”, Zhang Huan said, knowing what Tang Jian was thinking. “Did you not hear the part where I said that a war would break out if the local sects found out about this location?”

“Right, yes.”, Tang Jian replied nodding his head, not wanting to offend the old man.

Zhang Huan ignored him and walked towards the lake until he was at the edge.

Tang Jian also walked to where he was and saw Zhang Huan bend down to touch the water with both of his hands.

After a moment, the water around his hands started vibrating and Tang Jian looked on in shock as the water rushed away from his hands and parted way to reveal a hole the size of a small door about ten meters under the surface of the lake.

The water just stayed still, making a wall around the hole. The ground beneath the lake had formed a slope from the edge of the lake to the hole underneath. One could easily walk down on it.

Zhang Huan got back up and walked down as Tang Jian just stood there with his mouth slightly ajar.

“Do you need an invitation to come down?”, Zhang Huan said over his shoulder.

That brought Tang Jian back to his senses, and he also walked down to the slope. He noticed that the ground was actually dry and not muddy as it should have been.

As he got closer to the hole in the ground, he also noticed that there were actually stairs leading down somewhere in the hole.

Zhang Huan just walked down the stairs without stopping.

Tang Jian stopped at the edge of the hole and looked around at all the water around him and swallowed nervously. He could see the fishes swimming around in the water, but none of them swam near the edge of the water.

He looked down at the dark stairway, sighed and walked down.