Chapter 12: Refining the Soul and Spirit

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Compared with the gate of insight, Li Jianan had confidence.

He had not yet reached the state of grasping the principles of heaven and earth in a flash, but there is such a thing as a vast store of references to unweave layer by layer, trace origins, and then attain true understanding before refining and improving on the foundations of those before him.

That was already admirable. After more than six thousand years of history in this world and the teachings unearthed from ancient ages, this path had already become quite mature. To create something genuinely new from it was never easy.

Still, from Jade Cloud Sect’s first two preliminary trials and the three temperament assessments, their admission test did not feel like a measure of truth. It seemed mostly experience and conjecture.
Passing did not guarantee real merit. Failing did not mean one was unworthy.
At least for the second temperament gate, if he had done it once more, he could have planted certain ideas into his subconscious beforehand and performed much better.

Li Jianan followed the crowd into the pavilion. In its center stood ten water curtains condensed with power, each with its own illustrations and explanations.

“Three days only. The more you comprehend, the higher your insight. Plagiarism is forbidden. All cheating methods are forbidden. No spirit-soul assisting pills.”

Zhao Qi’s voice rang through the hall.

Only thirty-seven people remained for the third gate.
All moved forward and carefully studied the water screens.

“Looks like a late-stage section of qi-cultivation from the intermediate stage. A water-type method.”
“Alchemy, vessels, talismans, arrays, and puppet techniques.”
“This is body cultivation.”
“This is a spell.”
“Even a spirit-cultivation art appears!”
“That also looks related to soul techniques. Could it be a secret soul art?”

Those admitted to this test had, at minimum, upper-mid talent. Their backgrounds were not simple: branch heirs of clans, Immortal City merchants, or promising descendants of various professions; at worst, their parents were top-tier independent cultivators.
They had seen some world.

Before long, the categories on the power-concentrated curtains were clear.

Li Jianan nodded inwardly. “As expected. Jade Cloud Sect can test insight only by this kind of problem-solving logic.”

Insight concerns the soul, and the soul hides in the sea of consciousness. From Li Jianan’s experience, even an adept who had formed the Dan Foundation could not fully probe another’s sea of awareness.
Unless one used certain soul-search techniques.
But once soul searching was used, the sea would fracture; one might survive, yet become a shell of life.

With that understanding, he felt only mild disappointment. This method had major flaws and could not truly judge anyone’s true insight.
Everyone has their own unique gift point. To appraise them by what they are weak at is clearly unsuitable.
And such questions are easily prepared for or cheated on in advance.

Li Jianan did not mind. In fact, this approach gave him an edge, since he was best at tracing roots to source; one principle mastered could illuminate many arts.
Besides, his participation had been accidental anyway. Success or failure hardly changed his mind—if he came to taste the process and steel himself, he already had enough.
At worst, he could come again in a later life.

Then he would come in as a threefold prodigy, directly take an inner-seat post, maybe even earn the sect master’s direct tutelage. Even if he succeeded now, it would still leave him only an ordinary inner disciple in comparison.

He began from the first curtain.
In a former life, during early to middle qi-cultivation, he had gained some understanding of how power condenses from a thin gaseous state into denser mist. This question was a derivation of one subtle circulation detail in the transition from middle to late qi-cultivation.
Within moments, he took up pen and paper and sketched the required energy circulation onto a map of the human meridians.

Then the second.
It happened to match the alchemical art he had studied for thirty years in his former life. One glance was enough. The standard answer was clear.
He even thought that if he had written it, he would have changed the form of the question to better reveal differences in insight.
Yet that applied only to the art of alchemy.

The third dealt with artifact forging.
It took him nearly two hours. He had never touched forging in either life and had no foundation at all.
Fortunately the question touched only one small junction and was faintly linked to alchemical fire, so among several possible combinations he could still force out the right answer.
But if that method were applied in actual forging, it would not be truly useful—almost pointless.

The fourth was talismanic arts.
That was another of his strengths. Though Grand Elder Yan Kong had no lofty innate talent in talismans, his instruction in entry-level talisman art had been excellent.
It took Li Jianan three breaths.

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……
……
So it went until noon on the third day. Li Jianan finally took another hunger-purging pill and could barely keep from collapsing as he sat down.
He must admit formations and puppetry were exceedingly obscure. The questions were not impossible, but for him—a beginner with zero background and no prior contact—there was no hint left, so he eventually had to abandon them.
Body cultivation and spellcraft were, as expected, straightforward.

Only now did he realize that the truly intractable ones were in spirit-cultivation arts and soul secrets.
For a full day and night, even the ninth curtain’s fragments of soul-cultivation teachings remained unreadable to him. Soul-cultivation was a completely different path from the body and magic arts he knew; there was no reference point, no map of understanding.
The last soul-secret art was no better.

This only deepened his skepticism of such an insight test.

In the end he completed six sets and abandoned four, then sat aside with six sheets of answers, waiting while the trial ended.

“Clang!”

By nightfall a bell rang, signaling the end of the third insight assessment.
After Zhao Qi came in, the thirty-seven handed in their work in turn.
“Brother, why didn’t you finish?” Xiao Changfeng asked with concern, noticing only six sheets in Li Jianan’s hands.
“I am dull-witted; I could not penetrate those.” Li Jianan explained, but when he saw the ten-page bundle Xiao held, he was quietly startled.
Was this boy truly some heaven-sent prodigy?

Yet Xiao leaned close and lowered his voice:
“Don’t be so confused. Don’t worry about right or wrong. Write boldly. Even if it’s wrong, the examiners may still praise your earnest effort.”
Li Jianan lifted a brow, amused by the younger man’s cleverness.

That night they returned to the same hall they had slept in on the first evening.
This time they were somewhat closer.
Even if these people failed to enter the inner gate, they could all join the outer gate later and remain companions.
Especially the youths with the best spiritual roots drew praise from everyone.
Li Jianan joined in with a few ordinary compliments.
For such promising seedlings, cultivating merit with kindness could be useful; making enemies would be far less wise.

The next day Zhao Qi returned, announced that the trials were over, and led them to the Hall of Stewards to wait for the elders to finalize rankings.
Then each would settle post-test matters with parents and elders; if all was in order, they could enter the sect.
At one turn past noon, the results were released.

Li Jianan: talent, B-grade lower; temperament, B-grade upper; insight, A-grade middle; overall fourteenth.
Xiao Changfeng: talent, A-grade lower; temperament, B-grade middle; insight, B-grade middle; overall sixteenth.
This round admitted fifteen inner-door disciples.
The top three would enter the true transmission line.

“Congratulations, brother—well, from now on, you may call me senior. Brother, rest easy: you will enter the outer gate. My previous promise still stands. If I am ordered, I will give my life for you.”
Xiao was quick-minded and broad-hearted: after a flicker of disappointment, he became optimistic again.

“Your words are heavy, brother. We can speak more in the future.”
Li Jianan was slightly hesitant. Fourteenth rank for inner admission almost cut off the chance of true transmission.
Yet after this experience, he believed he could rank in the top three in a future life.
His hesitation in this life was about this life’s choice and what it might mean for the next.
Another matter weighed on him: the form he had grown into through spiritual-energy nourishment might not change much in another life, and that stability could conceal risks.

“All right, junior, go to the outer court first. You may go on ahead. I have matters to attend.”

“Until we meet again.”

As the others left, the parents of the top fifteen candidates were brought into the pavilion.
To accept a disciple, one had to cut ties with the clan.
Even if one had no clan, even one’s own parents had to state the distance of future relations.
But by experience, at this stage, problems rarely occurred.

Soon Li Jianan saw Yan Qingwan invited into the main hall.
Her gaze toward him carried praise and pride.

……
The dust settled; fifteen people were about to become inner-door disciples. A few outgoing personalities started to become familiar with one another early.

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A little while later, another steward gathered the fifteen together and gave a routine briefing on entry matters.

“By joining this sect, you must stand as one. Let your heart be united for the sect’s ten thousand years. Never break the sect precepts. Always remember sect grace, and when a command comes, charge straight forward without hesitation.
Cross this mountain gate, and you have drawn a line beneath your former life. From now on, only the sect should dwell in your heart. Born as one of this sect, you die as its soul.
Our cultivation is struggle—against heaven, against others, against yourself. Delay by one step, and every step afterward is delayed.
A thirty-year foundation and a sixty-year foundation diverge in future potential beyond measure.
Though sect resources are abundant, no one gains anything by idling. Take up sect tasks and work for sect development, earning merit by contribution. Do not think admission means ease and comfort; if that thought arises, better you turn back now.”

……
The steward’s points were clear, but Li Jianan only grew more hesitant.
Now that he understood this sect more deeply, he admitted he had expected too much.
After seeing firsthand how resources dominate this world, he understood that this sect, like any other such realm, would not be the harmonious scene from some novels—teachers tenderly protecting disciples, brothers and sisters forever in harmony, letting one quietly and safely cultivate alone.
Still, he had held some expectation before.
Now the distance between expectation and reality was noticeable.

He understood that in such a realm, an ordinary cultivator who did not compete had no path and no hope of survival.
Still, he knew he did not fit this path, not with his way of “restoring his youth” carried into the next life.

After only a few points, Li Jianan could not bring himself to listen any longer.
The three-day insight trial had drained his spirit-soul. He sat where he was, took out a soul-nurturing pill, swallowed it, and refined his soul further.
This trial had consumed much spirit-soul, yet it had also tempered it. His awareness seemed almost at the threshold, and he seized this chance to refine it once more.
It was much like breaking a deadlock in boundary stages through life-and-death struggles between cultivators.

As expected, in no time the spiritual awareness that had been stuck at peak qi-cultivation loosened.
Li Jianan rejoiced and pressed on.
In his previous life, though his soul was powerful, it had finally stopped at late-stage qi-awareness.
In this life, returned to youth had strengthened it again; seven years of refinement had advanced him beyond before, yet he still had not broken into awareness like that of the foundation stage.
Now, for the first time, he saw hope.

A low hum.

In the next instant, the sea of awareness was suddenly clear as crystal.
It seemed the whole world had fallen silent.
What had before only passively sensed now became consciousness with the feel of eyes, ears, and touch.
At the instant of breakthrough, the spirit-seeing, no longer fully under his control, burst outward more than thirty feet.
He “saw” ants in a crack at that distance.
He “heard” the faint rustle of a worm pushing soil beneath a wall corner.
He “felt” the dry, brittle decay of a leaf drifting in the air.

“Wait—”
In that instant of advancement, drawn by the world’s hidden mechanisms, there was for a heartbeat a resonance of heaven and man, as if he had merged with the Great Way. As the awareness was pulled back along that current,
it had broken through the shielding prohibition of the neighboring quiet chamber.

He “saw” the fake alchemy steward elder there, with a calm, coaxing smile.
He “heard” her speak:
“Comrade Yan, you are so young and yet have already risen to a Second-Grade Alchemical Master. If you enter my Holy Sect, your future would be limitless. Why stay in a small clan where your life has no chance to advance? Think on it once more. Besides, your son’s spiritual root is not strong, his temperament is no better, and he has no one to guard his path or preserve his way…”

“Shh.”
When his spirit-awareness returned to the sea of his own mind, Li Jianan had already decided.

The Jade Cloud Sect was clearly superior to a clan in resources and openness. But if one could not become true transmission, one would not inherit sacred teachings, could not be valued by the sect, and would never have someone to stand guard over one’s path.
One must submit to sect deployment, carry out missions actively, and might even be forced into secret-domain trials where life is at risk.
In addition, this trial, done without experience, had not gone ideally. He knew he could do much better in another life and could try again if needed.
Even if he still wished to enter a sect, he did not need to cling to this one life.
And besides, Yan Qingwan, trained as the Yan family’s fostered alchemical disciple, was the clan’s only such talent—the family’s future and hope. She would never, under any circumstance, leave her clan.

After a long while, the steward finished speaking, and Yan Qingwan emerged from the quiet chamber.
“If there is no objection, follow me to complete the inner-door registration,” the steward said and stepped forward, clearly assuming no one would renounce.

“Sorry. For personal reasons, I withdraw.”
It was Li Jianan’s voice, and everyone was stunned.
Yan Qingwan looked at him in confusion. She had wanted to persuade him, but seeing his maturity and clear purpose over these seven years, she swallowed her concern and held her tongue.

The steward, astonished, stood for a moment. In all these years so many had sharpened their thoughts to get in, and more had begged than obtained. Yet this young man had abandoned it at the very threshold.
After a moment, he recovered himself and spoke little of it.
“Youthful impatience is common. Many who have not endured hardship dream of freedom and restraint-free lives. Some rules are simply hard for them to accept. It is understandable.”