Chapter 64

The recruitment had now ended, and they had one day to prepare for departure. Jiang Mang gathered all of his belongings in his storage artifact while reuniting with Xiao Lu. Xiao Lu's cultivation had grown to a high-rank saint beast while he was away, and its bloodline had further awakened. He was as strong as Xiao Liu despite being of a lower rank.

Xiao Lu always stayed by Jiang Mang's side while Xiao Liu laid on his shoulders. He had also started saying goodbye to Hao Ye, who, due to being charmed, didn't want to separate, but Jiang Mang convinced him that he first had to grow stronger and cultivate in the Devil Sect.

Chu Lingxin hugged him to say goodbye, and still treated him as a little brother. She also made him promise to come to visit her if he was coming to the Sword continent.

The most difficult parting was with Feng Xue with whom he had fallen in love with. They spend the remainder of the day together and promised to reunite after accomplishing a lot in their power. Feng Xue promised to wait until he came looking for her while trying to become an alchemist grandmaster, and Jiang Mang promised to come looking for her when he was free to leave the Zither palace and to propose to her when he qualified to do so. They parted with a kiss before the powers started departing towards their respective continents.

Jiang Mang joined up with the four females, who had joined the palace earlier during the recruitment. He also learned that they would be traveling for a month towards the Zither palace under elder Li's guidance. Elder Li had introduced herself to be a zither musician cultivator, who specialized in using soundwaves to kill her enemies. She also told them that she walked the dao of sound.

Jiang Mang wanted to relax during this journey, as he would face many challenges when he arrived at the palace. He started to interact with the four girls, who had become his fellow disciples. They all came from different backgrounds and continents and had only their identity as musician cultivators in common. Jiang Mang eventually became the center of the little group, due to his score and talent. He had become the little brother of the older girls, even though he was the strongest. The girls pampered him a bit, while also claiming possession of Xiao Liu, who remained in his cute fox form and stole the girls' hearts.

They also shared their musical experiences and alternately performed many pieces and qi songs while being evaluated by the rest. Jiang Mang's performances stood out the most. All of his performances were filled with emotions and he managed to move the hearts of the girls every time due to his perfected heart intent, which always manifested when he used his heart to play the music scores.

Elder Li had watched all of their performances but was only impressed by Jiang Mang. His musical mastery had already reached the realm of fusing with the instrument. This was an incredible achievement for someone his age and cultivation base.

This realm required a person to completely understand their own heart while being able to fuse it with their musical instruments and music. When the first week of their journey had passed, Jiang Mang took the initiative to ask her for guidance, which had surprised everyone and herself.

She was, however, pleased about his willingness to improve and learn. She earnestly guided him with his zither play. She started by explaining his current realm of mastery and the different existing realms. There existed three know realms of comprehension about music.

The first realm is fusing with one's instrument. The second realm was forming a heart. The third and last realm is becoming music. Jiang Mang had reached the first realm and needed to form his heart to reach the second realm. Elder Li had reached the second realm and formed her zither heart.

She then started guiding him to form his playstyle. This was necessary for every musician, as this allowed them to tread their path on the dao of music. Jiang Mang started playing his zither constantly during the journey and slowly started to form an aura that represented his playstyle. This aura was extremely calm and free but filled with power. It was like a simple but immovable mountain. It was like a flying bird looking out from its nest with utmost calm.

His aura had finished forming after two weeks and every time he played music, he would radiate this aura that represented his playing style of being free and unobstructed while maintaining a calm but firm heart.

Elder Li was impressed by his aura, as it was both complex and simple and was capable of representing his heart and will. During the last week, she was unable to guide him further on the musical aspect as the rest was his journey to tread, but she guided him a bit on the principles of using music and sound to attack enemies physically. This allowed him to become able of using his zither to form sound blades that rival swords in sharpness and rivaled the power of peak saint stage cultivators. He was now also capable of using his death zither to attack his enemies, while also performing other musical abilities like Illusion Song.

The last day of their journey had arrived, and they had now reached the Spirit continent. The Zither palace was located on a mountain called the misty mountain. There existed a legend that told that the mist was created by a massive formation surrounding the Zither palace. This mist was capable of making people return from where they entered and people needed the help of a special compass created by the Zither palace to enter the mountain and reach the palace.

They arrived at the misty mountain after one hour and needed to walk to the palace from this point on which would take half a day. Elder Li guided them slowly through the mist and started explaining what would happen to them from now on.

All of them would become an inner hall disciple and would be assigned an elder at the Sage realm to become their master. They would join the elder on their mountain peak and would learn cultivation under them. They would have a chance to become core disciples if they reached the King realm before the age of thirty, while those who reached the King after the age of fifty would lose their status as disciples and would become deacons responsible for certain administrative tasks. A person would also lose their status of a disciple if they remained at the sage realm when they became one hundred years.

There also existed outer hall disciples who were below the saint realm. Those disciples were obliged to work for inner hall disciples as long as they were older than twenty years. There would be two outer hall disciples assigned to every inner hall disciple, and they had to obey any of their commands within the sect but not those of other inner disciples.