Chapter 119: Unquenchable Vessel

During the following days, in the Wubei Sect, several changes occurred. Meng Jia was temporarily put in charge of the alchemy pavilion. Usually, another Spirit Warrior would have been chosen, but Xiao Xuefeng trusted this man. What few people knew was that Meng Jia and Xiao Xuefeng had known each other for a very long time, since Meng Jia was a kid in fact.

Xiao Xuefeng had even asked him to join their Golden Flowery Fragrance Institute. But Meng Jia was not attracted by power or fame. At the end of the day, he liked to lead a quiet life. Even in his cultivation, he wasn't in any hurry. In fact, he probably could have broken through a long time ago, but he preferred to be absolutely sure. The last three stages of the Mortal Warrior realm were a tribulation to become a Spirit Warrior. Many failed and received wounds that would never heal. Some, too hasty, even died in the process.

For Meng Jia, there was one important rule, 'patience is a virtue'. He only desired to leave a simple life without too many restrictions and responsibilities. Yet, all of a sudden, he had to manage the entire alchemy pavilion. This was a nightmare come true.

Zhong Ling, the main receptionist of the alchemy pavilion was now chasing after him everyday to force more and more work on the poor man. Lately, a strange game of cat and mouse was going on in the corridors of the pavilion. Meng Jia's attitude was not a problem when he was only an instructor, but now that he was the temporary chief elder, this was another story.

The alchemy pavilion was not the only place in trouble. The disciplinary pavilion was in a difficult position as well. With their chief elder being demoted, they had lost a lot of their face and they were getting more and more disorganized. This resulted in the chief elders having increasingly more paperwork. Even though Spirit Warriors could work longer without sleeping, eating or drinking, and still staying focused, this wasn't good for anyone. To find a solution, an election was held to choose a temporary chief elder for the disciplinary pavilion.

Only the chief elders were authorized to vote. Many decided that it was better to put this charge on a chief elder of a lesser pavilion. And finally, the responsibility fell upon Chief Elder Luoming. He was in charge of the arts pavilion. Thus, the other chief elders decided unilaterally that he probably didn't have a whole lot of work to do and could accept a bit more. In fact, the person who put this idea in everyone's mind had long left. It was Chief Elder Suxian.

Both chief elders seemed to always tease each other.

Chief Elder Luoming was in the study of the disciplinary pavilion with a mountain of paperwork on his desk, and several others on the floor. Moreover, he also had to put some order back into the pavilion. This was a living hell. All the other chief elders finally saw the opportunity to give up their newly acquired tasks to him. The disciplinary pavilion was not only in charge of dealing out punishments. Their main task was to make sure that the rules were adhered to. And most of the time, it meant to do a lot, an awful lot, of paperworks.

Luckily, Chief Elder Luoming was rather competent. The first few days, he only focused on putting the pavilion back in order before delegating the work to the competent personnel. However, he still had a lot to do and could not attend to many exhibitions from his own pavilion.

Ironically, he did such a good job, that many people were wondering whether he should not get the position permanently. Instead of finding a replacement for the chief elder of the disciplinary pavilion, some were now petitioning to search for a replacement for the chief elder of the arts pavilion. Chief Elder Luoming was suffering from headaches... If he did a poor job, he would be drowned by paperworks. But if he did a good job, he would be stuck here forever. Chief Elder Suxian would have a really good laugh.

-

Several days passed and Cao Yun went back to sparring with Long Huafang. They spaced out their training to optimize their benefits. If they fought together too often, they would get used to each other and this could hurt their martial arts. This could lead them to being over specialized in fighting each other. They would believe they were making progress but when faced with someone completely different, they would realize their mistake. Of course, Chief Elder Baishen was there and would not permit such a mistake.

They decided to train together around three to four times a month. Long Huafang was always extremely domineering. In their second sparring session, Cao Yun was able to completely escape the effects of her 'The Moon in the Eye', simply by looking away. She had to rely on her other techniques. In the end, Cao Yun got the upper hand by a small margin. However, both of them got a lot of benefits. Long Huafang could feel her sixth moon being carved in her mind. Contrary to Cao Yun, she could not enter her sea of consciousness so she could only make gross estimates. However, Cao Yun was able to see that his fourth star, the Room Star, was indeed becoming more and more tangible.

He was now sure that this Room Star was linked to array formations. Thus, Cao Yun decided to get back to training his side occupations, alchemist and array formation master. Chief Elder Suxian wasn't here anymore but Sun Liao's advice would probably be enough given his current level. And of course, Sun Liao was extremely happy to help Cao Yun.

-

"Brother Chen, what you describe to me looks an awful lot like what I personally do during my fights. You see, setting a full array formation in the middle of a fight is almost impossible unless you're either a late Mortal Warrior or a Spirit Warrior. And even then, the array formation you're able to set is way weaker than it should be. Personally, I use mostly the Nine Halls. This is a somewhat advanced principle among the Eight Directions, but very useful in practice."

Sun Liao took out a small map and a piece of paper on which he drew a few lines.

"Let's suppose you want to set up an array formation in this wood. You would need to be there and analyze every detail, even use a compass. In an actual fight, unless you prepared yourself beforehand - which is the best thing to do of course - you would be unable to set anything. However, by abstracting the place, you can figure out the most important patterns you need. This is called making a Bamboo Map, because the first ones were all drawn on bamboo sticks.

"You see, the point is to figure out what the main characteristics of the place you're in are. Let's take this map for example. The most important features are the small lake, the hill here, the density of trees there, this huge rock on the side. You see, you take these elements and then, you create a much simpler map. And your array formation will be set according to this Bamboo Map.

"The more experienced you are, the better your abstractions. Grand masters will take much more details into consideration and their Bamboo Maps will be more complex while being much simpler than the actual map and they will really contain only the elements they need, nothing more. The Nine Halls principle is fundamentally the art of extracting the relevant information from too much information, and condensing it for a single purpose.

"In an actual fight, you can use this principle to create a Bamboo Map in your mind. Then, you set up your array formation according to this Bamboo Map. You can also try and incorporate your enemy in this map and even the kind of techniques he uses. The fact that everything else has already been simplified will make taking your enemy into account that much easier. Of course, your array formations won't last as long and they won't be as powerful as ones you set up with more time and knowledge, but they will still do what they're meant to."

With his 'Shen Visualization', this process would be even easier for Cao Yun. Just by looking at a place, he could form a complete image of it in his mind. However, he had not thought about trying to abstract a simpler visualization.

"Let's try your ability, alright. Let's assume that you want to create an Elusive Hare array formation in this room. Draw me the Bamboo Map you would use and then explain your setting process. Let's see how you fare!"

Sun Liao kept criticizing Cao Yun's Bamboo Map over and over again. In the end, he drew around a hundred maps before Sun Liao deemed it passable. The following days, Sun Liao had Cao Yun repeat the process in various locations, either by going there themselves if it was within the Wubei Sect or using a map. At one point, he even provided him with only a painting of a place, or even just a description. Even without seeing the place, he should be able to extract enough information to craft a Bamboo Map.

Sun Liao was very harsh in his critics. Fortunately, Cao Yun knew that he meant no harm, he was just very abrasive. In fact, Sun Liao was not a very good teacher in the fact that he wasn't able to understand that things didn't come as easy to others as they did to him. However, the content of his explanations were always clear and on point. So, on one hand, he was extremely demoralizing, but on the other, he was extremely knowledgeable and ready to share.

During their training, Sun Liao also explained to his friend what he was doing. For several days now, he had asked questions to many other array formation masters. To Cao Yun, he insisted on the fact that he obviously had the answers to all these questions even though they were difficult. He even added that some of those he questioned were so stupid that they didn't even know the answers to such problems. Until now, he had greatly reduced the list of suspects but he still had a few of them. In the end, he was particularly suspicious of Lü Bai and Meng Hanyi.

Meng Hanyi was a second-year in the Hidden Orchids Faction while Lü Bai was a fourth-year in the Enshrouding Temple Faction, Sun Liao's own faction. Both of them had very similar styles from what he had seen. However, he had not been able to talk with them directly as of yet. Being a first-year, he was forbidden from leaving the Wubei Sect, not them.

-

Cao Yun's routine kept on going for several weeks. He would train with Long Huafang frequently, but not too much. The rest of the time, Chief Elder Baishen found him perfect opponents. His fourth star was fully materialized and he was on the right track to understand its first move. This was also greatly helped by Sun Liao's training. Besides that, he still trained his lesser meridians and had hired people to stand guard when he was using the Seamless Qi Vortex array formation.

Huang Cixi was now out of the physician pavilion and back in Cao Yun's room. She had naturally been dispensed of many activities. As she was advancing very fast in her mind cultivation thanks to the pills Cao Yun had gotten for her, she insisted to repay him. As such, she kept on massaging him with the Contrived Shell Balm.

During one of Chief Instructor Peng's training day, Cao Yun finally felt that his lesser meridians were fully opened. As Chief Instructor Peng was reddening his skin with his turtle tail, he felt as though a dam had broken. All of a sudden, his Qi got excited and flew through all his meridians, through the Eight Extraordinary Vessels, the Standard Meridians, the collecting collaterals, the divergent collaterals, the muscle meridians, and even the cutaneous meridians. Cao Yun did not want to lose this fantastical feeling so he focused his Po character to observe it. Very soon, he also used both his Yi, Zhi and Shen, not to focus his intent but the opposite. He made sure to abstain from focusing on any singular point in order to feel the entirety of his body.

According to the 'Coiling Turtle' method, trying to focus your intent on the flow of Qi would slow it down, or even interrupt it. You had to focus on the feelings themselves without trying to impose your intent on your Qi. And as he did, Cao Yun felt that all his body was overflowing with Qi. Even his deepest tissues were infused with this overjoyed energy. It also nourished his most superficial tissues and his bones and muscles were vibrating. Seeing this phenomenon, Chief Instructor Peng stayed his hand. He let enough time for Cao Yun to lose himself in all these sensations.

"Good, good! It reminds me of the day when I achieved it as well. I was so full of energy that I exhausted many... I probably shouldn't talk about that. Anyway, Chen Guo, congratulations! Now, when you'll reach 7th-grade Mortal, you should achieve a breakthrough in less than a year. In my case, it took me a bit more than eight months, while most cultivators waste more than a year. But I don't think I have to remind you. You still need to break through to 7th-grade Mortal. Right now, I have nothing more to teach you. You should go lift some weights, then you'll only focus on gathering more and more Qi. With fully opened Meridians, your body will be able to store much more Qi, so you should really work on gathering and condensing as much as you can. The more Qi you have and the better its quality, the easier the next stages will be."

Cao Yun could feel the truth of his words in his flesh. His Qi could flow without any hindrance throughout all of his body, but its quantity seemed smaller now than when he had entered the 6th-grade Mortal. This was paradoxical because he had absorbed so much Qi. But with a bigger container, his body felt a bit empty. This was called having an 'Unquenchable Vessel', as even huge amount of Qi could not quench its thirst for it.

As Chief Instructor Peng had told him, Cao Yun went lifting some weights. He pushed his limits up to 275 dan. The upper limit of a 6th-grade Mortal was 200 dan, but as he could mobilize more Qi in his muscle meridians, his muscles were nourished beyond what a normal 6th-grade Mortal could hope to achieve.