Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
It was proven that Xia Fan had made the right choice.
When he mentioned this to the shopkeeper, he found that only a few empty rooms were left. The majority of the rooms had been booked by the sons from wealthy families, and the rest were either top-quality rooms with extremely high prices or small rooms on the ground floor with poor ventilation and dim light.
In addition, even the smallest single-bedroom was priced at one tael of silver a day. This price was similar to a big inn in the capital. It was clearly a rip-off.
Xia Fan finally understood why the invigilator had to include a rule of “prohibiting interfering in the daily lives of the villagers” into the examination rules. If such unscrupulous stores were made known to the public, they would probably be smashed and destroyed in a few days.
Based on such deductions, the three meals provided by the store would probably be overcharged too. If he didn’t carefully plan his expenditure, the ten taels of silver would probably not last him until the examination ended.
The disciples of the wealthy families didn’t lack money. However, with the restriction of the rules, silver became an important resource too.
It was up to the candidate’s discretion to use the silver to keep oneself in good shape or exchange it for information.
Xia Fan realized that he seemed to have figured out the thoughts of the exam organizers.
Compared to the imperial examination which only needed to answer questions and the martial arts examination which only needed weapons, the mystic examination emphasized more on the candidates’ overall skills.
It was freer but needed more considerations. Moreover, there were no model answers. As long as they didn’t go against the rules, one could do anything.
To people of this era, this kind of test method might be very peculiar, but to Xia Fan, he was used to it. He preferred this over a test of computation skills as it was completely dependent on an individual’s performance.
He took out three and a half taels of silver and booked for three days of housing as well as dinner that night.
It was a long journey from Feng Hua County to Qing Shan Town. Since he had sufficient time, he might as well take a good night’s rest and restore his state of mind.
Back in the room, Xia Fan couldn’t help but curl his lips in annoyance.
No wonder it was one of the last rooms to be picked. It was probably not even five square feet and had only a narrow bed and a wooden table. The ceiling was relatively high and was almost three meters from the ground. The windows were also very high, and one wouldn’t be able to reach them if they didn’t step on the table. It wouldn’t be possible for him to enjoy the scenery outside while revising.
Nevertheless, the room as a whole was very clean. There were no cobwebs in the corners of the room and no dust at the foot of the bed, which was undoubtedly much better than the thatched rooms left unattended. It seemed that the Privy Council’s money wasn’t spent in vain. Another advantage was that the room was located at the end of the walkway on the first floor at the corner of the entire inn and was considered the quietest place in the building. It was ideal for cultivation.
Thinking about this, Xia Fan placed down his baggage, climbed onto his bed, and began to meditate.
Ever since he was adopted by his cheap master, he had never stopped practicing like this for the last 15 years. No matter whether it was hot or cold, sunny or snowing.
This was also the way to start perfecting the skills in the world — by drawing Qi into the body.
It was very old-fashioned, but the ancestors believed that the universe was first opened and split into two, the heavier part known as the “accumulation”, which sank and was regarded as a dead object. The lighter part was known as the “gas”, which floated all over the world and coalesced into living things. Although living things were born from Qi, they had lost the Qi’s activity. Therefore, if they wanted to grow stronger, they must master the method of incorporating Qi again, so that they could continuously clean themselves and re-establish their connection with Qi.
This theory was quite similar to the rhetoric of how Dao produced everything. It seemed extremely materialistic, but the problem was that Qi did exist.
In fact, the ability to perceive Qi was the prerequisite for becoming a mystic.
Xia Fan still remembered the night when he “saw” Qi under his master’s guidance. Something more striking than stars appeared under the stars in the sky. They weren’t like clouds but more like another kind of star: dots of light flickered, floating in the wind. There were so many of them that it was impossible to count. Only at the far end of the field of vision did they join together to form a state of air.
That was the day when his original knowledge was shattered.
A series of questions rushed to his mind like an erupting volcano. He used almost all his might to stop these questions, which were clearly beyond his age, from coming out of his mouth.
He knew that even his master wouldn’t necessarily be able to give satisfactory answers.
After that, Xia Fan put a great deal of energy into his cultivation.
Day after day, he meditated. Even when he was hungry, he did not fall behind in his practice, learning how to draw talismans and learning everything about alchemy. Even his cheap master, who did not care much about anything, was shocked at his performance. He mentioned that even though there were many capable geniuses in this world, those who had such perseverance and enlightenment as a child were extremely hard to find.
Only Xia Fan knew that it had nothing to do with being a genius and that enlightenment came from a systematic education while perseverance grew with his age.
Indeed, he had lived in a very different world and he remembered everything vividly.
However, he couldn’t remember how he came to this era.
There seemed to be no clear boundary between the two. It was as though a long time had passed in the blink of an eye. When he opened his eyes again, he had become an orphan rolling around in the mud.
Even the name Xia Fan was a name he came up with by himself based on his past memories.
Fortunately, his cheap master did not delve deeper on this matter.
He probably thought that it wasn’t too strange for a three-year-old child to remember the name given by his parents.
With the ability to learn a step ahead, Xia Fan soon obtained this world’s knowledge.
Because living things were born from Qi, it also meant that consciousness was born before the body, and likewise, after the body died, consciousness did not necessarily return to the state of Qi. In some special cases, consciousness could exist independently or evolve into something else, such as ghosts. If left untreated, they would continue to grow in the Qi and eventually plague the Earth.
Although Xia Fan had yet to see a demon who could really scourge a place, he had dealt with some small evil spirits with his master and confirmed that these weren’t the gossips of the town.
In addition, since practicing how to induce Qi, he could feel the changes in his body, both in terms of strength and reaction, vision and hearing. If not for these changes, he wouldn’t have been able to follow his master’s wanderings in a time when medical care was underdeveloped and how one could die from getting drenched in the rain and managed to live until now.
This visible improvement could be said to have further motivated his practice.
If efforts paid off and losing weight was the best investment that would never disappoint, then training that involved pushing one to the limits was definitely worth treating seriously.
After entering the state of practicing, Xia Fan felt that the tiny stars were becoming one with his body. Through them, his consciousness seemed to have room for expansion infinitely. Each breath he took seemed to originate from both himself and the world.
He meditated for several hours.
After eating the dinner the shopkeeper gave him, he continued to induce Qi until late at night.
Unfortunately, one needed to concentrate when feeling Qi, and it couldn’t substitute rest. Similarly, one couldn’t sleep while practicing, so he had to sleep when he was tired.
When he was about to fall asleep, Xia Fan suddenly felt something strange.
He quickly opened his eyes and realized that the window high above his head was opened and a blood-red beam of light entered the room.
What… what was happening?
He grabbed the wooden sword and carefully stepped onto the table, tiptoed, and looked out of the window.
He saw a round red moon in the sky, turning the entire ground red!
Meanwhile, something strange happened in the town. Numerous bumps appeared on the ground. These bumps were slowly opened by skeletons beneath the ground who made strange noises.
Xia Fan was stunned.
This scene seemed familiar.
The skeletons seemed somewhat cute.
Hold on, cute?
One of the skeletons turned and leaped at Xia Fan’s window as though it realized his presence.
Then, Xia Fan sat up in shock and realized that he was still lying in bed.
That was a… dream?
If it was a dream, it felt too real, both in terms of clarity, sound, and touch, it was way too real to be a dream. He could remember the details even after he woke up.
He looked up at the window and held his breath.
The window was really opened, and there was something near it. After taking a few seconds to get used to the darkness, he recognized the black shadow’s shape.
It was a shadow of a person sitting near the window, and it was looking at him. Xia Fan knew that as he could see the person’s reflective golden eyes in the pitch darkness.
Xia Fan instantly realized that the strange dream had to do with the person in front of him.
“Are you… Are you also a picnic lover?”
“Picnic? What’s that… Hold on, why aren’t you afraid?” To his surprise, the other party replied quickly. The voice was… a female’s voice, and she sounded emotionless.
Why should I be afraid of a cute skeleton?
Xia Fan didn’t know how to reply.
However, since the other party was willing to speak, he heaved a sigh of relief. If she had malicious intent, she wouldn’t have waited till he opened his eyes.
He fumbled and pulled out matchsticks to light up the candle on the table. The dim light brightened the room, allowing him to see the other party.
The other party wasn’t human. That was the first thing Xia Fan confirmed.
Although “she” looked like a female, the ears at the top of her head were too eye-catching.
If the other party wasn’t cosplaying, this kind of species which was mixed with both human and non-human features would be called monsters or demons generally.
“Dog?” asked Xia Fan.
There was no reply.
“Cat?”
The reflective eyes really resembled that of a cat.
There was still no reply.
“Wolf?” he guessed again.
“Enough, I’m a fox!” Emotion finally entered her voice.