Revolt against the Heavens

Cao Yun first scanned the room and soon realized that every rack had only one kind of weapon indeed. But they were all exactly the same training weapon. He moved toward the sword rack. Thirty swords were present here and seventeen candidates had chosen this rack. Sword was the most used weapon by cultivators in the Hongchen Kingdom. It was the weapon of the first emperor, Emperor Nuwa and of the current emperor as well. In the tales, many of the great heroes of mankind used swords too. Sometimes they were strange variation of swords, but swords nonetheless.

The swords on the rack were all 3-star Earth rank. Not that great in the Wubei Sect but pretty decent for mere candidates. These weapons were probably only meant for training. Some of the commoners had never even been able to fight with such a weapon in their life, but of course they could not compare to the resources of a martial sect.

Cao Yun had an instant of hesitation but he did not want to use a sword with anything but the martial art of his family, 'Three Storms'. He wanted to have a look at all the martial art manuals but he needed to focus his time on looking for the right weapon and the right manual. He would probably get enough time to browse through these manuals after getting in the sect. They seemed to be pretty accessible if even candidates could try and learn them.

Deep in his thoughts, he tried to imagine himself with every weapon. The saber was a good option as it was pretty similar to a sword. Blunt weapons did not attract his attention. The whip, the chain or the meteor hammer seemed too complex to learn in only one week and he did not see himself carrying them around. The bow and arrow was intriguing but he did not go well with the way he liked to fight. What he loved in a fight was exchanging moves and he did not see how it would work out with a bow.

Finally, he thought about the long weapons. He had long hesitations before going to the spear. As he lacked experience with these weapons, he would rather use the simplest one first. Around seven disciples had chosen the spear as well and they had already taken their weapon.

Cao Yun put a hand on the shaft of one of the spears. Infusing his intent in his hand, he felt the spear and decided that he liked it. He could see himself fighting with such a weapon.

When he finally took his weapon, at least a quarter of the time was gone.

-

Outside the building, up in the sky, the chief elders were still watching. With their spiritual senses, they could easily see everything that was going on inside the walls.

Both Xiao Xuefeng and Chief Elder Baishen got intrigued.

"Sister Baishen, what's wrong?"

"Nothing, it's just strange. When I saw him fight, I clearly felt that he was a sword user. There was no trace of spearmanship in his moves."

"Chief Elder Baishen is right. When I found him, he was using a sword and had no spear on him."

"Interesting..." Chief Elder Luoming was perplexed and Chief Elder Suxian just kept quiet since the last trial. "Let's see what martial art he's going to chose."

-

Once he had a spear in hand, Cao Yun began browsing through the manuals. There were six rows of manuals. The lowest row was marked '1-star Earth' and the highest '1-star Human'. Martial arts could also be categorized by the same ranks as weapons or pills. It did not mean that someone with a 1-star Earth rank martial art could not beat an opponent wielding a 2-star Earth rank one, or even higher. After all, you could practice a powerful martial art and be unskilled. Some masters could even push their martial art to higher levels. The system was just based on average cultivators with the highest level of mastery of the art.

Many names went by: 'Thundering Spear', 'Butterfly Dances in the Wind', 'Seven Stars of Death', 'Sun Wang's Spear', 'Forty-Two Variations of Stabbing and Slashing', ...

Some of the names seemed a little ridiculous to Cao Yun as 'The Monkey Rises its Tail'. Well, a martial art could not be judged by the name alone. He proceeded to open some manuals and closed them right away. Maybe some martial art could be judged by their name after all.

After browsing through many manuals, Cao Yun had some favorites but not one that he really thought was the one. The time was still running. He finally looked at the highest row.

As soon as a martial art was in the Human rank, there was a qualitative change. In the Earth rank, martial arts could be practiced by anyone, even mortals. Obviously, they could not all push it to its limit but they could still wield it and apply it in actual fight. The Human rank was more targeted toward Mortal Warriors as they were able to project their Qi outside of their body.

In these martial arts, you needed a great control over your Qi, and the ability to bring it anywhere in your body, and further outside. It was always possible to use one of these martial arts without being a Mortal Warrior. As a middle or late Mortal, you could control the flow of Qi in your body, allowing you to use a fraction of these arts, but they would be weakened and not that much different from 5-star Earth rank martial arts. However, as soon as you were able to project your Qi outside, that's the moment where they would shine the brightest.

Once again, Cao Yun saw many names and browsed quickly through the contents of some manuals.

Around the middle of the row, a manual caught his eye 'Azure Dragon's Seven Piercing Stars'. The manual only had ten pages. The first one explained the general idea.

"Move your Qi in your meridians as stars in a constellation. Harness the power of the Azure Dragon and each part of your spear will become the body of the divine beast." The page continued to present the characteristic of the art.

Then, there was a chart of stars. It showed seven Mansions, each one composed of several constellations with one or many stars each: Horn, Neck, Root, Room, Heart, Tail and Winnowing Basket. Some of these constellations were strange as Cao Yun had no memory of ever seeing them in the sky. Could this martial art have been invented so long ago that the stars were different? Or perhaps, it came from another world? There were legends of cultivators coming from other worlds.

Anyway, it intrigued Cao Yun who kept on reading.

Every page was related to a Mansion and its constellations. It detailed how to move your Qi and several movements centered around a same idea. For example, the Horn Mansion focused on stabbing with the spear, while the Neck Mansion focused on firm stances and breathing techniques.

Finally the last page was an esoteric description of an Azure Dragon, a legendary divine beast. It was big enough to cover an entire galaxy with its body. Strangely, Cao Yun could not shake the feeling that this divine beast was real. Maybe the constellations did not refer to real stars but to points of the dragon's body.

As soon as he had read the first page, he was hooked. After that, he took the manual with him. But he still browsed through the others, just to be sure. He used the time he had left to look again over all the spear manuals. Maybe, they could give him some pointers. Comparing several martial arts was a good idea to master your art, as long as you did not get lost in them.

-

"Sister Baishen, what do you think of his choice?"

"He has keen eyes. The 'Azure Dragon's Seven Piercing Stars' is a great martial art for the spear. But I fear it may be a little too much for a junior who's inexperienced with the weapon."

"Do you think he'll fail?" Chief Elder Suxian started talking again.

"I cannot know for sure. I'd say he should be able to learn it to a degree, but I don't know about his result. It's best not to speculate."

"But maybe Brother Suxian would like to bet another of his treasure?" Chief Elder Luoming was relentless in his teasing. By now, his friend knew better than to argue. But a small hope was beginning to be revived within him. Maybe he would not have to part with his Exquisite Purple Jasmin.

Xiao Xuefeng was as calm as usual. All this did not really concern it. She had just taken a liking to the boy and was interested to see what he could accomplish. Even if she was to lose the bet with Chief Elder Suxian, she would just have to forge a pill. And she was confident in her ability to do so.

-

The time was up.

Elder Tang got back on the ring and addressed the candidates.

"So as to ensure fairness, each one of you will be shown to a chamber. As soon as you are all settled in, you will have an entire week to train. Servants will bring you your daily necessities. After that, we'll bring you all back here for the evaluation of your progress. So calm yourself and focus only on the martial art you chose!"

Several sect disciples lead the candidates to the upper floors where individual rooms were arranged for every candidate.

Cao Yun got himself on the fifth floor. The room was pretty spacious but it was completely empty. A window gave a nice view of the Heidai Peak. Apart from that, this room was the definition of spartan.

Having no time to loose on sightseeing, Cao Yun put his spear on the ground and sat cross-legged. He took the blue manual out and started to learn.

The first thing he did was to focus his intent to learn every star of every constellation of every Mansion. With his intent memorizing that much information was not a problem at all. In the time of a cup of tea*, he could draw them back with his eyes closed.

Now he began reading the other pages. He also memorized all the information. He even memorized the esoteric poem about the Azure Dragon. It was not rare for secret knowledge to be hidden in inconspicuous writings. He would maybe discover some hidden truths within the poem one day. Now, the manual was completely memorized in his mind and he put it down.

After an hour had gone by, he deigned take his spear. The first thing he did was to try out all the moves he had memorized to see whether his form was good. It was not perfect but it was very close to the right movements. Just knowing the moves was not everything. He also needed to perfect them and be able to go from one to the other seamlessly.

He repeated them over and over again until the end of the first day. For some moves, he repeated them up to a thousand times as he thought they were either important or he had difficulty reproducing them. As a huge part of the time was gone, Cao Yun focused on directing his Qi following the manual. He lost no time on cultivating anything else.

He first tried without using Yi. Trying to coordinate the body, the breathing and the flow of Qi at the same time was pretty hard. Without Yi, it would probably take a day or two, but he had no time. He then circulated Yi the Earth Intent and all of a sudden his Qi obeyed him without any problem. In less than two hours, he was able to perfectly focus on every point the manual was talking about.

He imagined an opponent against him and used the rest of the time to try out different combinations. The manual talked about stabbing, parrying, deflecting, avoiding, swooping, hitting with the shaft, feigning and other techniques.

At first, Cao Yun's moves were too rigid as he tried to copy them exactly as they were described. He was fighting as a puppet imitating as much as possible. But as he practiced, he became more flexible, the techniques were beginning to adapt to his body and his own rhythm.

-

"Sister Baishen, what do you think about his technique?"

"It's becoming smoother. At first, it was a little too formal. He's pretty quick to get the hang of it. I'd say he's almost reached Small Success, not bad."

As with 'Sealing the Seven Demons in the Nine Peaks', martial arts had several levels of mastery, Small Success, True Success and Perfection.

"But the way he's able to control his Qi is flawless for a Mortal. I'd say that even a Mortal Warrior could not do it as accurately as he does. Miss Xiao, is he perhaps an alchemist? "

"No. At least, I don't think so."

"You don't think so?"

"I only met the boy a few days ago."

"What do you mean Miss Xiao?"

"You remember that I went out to take care of the demonic cultivators who were plaguing the region, right?"

"Well, yes. I still think that this job was beneath you. The Province Governor should have sent some soldiers to take care of them."

"But you probably did not hear that I actually killed none of the demonic cultivators."

All the chief elders were surprised.

"Wait, does it mean that HE did?!"

"Indeed, there were twenty-three demonic cultivators and he killed them all, alone. He even confronted ten of them at once and won."

"I see. It's no surprise that he's such a good fighter."

-

The last day had finally come. That's when a strange thought occurred in Cao Yun's mind. He tried to read the final poem again. As he spoke, he felt a very weak filament of Qi flowing through certain pathways in his meridians. It seemed to follow the rhythm of the poem. Without his superior intent, he would have missed it completely as the flow of Qi was extremely thin. Reading out loud the poem, a strange connection was forming between the words and his Qi. Very soon, he recognized some patterns he had just practiced.

Then he was able to draw parallels between some words or phrases and moves from the manual. Considering that the time was lacking, he decided to try and perform the moves according to the rhythm of the poem. He only had the time to do it once before being interrupted. The time was up and all candidates had to come down to the ring for evaluation.

During his walk down, a stronger filament of Qi flowed unconsciously through his Meridians according to the poem.

*the time for a cup of tea = 15min