As on every day before, he finished his meridian-forging cultivation without a hitch, then drove the newborn Dao essence to take its proper place within his Heaven-Access Palace, bringing himself one step closer to laying his foundation.
Once the forging was done, Jiang Wang did not rest. He lit the oil lamp at his desk and began to copy out the *Supreme Scripture of the Purple Void's Sublime Mystery*.
Only the two siblings shared the house, so they lived in the main rooms and had turned the south-facing chamber into a study. The senior brothers had long warned him how cold and unbending Xiao Iron Face could be, and so Jiang Wang copied with perfect formality, without the least carelessness. The lessons that taught secret arts and techniques mattered beyond measure — to miss even one was a crippling loss. So he copied as swiftly and cleanly as he could—
"Big brother, what are you doing?"
Jiang An'an had slipped into the study at some point, and stood staring with her great, dark, round eyes, full of curiosity.
"..." said Jiang Wang. "Practicing my calligraphy."
"Why practice all of a sudden?"
Jiang Wang put on a grave face. "As the saying goes, the hand reveals the man. Judge a person by their writing and you may tell truth from falsehood. The master taught all of us that, didn't he? Calligraphy is very important. You must remember to practice too, An'an."
"But how much longer will it take..."
"...Quite a while," said Jiang Wang. "You go to bed first tonight."
"Oh..."
"What is it? Is something the matter?"
"No, nothing, nothing..."
She turned and left the study, sighing in the grand manner of a little adult.
The foul old man of a master had punished her by making her copy out so many characters. Now the study was taken up too — where was she supposed to write?
It was not that the study could not hold both of them; it was simply that she did not want her brother to know she had been punished with copying.
Jiang An'an thought for a moment, fetched a small stool into the bedroom, spread out ink and paper, and then squatted down before the stool to begin copying on her own.
"Heaven and earth, dark and yellow; the universe, vast and wild; sun and moon, waxing and waning; stars, arrayed in their ranks..."
She cast a glance at the study. The lamp was still lit. Mm. She went on copying...
...
The moon stood at high heaven. Jiang Wang rubbed his wrist dry of ink and blew on it, snuffed the lamp, and rose to return to the bedroom. Even with his stamina and speed, he was still far from having copied a hundred times over — but at this hour he had something more important to do.
For tonight was the fifteenth of the ninth month — challenge day in the Great Void Illusion.
By the time he reached the bedroom, An'an had already fallen asleep. He tucked the quilt around her, then lay down in his own bed.
The silver moon-mark in his palm surfaced and began to warm. Jiang Wang closed his eyes, and his spirit-sense slipped into the Great Void Illusion.
The ink-words on the sundial had changed: 【The Lord of the Green Jade Altar has confirmed the challenge. The trial begins in one mark of the hour.】
The Lord of the Green Jade Altar had finally decided to challenge!
Reading those words, Jiang Wang felt at once an urgent pressure — time would not wait — and yet a strange easing, as though a boot had at last dropped.
On the fifteenth of the eighth month just past, the lord of the Green Jade Altar had likewise chosen to forfeit. The shadow Zuo Guanglie had cast over him in days gone by lay too heavy. But it also said this: a challenger who had forfeited so many times was now coming for victory with everything on the line.
Jiang Wang did nothing superfluous. He only emptied his mind and silently waited for the hour to come.
When at last the sundial shifted, a round, jade-colored stone platform rose beneath Jiang Wang at the same instant, and bore him up, out of the Dongzhen Ruins Blessed Land, into the brilliant galaxy of stars.
The platform was plain in workmanship, free of ornament, yet a natural breath of antiquity drifted about it. Its surface was scarred and worn — cuts of blades, cuts of swords, burn marks, scorch marks... too many to count — and carried a fierce, killing austerity.
Jiang Wang understood: this was his Sword-Discussion Platform. Since obtaining the Void Key and entering the Great Void Illusion, he had never once used it. First, because he knew that at his present strength, the Illusion could only cut him down — no training effect; and second, because every summoning of the Sword-Discussion Platform cost ten points of Merit.
Apart from what his Blessed Land naturally produced, he gained no earnings from the platform, and so could not bear to spend it. The more so because, having tasted the consummate power of the Purple Qi from the East Sword Art, he knew better than ever how precious Merit was.
Before long he could make out in the depth of the star river a platform of like make flying toward him, and upon it, a figure in black robes, garments streaming. The two platforms surged in the star river, accelerating, and crashed together.
Two small platforms fused into one great one. Jiang Wang and his opponent stood apart at either end. Save for its greater size, this merged and expanded platform was no different from before. It measured a full hundred paces across, and Jiang Wang knew — this was the true field of combat.
By the peculiar rules of the Great Void Illusion, Jiang Wang could not make out his opponent's face. But he could hear his voice.
"Since my shameful defeat at your hands, for this battle I have prepared fully half a year!" said the Lord of the Green Jade Altar. "At last I have cultivated the remnant strike of the ancient Gentlemen's Nine Swords. I beg you to try it!"
The Gentlemen's Nine Swords of antiquity? It sounded extremely powerful... a disciple of the Confucian school?
Even as Jiang Wang thought this, he was already secretly marshaling his true essence, bracing himself. Whatever true essence he spent within the Great Void Illusion was not real, and so he could afford to throw all of himself into the fight. The Purple Qi from the East Sword Art was in essence a transcendent sword canon; only when flooded with abundant true essence could it truly unleash its might.
And so what he would display next was a strength he had never before shown to anyone — his strongest state.
"The path of heaven is strong; the gentleman strives ceaselessly with himself!"
Then Jiang Wang heard the Lord of the Green Jade Altar quietly intone these words.
And Jiang Wang saw a sword. A sword that looked ordinary, unremarkable in every way. It only pressed forward, onward. Ahead lay a mountain — the sword pierced the mountain. Ahead lay a river — the sword cut the river. Ahead lay the vast, boundless sky — the sword thrust straight into the sky as well!
It bent a hundred times without breaking; it went no matter what lay before it.
It split stone, felled forest, slew demons, exterminated evil... this one sword struck at everything that blocked it, whatever that might be!
Jiang Wang still gripped his own sword; the Dao essence gathered in his Heaven-Access Palace seethed and surged, and the killing art of the Purple Qi from the East had nearly become instinct. But that sword had already pierced his heart.
He had fallen in battle.
The Lord of the Green Jade Altar stared at the suddenly empty platform, stunned. He had placed considerable faith in the Gentlemen's Nine Swords, scattered and lost to the long river of history — but he also remembered how powerful his opponent was.
Yet this battle had been nothing but a crushing, a sweeping away.
He had won.
The Lord of the Green Jade Altar — no, now he was the Master of the Dongzhen Ruins. The new lord of the twenty-third of the Seventy-Two Blessed Lands stood frozen on the platform, his heart surging.
And Jiang Wang, dropped back down to the Green Jade Altar, had by now also accepted the fact of his defeat.
Under the merit-production rules of the thirty-six upper Blessed Lands, each grade rose by one hundred points of Merit. This month he would reap only seventeen hundred and fifty points — a full hundred short.
Within the Great Void Illusion, a Blessed Land was merely a title, with no true relation to the Blessed Lands of the waking world. So the passage from the Dongzhen Ruins to the Green Jade Altar changed nothing of the surroundings — it remained a dreamlike space misted with immortal vapors, even the sundial the same. The only thing that changed was the Merit produced.
Jiang Wang thought a moment, then silently called up his Dao-Platform.
His eighteen hundred and fifty points of Merit from the eighth month remained untouched; adding this month's seventeen hundred and fifty gave a total of three thousand six hundred. Jiang Wang poured all of it into the Purple Qi from the East Sword Art and set the deduction in motion.
That ancient Gentlemen's Nine Swords had struck him too deeply. It was a sword art he had had no way to resist — not the barest chance. And so he needed a stronger sword canon, even if it cost him everything he had.
The jade text on the green bamboo desk shifted briefly, then suddenly stopped. A line of ink-characters appeared on the jade text: 【The current sword art has reached the limit of a first-tier Dao-Platform and can no longer be deduced. Remaining Merit: three thousand five hundred and ninety.】
Jiang Wang's eyelid twitched. This blasted Dao-Platform! It had not completed the deduction, yet it still deducted ten points!
It turned out the Dao-Platform's power to deduce techniques and arts was not without bound; it rested on a fixed foundation and a fixed ceiling. And Dao-Platforms of different levels could probe different limits.
The Purple Qi from the East Sword Art had itself been deduced from base secular martial arts, and it had already hit its ceiling. Unless the Dao-Platform was upgraded, it could advance no further.
Jiang Wang had no stronger strike left to his name, nor any desire to climb the Sword-Discussion Platform only to be cut down again. So he settled his mind a little and withdrew from the Great Void Illusion.
But however he reasoned it, this month he had lost a hundred and ten points of Merit for nothing.
At the thought, a deep sigh escaped Jiang Wang.
"Brother, what are you doing out here?" Jiang An'an's voice came from the room, full of concern. Whether she had woken in the small hours, or had never truly fallen asleep, he could not say.
Jiang Wang answered with vexation: "I'm pulling an all-nighter. I'll call you when it's done."
In the darkness, Jiang An'an's eyes lit up at once. "Is it tasty?"