Chapter 13- Moon Crossing the Lake

Three months into his convalescence, he was visited by Brother Fu and a stressed looking senior who practically screamed “Overworked Scholar” with every move. He was introduced as Librarian Yan, one of their few remaining experts on archaic script. Liren was in the room with him, painting as he read his medical books.

“The manuals you brought back have been given a preliminary translation. The language is fundamentally the same as what we speak today, but you already know the difficulty in translating the characters. A direct, literal translation is often intensely misleading, especially since teaching by analogy and metaphor is such a vital part of daoist pedagogy.” Librarian Yan launched into the discussion without any preamble.

“The arts are interesting. While they are clearly out of date, they are also…” He slid a glance at Brother Fu, who rolled his eyes and leaned in.

“They are better than the sort of arts a mere kingdom-dominating sect like ours could expect to develop on our own. While it is true that any art can be polished to a godly level with enough practice and insight, some are assuredly better than others to begin with. Which probably needs some explaining.” Brother Fu smiled slightly. It wasn’t a reassuring expression.

“Eight Directions Palace was a transcendental sect in its era, and its fall is still the subject of much mystery and disagreement.” Librarian Yan jumped back into the conversation. “They occupied, to varying degrees, an area spanning several kingdoms. Which kingdoms, we don’t know, other than our own and a few of our neighbors. They all had different names and somewhat different borders in those days. We are also not the first kingdom dominating sect in this area to emerge since their collapse.”

Brother Fu stroked his beard, the same causal gesture Tian had seen him do since he first stepped foot into the Monastery. Ascension hadn’t changed the habits of two centuries.

“It is one of two major reasons you don’t hear us claim that we are their successors. The second major reason being that nobody seems to have inherited their core legacy. The arts of theirs that we have collected have been the sort of thing we would expect from fairly ordinary disciples. Powerful, yes, but not world toppling, and frequently with drawbacks they could accept but would be unacceptable in the modern era.”

Brother Fu took a deep breath, then forced a smile.

“They are, however, very powerful for the right cultivator. Fair to say that turning them over to the sect counts as a significant contribution.”

Librarian Yan leaned forward, his eyes brightening. “Among the books you turned in, we have found a body cultivation art that improves both strength, durability and longevity, a yang qi cultivation art that is going to make a lot of Heavenly Realm cultivators very happy, and the sword cultivators have set up a rotating stakeout waiting for the sword arts to finish being translated.”

Ah, the Gallant Swordsmen of the sect. They picked a completely nonsensical weapon, and then acted like it was brilliant. Well, they weren’t bad people, and it was nice they had a hobby. Tian approved of hobbies. Librarian Yan gathered himself, savoring what came next.

“You also turned in two shen arts. That gives the sect a new official total of thirty five shen cultivation arts. There are more than that floating around, but generally people don’t submit them to the sect, preferring to hang on to them and treat them like a hidden weapon.”

Tian reckoned that said a lot about the Inner Court, and even more about the Monastery, but kept his mouth shut. Librarian Yan looked displeased by the lack of reaction.

“By comparison, after weeding out what are essentially duplicates, we have six hundred and eleven vital energy cultivation manuals suitable for use at the Heavenly Realm.”

“Wow.” Tian did his best, and Librarian Yan knew when to cut his losses.

“There were also assorted material refining manuals and the like. There were two books in particular that we felt were worth your immediate attention. This includes you, Junior Hong.” The librarian pulled out two books, clearly handwritten.

“A Guide to Heavenstep Mountain for True Disciples, a field guide for Eight Directions Palace disciples stationed here, telling them what resources to be on the lookout for, and where to find them. As you might imagine, it will not be going into general circulation until a complete survey is done based on its information. The other manual is Moon Crossing the Lake. A movement art. I hesitate to call it a light body art, since it incorporates so much more than that.”

That seemed mildly interesting, but not worth the trip. Brother Fu read his expression and explained. “It’s a yin and water aspected art, one that you can start cultivating now and keep on using right through the Heavenly Realm and beyond. And you should start cultivating it now. Daughter Liren-”

That had Hong sputtering and waving her hands, but Brother Fu ignored her. “Cultivating this art will help condense your yang vital energy without dampening it. Zihao, this will help you bring your body under your control. Your yang vital energy is overcondensing in your lower dantian, and not properly transforming into yang qi and perfusing your physique. Hence the yang deficiency. This art will help you control your body even with that handicap, and it is freakishly strong.”

“Oh? High praise.” Tian murmured.

“If anything, it’s an understatement. I was unaware it was possible to jump in one pond and emerge from a completely different pond, miles away. But if we have done our translation right, it’s not impossible. Merely very hard. And I know you, son. You aren’t afraid of hard things.”

Moon Crossing The Lake was the strangest art Tian had ever seen, and he considered himself at least a little experienced in such matters. Heavenly Imperial Swallows was a strange art. It required him to turn needles into extensions of himself. Very strange. He had a chanting statue in his belly that wanted to crush all evil while refining his body. It couldn’t get much stranger than that. The author of Moon Crossing the Lake, as befitting some ancient genius of the Eight Directions Palace, disdained the disbelief of ants.

On the inside cover of the original text was stamped the words “Property of the Eight Directions Palace, Heavenstep Mountain, Water Catching Courtyard’s Lower Class Lending Library.” It turned out that Suneater really was trash, at least by the standards of his era. It left the unworthy descendants sighing and muttering about mountains beyond mountains.

As best they could tell, Moon Crossing the Lake was an art that relied on two related concepts- the moon on the waters of the lake, and the lake itself. The moon moved over the waters silently and swiftly, leaving no ripple. Yet when someone reached for it, it could not be touched. Should someone try to pursue it, they would drown. But if that was all, it would be unworthy of the Eight Directions Palace.

“The moon is never in one pond or lake, but rather, it is in all ponds and lakes simultaneously. Therefore, at the highest level of mastery, one can sink into the water and emerge at any of the points where you already are, if you follow me. If we are reading this right, and we may actually not be. I am emphasizing this to you both because, well, we are hoping the two of you will be our pioneers here.” Brother Fu smiled, a little awkwardly.

“It’s like this- the art grows in stages, starting with a simple evasion art and growing in complexity and utility. Almost purely reactive, and without any real offensive capability, it excels in enduring. With practice, your vital energy expenditure should be almost nothing. Effortless as the moon crossing the lake, you see? If you are quick about it, you can even run across the surface of water. But the art grows in complexity. Once you have broken through to the Heavenly Realm, you will have the ability to use qi. This will let you move into the next phase- a water escape art. Traveling beneath the water faster than you could run across land, and far more hidden than trying to escape through the air.”

Librarian Yan started to pick his words carefully. “There is no concern over you learning the first section, the evasion art, at least in terms of your health. We have grasped it thoroughly, and the translation is comparatively straightforward. The rest of the art is not straightforward. That leads us to the… delicate topic of shen. What I understand you two know as brainpower?”

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The two nodded.

“And I do wish you could keep on thinking of it as brainpower, but… anyway. Your body has three fundamental energies, and we develop them in sequence. This is for a few very good reasons, not least of which being that each realm you advance is preparing you for the next.” The two elders tried to control their expressions, but the fact that their necks were redding at all said a lot to Tian.

“The ancients understood that theory, of course, but disagreed with our conclusion. They believed that…” Librarian Yan looked over at Fu. Tian thought there was an air of pleading in his eyes.

“The better of their arts that the Monastery has managed to recover while we held the Mountain all include elements of all three primary types of energy a person can cultivate.”

Brother Fu paused, picking his path through the sentences ahead before resuming. “Before my ascension, Tribulation Lightning had practically become a myth. It was considered somewhat commonplace during breakthroughs in realm back then. More than that, it was the standard.”

Fu paused there, making eye contact with Tian and Hong, before continuing. “To be a cultivator was to defy the heavens and seize fortune in your own hands. The heavens were not expected to calmly accept that defiance. Your quality as a cultivator was measured by how much tribulation lighting came for you, and the nature of that lighting.”

Tian felt that eyeballing your father was probably not filial, but damned if that was going to stop him. Brother Fu didn’t let that stop him.

“Ascension, therefore, required both a revelation on the nature of immortality and having enough treasures, skills and fortune to survive a tribulation. The greater the revelation, the stronger the foundation, the more devastating the tribulation. The increased difficulty of reaching the Heavenly Realm was therefore a way of ensuring both strong immortals, and protecting the weaker mortals. Who would attempt ascension without enough strength?”

Tian started rubbing his forehead. He had a feeling that he would be swearing a blue streak if he heard this before his injury. Liren was biting her lips hard enough to turn them white.

They both already had a foundation that would be the stuff of legends, if they weren’t determinedly keeping their mouths shut about it.

“So they just relied on strong foundations?” Liren asked.