Chapter Eighty-Four: Cultivate Virtue, Not Fate

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It was not until the weather turned bitterly cold, with heavy snow soon to seal the mountain passes, that the great host finally withdrew from the mountains.

It was easy to imagine that, with the spiritual energy of Wuji Mountain damaged, no qi practitioners would gather there again for at least ten or twenty years.

Several haunted domains had also been swept clean, greatly reducing the danger of a ghost tide breaking out.

The county and village militia from all directions returned to their respective townships and were disbanded. Before long, the government’s rewards would be distributed.

All who had served in the village militia this time would be exempted from taxes for three years. In addition, according to their merits, each would receive anywhere from several thousand to several hundred thousand coins.

For those who had fallen in battle, every family was granted thirty mu of land and twenty thousand coins. One male member of each household was also granted a rank of commoner nobility.

Such compensation was already quite generous.

At the very least, forty or fifty men from Guangyang Township had died this time.

In a township of only four or five thousand people, so many deaths at once meant that one could hear weeping almost everywhere one went.

The entire atmosphere of Guangyang Township had become oppressively heavy.

But as the government’s rewards and compensation were distributed, the mourning did not cease, yet sorrowful cries now carried a measure of joy and consolation.

The dead were dead. The living still had to go on with their lives.

This compensation was enough to make life considerably easier for those who remained.

The atmosphere throughout the township changed as well, no longer so dreary and stifling.

Wang Zhenling knew that, at the very least, recruiting soldiers again the next time the government issued a call would not be difficult.

Wang Zhenling was considered one of Chen Bushi’s direct subordinates, so he naturally received his share of the credit.

Apart from a reward of five hundred thousand coins, his achievements had also been entered into the official records. In the future, they would serve as the basis for his promotion.

Once the distribution of compensation and rewards was finished, the end of the year was already drawing near.

Fortunately, during that era, the New Year was not so much an important holiday as it was a difficult hurdle to survive.

Now that Lower Secret Commandery had mobilized its forces on a grand scale, dealt with the cultivators who had occupied Wuji Mountain for years, and eliminated a great many ghosts, getting through this year-end season would be far easier.

The weather remained bitterly cold, and several heavy snowfalls had already come. This was the quietest time of year for the government offices.

During this period, because of the cultivators from Mist Valley and the campaign against Wuji Mountain, Wang Zhenling had been unable to devote himself properly to cultivation.

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Now, seated upright upon his bed, Wang Zhenling began to practice.

Within his sea of consciousness, the Heaven-Penetrating Lotus Seed was as parched as drought-stricken earth, greedily drawing in the government’s fortune without cease.

The lotus seed, originally dark and iron-gray, resembling the seed of a water lily, gradually became lush and emerald green.

The Heaven-Penetrating Lotus Seed slowly absorbed the government’s fortune. As it descended into the Moon Wheel Heaven that Wang Zhenling had visualized, it caused that realm to grow increasingly solid and well-defined.

Once the Moon Wheel Heaven was completely condensed, a real place would be opened within the illusory sea of consciousness. That place would be the Divine Chamber.

Strands of white vapor were drawn into the Heaven-Penetrating Lotus Seed, then fell bit by bit into the Celestial Palace of the Moon Wheel Heaven. There, they slowly transformed into spiritual rain, nourishing Wang Zhenling’s primordial spirit.

This was the brilliance of the Jun Heaven Daoist Tradition. Even before the Divine Chamber had been constructed, it was already possible to nourish the primordial spirit in tandem.

Once Wang Zhenling’s Divine Chamber was forged, his primordial spirit would surely grow stronger at remarkable speed, sending his cultivation soaring by leaps and bounds.

Yet it was precisely because the Celestial Palace of the Moon Wheel Heaven was so intricate that constructing the Divine Chamber was far more troublesome—and far slower—than it was for ordinary cultivators.

Wang Zhenling was in no hurry. This was much like laying a foundation.

To build a skyscraper, the foundation had to be sufficiently firm.

A two-story house needed little foundation, but attempting to add more floors later would be fraught with danger. To turn it into a towering edifice would be even more impossible.

Wang Zhenling understood this principle, and so he was able to restrain his impatience and continue cultivating.

In any case, being able to siphon off official energy within the government was in no way inferior to cultivating in a blessed grotto-heaven or sacred land.

Although the campaign against Wuji Mountain had ended, Wang Zhenling’s honorary military marquis post had not yet been revoked.

At that moment, he was openly stealing the fortune of the county government within the county administrative hall itself.

The fortune of the rural offices spread out like a vast canopy. The energies of the villages and hamlets within a radius of ten li converged there, forming what looked like a canopy of white mist suspended above the rural office.

The fortune of the county government, however, was as majestic as a mountain. As its accumulated power grew, it had even turned red, like a mountainside covered in blazing maple leaves.

Fortune was like fire, majestic as a mountain.

This was the fortune of an entire county.

What did the tiny portion Wang Zhenling had stolen amount to?

The government’s fortune was so immense. It was no wonder that so many people wished to worm their way into officialdom.

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Yet even among those who entered government service, few possessed the ability to steal the government’s fortune.

By then, the City God had already fallen. Wang Zhenling was now in the height of his power, while even the City God had become merely an ancestral spirit of his own household.

No one could interfere with Wang Zhenling’s affairs anymore. Naturally, this allowed his cultivation to advance at a pace that could truly be called a thousand miles a day.

“No wonder Confucian cultivators practice the Dao but not techniques, cultivate their nature but not their destiny…”

At that moment, Wang Zhenling had gained a profound understanding of why Confucian scholars cultivated only their moral nature and not Daoist arts.

The reason was simple: they had no need to cultivate those arts themselves. The moment one became an official, immense power would immediately be bestowed upon him, enabling him to perform all manner of divine abilities and magical techniques.

Of course, this still required the cultivation of one’s moral nature and primordial spirit, strengthening them enough to withstand and wield such power.

Without sufficient cultivation of one’s inner nature, that power could not be properly brought forth.

It was like a child wielding a great saber: instead of injuring others, he would be more likely to harm himself.

However, the formidable power that came with an official position did not truly belong to the official himself. Once the position was lost, all that power would vanish as well…

The power of a qi practitioner might increase slowly, accumulated bit by bit through personal effort, but it was truly one’s own—real and unquestionable.

What Wang Zhenling sought, of course, was his own strength. For the moment, however, he was merely cultivating under the shelter of the government.

He had no idea when his honorary military marquis post would be revoked. Once that happened, he would temporarily lose the opportunity to steal official fortune.

Therefore, Wang Zhenling drew in the government’s fortune with ever greater force. What had originally been a slow, careful sip now became a great gulping draught.

After absorbing a massive amount of official fortune, the Heaven-Penetrating Lotus Seed became extraordinarily heavy. The moment it entered the Celestial Palace of the Moon Wheel Heaven, it nearly crushed the palace into collapse.

In truth, the Celestial Palace of the Moon Wheel Heaven was Wang Zhenling’s Divine Chamber.

Had he not modeled it after the Celestial Palace of the Moon Wheel described in the Diagram of Nine Heavens Primordial Yang Longevity and Creation, Wang Zhenling’s Divine Chamber would have been completed long ago.

The Celestial Palace of the Moon Wheel was a hundred or even a thousand times more complicated than an ordinary Divine Chamber. Naturally, once constructed, it was also vastly more powerful.

If this had been an ordinary person’s Divine Chamber—even that of an accomplished spirit-budding expert capable of projecting the spirit outward—then the moment the Heaven-Penetrating Lotus Seed, having absorbed so much spiritual energy, entered the chamber, the Divine Chamber would likely have collapsed already.