Miss Fairy, Please Hear Me Out

“What, it’s been less than two weeks?”

Xu Yuan had been so completely immersed in cultivation that when he finally asked, he discovered barely more than ten days had passed. He had gone from completely unranked to eighth rank Meridian Tempering in less than two months. Even though he had already braced himself a little for it, he still couldn’t help but be in awe of his own cultivation speed.

After leaving the secret chamber where the spirit spring was located, Xu Yuan followed the corridor of the inner courtyard toward the outside.

He did not choose to keep cultivating. The pills Xu Changge had left him were basically all gone by now. Without the meridian-protecting and soul-nourishing effects those pills provided, cultivating for too long would damage his foundation.

As he walked out, Xu Yuan saw quite a few guards and instructors who had come to this martial training ground. Most of the people qualified to cultivate in the inner courtyard were around seventh to sixth rank, with only a few talented eighth ranks mixed in.

There were both men and women. Cultivation depended on talent, not gender. The men were all solid knots of muscle. The women still had the faint outline of feminine curves, but underneath their clothes the muscle was just as real. Yes, not the sleek kind either, actual muscle. They were all absolute hulks. A few of the prettier women were even bulkier than Zhou Chen standing beside him.

Xu Yuan’s gaze swept over them. By chance, his eyes met someone else’s, and his eyelid twitched uncontrollably.

Noticing where the Third Young Master was looking, Zhou Chen let out a rather odd little laugh. “These people all entered the Dao through the martial path, same as ordinary mortals training in martial arts, so their bodies are usually much more heavily built.”

“Martial path?” The unfamiliar term surprised Xu Yuan a little, and he asked in a low voice, “What do you mean by that?”

After Su Jinxuan’s attack, Xu Yuan had realized that his understanding of the supernatural powers in this world was still far too shallow. He needed to learn more.

Zhou Chen grinned. “Of course. The seventh, eighth, and ninth ranks we cultivate now were named after the three realms of the Martial Apprentice established back then by the Heavenwatch Pavilion, Body Tempering, Meridian Tempering, and Bone Refining.”

“Wait.” Xu Yuan cut him off at once. He had never heard that name before, not even in Azure Point. He asked softly, “The Heavenwatch Pavilion, was that a sect?”

Zhou Chen did not care much one way or the other and answered casually, “Yeah, but it was destroyed more than ten thousand years ago. Most cultivation realms today were originally divided up by them.”

“They defined the cultivation realms of the whole world?” Xu Yuan’s pupils shrank slightly.

Zhou Chen took a swig of wine. “Of course. Otherwise, where do you think all these cultivation realms came from, thin air?

“The Dao of Qi, the Martial Dao, the Soul Dao, the Dao of Formations, a whole lot of them were classified by the Heavenwatch Pavilion. But after all, it’s already been ten thousand years. Methods like the Martial Apprentice path are completely outdated by today’s standards. It’s only because people are used to the old names, and no one has the authority to redefine them all in a unified way, that those realm names have continued to be used.”

Xu Yuan’s eyes flickered for a moment. Instinctively, he wanted to ask for more, but in the end, he held himself back. When it came to something as tedious and intricate as cultivation paths, it would be better to visit the library later and dig through the ancient texts himself.

He gave a faint nod, steadied his thoughts, then glanced at the martial apprentices again. “Go on. Tell me more about them.”

Zhou Chen smiled slightly. “Of course. For those who walk the Martial Apprentice path, the Chancellor’s Manor only grants them a true cultivation art once they reach the peak of seventh rank, Bone Refining Realm.”

As he spoke, Zhou Chen seemed a little moved and shook his head softly. “They may look huge now, but once they step into the sixth rank, Iron Body Realm, and begin tempering their bones, tendons, and flesh into one whole, their bodies will naturally return to normal proportions.”

After listening carefully, Xu Yuan asked with some confusion, “Are you saying they currently have no cultivation art at all? But without one, how do they draw source qi into the body?”

Zhou Chen glanced at him and fell silent for a moment. “If they have no cultivation art, then naturally they can only rely on the Martial Apprentice body-forging methods, slowly tempering themselves bit by bit.”

Xu Yuan’s thoughts stirred. “That kind of body-forging method can also guide qi into the body?”

Zhou Chen nodded and let out a sigh. “It’s outdated, very outdated. But it isn’t slow when it comes to drawing qi into the body, and it doesn’t require soul intent either. The problem is that it very easily leaves behind lifelong injuries that can never truly be healed.”

“Lifelong injuries?” Xu Yuan frowned and murmured the words under his breath. His thoughts turned, and soon he understood the key point. He let out a quiet sigh. It was not that they did not want to choose. It was that they had no choice.

Zhou Chen shook his head, giving a bitter little laugh. “For people like us, there was never any other road into cultivation. Just having the Martial Apprentice methods to practice already gives us reason to be grateful. After all, things like cultivation arts are far too distant for ordinary people.”

Xu Yuan fell silent for a long while. Then, watching those men and women training in the courtyard, he asked softly, “Can you tell me more?”

Zhou Chen also glanced over at those hulking men and women. He took the wine flask from his waist and silently swallowed a mouthful. A trace of remembrance appeared in his eyes, and he began rambling through old stories from the past.

The reason this outdated path of cultivation, the Martial Apprentice path, still existed could ultimately be summed up into a single phrase. Methods must not be passed on lightly.

Almost all cultivation arts and manuals were monopolized by sects and great clans, yet there were far too many people in this world who wanted to change their fate through cultivation. So many that the number who died for it every single day was impossible to count.

Back when Zhou Chen had never touched cultivation and was still drifting through the streets, he had already seen countless people die without even a grave, all for the sake of snatching a single scrap of a damaged manual.

For ordinary people, if they wanted to obtain a cultivation art, if they wanted even the chance to step onto the path of cultivation, then aside from the very few who stumbled into some heaven-sent opportunity, there were only two options left. Join the army, or enter the service of a great clan and hope to be rewarded.

As for sects, forget it. The way sects recruited disciples was even less reliable. Every few years, the various sects did indeed open their mountain gates for a few designated days to accept new disciples. But anyone taken in needed at least top-grade talent. Even those with merely average aptitude would be turned away.

And the reason was very simple. Most sects had already existed for a thousand years or more. The first generation of disciples from back then had long since developed into the great families attached to those sects, and those families continuously sent their own talented children back into the sects to cultivate.

A sect could only support so many people. If some nobody with no backing squeezed in, then he was taking up cultivation resources that would otherwise go to the children of those sect-affiliated families. If two people had the same aptitude for cultivation, why would they choose some ordinary commoner with no background over one of their own?

And under those circumstances, the Calm Sky Merchant Association gradually began establishing martial halls called Calm Sky Martial Halls several decades ago.

Back then, martial halls across the world were as common as weeds. But after a few decades, only a handful were left. That was because the Calm Sky Martial Halls taught people the real thing. That was to say, the Martial Apprentice Cultivation Art.

And precisely because of that, even with the protection of the Chancellor of the Great Flame Empire, the enormous Calm Sky Merchant Association had still come close to destruction several times over. But as time passed, the great families, the sects, and the sect-affiliated families all eventually ended up compromising.

One after another, they also began setting up their own martial halls among the common folk. Unfortunately for them, as latecomers, their scale never came close to matching the Calm Sky Martial Halls.

No matter what the upper powers had fought over, and no matter how that struggle ended, from that point on, ordinary people finally had a path that allowed them to cultivate.

Even if the Martial Apprentice road was riddled with hardship, even if it could damage one’s foundation.. for people who had no path to cultivation at all, it was still their only chance.

Back then, Zhou Chen had been one of them. Relying on the silver he had painstakingly scraped together since childhood through swindling, trickery, and every other hustle the streets could teach, he became one of the very first people to enter a Calm Sky Martial Hall to cultivate.

But once he got inside, it was nothing like he had imagined. The 100 taels of silver he had risked his life to save up bought him nothing more than a body-tempering fist manual, a fairly clean single room, and more than a thousand fellow students living together outside the city.

There was no one-on-one instruction, no medicinal baths like the ones he had imagined. There was not even a proper aptitude test

At the time, it had felt like a scam. But later, he gradually realized the money had been well spent. At least, for geniuses, it was worth it.

Though the Calm Sky Martial Hall had only just been established back then, its internal structure was already quite complete. It had all kinds of assessments, all kinds of rankings, and all kinds of tournaments.

Put simply, the capable stayed, and the incapable left. Of course, staying without improving was also an option. The disciple simply had to keep paying.

Cultivation resources were distributed according to rank. The higher a disciple stood on each leaderboard, the more resources they received. Every person in the martial hall fought like mad for that sliver of a chance to climb upward.

Countless were eliminated. Countless were injured or killed. And Zhou Chen, in exactly that kind of environment, had clawed and crawled his way upward, one step at a time, risking his life until he became a third rank Grandmaster.