Volume Three: Rising Fame Chapter Twenty: Fifth-Rank Cultivation

Because he was curious about the ancient way armies marched and fought, Li Yu would, whenever the camp was set up, often slip into Qing Yangde’s tent. Borrowing the military maps held by the other man, he gained his first clear sense of just how vast the Qing clan really was.

Inside the prefecture there were roughly forty million people, and several million of them belonged to the Qing bloodline. It could be said that the Qing clan’s people were scattered across the entire Green Mountain Prefecture. The distribution of population centers was quite straightforward: villages, towns, and cities.

Excluding the prefectural capital, there were sixteen cities, and beneath them stretched countless towns and villages.

In other words, these sixteen cities wielded tremendous power within their own jurisdictions. Apart from lacking military authority, they were much like independent rulers.

“Because there’s no effective long-distance communication?” Li Yu scratched his head, lost in thought.

After all, this was not like Blue Star, where one could simply pick up a phone and make a call or a video chat at no great expense. In this other world, beasts roamed everywhere beyond the settlements, dangers lurked at every turn, and many people never once left the place where they were born.

That middle-aged overgrown child who always boasted, “My father is the city lord,” came from Teber City, one of the sixteen.

Teber City ranked fairly high within Green Mountain Prefecture; its economy was among the top five. Yet before the current city lord took office, the city had been notoriously poor in every respect, holding the bottom spot for nearly twenty years.

“How do you see it?” Qing Yangde asked knowingly.

“Either way works,” Li Yu said with a dismissive wave, sounding somewhat bored. “This city lord’s methods are so formidable that the Qing clan won’t bear to make life difficult for such a prized asset. I’m afraid that middle-aged man will likely come away unpunished.”

“You’re mistaken,” Qing Yangde said, shaking his head and motioning for Li Yu to think again.

“Could it not be so?”

Li Yu pondered.

After all, this was not his homeland on Blue Star, where corruption and the abuse of power were notoriously intolerable. This was another world, a society with highly developed individual martial strength but low productivity.

Otherwise, when he first arrived in this other world, he would not have been able to become, merely by relying on cheap white sugar and fine salt, what the people of Stone Village called a “wealthy household.”

Under such conditions, would the Qing clan really be willing to give up a capable man?

“No—precisely because this is another world, it must be this way!” Li Yu’s eyes lit up as he grasped the key point.

This was not ancient China, where armies met armies and generals opposed generals. In this world’s system of power, a single expert of the third rank could stand in for ten thousand troops and guard a region.

In such a world, what the Qing clan needed was a loyal clansman, not someone who disregarded the rules and trampled the clan’s laws underfoot.

Li Yu said what he had figured out, and this time Qing Yangde nodded in approval.

“Li Yu, understanding this is important. The Qing clan would rather have a brute with astonishing fighting power than a near-genius with a mind like a demon’s. Even if the latter could benefit the clan’s lands, what good would it do?”

“It can’t compare to a brute strong enough to hold the line. We support you now, but the Qing clan is not ruled by the prefectural lord’s branch alone. You must never slack in your cultivation!”

“…”

Only then did Li Yu understand why Qing Yangde had suddenly brought up the subject. So it was because he had been coming over every few days to look at this and that. And, brother... are you really not just indirectly calling me a brute?

If you think I have no temper and won’t get angry, then I’ll show you something good!

“I know,” Li Yu said in a deep voice.

Then, with a thought, he released the restrained fluctuations of his spiritual power.

“Holy crap... you’re fifth rank!”

Qing Yangde sensed it at once and was startled by the strength of that energy. Standing so close to Li Yu, he could barely breathe under the pressure of the spiritual field belonging to a fifth-rank cultivator.

“No, why are you this strong? Other fifth-rank cultivators wouldn’t make me feel like I was suffocating just from their spiritual field alone.”

“I reached fifth rank the day before yesterday, after coming back!” Li Yu said with great pride.

Now that he had reached fifth rank, surely no one would think he was neglecting his proper work?

“As for why I’m this strong... I think it may be because I have lightning affinity, so the thunder spiritual power in my spiritual field shocks you...” Li Yu coughed twice and was just about to continue asking to look at the map when Qing Yangde hurriedly interrupted.

“Quick, quick, quick—first conceal your spiritual power. Don’t let anyone discover it. That way, at the Hundred Houses Assembly, you can catch them off guard!” Qing Yangde said in a rush, then directly grabbed Li Yu by the arm and pulled him outward. “Since you’re fifth rank now, you can spend even longer cultivating. Hurry and go cultivate—don’t waste it!”

Li Yu: “...”

Qing Yangde: “I’ll have Little Cui keep an eye on you. Make sure you cultivate to the full every single day!”

Li Yu: “...Big brother, let’s talk nicely!”

Cultivation was a daily affair. Could a life without slacking off really be a good life?

What was more, the Thunderblood lineage he had obtained from the sign-in system was something whose terrifying subtleties Li Yu only understood more and more as time went on.

Other geniuses cultivated quickly at the beginning, but the further they went, the more they had to accumulate and open up new avenues, and so their speed would gradually slow. Li Yu, however, was not only fast at the start; the further he went, the faster he would become!

It was like a university professor taking an elementary school exam: naturally, he would score full marks. Then he would take a middle school exam, and again, full marks.

That sort of result might match the scores of some student prodigies, but the farther one went, the more the professor’s hidden and profound accumulation of knowledge would reveal its terrifying depth.

In the end, Li Yu struggled bitterly, yet still could not escape Qing Yangde’s grasp. Worse still, the latter personally instructed the three people assigned to follow him that they must keep an eye on his cultivation every single day.

Li Yu: “...”

“Listen to your brother. A young man who doesn’t strive in his youth will only regret in old age!” Qing Yangde said earnestly.

Li Yu was filled with grief and indignation. “I never should have thought that because you’re An Qi’s older brother, you could count as my older brother too!”

Qing Yangde raised a brow. “Too late. Let me tell you, this Hundred Houses Assembly will be very difficult. The more strength you have, the more hope you have!”

With that, he left on his own.

Li Yu pressed his lips together and could only turn back toward the carriage.

What else could he do? Little Cui was fine, but the two newly assigned people, Qing Miaoyan and Qing Yingyao, each and every one of them looked at him as though they wanted to strip him bare and examine him inside and out.

He was frightened, truly frightened!

Li Yu sat in the carriage. Beside him lay a lightning crystal that Little Cui had just handed over at exactly the right moment, to aid his cultivation.

...

On the other side, in the same convoy, Qing Yuan sat atop a wolf-shaped beast, his brow furrowed.

“Father, that fluctuation just now?”

Beside him was a man past fifty. If one looked closely, the two bore a seven-part resemblance. This man was Qing Yan, the second elder.

“A fifth-rank spiritual fluctuation. Lightning attribute!”

Qing Yan, whose cultivation had reached the peak of third rank, possessed astonishing perception. At this moment he too was astonished by Li Yu’s rate of cultivation. Compared with this foreign-family seed candidate, the five to six hundred thousand same-generation children of the Qing clan seemed like fireflies beneath the blazing sun.

He sighed. “Hatred is a good thing. It can help you cultivate rapidly to fifth rank. But after all, it is a double-edged sword. If you let hatred blind you now, it will only hinder your progress.”

Qing Yuan did not answer. He merely stared stubbornly ahead, his eyes filled with hatred and unwillingness.

Qing Yan said no more, and the two of them continued on side by side with the convoy.