My Cultivation Has a Progress Bar-Chapter 42: Demon Soldiers

It was the start of the eleventh year of his Foundation Establishment.

Liu Shuang and Yang Zhiping had reached the peak of Qi Cultivation before the end of last year. During the first month of the new year, Wang Ping made a special trip to the Daoist Scripture Hall in the Prefecture City. He inquired about the Upper Dan Sect’s conditions for improving a person’s fundamental aptitude but was told no such service was offered.

The reason he didn’t ask Yu Cheng Taoist directly was that Yu Cheng Taoist and Gu Heng Taoist were at Yige Pavilion every day, refining people’s fundamental aptitude. Wang Ping didn’t want to trouble his master before he had even tried to find a solution himself.

After returning to the Daoist Temple, Wang Ping wrote another letter of inquiry to Cheng Ji of White Crane Mountain. The reply arrived today.

Cheng Ji’s letter informed Wang Ping that within the Upper Dan Sect, only Cultivators who had successfully forged a furnace within their body and advanced to the Second Realm could help others improve their aptitude. Moreover, each attempt consumed a certain amount of the Cultivator’s lifespan. Sometimes, not even their own Direct Disciples were guaranteed such treatment.

"Sigh!"

"There you go again..." From her spot sunbathing on the roof eaves, Yu Lian heard Wang Ping sigh and sent a small stone flying toward him.

Wang Ping gently caught the stone. After suppressing all his negative emotions, he walked to the scholar tree and sat down to guide the Wood Spirit Qi. When he finished, he nourished the tree with his own Spiritual Qi. Usually, he would continue this until dark, but today he ended the process early and sat back down in the small courtyard to wait for his two disciples to return.

As usual, Liu Shuang and Yang Zhiping returned to the small courtyard before dinner.

After dinner, Wang Ping stopped Yang Zhiping from clearing the dishes. "It’s been over a month since you both completed your Qi Cultivation," he said. "Tonight, I will impart the Marrow Cleansing Chapter of the Guiyuan Technique to you."

Hearing this, both Liu Shuang’s and Yang Zhiping’s eyes lit up. Now that they were both adults, they knew that the Qi Cultivation Technique they practiced was the best in Qianmu Temple, and they usually felt a little proud of it. However, ever since they had reached the peak of Qi Cultivation, their master had yet to teach them a marrow-cleansing technique, and a bit of worry had begun to grow in their hearts.

Now, that worry was completely swept away.

Wang Ping taught his two disciples the marrow-cleansing process according to the guide the light-screen panel had given him. It recommended ten sessions a day, but the two showed clear signs of being unable to handle it. He eventually had to reduce it to five sessions a day before they could manage.

In other words, the baseline time for them to complete the marrow cleansing would be twice as long as Wang Ping’s. Factoring in the quality of their aptitude, it might take at least twenty years. In twenty years, they would be forty.

But there was still hope for them to reach Foundation Establishment before they were a hundred years old, and hope for them to cultivate a Secret Technique.

Wang Ping performed several divinations on the matter, and all the results were auspicious.

As he watched his two disciples grow older, especially the now graceful and elegant Liu Shuang, an idea formed in Wang Ping’s mind: he should have them establish their own Dao Fields. He also felt it was time for them to go out and gain some real-world experience.

However, he could never quite bring himself to make the decision.

This continued until mid-June, when Su Dun, dressed in the official robes of a Sixth-Grade Military Officer, came to the mountaintop garden to find him.

Wang Ping ordered someone to bring up a jar of yellow wine from his cellar. The two chatted for a moment, and the topic naturally turned to Wang Kang.

"Junior Brother Wang placed sixth in the imperial martial examination and was appointed Captain of the Imperial Guard. Rumor has it he’s a master of military strategy, has won several wargame simulations, and has earned the deep trust of the current emperor... When did he learn the art of war? How come I never knew?" 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂

Su Dun looked at Wang Ping. "You weren’t playing favorites and teaching him but not me, were you?"

"You left early. The Scripture Pavilion was built at the temple later, and it has books on military strategy. He probably just read them in his spare time." In his mind, Wang Ping simply could not equate his junior brother with a general.

Su Dun gave him a disbelieving look, then smiled mysteriously. "There’s something else important. We have news of our Second Brother. He passed the exam to become an Advanced Scholar three years ago and even took Prime Minister Zhao as his teacher. In the future, he might even become one of the Six Department Heads or enter the Central Secretariat."

Wang Ping was a bit dazed by the news. Thinking back, more than ten years had passed since his three senior brothers had officially left the mountain. He himself had been cultivating the Dao for over twenty years.

"It was Junior Brother Wang who mentioned it in a letter. It seems Second Brother doesn’t want anyone to know he once cultivated the Dao, so..." Su Dun trailed off.

Wang Ping nodded, silently raised his cup to clink with Su Dun’s, and then... drained it in one gulp.

"You came to see me about something, didn’t you?" Wang Ping put down his cup. Perhaps not wanting to continue the small talk, he directly asked Su Dun his purpose for visiting.

"I can’t hide anything from you, Senior Brother... I came this time mainly to purchase a batch of ’Power Pills’!"

Su Dun stated his purpose slowly, then explained in a rapid-fire burst, "I’ve been ordered to train six thousand new recruits in Shang’an Prefecture. After thinking it over, I plan to equip all my officers with ’Power Pills’ as standard issue during training."

"You could ask Junior Brother Zhao Qing. I still have some stock left from what I refined before..."

"The quantity I need is huge!"

Su Dun interrupted Wang Ping.

Hearing this, Wang Ping’s hand, which was pouring wine, paused slightly. It was obvious Su Dun wasn’t telling him the whole truth.

"How many?"

"Fifty thousand!"

Wang Ping fell into thought instinctively. At his current refining speed for ’Power Pills’, fifty thousand would take two months. If he went all out, he could finish in one.

Su Dun added, "My budget is more than sufficient. I’m willing to buy them at a unit price of four taels of silver!"

Currently, the market price for a ’Power Pill’ was three taels, half of what it was when it first appeared on the market.

Just as Wang Ping was about to politely refuse, Liu Shuang and Yang Zhiping returned from down the mountain. Seeing the two of them, an idea struck Wang Ping. "I’ll need about three months to refine them," he said. "And I happen to have a favor to ask of you..."

He paused and called over his two disciples. "Shuang’Er, Zhiping, come and greet your Martial Uncle Su."

"Greetings, Martial Uncle Su!"

"My, you’ve grown up in the blink of an eye."

"I plan on having them go out and gain experience for a while. Once they’ve made a name for themselves, they can come back and establish their own Dao Fields. I was never at ease with the idea before, but with you in the Prefecture City to look after them, I’m much more relieved."

Nearby, Liu Shuang and Yang Zhiping heard Wang Ping’s words, and they could barely contain the joy on their faces. However, with Su Dun present, they didn’t let it show too openly.

"A small thing like that? You can rest completely assured!"

The pleasant interlude came to an end.

Three days after Su Dun left, Liu Shuang and Yang Zhiping descended the mountain. They were headed to the Daoist Scripture Hall in the Prefecture City to register, take on its missions to accumulate redemption points, and slowly cleanse their marrow in the process.

「Three months later.」

The delivery of the fifty thousand ’Power Pills’ was complete. Su Dun sent someone to deliver a Demon Soldier, saying it was a reward from the Governor’s Office.

Demon Soldiers were not common, but not exactly rare either. They were not man-made, but born naturally from different environments. Every year in Zhongzhou, legends would surface of the birth of new Demon Soldiers in various places.

However, not every Demon Soldier was usable. The price of wielding most of them was far too high; users would either go mad or be drained of their blood. Sometimes, the Demon Soldier would even take control of its wielder. Compounded by the fact that some Demon Soldiers had functions that were either too evil or simply useless, most of them had to be destroyed.

And yet, Qi Cultivators still flocked to them, one after another. This was because a Demon Soldier had a chance to transform its user into a Secret Technique Cultivator. Although the nature of this transformation was largely fixed and would cause the user to lose a degree of their rationality, it was undoubtedly a viable path for Qi Cultivators with extremely poor aptitude.

Moreover, some powerful Demon Soldiers could even contend with Great Realm Cultivators—though, of course, such items were currently the stuff of legend.