Xiang Da’s life had changed a lot over the last four months. Born to farrs in a small village in the middle of nowhere, he’d always been realistic about his chances of achieving greatness, as in he knew he had exactly zero chance. Not that he’d been unhappy. He had a wife and children and the prospect of a grandchild in the near future.
Like everyone else in the village, he’d been fearful about what the fall of the Righteous Rain Sect ant for them, and they had all been proven right to be afraid. Over a period of years, outside visits had dried up, and the number of spirit beasts prowling around had greatly increased until the villagers eventually beca prisoners locked inside the protection of their walls.
Though they did their best to stave off starvation by growing crops in every empty spot where there wasn’t a building, all of them knew that the available land simply couldn’t support the nearly one thousand people inside.
The future appeared bleak.
One day, though, a cultivator and his two disciples had appeared. Xiang Da, like everyone else, had been apprehensive at first. Wandering cultivators, after all, did not have the most sterling of reputations.
Instead of bringing pain and speeding up the doom facing the village, the cultivator had improbably brought salvation. First, he’d delivered a load of Orange Vigor Spirit Wood to Sixth Flawless Flowing City and returned with a wagonload of food. Then, he’d founded a sect and stated his intention to have everyone in the village beco cultivators. Finally, he’d staved off a beast tide that otherwise would have killed every man, woman, and child in the area.
Now, not only could Xiang Da exit the walls safely whenever he wanted because there was no longer any danger, but even if a beast were present, he could fight it as a cultivator in the fifth minor realm of Qi Gathering. And not only was he a cultivator, but he was one of the sect’s leaders, the head of the Formations Pavilion.
His life had definitely changed.
The problem was that he felt unworthy of the position granted to him. His only claim to fa was that he was good at math. He could add four or five numbers together in his head and had the tis tables morized. Where most of the villages found percentages and fractions nearly indecipherable, he could figure them fairly easily.
Essentially, he had a head for basic math, making him better at simple computations than his fellow villagers. That ability did not make him a scholar.
The sects and the Emperor’s faction had decreed long ago that all people on the continent were to be taught basic literacy and math, but the key word was basic. Most could read a decree sent out by one of the governing organizations and do basic sums. Peasants who showed aptitude were taught sowhat more advanced material. Had Xiang Da been born in a larger village, he probably would have been given the opportunity to study in the city in hopes of eventually working for a rich rchant or a noble.
No one searched Prosperous Gray Forest Village for people with such ability, though, so he was left a simple farr until conditions had beco too unsafe, requiring him and his family to move inside the walls.
Now, he was expected to learn Formations, a feat farther above his ability than percentages and fractions had been to the villagers he’d helped so many tis. He was grateful for the opportunity, but understanding the complex mathematics behind formations was challenging for him and the other four that had been placed in the pavilion under him. The best they’d been able to do was to replicate simple arrays exactly as shown in the manuals the sect leader had provided.
All of them had reached Small Success in their Fundantals of Math Knowledge technique at least, but given the ti they’d been studying, they should have all made it to Large Success. They were failing in their task of learning, and they all knew it. To say that morale was low was a great understatent.
Thus, when the sect leader had appeared inside the Formations building in the evening of the day after his battle with the Nascent Soul cultivators, Xiang Da and his four failed students all expected to definitely be expelled from the pavilion and perhaps from the sect.
Xiang Da cupped his trembling hands. “Greetings, Sect Leader.”
The four others quickly followed his example.
“You guys have been floundering,” the sect leader said. “I’ve co to end that.”
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Xiang Da tensed. That was it. He was going to be expelled.
“First,” the sect leader said, “I’ll lead you through so basic lessons on math.”
Huh?
“If you pay attention and ditate on what I teach you,” the sect leader said, “it should speed your advancent to Large Success. Then, I have a list of arrays that need to be repaired. We’re going to spend several hours working on those. I’ll guide you through the troubleshooting process and how to actual fix them. Gaining practical experience should help you a lot with your understanding.”
Xiang Da got down on his knees and kowtowed. “Gratitude, Sect Leader.”
Behind him, his four students did the sa.
“Hey,” the sect leader said, “none of that is needed. Get up. Let’s get to work.”
What followed was a ntally intensive and often baffling lesson. One of the rooms in the Formations Pavilion Building had an array on one wall that let one make marks with a simple application of qi, and the sect leader used that to write out his thoughts. He walked them through the concept of an equation and—he stressed the importance of the next part—the idea that you could do anything you wanted to one side as long as you did the sa thing to the other.
Xiang Da struggled to understand how or why such a fact was useful, and he wasn’t given any ti to either ask a question or truly consider the problem before the sect leader continued with his next pronouncent—that any number or expression divided by itself equaled one.
So many facts, thoughts, and formulas followed that. A line was governed by the equation y=mx b. The area of a triangle was equal to half the base tis its height. Pi. The hypotenuse of a right triangle was equal to the square root of the sum of the squares of its sides. Parabolas. Hyperbolas. Sine and cosine and tangent. Completing the square and the derivation of the quadratic formula. Multiplying and dividing terms with exponents.
By the ti an hour was up, Xiang Da’s head was swimming.
“By the glazed looks in your eyes, I think we’re done for now,” the sect leader said. “I don’t expect you to understand any of this right now. Co back to these notes later, pick a formula, and ditate on it. As you do, the knowledge from your technique will guide your understanding, leading you to further revelations. What I’ve written here should be enough to get all of you to Large Success. Once you’ve all reached it, I’ll co back, and we’ll work on getting you to Mastery.”
They were all too stunned at first to react, but finally Xiang Da cupped his hands. “Gratitude, Sect Leader.”
“It’s dinnerti. Go grab sothing in the cafeteria. I’ll et you in an hour, and we’ll work on those malfunctioning arrays.” After that pronouncent, the sect leader disappeared.
Xiang Da turned to his students. “Did any of you understand any of that?”
“Not a bit,” Yan Chen said.
“, neither.” Xiang Da sighed. “All we can do is trust the sect leader. He told us that ditation will bring understanding.”
“Must we go eat?” Yan Chen said. “I’d rather stay here.”
Xiang Da agreed with that sentint. He’d never seen or even heard of the formulas written on that wall, and he was sorely tempted to delve into each of them. But the sect leader had given implicit instructions.
“For now, we must do our best to forget all the mysteries that he presented to us on that wall,” Xiang Da said. “Our duty awaits. After dinner, the sect leader will teach us how to perform maintenance duties on arrays. None of us have contributed at all to the sect yet, but that changes tonight.”
The opportunity to actually do sothing positive for the sect and its mbers was a strong inducent, especially since the formulas weren’t going anywhere. First, they’d learn how to repair arrays. Then, they’d ditate on the sect leader’s lesson and advance their math technique, building their foundation to create arrays.
Another change was coming into their lives, and they couldn’t wait for it to happen.
As the head of the Swift Blizzard sect branch in Sixth Flawless Flowing City, Mao Biya’s life had beco much more annoying since she learned of the existence of one Chao Su. His na was on everyone’s tongue. Every conversation seed to revolve around how best to deal with the man, whether to destroy him or try to curry his favor in hopes of gaining access to his resources.
She seethed as she read the ssage he had sent. One factor that angered her was that he kept referring to his bunch of trumped up peasants as an actual sect. The thing that truly incensed her, though, was the warning.
Just because he had access to treasures beyond the dreams of avarice did not give him the right to threaten her and her sect. From what she’d heard, he’d barely survived the attack from two Nascent Souls and that only because they attacked him near where he had formations prepared.
He wasn’t nearly as powerful as he pretended to be. There was no conceivable way he’d be able to destroy even the weakened Jade Chaleon Sect, much less the Swift Blizzard Sect.
Chao Su needed to be taught a lesson, to be brought low. His treasures belonged in better, stronger hands. Too bad her sect leader was so risk averse.
Not that attacking Chao Su at his sect was a good idea. The Jade Chaleons had proven that. Never fight a Formations Master on prepared ground was a maxim for a reason.
She chuckled at the thought of what must have gone through the venerable Ye Zhengsheng’s head when he realized that his opponent was that skilled with arrays. He must have died cursing the intelligence branch of his sect.
No, Chao Su needed to be lured out of his sect for the final confrontation. Teng Wuying was right. The tournant was the perfect place for an ambush. Though it stuck in her craw to acknowledge the Rising Tide Sect as legitimate even as part of a ruse, the threatening ssage proved the slimy Jade Chaleon’s plan was the correct approach.
If her sect leader didn’t agree, Mao Biya would have to go over his head to the council of elders, and if that didn’t work, she’d go directly to her sect’s Nascent Souls. The stakes were too high not to take action.
She fired off a ssage to Teng Wuying. It contained just two words—I’m in.
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