【"If only I could just run off on my own — I'd be freer that way... No. With the country in this state, and me a stranger to the place, if I ran off alone I'd probably die in some forgotten corner."】
【"I still have to stop the city from falling."】
【"But given my current status, even if I say Han Yi is going to open the gates to the enemy, it won't do any good. I'll have to find some way to deal with this."】
Thoughts drifting through his mind, Ji Zhao walked toward Wang An.
"Young Master Zhao." Wang An stopped what he was doing and drew a book from inside his robes, handing it to Ji Zhao. "This is the Rotten Wood Scripture, which the clan head went to the trouble of finding... It isn't any profound cultivation method, but at least it suits you, Young Master Zhao. Over the next few days, if Young Master Zhao has time to spare, come find me and practice a few moves — though they're only crude farmhand's tricks."
【"I'll pass on that..."】
Ji Zhao grumbled inwardly, his face showing nothing. "Thank you for the kind thought, Uncle Wang, but for the time being I expect I'll be focusing mainly on internal arts."
"That's fine too," Wang An said. "Th-Then let me teach Young Master Zhao the Dispersal method."
Ji Zhao said, "I remember there being a hand-copied manual of the art of conversion in the house."
Wang An was taken aback. "Young Master Zhao, if I may tell you, the art of conversion is tedious to train and extremely hard to fathom, and unless one fathoms it deeply, the conversion ratio won't be very high either. Besides, the Qi-Nurturing Scripture inner breath Young Master Zhao has cultivated doesn't amount to much. Going out of your way to train the art of conversion for its sake seems rather like forsaking what is near to seek what is far."
"I'll have to learn it sooner or later. Besides, I'll read through it first, and if I really can't understand it, it won't be too late to learn Dispersal then," Ji Zhao said. "Just fetch that art of conversion for me."
Wang An hesitated a moment, but in the end said nothing more, and turned away to fetch the art of conversion for Ji Zhao.
【Qi Conversion Art】
(An extremely common art of conversion, classed as a martial technique. Because the actual operation is complicated, it makes fairly high demands on the practitioner's Comprehension. A practitioner of high Comprehension can advance a thousand li in a day; otherwise, one may never get past the threshold in a lifetime.)
【Training Requirement: Possess inner breath】
【Training Realm: Not One Aperture Open (0/3000)】
【Training Formula: (y-20)²】
(In training formulas, x is Constitution and y is Comprehension. If the number inside the parentheses is less than zero, Comprehension is deemed too low to comprehend the technique.)
【Martial Technique Effect: Converts 14.6%–23.5% of inner breath.】
(Can rise as the training realm improves.)
【Experience Multiplier: 1.56–1.72】
(Increases with attributes such as Constitution and Martial Attainment.) (Note 1)
Ji Zhao looked at the book, lost in thought.
"Uncle Wang, have you read this art of conversion?"
Wang An had not expected Ji Zhao to ask him this. After a moment's surprise he answered honestly all the same. "To answer Young Master Zhao, of course I have. When I was young and foolish, I practiced a third-rate internal art for a while that cut off my own road forward. Later I had a mind to disperse it, but couldn't bear to part with those two or three years of cultivation, so I wanted to convert instead. But I read it over and over, in bits and pieces, for two months, and never understood a single bit of it. And since that internal art was damaging my body, I let it go... Can Young Master Zhao understand it?"
Ji Zhao smiled. "More or less, I think. I want to go back and give it a try."
"Since Young Master Zhao insists..." Wang An sighed and added a word of caution. "But don't push yourself too hard, Young Master Zhao. If you decide you want to practice the Dispersal method after all, come find me any time."
Ji Zhao nodded and went back to his room to begin studying this Qi Conversion Art — with the original body's memories, he had a basic grasp of inner breath, so as he read the book he was not tripped up by any strange technical terms.
About an hour later.
【Qi Conversion Art: Training Progress +24255】
【Qi Conversion Art: Not One Aperture Open→Minor Accomplishment】
【Qi Conversion Art: Minor Accomplishment→Complete Understanding】
【Qi Conversion Art: Complete Understanding→Consummate Mastery (6255/12000)】
【Martial Technique Effect: Converts 39.5%–52.4% of inner breath.】
【Martial Attainment +64】
(Note 2)
"...Not hard."
Ji Zhao studied it carefully once through and came away with a deeper understanding of this world's inner breath. The original body had practiced the Qi-Nurturing Scripture for a time, but purely by rote, aping the form without any understanding of its own. This Qi Conversion Art, on the other hand, dealt with changes in the nature of inner breath, which made it rather well suited to be Ji Zhao's introductory textbook.
He was in no hurry to train the Rotten Wood Scripture either, and instead went carefully through the book once more.
【Qi Conversion Art: Consummate Mastery→Grandmaster of an Era (00/00)】
【Martial Technique Effect: Converts 69%→99% of inner breath】
【Martial Attainment +249】
【Ji Zhao: Innate Lv1→Lv2】
After two readings, Ji Zhao closed the book. He no longer had any need to learn a Dispersal method; through this Qi Conversion Art, he had already seen through the basic transformations in the nature of inner breath.
"Can you understand it?"
Just then, with a creak, the door was pushed open, followed by a clear, cool voice. At some point Ji Tan, her long jet-black hair hanging loose, had come to lean in the doorway. "Uncle Wang told me you'd chosen this Qi Conversion Art. What, can't bear to part with that little bit of Qi-Nurturing inner breath you built up? Don't be penny-wise and pound-foolish."
"I can just about understand a little of it." Ji Zhao smiled. "Maybe the Duke of Wu'an is watching over me from beyond. That knock on the head opened up my mind."
The standing of Wei Huo, the Duke of Wu'an, in this world was no less than that of Ji Zhao in the martial arts world of his own.
"Is that so... I came to talk you out of it, but if that's what you say, never mind. We'll wait a couple of days and see whether you really understand it, or you're just being stubborn." Ji Tan tossed out that single remark and left without a sound. Ji Zhao could not quite get the measure of this one either. She was, after all, a ruthless sort who could kill herself without a word — trying to read the thoughts of someone like that would take far too much effort.
【"And also... I really can't stand people who push other people's doors open without knocking."】
Ji Zhao got off the bed, shut the door, and began converting to the Rotten Wood Scripture.
Compared with the Qi Conversion Art, which he had maxed out within two hours, the Rotten Wood Scripture was an internal art of slow, patient grinding, and progress was extremely slow... This set Ji Zhao thinking about the Hell-Turning Heart-Burning Scripture that Ji Bei had mentioned in the game. Ji Zhao knew it was the method Ji Bei had learned while studying at the Luo River Pavilion.
Just from the name, you could tell that method had to pack a real punch!
Unfortunately, disciples of the Luo River Pavilion who had left the Pavilion were not permitted to pass on its martial arts at will, and with Ji Bei's temperament, Ji Zhao could only dream about it.
Toward evening, someone delivered several food boxes to the Ji household — during the siege, Ji Bei, as the county's Martial Warden and its greatest fighting strength, was never short of meat at any meal, and Ji Zhao and Ji Tan got a share of the benefit, getting to see a little meat even in these hard times.
At dinner, Ji Tan stayed in her own room reading. Wang An dished up a portion and took it to her, leaving only Ji Bei and Ji Zhao at the table.
Author's Notes:
Note 1: Ji Zhao's Martial Attainment is high mainly in the area of fighting, which is a great help to his experience multiplier for combat-type martial techniques, but does little for internal arts or for techniques like this one that mainly involve circulating qi. This book isn't a stat-driven story; this is just a way of quantifying the characters' speed of growth and rough strength as far as possible.
Note 2: Ji Zhao doesn't actually see the section above from his own point of view. In fact, he worked out these numbers by comparing them against his original panel, but writing it that way would pad the word count too much and wouldn't be intuitive enough, so I changed it to this.