The Magistrate: Chapter 66

Chapter 66

A Moment of Peace

During the heart of Winter, Tobias finally convinced Peace Master So that he would benefit by preventing the khan’s invasion of The Three Kingdoms. To do so, Tobias had to return to studying his library and prove the link between techniques, spells, cultivation methods, dao, and their environments, helping sage realm cultivators reach immortality. Tobias didn’t have any choice. There was nothing else he could do to help his family.

The khans would sweep across The Three Kingdoms if they were allowed to proceed as they wished. This was his only way of stopping them and buy the Great Clans and sects the time they needed to win the civil war.

Peace Master So didn’t leave immediately. He pulled Elder Xi aside and taught him how to make Tobias’s spirit pills, opening Elder Xi’s eyes to the dao of pills. Elder Xi cared more for his alchemy than his cultivation, so being pulled away from his cultivation did not bother him. At the end of every lesson, he could seek out Tobias in an excited frenzy, sharing what he had learned.

The dao of pills was hinted at in many of the new texts he’d gained access to since becoming an elder, but no one had spelt it out so clearly to him. He spoke at length about its interactions with spirit herbs and how it could be used to fortify pills that were about to fail.

Within the first week, he gave up on cultivating entirely, preferring to spend his time practicing bringing the dao of different pills into reality. The day Peace Master So left to confront the khans, he drank himself into a stupor, praising his teacher and cursing his luck that he had to leave.

With Peace Master So’s absence, Tobias and his companions were free to cultivate as much as they wished. Though they had been given a deadline. When Peace Master So returned, only Xu Ling and Tobias would be allowed to remain. The rest would have to leave.

Tobias had given his majordomo the divine beauty pill, hoping the transformation would be enough to let him begin cultivating his own dao path. When it wasn’t, Peace Master So stepped in and gave him what he needed in return for Tobias writing down his thoughts on the nature of dao and its interaction with the environment.

The trade came up in Peace Master So’s favour. While there wasn’t as much dao of knowledge surrounding his new manuscript as with his others, there was enough to confirm that Tobias was onto something.

Seasons wandered by.

Lingling finished expanding and strengthening her body meridians right after Peace Master So left, so Tobias let her cook as much as she wanted. She threw a party to celebrate her freedom and cooked a feast for everyone in the valley.

While drinking with Peace Master So’s disciples, Tobias discovered that many of them had been practicing his exercises. The practice had allowed them to overcome bottlenecks that had kept them from progressing for years. Many had learned that their natural strengths did not lie in their master’s cultivation method, which was why they found it so challenging, despite all being genius cultivators.

While drunk on wine, Tobias had recreated Peace Master So’s cultivation method to suit their strengths, encouraging them to take it. Everything he knew said that it was the destination, not the journey, that mattered with cultivation. Arriving at the same point from a different path made no difference. It was only when you changed the dao or the effects of a cultivation method that problems arose.

Also drunk, the disciples gave in to his insistence and practised his new methods on the spot. What initially began as a way of humouring him quickly turned into genuine interest. First, Disciple Chi thought it was a great idea to borrow Xu Ling’s Three Pigeon treasure to drunkenly ask his master if the disciples could continue practising the new methods.

Peace Master So gave his permission, but only if Tobias re-examined his creations while sober. Tobias did. He didn’t find any mistakes, but the new methods were not as optimised as they could be. He corrected this and returned to cultivating.

Nearly a year after Peace Master So left to prevent the khan’s invasion, Tobias finished enhancing his body with Peace Master So’s spirit pills and established his foundation. His dantian could hold five droplets each, so his dao was significantly weaker than that of his first disciples.

Without a divine core compression pill, Tobias could not progress his cultivation further. He had the divinity to do so, but Peace Master So had warned him against walking such a path. He had begun the divine path, so he must walk the divine path. To do otherwise would destabilise his foundation.

Tobias turned his attention to creating and practising defensive techniques. Two seasons passed before he was confident in his abilities, and then he turned his attention to creating offensive techniques.

By the end of the second year, Tobias had run out of things to do. His collection of offensive and defensive techniques was as extensive as his knowledge allowed, and his grandpa’s cultivation method had evolved into an elaborate cultivation method for his family.

Out of boredom, Tobias returned to studying Peace Master So’s collection. His understanding of the influence of dao grew, and he began testing collections of rudimentary calculations. He found patterns he hadn’t seen and refined his calculations further, allowing more patterns to emerge. Each step was slow and meticulous, growing his understanding until one day everything fit together.

Tobias went through every manual in the collection, correlated what worked and what didn’t, and found the heart of what made a core realm method work and how progress was achieved. The answer, unsurprisingly, was that everything was linked. Progress through the core realm was determined by progress through previous realms and the consistency of one’s dao.

The accuracy of your foundation was what your dao was built upon. The consistency of your actions and environment was the foundation upon which your foundation was built. This could be shown in numbers, but was expressed in philosophies. It was part science, part artistic expression, because no two dao paths were the same, but the underlying principles which bound them all together were.

Tobias wrote sixteen books to explain these principles and then proceeded to rewrite them over and over again as he clarified his explanations and understanding. He applied these new insights to his grandpa’s cultivation methods, techniques, and spells, then went back and rewrote his books again, refining them further. Eventually, he reached the limits of what he could comprehend without progressing his studies into the nascent soul realm and stopped.

Tobias didn’t want to stop, but continuing would make him less valuable to the Great Clans and sects. Once they had what they needed, there would be no reason to protect his family, and his family still wasn’t in a position where they could support themselves without protection.

Tobias was sitting by the river using Magistrate Chi’s fishing pool when he felt Peace Master So enter his hidden realm. One moment he was at the entrance, the next he was sitting on his boulder.

Tobias smirked because he knew the sage could see him.

Tobias’s advice had offered the sage a little over three and a half years of insights into his dao. Three and a half years during which the khans were held in place. The 3rd Emperor had given up a lot of territory because he thought the khans were coming, intentionally limiting his control over territory to build a stronger defensive line. His mortal army could not be fed on so little land, and his generals had gone against his orders and released them.

He now only controlled the territory within three hundred li of the capitol. The strength of his military had barely weakened with the loss of the mortals, but it did mean the mortals could return to some form of normality, staving off the famine which had ravaged The Three Kingdoms.

Tobias removed his line from the water and packed away his catch. He dropped off the trout he’d caught with Lingling and Magistrate Chi. The old man had developed a love of cooking from eating her meals and now acted as her assistant whenever he got the chance.

Tobias then made his way to Peace Master So.

Tobias cupped his hands and bowed before the boulder. “Sage Knowledge greets Sage Peace.”

Peace Master So bowed back and pouted. “You don’t have to look so smug, Senior.”

Tobias chuckled. “I take it your time away was fruitful.”

“If I had known that exercising my dao would give me this many insights and comprehensions, I would have reached the sage realm before the Great Plague.”

“Dao is no different to techniques in this way.”

Peace Master So leaned forward and squinted at him. “You’ve been studying my collection. You’re significantly more saturated in the dao of knowledge than when I left.”

Tobias paused. “You can read my aura?”

“Only until you ascend. I assume I’ll have to become an immortal to read your disciple’s aura again.”

Tobias filed the information away for later thought. “Are the khans going to invade now?”

Peace Master So cackled. “They’ve got to recover from my visit first. Their hordes have all become peaceful herders under the influence of my dao. They forged their weapons and armour into farming tools and grew fat. They’ve entirely lost their warrior’s edge. I expect it will be over a year before they’re ready to wage war again. Only the khans still have weapons.”

Tobias chuckled. “How unfortunate for them.”

Peace Master So sighed. “It was unfortunate for me, too. Once they accepted my dao, I stopped seeing improvements. Now, where are my gifts? I’ve been gone for years.”

Tobias removed the copies he’d made for Peace Master So from his storage ring and handed them over. “I expect I’ll gain further insights when I reach the core realm, so this is the current limit of my understanding. Are they acceptable?”

Peace Master So stacked the books into two piles: nine went into one pile and seven into the other. “This smaller pile is surrounded by as much knowledge dao as your other works. The larger one is still surrounded by more knowledge dao than anything in my collection, but is not up to your usual standard. It’s a passable first attempt.”

“Perhaps, I should take them back until they’re up to my standard.”

Peace Master So made them vanish into his storage ring. “You can’t take them back until I’ve read them.”

Tobias chuckled.

Peace Master So turned his gaze to the valley, looking off to where his disciples cultivated, one by one. “Many of my disciples have made a lot of progress while I was gone. They are back on the path I intended for them. I suppose I should reward you for helping them by helping your disciples in return. For the next century, once a decade, you may bring your foundation realm disciples or family members so they may refine the spiritual energy they need to reach the peak of the foundation realm.”

Tobias cupped his hands and bowed. “Sage Knowledge thanks Peace Master So for his generosity.”

“No. You have restored my faith in disciples I had given up on, showing me that I was at fault, not theirs. Are you ready for your ascension?”

“I’m only waiting on the Great Clans and sect to provide me with the divine core compression pill I need.”

“If you were to provide my disciples with assistance when they reach the core realm, you could have that pill tomorrow morning.”

Tobias considered the offer. “Considering you were willing to give my family and disciples access to your realm to the peak of the foundation realm over the assistance I’ve already given them, it seems a poor trade.”

“Fine. You may also bring one core realm disciple and one core realm member of your family, but they can only stay as long as the foundation members. You, your sister, your majordomo, and your first disciples are welcome whenever you wish, but only until you reach the nascent soul realm.”

“I won’t reach the nascent soul realm.”

Peace Master So frowned.

“Studying your manuals has proven to me beyond a doubt that the core realm is where my path ends. If you do everything perfectly, you can reach the nascent soul realm by forming a core with eight layers. Forming an eight-layer core requires eight droplets of spiritual energy. Forming eight droplets requires a divinity of eight. The core realm is the end of my path.”

“You’re sure?”

Tobias nodded. “If I do everything right, I’ll only be able to form six layers. The sixth will be damaged. I trust my analysis of the data.”

Peace Master So’s bottom lip trembled, and his eyes grew misty.

“I’m going to live for over a millennium, so don’t look at me like I’m about to disappear before your eyes.”

Peace Master So sucked in a deep breath. “Yes, Senior.”

Tobias changed the subject. “Why is my sister allowed back?”

“She’s made significant progress under all three mentors. It’s obvious, she doesn’t walk any of their paths, but all of them at once. And I promised her mentors when they put their inheritance into my care that I would assist their disciple from time to time. Allowing her to cultivate here when she wishes doesn’t cost me much.”

“I accept your offer.”

“You must leave after you ascend.”

Tobias frowned. “Have I done something to upset you?”

Peace Master So shook his head. “I never expected to be absent from my realm for so long. My absence has lowered the saturation of my dao. It is a minor issue, but one that will need to be corrected before I continue cultivating here.”

Tobias hadn’t noticed any difference, but that did not mean there wasn’t one. He cupped his hands and bowed. “I apologise for our presence disturbing your realm.”

“It is my fault. I knew I should return, but the growth I saw was impossible to walk away from. May I give you some advice, Senior?”

“Only a fool turns down the advice of a sage.”

“Study every aspect of the cultivation world. It is all connected and all necessary to reach immortality. My valley is the culmination of my understanding of gathering, taming, medicine, formations, arrays, alchemy, artifact forging, chi balancing, and dao. It is my greatest creation. A living cultivation chamber in perfect balance.”

Tobias smirked and removed his grandpa’s new cultivation method from his ring. He stepped forward and handed him the stack of manuals. “You’ll find your advice is unnecessary. When one sets such an impressive example, only the blind cannot see their wisdom. Any thoughts you might have on my grandpa’s cultivation method would be appreciated.”

A manual appeared in his hand. “This is my core realm teachings. Your thoughts on them would also be appreciated.”