November 3rd.
In the Library Pavilion, Su Chen still spent his idle time sweeping, reading, and, as he read, drifting into dreams.
Ever since the Seed of Longevity sprouted and he generated Longevity True Qi, his cultivation speed had not been slow.
The Fifth Grade of the Path of Qi was called the Inner Qi Realm.
The Library Pavilion held no profound cultivation techniques, but it was not short on books about martial arts lore. An ordinary person at Inner Qi Realm Perfection could probably nurture about ten streams of combat-ready True Qi.
The better one's innate talent and constitution, the more streams of True Qi they could generate in this realm.
Those with superior constitutions could produce three times as much—a full thirty streams of combat-ready True Qi.
Even more so, a Martial Arts Prodigy blessed by the heavens, someone with extraordinary talent, could generate over thirty streams, capping out at ninety.
But he had entered the Inner Qi Realm only three days ago, and his Longevity True Qi had already broken past the thirty-stream mark, reaching over sixty.
'Something's not right.'
'Now, the seventieth stream of Longevity True Qi has been born.'
Su Chen felt the amount of True Qi in his body, his expression turning a little strange.
It seemed he wasn't a cultivation weakling, but more like a Martial Arts Prodigy—the kind who could generate seventy streams of combat-ready True Qi.
No, that wasn't right either.
At this very moment, the number of Longevity True Qi streams in his body had reached seventy. And although their growth had slowed, they were still continuously multiplying with powerful momentum.
Seventy was not his limit. Perhaps ninety, or even breaking past the legendary limit of ninety, was possible.
'I see.'
Su Chen suddenly understood.
It was probably because he had obtained the Seed of Longevity and was no longer entirely human.
He couldn't even enter a meditative state with normal cultivation techniques, let alone sense the free-roaming Qi of heaven and earth to nurture his own.
The moment the Seed of Longevity appeared, he was no longer human, but some other form of long-lived being...
Beyond the Three Realms, not within the Five Elements, perhaps.
'It's just that my True Qi is pathetically weak. It doesn't seem to have any destructive power.'
'Looks like I'm still a weakling after all.'
'I may not be a cultivation weakling anymore, but I've become a combat weakling. I still have no real power to speak of.'
Su Chen struck out with his palm, hitting a bluestone. According to the books, a punch from someone at Inner Qi Perfection could make this thousand-jin boulder tremble nonstop.
The stronger among them could even crack the thousand-jin boulder.
Su Chen watched with great anticipation to see how his True Qi would perform.
POW!
It hit!
The anticipation in Su Chen's eyes vanished completely.
Forget shaking the boulder, his True Qi-infused punch was like tofu hitting a rock; it instantly dispersed into nothing.
It had no destructive power whatsoever.
'Sigh.'
'So weak.'
'I really shouldn't have gotten my hopes up.'
Su Chen shook his head and went back to organizing the books.
After he left,
what he didn't see was a withered yellow dogtail grass beneath the bluestone. Nourished by his dispersed True Qi, it instantly swelled up, growing rapidly and piercing straight through the massive bluestone—a rock so large it would take two people to encircle it with their arms—to stand tall.
In an instant, it had become a giant, one-meter-tall dogtail grass.
A normal dogtail grass was only about the length of a forearm, thirty centimeters. But this one, having received Longevity True Qi, seemed to have undergone a change in its very Life Level.
After finishing his work organizing the books on the nine floors of the Library Pavilion,
Su Chen returned to the first floor. Just as he was about to grab a random book and fall asleep, he was stunned to see the giant dogtail grass.
In that moment, looking at the white True Qi swirling in his palm, Su Chen faintly realized something.
'My Longevity True Qi can increase vitality and affect the very essence of life?'
Su Chen started rummaging through chests and cabinets, wanting to verify his theory and see the wondrous effects of his Longevity True Qi for himself.
"Found it."
A withered medicinal herb wrapped in a silk handkerchief appeared in his palm. It was a dried ginseng root.
Treasure Medicines like Ginseng and Ganoderma could not only heal injuries and replenish Primordial Qi, but also aid in Martial Dao cultivation.
This thirty-year-old ginseng was something Zhang Gui had specially saved from his own cultivation resources after hearing Su Chen wanted to practice martial arts.
It would come in handy right now.
This was a bold experiment.
A stream of Longevity True Qi flowed into the withered ginseng.
In an instant,
the once-shriveled ginseng swelled up, taking on a vibrant white hue. It had actually regained its fresh vitality.
Moreover, it was still growing.
Rootlets sprouted rapidly, constantly extending.
The body of the ginseng also began to grow larger at a visible rate.
In the blink of an eye,
the stream of Longevity True Qi was depleted.
The ginseng, originally the length and thickness of two fingers, had transformed into a palm-sized specimen with an exceptionally dense network of rootlets.
'How many years old is this now...?'
Excited, Su Chen jogged up to the second floor and retrieved a book titled *Hundred Herbs Pharmacopoeia* to identify it.
He was stunned.
It was actually a hundred-year-old ginseng.
A thirty-year-old ginseng, which could aid a Fifth-Grade cultivator's practice, was exceptionally precious. Even a Martial Arts Eunuch like Zhang Gui, who was specially nurtured and extremely talented, was only supplied with one per month.
The ginseng of this world wasn't like the kind from his previous life, which could be artificially cultivated and bought in bulk if you had enough money.
Every ginseng in the Cultivation World grew by absorbing the Qi of heaven and earth.
'A hundred-year-old ginseng can not only save a person from the brink of death, but it can also increase a Fourth-Grade Inner Qi cultivator's cultivation by ten years...'
A thirty-year-old ginseng might still be obtainable with money, but a hundred-year-old ginseng was considered a strategic reserve resource for the major cultivation powers.
The last time a hundred-year-old ginseng appeared in the Imperial Capital, several Peak Third-Grade noble Marquises fought over it, but it ultimately ended up in the hands of a Chief Steward of the Imperial Palace.
Putting aside their authority, the Chief Steward of the Imperial Palace was a Second-Grade Cultivator. With a stomp of their foot, the entire Imperial City would tremble in deference.
And this hundred-year-old ginseng was created with just a single stream of Longevity True Qi.
With a few more streams of Longevity True Qi,
Su Chen felt he could even create a Thousand-year-old Ginseng King.
The Thousand-year-old Ginseng King was said to be a Supreme Treasure. Legend had it that if a Peak First-Grade expert used it to protect their Internal Organs, they had a chance of breaking through to the Grandmaster Realm.
That old Emperor had consumed so many Spiritual Pills and elixirs to extend his life by three months. Wasn't it a Thousand-Year Treasure Medicine that allowed him to escape death?
A Thousand-year-old Ginseng King was definitely a Treasure Medicine among Thousand-Year Treasure Medicines—the king of them all.
'Let's try it.'
Su Chen was eager to give it a go.
A long time later,
the thirty streams of True Qi in his body were exhausted.
An unusual fragrance wafted through the Library Pavilion. Su Chen silently stared at the ginseng before him. It had swelled to the size of a millstone before shrinking down to the size of a fist, now resembling a curled-up infant.
He flipped through the *Hundred Herbs Pharmacopoeia*, silently reciting the page on the Thousand-year-old Ginseng King.
"The Thousand-year-old Ginseng King, a product of heaven and earth's Creation, is nurtured for a millennium. It is rumored to contain a breath of Longevity Qi. Consuming it can extend the life of one on the verge of death by another ten years."
"For a Peak First Grade, it can break through bottlenecks, cleanse the Internal Organs, and allow one to step into the Grandmaster Realm!"
"A Divine Medicine in this era. In the three hundred years of Great Liang, it has appeared three times. Each time it emerged, it brought chaos to the world and catastrophe to the Human World, with countless Cultivators fighting to plunder it..."
Su Chen was silent for a moment.
A Thousand-year-old Ginseng King nurtured a breath of Longevity Qi. He, on the other hand, had used over thirty streams of Longevity Qi to raise a wild ginseng worth thirty taels of silver into a world-shocking Thousand-year-old Ginseng King.
'What a pity.'
'A Divine Medicine that can let a Peak First Grade step into the Grandmaster Realm is useless to me.'
'I can't cultivate using mortal methods.'
'Otherwise, with all this Longevity Qi, I could have just fed myself Treasure Medicines and cultivated myself into a Peak First Grade, or even a Grandmaster...'
Su Chen shook his head, fetched a pearwood box that could seal in the unusual fragrance, and placed the fist-sized Thousand-year-old Ginseng King in a hidden compartment in the Library Pavilion.
As long as the Seed of Longevity continued to grow, his strength would constantly increase.
This was his method of protecting his path.
'However, my Longevity True Qi is geared more toward support and healing. Against a powerful enemy, it seems it wouldn't be of much use.'
Su Chen flipped through the books and found two possible methods.
One was the Path of the Body: forging his own body into a powerful weapon. With the endless supply of Qi nourishing his vitality, he would surely become terrifyingly strong.
The other was to rapidly mature aged poisons and concoct terrifying Secret Medicines that could kill even the most powerful experts.
'I'll just do both.'
'A suitable cultivation technique for externally training the body will be hard to find. But here in the Imperial Palace, there's no shortage of medicinal herb seeds.'
Su Chen rubbed his chin.
With this ability to rapidly mature Treasure Medicines, he probably wouldn't be short on money.
If he were willing to sell that matured Thousand-year-old Ginseng King, he suspected that even Great Liang's Martial Arts Peak First Grade experts nearing the end of their lifespan, the Great Liang Marquises, the Emperor himself, and the old cultivation monsters in the Tianwu Tower would be willing to trade anything for it.
However, it was more likely they wouldn't trade for it, but simply take it by force.
'The law of the jungle.'
Su Chen made a trip out, arriving before the entrance of the Martial Arts Bureau.
In front of the Martial Arts Bureau, a large group of old eunuchs in cyan robes were lined up, holding brocade boxes and bowing obsequiously.
Su Chen didn't understand what was going on, but he bypassed the line, walked up to the little eunuch at the entrance of the Martial Arts Bureau, cupped his hands, and called out.
"Could you please announce me?"
"Just say that Su Chen is looking for Zhang Gui."
As soon as he said this,
a burst of laughter erupted from the crowd.
"Where did this newly-entered little eunuch come from?"
"He has no manners."
"If you want to suck up to Steward Zhang Gui, you have to get in line, you know? He didn't even bring a gift. Heh, Steward Zhang is a favorite of Noble Consort Zhang now. Do you think a newly-entered little eunuch like you can just curry favor with him?"
"How dare you say Steward Zhang's name directly! Such disrespect! He deserves a good slapping!"
The crowd buzzed with discussion, their words filled with sarcastic mockery, rebukes, and malicious intent.
In the Imperial Palace, eunuchs' robes came in roughly five colors.
The sole Purple Robe was worn by the Imperial Attendant, the Chief Eunuch.
A position that could only be held by a Peak First Grade.
Red robes were for the five great Chief Stewards.
Blue Robes were for the numerous Eunuch Stewards.
And the old eunuchs wore cyan robes.
A plain cyan robe signified an ordinary eunuch, while an embellished one was for a Martial Arts Bureau eunuch—all of them cultivators with cultivation, and future steward candidates.
Newly-entered little eunuchs wore black—the lowest rank—which was a plain black robe.
The little eunuch guarding the gate of the Martial Arts Bureau saw that Su Chen was just a little eunuch in a plain black robe. He was clearly a naive greenhorn who hadn't been in the palace long and could be bullied by anyone.
He immediately sneered, tilting his head back to look down his nose at Su Chen. With a mocking expression, he aimed a kick at the rule-breaking little eunuch and cursed.
"All these people are here to see Steward Zhang Gui."
"Now get in line."
"Heh."
"A newly-entered little eunuch daring to curry favor with Steward Zhang Gui? What a joke. Don't you take a piss and look at your own reflection? What kind of piece of..."
SLAP!
A resounding slap struck the face of the little eunuch guarding the Martial Arts Bureau's gate.
SLAP! SLAP!
Again and again.
"Who?!"
"Who dares to hit me? Dammit, do you know whose man I am? I'm the godson that Steward Zhang Gui just acknowledged... Huh? Godfather?!"
The little eunuch was dumbfounded.
Zhang Gui's handsome face was etched with cold fury.
"Not anymore."
"My brother, Zhang Gui's own brother, was almost kicked to the ground by you right in front of the Martial Arts Bureau. How could I dare to acknowledge a godson like you?"