Chapter 156

Chapter 156

It was a luopan.

A luopan made entirely of gold.

But it was very small, no larger than my palm.

Master could hold it in one hand. Resting on her fair, smooth, jade-like palm, it looked exquisite and delicate, yet emanated an abstruse and mysterious aura.

“Master, is that… a feng shui luopan? It looks like a Sanhe luopan.”

She nodded.

“That’s right.”

“But it’s much too small! I can’t even make out the Twenty-Four Mountains on the disk.”

The so-called Twenty-Four Mountains were formed from the Four Corners, Eight Heavenly Stems, and Twelve Earthly Branches, allowing a feng shui luopan to distinguish ranges of space and time.

The Four Corners were Qian, Kun, Xun, and Gen.

The Eight Heavenly Stems were Jia, Yi, Bing, Ding, Geng, Xin, Ren, and Gui.

The Twelve Earthly Branches were Zi, Chou, Yin, Mao, Chen, Si, Wu, Wei, Shen, You, Xu, and Hai.

Together, they totaled twenty-four.

Once engraved on a luopan, they divided the full three-hundred-and-sixty-degree circle of the horizontal plane into twenty-four equal parts.

These were known as the Twenty-Four Mountains!

Each Mountain thus occupied fifteen degrees. Three Mountains formed one trigram, and each trigram occupied forty-five degrees.

But this golden luopan was only the size of my palm. No matter how finely and precisely the markings had been engraved, wasn’t reading them going to be terribly difficult?

Whenever I used the luopan to analyze feng shui or determine auspicious and inauspicious directions, would I have to press my face right up against it to see?

Wouldn’t that be incredibly embarrassing?

Master rolled her eyes at me.

“That is why I’ve always told you to train your fists and kicks properly. Most of the national arts are internal martial arts. Once you attain a profound level, your gaze will be like lightning and your vision many times sharper than an ordinary person’s. With concentration, you’ll be able to make out a fly several hundred yards away. Wouldn’t reading this luopan then be effortless?”

I rolled my eyes too, rendered rather speechless.

Wasn’t that complete nonsense?

If I reached that level, my unarmed martial arts alone would already be comparable to Huo Yuanjia and Wong Fei-hung during the Republican era.

Even if I cultivated no other arts whatsoever, I could go anywhere I pleased without fear!

That was right. Broadly speaking, the martial arts world was also part of the esoteric world… Martial arts were, after all, a branch of the eclectic arts within the cultivation world.

It was simply that martial artists commanded enormous influence, while their training was relatively simpler and easier than talisman arts, feng shui arts, and similar practices.

They therefore became very famous. During the Republican era, martial arts were even called the “national arts”!

Take great masters such as Huo Yuanjia and Wong Fei-hung, for example. They cultivated no magical arts whatsoever, and no qi existed within their bodies.

From the perspective of the esoteric arts, that meant their innate aptitude was lacking.

And yet they could cultivate the fist-fighting techniques of the eclectic arts to an astonishing level!

In a head-on fight to the death, even if the present-day Old Cao, Li Miao, Yuan Fei, and I all joined forces, we probably still wouldn’t be enough to defeat either man.

The physical capabilities of a martial arts grandmaster at that level were simply too terrifying!

As Master had said, their vision, reflexes, speed, and strength were all several times greater than yours.

Before you could even cast the talisman in your hand, the grandmaster would probably have flashed in front of you and knocked you flat with one punch.

Of course, that didn’t mean the “martial arts” of the eclectic arts were superior to the entire system of magical practices within the esoteric arts…

After all, even throughout history, very few people had ever reached the level of Huo Yuanjia or Wong Fei-hung!

Within the cultivation world, a fair comparison would have to be the heads and abbots of the various Buddhist and Daoist sects! Those people would still be much more powerful.

For instance, I believed that if they truly fought to the death, Master would be even more powerful than either of those two men…

In short, martial arts had originally been one lineage within the eclectic arts of the cultivation world, but their status was now exceptionally high.

Master also placed the greatest importance on them!

Unfortunately, perhaps because my bazi was naturally too light and my destiny configuration so peculiar, my progress in unarmed combat truly couldn’t compare with my rapid advances in talisman arts and feng shui…

Smack!

Master’s hand made intimate contact with my head once again.

I covered it with an aggrieved expression.

She glared at me.

“You unworthy disciple. I’m giving you something valuable, yet all you do is complain? Even if you can’t use this luopan, it is still made from pure gold.”

“Does that mean I can sell it?”

Master raised her hand as if to strike me again. I hurriedly covered my head, admitted my mistake, and explained that I was only joking. How could I ever sell something Master gave me?

In truth, it was merely playful teasing between master and disciple.

After our little exchange, Master’s expression became serious.

“Ah-Zhong, this feng shui luopan is actually a ritual implement I used when I was young. Feng shui is part of my family’s inheritance. To tell the truth, however, I never liked it very much. Once I had more or less mastered the fundamentals of The Book of Burial and The Classic of Dwellings, I stopped studying the subject any further.”

“But you’ve only read through The Classic of Dwellings and The Book of Burial roughly a few times, haven’t you? You’re still far from reciting them fluently, never mind understanding them completely. You’ll have to keep studying them little by little, so this luopan will still be useful to you.”

From Master’s explanation, I could already more or less sense her preferences.

Her favorite arts were probably talisman arts and household familiars.

Next came martial arts.

And feng shui came last…

But she had just said feng shui was part of her family’s inheritance?

“It looks as though Master must come from a family steeped in the esoteric arts.”

I thought this silently, becoming even more curious about Master’s origins.

But I didn’t ask, because I knew it wouldn’t get me anywhere!

During the little over half a year since I became her disciple, I had asked several times–sometimes directly, sometimes through roundabout hints–about Master’s background and the circumstances of our lineage.

But she would only smile and refuse to say anything!

If I asked a few more questions, she would simply smack me on the head over and over with her hand…

So even though I felt that my cultivation was already respectable, I still didn’t know what lineage of arts I was actually learning!
“Forget it. It doesn’t matter. As long as I can learn the arts, who cares what lineage they belong to or where they came from? I only need to recognize Master as my master.”

That was the helpless conclusion I eventually reached.

While my thoughts wandered, Master had already placed the small golden luopan in my hand.

“Ah-Zhong, try channeling some of your qi into this luopan.”

Hmm?

The moment I heard her words, I knew there was probably more to this object than met the eye!

“Yes, Master!”

I immediately did as she instructed. Circulating the qi in my dantian, I guided it upward through my meridians and acupoints, then channeled it through my palm and into the small golden luopan.

In the very next instant…

Hummm!

The small luopan in my hand vibrated violently and emitted a humming sound.

Then a golden phantom expanded in an instant, spreading outward from the luopan.

It became the phantom of a golden luopan hovering over the physical one!

The golden phantom was so vivid that it looked almost real. It was about half a foot in diameter, and the Twenty-Four Mountains, along with every marking and character on its surface, appeared in the finest detail.

At the sight, I couldn’t help blurting out, “Th-this is incredible!”

I had never imagined that this was the correct way to use the luopan!

Only after qi was channeled into it would it manifest a clear display.

Master burst out laughing at my astonished expression.

“Well? Do you still think the Twenty-Four Mountains are too small to read?”

“I can see them clearly now!”

I excitedly turned the luopan over and over in my hands. The enlarged phantom hovering around the physical luopan moved in perfect unison with it and could flip over along with it as well.

I also discovered that by adjusting the amount of qi I channeled into the luopan, I could control the size and clarity of its phantom.

“If someone possessed tremendous arcane power and the qi in their body was both abundant and exceptionally pure, could they create a luopan phantom dozens of yards across, covering an enormous area? That would be astonishing!”

I asked Master.

She smiled and nodded. “Naturally.”

I asked another question.

“Then if you used your full strength, Master, how large could you make the luopan’s phantom?”

“Guess.”

Me: “…”

In any case, the person I was back then couldn’t stop marveling at such a wondrous ritual implement.

I never expected that, more than a decade later… I would see something similar in the mundane world.

It was known as 3D AR holographic projection technology!

It became especially well known to the general public through a Hollywood movie called Iron Man 2, in which the protagonist expertly manipulated holographic projections to design and modify an element.

So in many cases, occultism and science… might truly be two sides of the same coin!

Scientists developed 3D AR holographic projection technology, while powerful cultivators in the occult world had devised similar arts a thousand years earlier and used them to forge ritual implements.

After thanking Master again, I carefully put away the golden luopan she had given me.

This treasure was definitely no less precious than the ritual blade she had given me last time!

Presumably, it could do far more than analyze feng shui configurations. It likely possessed many other ingenious uses that I would have to explore myself… Master could never teach me every tiny detail.

A master could show you the door, but cultivation depended on the individual!

At that point, I noticed it was already nine at night.

So I spoke tentatively.

“By the way, Master, um… I have two friends who would like to meet you. Would that be all right?”

I put on a perfectly innocent expression.

She glanced at me with an ambiguous smile.

“Heh. You’re even trying to play tricks on me? Acting first and asking permission afterward? They’re already outside and have been waiting so long. Did you think I wouldn’t know?”

Uh…

It was true that I had already told Bai Su and Huihui to come straight to Wujia Village after dark.

By my estimate, the two of them had probably already entered the village, hadn’t they?

To be honest, deep down, part of the reason I had agreed to let Bai Su and Huihui meet Master was my own vain desire to show off–look how powerful my Master was!

At the same time, I more or less understood why Bai Su wanted so badly to meet her.

According to legend, monsters passed among themselves a tale known as “an Immortal Points the Way”!

What did it mean for an Immortal to point the way?

Naturally, the immortal in question could not be a genuine immortal… It was a metaphor for an expert whose cultivation had reached an extraordinarily profound level.

Humans were the most intelligent of all creatures, blessed by heaven and earth, and possessed all manner of wondrous cultivation methods.

But monsters transformed from animals lacked that ability!

Most so-called monsters relied on little more than instinct and innate gifts to obtain certain strange and wondrous abilities. They had no way to follow a genuine path or cultivate according to a particular method as humans did…

That was why some benevolent monsters yearned to receive guidance from an expert in the esoteric arts–some suitable direction or method that would make their future path of cultivation smoother.

Some even hoped to become the expert’s monster familiar.

This was what it meant for an Immortal to point the way!

In essence, Bai Su had been a “monster familiar” from birth–she had been raised by a feng shui master, who had also helped awaken her intelligence.

Her former master, however, had certainly been far inferior to my Master. By my estimate, he had been, at most, about equal to Old Cao.

His ability in direct combat might not even have matched Old Cao’s.

Monsters like Bai Su also felt a natural affinity for experts in the esoteric arts.

So after learning about Master, she wanted to seek another stroke of fortune and have an “Immortal point the way” for her…

I understood her intentions perfectly well. We were now allies as well as friends, so I was naturally happy to do her this easy favor!