Dao Of The Salted Fish (Salted Fish Cultivator)

After a few days sulking relaxing in the forests, helping carry an injured stranger dressed in black back to the nearest mortal town, and helping an illiterate person read out a letter in that town, Wen Zhihao finally returned back to the Golden Sun Sect.

Seeing all the daily lives of others, plus the nature therapy, washed Wen Zhihao’s stress away. His qi became calm once more. He decided to go back to the Outer Sect Library and find something interesting to learn. Wen Zhihao sort of missed the long rabbit hole searches down online encyclopaedias. He couldn’t sleep all the time, after all.

Unfortunately, before he could enter the library, Zhang Wu ambushed him.

“You! Disciple Wen Zhihao!” Zhang Wu grabbed him by the arm. “Missing out on the compulsory morning practice, do you want to be kicked out of the Sect?!! I’m taking you to see the Elders!”

“Zhang-shixiong, I was going to the library—”

“Stop speaking!” Zhang Wu’s face was heavy with annoyance.

Wen Zhihao shook his captured arm. “Then I will follow Zhang-shixiong obediently, no need to drag me like a criminal.”

Zhang Wu’s complexion worsened, but at least he let go of Wen Zhihao’s arm.

The Elders had quarters at the center of the Golden Sun Sect, in the most majestic set of buildings. Zhang Wu led him to the Elders’ Receiving Hall. An inner sect disciple stood at the front door to the Hall, and only after the prior group left did he let Zhang Wu and Wen Zhihao enter.

Wen Zhihao looked around the Hall curiously. Here, the qi was extremely dense, almost suffocatingly so. He wanted to cover his nose and mouth with his sleeve to filter the qi, except that would be impolite.

The Hall was deep red and gold and filled with intricate patterns that emanated power. At the front of the Hall, five Elders sat, four at the same level and one elevated. They all wore golden robes that literally shone with qi. There were basically two types of elders: three of them who had white hair (two with white flowing beards) and overall looked very old; while the other two looked otherworldly young, though their much-too-serious facial expressions gave their ages away.

“This disciple greets the Elders,” Zhang Wu said.

Wen Zhihao hurried to copy him, bowing deeply.

“Speak,” the young-looking Elder on the left said. This Elder had a heavy presence, and no gender could possibly be assigned to them.

Zhang Wu bowed again. “This disciple over here is Wen Zhihao. He has been avoiding compulsory morning sword practice for over three weeks, and when he does come, he does not take it seriously! Asking Elders to give judgement!”

Oh. Fuck. Luckily he knew how to talk polite and courteous to bosses!

The young-looking Elder flicked their eyes to Wen Zhihao. “Speak.”

Wen Zhihao bowed. “It is true, I have been avoiding morning sword practice. I have recently received enlightenment, understanding that sword cultivation is not suitable for my disposition. Asking Elders to transfer me to a different cultivation method.”

“Acceptable. State your choice.”

Wen Zhihao had to quickly think. He could become a demonic beast tamer type cultivator, but then again, he had no interest in training them to become cruel attacking beasts. And he wasn’t sure if the animals remained cute...Instead, there was another one that he had thought about before:

“This little one asks to be trained as a talisman cultivator.”

The young looking cultivator turned their head slightly to look at the old-looking female Elder. “Elder Liu Ru.”

Elder Liu Ru looked at Wen Zhihao. “Probationary. Child, head to the Talisman Hall and register.” She pulled out a paper token. It flew to Wen Zhihao’s side.

Wen Zhihao politely accepted, thanking the Elder.

“Done,” said the young-looking cultivator.

“Thank you for your judgement,” Zhang Wu said. Wen Zhihao echoed his words.

The two of them exited the Hall. They were many steps away when Zhang Wu gave him a sour look. “Switching to talisman cultivation, what a waste!”

Wen Zhihao blinked. “Zhang-shixiong, are you implying that talisman cultivators are worse?”

Zhang Wu’s face turned ugly. “You!!! When Elder Liu sees that you are a slacker, then you’ll be sorry!”

Wen Zhihao sighed lightly. He patted Zhang Wu on the arm. “Zhang-shixiong, be careful or you might suffer from qi deviation. Is cultivation not about cultivating your internal self? Why does Zhang-shixiong worry so much for a white-eyed wolf like me? Take a deep breath and release your anger into the air…”

Despite himself, Zhang Wu followed Wen Zhihao’s instructions and immediately felt better. But he was still angry at this Wen’s pretentiousness.

“Take another deep breath and slowly release it...Doing exercise can also calm the mind. Zhang-shixiong, can you take me to the Talisman Hall? This shidi has forgotten.”

Zhang Wu spluttered. “...Shameless!”

Nonetheless, Zhang Wu helpfully took Wen Zhihao to the Talisman Hall.

Hmm, a little tsundere? Wen Zhihao inwardly smiled. “This shidi is indebted to you.”

Zhang Wu gave him a pompous look. “As you should be!” He glared one more time and hurried off.

Wen Zhihao entered the Talisman Hall. The Talisman Hall had relatively low ceilings and was brightly lit with glowing talismans. In the foyer, a bored looking inner sect disciple was sitting behind the counter and drawing some practice talismans.

He looked up lazily. “Hello, what does the fellow daoist want?”

Wen Zhihao showed him the paper token given by Elder Liu. “Elder Liu has ordered me to register.”

The other cultivator straightened up a little, pulling out a sheet of paper. “Write down your name and place a dab of your qi here…”

Wen Zhihao did so, wrinkling his nose at the difficulty of using a brush to write instead of a pen. After he dabbed some qi, words appeared: Fire Root, Foundation Building, Early Stage.

Foundation Building? When did he reach that? The original ‘Wen Zhihao’ was at the Qi-Refining level, and the new Wen Zhihao now hadn’t done any cultivation at all since he came. Weird...maybe simply breathing in qi-heavy air improves the body? After all, there was a reason why qi-heavy places were highly sought after and typically reserved for only the top cultivators.

The receptionist cultivator took the paper. “Cultivator Wen, you are a fire root wanting to be a talisman cultivator? Most fire roots are suitable for sword cultivation.”

Wen Zhihao: …. No idea what roots mean, ba! It wasn’t like a root meant he could naturally manipulate the corresponding element, wrong kind of fantasy!

“Is there anything else?” Wen Zhihao said instead.

“En. Here, these are the beginning manuals.”

Two jade slips, a stack of talisman-writing paper, brush, ink and inkstone was pushed towards Wen Zhihao. Wen Zhihao placed them all in his spatial ring.

“Are there any introductory classes?”

The male cultivator gave him a weird look. “You are already Foundation Building. Have you not attended the compulsory outer sect classes?”

“Ah, yes, of course, I forgot, it’s been awhile, thank you.”

“Elder Liu will contact you for your aptitude test. You may go.”

Wen Zhihao bowed and left.

Finally, he was able to return to his room! He took out all the blankets, piled them on the bed, and took a well deserved nap.