These days, Hong Yi lived in a valley located deep within the west mountain, reading the tens of thousands of books, forgetting the burdens of the world.

The collection of books in the valley was far more valuable and plentiful than those of the most distinguished of families, the exception being the imperial library inside of the royal palace. For the first time in years, Hong Yi had a full room of books to himself that he could read at his leisure.

"You guys emptied the Da Chan Temple"s book collection? How did you guys even move so many books here?"

After three days, Hong Yi was finally able to organize a small portion of the books. As he was resting, his spirit once again left his body to chat with the three small foxes.

Everyday, Hong Yi and the three white foxes, Xiao Sang, Xiao Shu, and Xiao Fei, had a great time conversing. Their intimacy exceeded even that of brothers and sisters. The foxes" pure innocence was felt deeply in Hong Yi"s heart.

"The big temple has plenty of books–we only brought out a small portion though. However, I only heard this from my parents. They were abducted on our way migrating here from the Central State."

Xiao Shu felt much grievance when she talked about her parents.

Hong Yi knew that it would be dangerous for the foxes to travel from the Central State to the Jade Capital, seeing that the distance was far and Xiao Sang, Xiao Shu, and Xiao Fei were thoroughbred white foxes with valuable fur.

The fur of a pure white fox has very high market price.

"Heaven graces white fox with luxurious fur, without giving them much means to protect themselves. At least, Xiao Sang, Xiao Shi, and Xiao Fei already have some ways to protect themselves, unlike me, without the strength to truss a chicken. It is about time I take martial arts seriously. To achieve mortal shedding and enable matter-manipulation is definitely not something that can be done overnight. The Dao Scripture recorded that, if one doesn"t have the solid foundation or talent, or if one also lacks profound methods of cultivation, he will never be able to break into the Matter Manipulating realm.

In the past three days, Hong Yi had been closely reading the ancient records. Hong Yi started to understand the "unspeakable" yet existing world of ghosts and spirits.

Hong Yi gained a general understanding of the ten levels of immortal cultivation–Entering Immortal, Mortal Shedding, Night Roaming, Day Roaming, Matter Manipulating, Soul Manifesting, Body Possessing, Reincarnating, Thunder Tribulating, and Yang G.o.d.

He could now perform Entering Immortal and Mortal Shedding, but he couldn"t even be considered to have entered the true inner sanctum of cultivation, for it was just the beginning of cultivation.

After the spirit exits the mortal sh.e.l.l, the next step is to exit and keep a far distance from the body, allowing the spirit to roam around freely.

Like a man finally getting out of the boat and into the water, gradually learning how to swim.

Roaming at night also has many restrictions. At the beginning, one can only stay in a pitch-black environment with no wind. It is only after the soul has been strengthened step by step that one can gradually withstand roaming in the moonlight and nightly winds.

After being able to roam freely at night, what comes next is roaming in the day.

But roaming in the day is a lot more dangerous than at night.

Generally the spirit is unable to bear the baptism of sunlight.

Leaving the mortal sh.e.l.l to roam during the daytime is like leaving the boat and entering the water during a billowing gale.

This is also the reason why ghosts generally do not appear during daytime.

When the spirit can roam during daytime, not fearing the sunlight, then one can be considered to have reached a certain degree of power.

After being strong enough to roam in the daylight, and the spirit strengthened even more, it will be able to manipulate matter such as bodies and substances. At this level, a.s.sa.s.sinating someone by manipulating matter will be possible, such as using swords and shooting arrows as a method of self-defense.

Before this stage, if a cultivator needs to protect himself, he could only rely on their mortal sh.e.l.l.

In addition, the stronger one"s body is, the longer one"s spirit can stay out of its sh.e.l.l. With a body like Hong Yi"s, once his spirit exits its sh.e.l.l for one or two days, his body will thirst and starve. Death is a real possibility.

Hong Yi read three days" worth of the Dao Scripture, so his understanding of the cultivations of immortals were on the level of matter manipulation. It was as far as he could get. The later levels were not recorded in the Dao Scripture.

However, records show, that a fair number of cultivated people will never reach the level of spirit expulsion in their lifetime.

"Inside the Martial Scripture are a few methods of working on the muscles. I should find time to practice them. If I can make my body stronger, then my spirit can leave its sh.e.l.l  longer."

Hong Yi made a firm commitment to start training. The Great Qian Dynasty was established with physical prowess and ruled with culture; good at literature, one can become a government official; good at martial arts, one can become aristocrat. This was indispensable to Hong Yi, who wanted to obtain a high social status for his mother.

In addition, the cultivation of immortals and martial arts are closely related. Hong Yi had been reading the Dao Scripture for three days. He found out that the hand gestures performed before the soul exiting the body are not useless for the body. They are important in training the muscles and breathing techniques. They can also be used as a physical exercise as well.

While he was inside the Martial Duke manor, he didn"t have the chance to practice martial arts, but being here finally gave him a chance to do so.

Although learning martial arts isn"t an easy task, Hong Yi just wants to train his body to be stronger, one step at a time.

Hong Yi knew he was still young and that there was plenty of time left.

"Take the imperial examination, achieve fame, establish an outstanding military service record, and obtain a rank of n.o.bility. These are things I need to do, one by one. In short, first I need to strengthen my body, so that I can change my fault of not being strong enough to kill a chicken."

…………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Great Qian Dynasty"s first big snowstorm in the year sixty finally came.

The ma.s.sive snowfall flooded the sky and covered the ground like goose feathers, and bunched together like bits of cotton wadding.

The Jade Capital"s Western Mountain had whiteout winds, and an astonishingly low temperature.

However, this kind of weather, deep in the mountains, had a very calming sensation, which most perfectly suits reading, writing, and attaining knowledge.

It was freezing out. Dripping water froze into ice, but the deep valley caves where the foxes resided were warm and cozy.

This was because there was burning charcoal in the large copper pots.

The stone cave"s entrance had been sealed with heavy drapes to obstruct the wind.

The two sides of the cave had a few seemingly man-made holes the size of a fist. They were cut very skillfully, allowing the sunlight to enter and promoting good ventilation, while preventing and obstructing the cold wind from entering.

Hong Yi sat at the front of the stone room to study the Martial Scripture.  

On the other side, Xiao Shu, Xiao Sang, Xiao Fei, the three little white foxes circled around a large clay pot. The clay pot smelled like chicken.

They were brewing chicken stew.

The chickens are top-notch mountain chickens that ate pine nuts in the mountain. Once stewed, the stew"s aroma contained the sweet scent of pine nuts .

The foxes took advantage of the snow and caught the wild chickens inside of the mountains. They said it was a snack for Hong Yi.

The stone room"s storage included foods such as oil, salt, rice, soy sauce, vinegar, spices etc. It also included firewood, and wasn"t susceptible to a big snowstorm closing off the mountain.

After living in the mountain ravine for a few days, Hong Yi learned that this pack of foxes completely had separated themselves from the life of savage wild animals. Not only could they read and write characters, but they could also speak the human tongue, learn how to plant vegetation and make food like a human, consume oil and salt, and make their own beds in the cavern. They also cleaned the cave every single day, showered, and made everything clean and tidy.

On the other end of the cave there were a few small rooms, inside which a few foxes lazily lay on the ground sleeping, showing signs of being laziness.

Although this might be a group of foxes, there were no discomforting odors to disturb Hong Yi"s reading.

Although Elder Tu was inside the stone room, he was not moving at all. His spirit was clearly somewhere else travelling.

This fox with a pretty profound cultivation was trying to prevent hunters from hunting under the snowy disguise, as well as strengthening his spirit patrolling on a snowy day like this.

This fox had already reached the Day Roaming stage.

"Learning martial arts is truly hard, it has so many taboos. Without instructions, self-explorations can easily lead to troubles."

Hong Yi read through the book. A whim of frustration hit him hard.

These few days of reading and pondering had allowed him to roughly understand a few concepts in martial arts.

Practicing martial arts wasn"t exactly something easy to do. First of all, there was a lot to pay attention to for the diet, not to mention the entire body was a very complex and elaborate system, and just a miniscule amount of thoughtlessness would lead to a divergence and interruption in cultivation. The first step, training the flesh, had hundreds of hand techniques and dozens of martials arts recorded in the Martial Scripture. It was impossible to tell which were inferior, which were superior, and which would cause abnormalities after mastering them.

Also, Hong Yi suspected that the book compiled by the government would have something fishy in it.

After thoughtful consideration, Hong Yi knew it was probably not a very good idea to just pick up a book and try a technique out thoughtlessly.

"Looks like these martial arts are all really hard to begin. No wonder our government canceled the archery, riding and martial arts section in the imperial exam. People coming from ordinary family clearly do not have the resource to support that kind of education. I should probably ask Yuan Fei for the details when she has time. Scholars should not be ashamed of asking."

These fox demons knew nothing about martial arts. Humans and foxes had different anatomies, which made martial arts very different for the two.

In the chaos of blizzard, a group of horse riders, wearing luxurious leather cloaks with bows strapped onto their back, and hunting dogs entered the mountain.

It was evident that this group of people were n.o.bility of extreme wealth and status.

This could be seen from the horses they rode.

Among the horses, even the smallest was around ten feet long, eight feet tall. It was puffing out white air intensely in the middle of the windy snowstorm, with its eyes wide open facing the snowstorm, without any fear or signs of being affected by the cold. The horses had st.u.r.dy and strong bodies, four long hooves, singularly colored bodies and shiny hair, indicating that these horses weren"t of the common species.

Adept Great Qian Dynasty horse caretakers would be able see that these horses were the "Fiery Cloud Stallions " of Huo Luo Empire, named thus because they had crimson colored torsos and looked like flaming clouds when running.

These horses didn"t eat dried hay. They had all been raised on a mix of chicken eggs and soybeans and had a number of other complications. In the Great Qian Dynasty these horses had three to four groomers, with their needs taken care of day and night. They were definitely not animals an ordinary person could afford to raise.

But once these types of horses started running, they were super quick. Their endurance was excellent; they could be ridden for a thousand miles. Moreover, these horses were intelligent, and once these horses bonded to a master, they would never leave them. They were such good things that even the rich and powerful aristocrats and marquis family clans paid thousands of pounds of gold to obtain.

There were two men and two women in this group, accompanied by a few warriors at the back that were dressed only in one thin layer, but did not show fear for the cold at all. They moved super-fast, not at all slower than the horses.

It was obvious: these people were minion experts who were to guard the princes and dukes.

"d.u.c.h.ess, yesterday came a message from the palace. Out of nowhere, Concubine Yuan Fei her majesty was given the t.i.tle imperial consort."

Of the four, there was this young man, young "Duke of Li Guo", Jing Yuxing.

Another girl was Hong Xuejiao.

The other two looked even more elegant. They were both wearing white fox fur ponchos. The snow fell on the poncho and slid right off like water on lotus leaves.

The woman was the princess of Prince Rong"s of the Jade Capital. The emperor granted her the t.i.tle of Yong Chun, so she"s now the d.u.c.h.ess of Yong Chun.

And that guy was very well built, with very p.r.o.nounced features and falcon-like eyes. Not as graceful as Jing Yuxing, but he reeked of a terrifying aura.

That was the succeeding son of Prince Cheng, Yang Tong.

"According to the inner guards, one day our emperor his majesty asked his concubines what the most important thing in the world was. No one gave a satisfactory answer. Then Concubine Yuan Fei answered: it was reason that was the most important thing in the world. His majesty was utterly pleased and raised her t.i.tle to imperial consort."

The d.u.c.h.ess was answering Jing Yuxing"s question.

w.a.n.g, w.a.n.g, w.a.n.g……

Suddenly, the hounds started barking ferociously. Simultaneously, they arched their backs and put themselves into the fighting position. Their hair stood up like they were porcupines.

The hounds were the size of small calves, with very sharp teeth, like those of lions.

These were "Mastiffs": three or four mastiffs could tear apart a fierce tiger!

There were four couples over a dozen mastiffs. They want their prey badly.

"They must have discovered a fox burrow?"

Yang Tong, the son of Prince Cheng, reached towards the horse and took his bow.

"Pure foxes are spiritual creatures. They might even have a few ways to defend themselves. However, this time they won"t be able to escape from us. This group of Mastiffs have the ability to see through illusions."