Chapter Eighty-Three: The Art of the Mysterious Gates and Hidden Stems (Today's update complete)

The fourth contest was set for noon the following day. By then, only Teng Guoyuan, Ouyang Cuo, and I remained on the stage.

The contest was still held in the courtyard. The midday sun was fierce, glaring straight down with nowhere to hide from it. Even after three cups of tea, Yue Leiting still felt parched and drenched in sweat.

After the geomancy contest, Gu Xiaotian had not announced the subject of the fourth round. Seated lazily in his chair and fanning himself with a paper fan, he said indifferently, "This weather is truly unbearable. I’m sure all of you sitting in the courtyard are restless as well. Today’s contest is very simple: whichever one of you can make everyone feel cool will be the winner. Heh heh. But the loser must leave. Only two may advance to the final round."

There were many ways to make people feel cool. I even heard someone below whisper that setting up a few electric fans would be the easiest solution. Of course, that would work, but Gu Xiaotian had once again raised the difficulty of today’s contest.

This round should have been a test of the Mystic Gate arts.

Mystic Gate Escape and Armor is another branch of Daoist learning. Built upon the Eight Trigrams of the Book of Changes and combined with astrology, calendars, astronomy and geography, the Eight Gates, Nine Stars, yin and yang, the Five Elements, and the Three Wonders and Six Instruments, it became a system that statesmen and strategists through the ages used for decision-making, achieving extraordinary feats.

Legend says it was recorded in the Dragon Armor Divine Manual written by the Nine Heavens Mysterious Maiden and passed to the Yellow Emperor. Besides the methods of forging weapons, it also contained much military strategy for deploying troops and directing campaigns. The Yellow Emperor interpreted the Dragon Armor Divine Manual into thirteen chapters of military arts and twelve chapters of the method of isolating emptiness, creating one thousand and eighty formations of Mystic Gate Escape and Armor. It was later passed to Jiang Taigong of the Zhou dynasty, who used it to defeat King Zhou and revised it into seventy-two formations. Still later, during the Han dynasty, the Old Man of the Yellow Stone passed it to Zhang Liang, who further condensed it into eighteen formations: nine yang escapes and nine yin escapes.

The order of appearance for the contest followed the results of the third round of geomancy, beginning with the third-place finisher and leaving the first-place finisher for last.

So first up was Teng Guoyuan.

I watched him without blinking. Compared with the previous three contests, today’s Mystic Gate arts were clearly far more interesting to me.

After stepping forward, Teng Guoyuan closed his eyes and meditated for a moment. Suddenly, he opened them, formed the Heavenly Stem seal with his left hand and the Sword Formula with his right, then used his right-hand sword finger to write four vertical and five horizontal strokes in the air while murmuring softly, one character with each breath, one stroke with each utterance.

At a glance, I knew he was using the Four Verticals and Five Horizontals method. What he was reciting was the nine-character mantra of the Mystic Gate arts:

Advance, soldiers, battle, against, all, array, ranks, before, march.

The nine-character mantra is also known as the Secret Blessing of the Six Jia. It first appears in the fourth chapter of the Inner Sections of the Master Who Embraces Simplicity. Its use lies in repeatedly invoking a mysterious force, such as the sun, moon, stars, or heaven and earth, seeking to be granted spiritual power so that the one reciting the spell also attains extraordinary mystical strength. Daoists speak of uniting with the Dao; these are all lofty spiritual realms, the pursuit of mysterious power to transcend humanity’s limited existence.

To use the nine-character mantra effectively, one must undergo special training to cultivate inner spiritual force. Only then does it work. Those who have succeeded in cultivation wield power so sharp it cannot be resisted; all evil demons may be subdued and vanquished, and with a single thrust of the sword-finger they can bring an enemy down. But those who have not cultivated such power can make hand seals and chant spells all they like; it will have no effect at all, nothing more than a bluff.

Very few people know such profound Mystic Gate arts.

After writing the pattern in the air, Teng Guoyuan paused with his fingers at the center of what he had drawn, closed his eyes again in contemplation, then suddenly opened them. His sword finger pointed skyward as he slowly rotated counterclockwise, faster and faster.

I saw Yue Qianling's long hair stir gently. A faint breeze drifted over, and then her sleeves fluttered in it. The wind grew stronger.

The sunlight gradually faded. Darkness spread through the courtyard. I looked up. The sky, which only moments ago had been clear and boundless, now had a few scattered white clouds gathering directly overhead, precisely enough to block the scorching sun. The sunlight could not pierce the thick cloud cover, and the entire courtyard instantly cooled.

The cool wind sweeping over our faces carried away the heat in the courtyard. I noticed that even Xiao Lianshan, who had been burning with fever, seemed much more comfortable.

Unfortunately, that refreshing breeze did not last long. In less than five minutes, the thick cloud mass that had just gathered above the courtyard slowly dispersed, drifting away in disarray across the sky, and the sun once again blazed down upon the courtyard without restraint.

The gentle, cooling wind also ceased, and the courtyard returned to its unbearable heat.

I saw Teng Guoyuan still pointing his sword finger toward the sky, his face drained of color and his body trembling slightly. His breathing grew faster and faster, his chest rising and falling more violently, as if he were gritting his teeth and forcing himself on, but in the end his arm weakened and dropped. He slumped half-kneeling to the ground, as though he had been utterly exhausted.

Gu Xiaotian hurriedly ordered someone to help Teng Guoyuan to a chair. His hand would not stop shaking, and sweat the size of peas kept pouring from his forehead. Within moments, his clothes looked as though they had been soaked through.

"What... what happened to him?" Yue Qianling asked, utterly bewildered.

"Calling wind and summoning rain is an extremely advanced art within the Mystic Gate. Ordinary people cannot master it, and even if they do, their ability to control it depends on the depth of their cultivation," I said, glancing calmly at Teng Guoyuan. "It consumes an enormous amount of power. The fact that Teng Guoyuan could hold out for five minutes is already astonishing."

"My father said Teng Guoyuan's mastery of the mysterious arts is beyond measure. Seeing it today, I can tell it truly lives up to its reputation. Don't underestimate those five minutes. Many people may spend their entire lives and never reach his level," Gu Anqi said, blinking in amazement. "This kind of art drains one’s energy greatly, and it is never used lightly unless absolutely necessary. It looks like his vital force has been injured. He'll probably need at least half a year of rest to recover."

"Half a year of recovery just for five minutes?" Xiao Lianshan said, shaking his head vigorously. "I'd never learn something like that. That’s losing money just to make a little noise."

"Do you think it’s that easy? If everyone could do it, this world would have no disasters. The most important thing with the power of spirits and gods is to learn reverence. Borrowing it recklessly will only bring disaster upon yourself," Gu Anqi said solemnly.

Although Teng Guoyuan had only held on for five minutes, everyone marveled at it. Man-made clouds and rising winds had always belonged to the realm of rumor; now that they had seen it with their own eyes, none of them could quite believe it.

The second to appear was Ouyang Cuo. Everyone expected his Mystic Gate arts to be even more astonishing, but Ouyang Cuo did not seem in any hurry. He walked up to Gu Xiaotian and whispered a few words. Gu Xiaotian nodded, and Ouyang Cuo turned and left alone.

When Ouyang Cuo came out again, he had changed into a clean set of clothes, as though he had bathed.

At the eastern side of the courtyard, Ouyang Cuo set up an altar with a table, lit three sticks of sandalwood, and placed them in a bowl of rice. Then he knelt on a cushion, burned three yellow paper talismans, bowed three times and knocked his head to the ground three times. After that, he used the middle finger of his right hand to draw a cross on the ground, rested his lower legs over the cross, crossed his right leg over his left, and sat on the ground. Then he half-closed his eyes, straightened his body, lifted the crown of his head, and inhaled through his nose and exhaled through his mouth nine times.

By this point I understood: Ouyang Cuo was using Maoshan Daoist arts. This was an extremely mysterious form of sorcery, its power determined by the caster’s cultivation, the type of spell, the kind of talisman, and the surroundings. Thus, even a very simple spell, when in the hands of a master of profound cultivation, could possess force enough to shake mountains and topple the earth.

After completing the earlier rites, Ouyang Cuo rose and took a sheet of purple paper in hand, while his right hand held a brush dipped in bright cinnabar.

Seeing that he was using a purple talisman, I was somewhat surprised. Talisman colors are divided into five kinds: gold, silver, purple, blue, and yellow. Gold talismans are the most powerful, but they also require the caster to have the highest level of cultivation and consume the most energy. Silver comes next, then purple and blue, and the weakest are yellow, the most common kind. Most Daoist priests, lacking sufficient enlightenment, can spend their entire lives only at the level of using yellow talismans.

If one forcibly attempts to cast a high-level talisman, in most cases it cannot be done for lack of power. And if by some stroke of chance it succeeds, the talisman’s power may recoil wildly upon the caster: at best, the meridians become disordered and the body is paralyzed; at worst, blood pours from the seven apertures and death follows on the spot.

To think that Ouyang Cuo could command a purple talisman—it seemed his cultivation was far from ordinary.