Chapter 63

But the Golden Wheel Lama’s next words were like a bucket of cold water poured over them:

“However, the second level is twice as deep as the first, requiring three to four years. The third level is twice as deep as the second, requiring seven to eight years. Each level multiplies the difficulty, making progress harder and harder.”

After hearing the Golden Wheel Lama’s words, everyone instantly understood: for an ordinary person, the first level took two years, the second four, the third eight—each level of the Dragon and Elephant Mahāprajñā Sūtra required double the time of the previous one.

I have cultivated in seclusion for over thirty years to reach the eighth level, and I intended to continue my rigorous practice to attain the ninth.

“I had hoped to achieve the unprecedented power of ten dragons and ten elephants within my lifetime, but I never expected this calamity—this boy’s strength is such that even if I reached the ninth level with nine dragons and nine elephants, I would still be no match for those two boys.”

Here, the Golden Wheel Lama sighed involuntarily; those two boys possessed extraordinary skills, and he suspected only by reaching the legendary tenth level of the Dragon and Elephant Mahāprajñā Sūtra could he hope to rival them.

Temujin lowered his head and asked the Golden Wheel Lama:

“Master, if I understand you correctly, each level of the Dragon and Elephant Mahāprajñā Sūtra grants one additional dragon and one additional elephant’s strength—that is, one hundred catties of power?”

“Precisely.”

The Golden Wheel Lama nodded in affirmation.

Temujin, overjoyed, proposed to the Golden Wheel Lama: “Master, it would be a pity if your teachings could not be passed on. Why not select talented individuals from our tribe and teach them?”

In Temujin’s view, the Dragon and Elephant Mahāprajñā Sūtra had no cultivation threshold—even the most mediocre person could gain a hundred catties of strength after two years of practice, let alone those with better talent.

After all, the Golden Wheel Lama himself had reached the eighth level in just over thirty years—would someone with poor talent need two hundred years to reach the same level?

If the Golden Wheel Lama could train him several ten-thousand-strong warriors, he would gain a tremendous advantage, and he would no longer be so helpless against those two boys.

Thinking of those two boys, Temujin’s head began to ache—they were undoubtedly his greatest future enemies. He wondered what they were doing now.

But today they had won such a great victory; surely they were holding a victory feast, Temujin thought.

But Temujin was wrong. Though Guo Jing and his men had defeated them and even gained the great general Zhebie, war inevitably brought casualties.

Though they had taken advantage of the enemy’s disarray, they still faced an enemy three times their number, and Temujin’s forces were no pushovers.

They had paid a cost of a thousand men. After retrieving the bodies of the fallen, their first act was not celebration, but to hold a memorial service for the dead warriors across the entire tribe.

Because they had sacrificed for the tribe, Guo Jing led the people to bury the dead with honor, then organized a memorial ceremony.

Looking at the thousand new graves before him, Guo Jing’s expression grew somber—this was the heaviest loss he had suffered since his campaign began.

In past campaigns against smaller tribes, they had crushed them instantly with minimal casualties—only dozens, perhaps a hundred at most. They had never lost a thousand men.

The scenes of those men drinking mare’s milk wine and chatting with him just before were still vivid in his mind; now, in an instant, they were separated by life and death.

Though he had long prepared himself for death in battle, every time he saw men he had lived and trained with die, his heart ached.

More crucially, Guo Jing knew this was only the beginning—future battles against Temujin would claim far more lives, perhaps tens or even hundreds of thousands.

Seeing Guo Jing’s sorrowful expression, Zhebie, newly arrived, found it unbelievable—such things were unheard of in his past. Under the Tatar tribe’s customs, they would have been celebrating wildly.

To the slave-masters, it made no sense to expend such effort retrieving corpses, building individual graves, inscribing each name, and organizing a memorial with the families and tribe.

After leading the memorial, Guo Jing and Nie Huaishang visited the families of the fallen, and Guo Jing said to them:

“If you face hardship in life, come to me—I will not refuse as long as I live.”

The families of the warriors, hearing Guo Jing’s words, hurried forward with their children to bow in thanks:

“Thank you, Heavenly Messenger.”

Watching them bow to him, Guo Jing felt a pang of sorrow.

They had lost their sole provider; how would they survive? Thinking this, Guo Jing resolved he must bear the duty of raising them.

As before, the tribe would pay monthly stipends to the families of the dead, and the orphans would be raised by the tribe, personally trained by Guo Jing and Nie Huaishang.

Guo Jing silently vowed: as long as he lived, he would never break this duty.

Zhebie, who had spent years surviving on the steppe, had never met such a benevolent man. To be honest, had he died serving the Tatars, his old lord would not have bothered to retrieve his body.

On the steppe, death meant worthlessness; many vanished like wind over grass, leaving no trace.

No one remembered them. After years of cold indifference, Zhebie felt a faint warmth—this place was not so bad after all.

After finishing the memorial and distributing aid to the families, Guo Jing and Nie Huaishang held a welcome ceremony for Zhebie.

“Come, let us welcome the great archer of the Tatars into our tribe!”

Guo Jing raised his mare’s milk wine to Zhebie, drank it down in one gulp, and the crowd followed suit.

Watching Zhebie raise his cup and drink heartily, Guo Jing and Nie Huaishang were deeply pleased—old saying: gold is easy to find, but a general is hard to come by.

As one of the Four Hounds of the future Mongol Empire, Zhebie was unquestionably among the greatest generals of his age.

In his campaign south with Temujin against the Jin, he reached Zhongdu—today’s Beijing—and destroyed the Central Asian hegemon, the Western Liao, with only twenty thousand men.

But now Zhebie was merely a newly defected soldier from the Tatars. Nie Huaishang and Guo Jing decided to assign him as company commander of their Personal Guard.

After all, Zhebie had just arrived and earned no merit; granting him high rank too soon might breed resentment.

Yet Zhebie raised no objection—in fact, he felt Guo Jing’s arrangement was already too generous, for he was merely a surrendered general from the Tatars.