Chapter 337: 346 Doodles

"Qu Huan, male, age seventeen, sent by Zhongtian Prefecture. First year of the sixty-year cycle term, three years in the camp, one commendation, no disciplinary record. Oh, he's the same age as me, and a local from Zhongtian Prefecture."

In a private room, Tang Zhao was flipping through several dozen student files.

"Intermediate grade results: Liberal Arts, Upper-Middle. Arithmetic, Middle-Upper. Art of War, Upper-Upper. Intelligence, Upper-Upper. Mounted Archery, Upper-Upper. Medicine and Poison, Middle-Upper. Martial Arts, Sword Practice, Upper-Upper, first place. External Arts, Upper-Upper, second place. Internal Arts, Upper-Upper, second place. If it's not first, it's second. Impressive, impressive."

"Advanced grade: Observation of Spirit introductory, Qi-Gong introductory..." Tang Zhao was thoughtful, "It seems the Training Camp doesn't have high requirements for Observation of Spirit and Qi-Gong; there's no Upper-Middle-Lower, just introductory and not-introductory. The few people before were the same. It makes sense, they only train for three years, and practicing Internal and External Arts isn't enough as it is, why force Observation of Spirit and Mysterious Technique?"

Mysterious Technique is an advanced grade course, and it's only called "Foundation of Profound Arts" at that.

One could even say that the reason for offering courses in Mysterious Technique and Observation of Spirit isn't to let students develop any Qi-Gong or Mental Power, but rather to confirm whether the students have the aptitude for it.

It's not to confirm if they can practice Mysterious Technique, but to confirm if their Inspiration will increase after practicing Mysterious Technique.

Tang Zhao set aside Qu Huan's dizzying report card and continued flipping through the files.

"Inspiration test, recorded on the first day of the eighth month of the Bingyin year, nine inches two tenths. That's a record from a month ago."

This unit of Inspiration...

Why isn't it in 'duan'?

"Inspiration, seven duan."

How much of a feeling is that?

Inspiration is the only subject with a specific numerical value; the other courses are just divided into nine grades from Upper to Lower, plus rankings. After all, most Training Camp exams are practical and rarely involve written papers; even when they do, they are mostly policy discussions or analytical questions, and aside from Arithmetic, it's hard to have accurate written scores.

As for martial arts, aside from Internal Arts, one only looks at winning or losing, not indicators. Even if one has dozens of pounds more strength than others, if one loses on the sparring field, one loses.

Quantifying Inspiration has only been possible in recent years, and there is no unified standard across the world. The Training Camp customized its own brand-new teaching Art Tool. It's similar to a paper scroll several feet long; Inspiration allows ink marks to appear on it, and it gets harder the further one goes. Finally, one measures the length of the ink mark; one foot is the minimum standard to become a Sword Guest.

Nine cun two fen is already very close to the Sword Guest line, and that was a result from a month ago. Inspiration is tested every three months, and there are two months left; the final test is during the final exam.

If he works hard to continue practicing Mysterious Technique in these remaining two months, he should be able to reach the standard, right?

Although Qu Huan has hope of meeting the standard, he is just the type who barely makes the line, and he is quite ordinary in the camp. Compared to other excellent students, Qu Huan's Inspiration is definitely not high; one can only say it's passable.

After all, geniuses with that level of Innate Spiritual Inspiration are still too few, and the mortality rate is high—if Inspiration is too high, it is easily invaded by dirty things like Phantoms, and many die without rhyme or reason.

If the Training Camp only searched for youths with manifest Inspiration, even with the Gaoyuan Marquis possessing an entire province, he wouldn't be able to gather one hundred children each year. Most of the hundred youths in each class are just youths with decent potential recommended by the various counties and towns.

Some of these youths have extraordinary talent and outstanding Inspiration, while others are proficient in both literature and martial arts but have mediocre Inspiration. That doesn't matter; after practicing Mysterious Technique, everything will get better.

Mysterious Technique can increase Inspiration; this discovery is the key to why Sword Guests are emerging in such numbers today, surpassing ancient times. The better the Mysterious Technique and the more it matches an individual's constitution, the more Inspiration increases, even to the point of elevating a child with zero Inspiration to the Sword Guest standard in a few years—if their aptitude for Mysterious Technique is good enough.

The Training Camp's Mysterious Technique is quite good, and there are several types for the youths to choose from according to their personal needs. After practicing, more than ten percent can increase their Inspiration to the minimum baseline required for a Sword Guest before graduation. Another thirty percent can reach the standard before the age of thirty by practicing on their own after leaving the Training Camp. These can be broadly classified as Swordsman Seeds.

What is cruel is that even with such superior conditions, sixty percent of the youths will still be stuck. It's not because they don't work hard, but because their Innate Talent is insufficient.

This is the unfair part of Heaven.

Like some of the files Tang Zhao saw earlier, many people had worse grades than Qu Huan, but their Inspiration had already exceeded one foot a year or two ago. For example, Ouyang Zhou, who had similar grades to him, stopped testing after getting a perfect score a year ago. Testing again would even require spending his own money. The effort they spent on practicing Mysterious Technique might be far less than Qu Huan's, but such is their talent; they are simply better than him.

And if it were Tang Zhao, he wouldn't even need a teaching tool to measure; anyone with a discerning eye would know he has talent. If he were to test, the length of the ink mark would only be limited by the length of the paper scroll.

But then again, Heaven has never been fair in other places. Take Qu Huan; he can claim to be proficient in both literature and martial arts, yet his Inspiration practice is not smooth, and now he barely meets the standard, which might block his future as a Sword Guest—Heaven is unfair to him. But his excellent literary and martial talent and superior family background are things many people envy. Heaven is already quite fond of him.

Not to mention those children outside who are starving and cold, even within the Training Camp, in the files Tang Zhao just looked at, there are those even more regrettable than him.

The last few pages of the file are the direction test. That is the one Tang Zhao intends to pull strings for Wei Se to take.

To this day, there is still no recognized testing method for the direction of Inspiration. The directions are truly strange and varied, making it difficult to summarize without errors or omissions; any method has its shortcomings. Therefore, large sects with deep foundations will use various methods to test several times and make a comprehensive judgment. The Training Camp provides at least four methods.

The crudest method is the "Earth Water Fire Wind" four-level test. More detailed ones include the twelve choices of Heaven, Earth, Water, Fire, Wind, Thunder, Mountain, Marsh, Growth, and Silence... that's right, it's the Four Seasons Eight Trigrams, the configuration of the Twelve Pillars of the State of Guikou. This is also the most widely circulated testing method.

Another relatively precise one is the Rune Matching Method, which uses various Basic Rune Patterns to screen, with over a hundred choices. As long as it matches, the range can be precisely pinpointed. The disadvantage is that it is too precise, and the intermediate blurred areas are insufficient, causing many people to be missed and unable to be selected.

The last method is one that only exists in Yunzhou.

Tang Zhao picked up the last few pages of paper; the content on the paper was all similar.

Doodles.

Sheet after sheet of white paper was filled with strange lines drawn in charcoal; one or two sheets could vaguely be imagined as some kind of scenery, but most were completely meaningless strokes, chaotically crossed and piled together. Even a mischievous child would find it hard to draw such meaningless patterns.

Tang Zhao stared at these papers, thoughtful.

Just then, the room door opened, and two young men entered; they were Wei Se and Pei Renfeng. Pei Renfeng was somewhat exhausted, while Wei Se's expression was calm.

Tang Zhao looked up and smiled: "You're out? Sit. How was it?"

Wei Se handed the few sheets of paper in his hand to Tang Zhao.

Just now, he went to test his Inspiration direction. Pei Renfeng often helps people test Inspiration and uses various Art Tools, so he was entrusted by Tang Zhao to help him test them one by one.

Wei Se's Inspiration is fine; otherwise, he wouldn't pursue being a Sword Guest. He has undergone training far more severe than the Training Camp since childhood, and to be able to survive and occupy a place, his talent and cultivation are naturally there. Previously at Zhuoyu Villa, Tang Zhao also used the Talisman Sword Master's method, which is the Rune Matching Method, to test his direction; the Base Fu selected at that time was "Inner". Now, he is changing methods to test a few more times to ensure precision.

"Wind, huh..."

The four-level test method measured it as Wind, the level closest to "Void", elusive and also a relatively rare type. The Four Seasons Eight Directions test was "Silence", representing the withering and desolation of autumn.

Pei Renfeng was very curious on the side, thinking: This Teaching Assistant Wei has a quite cheerful and talkative personality, so why are the directions measured all so gloomy? That's right, the direction of Inspiration is fundamentally unrelated to personality; who says a cheerful person can't have a direction of Silence? I'm overthinking it.

Little did he know, even if he is smart, he is still a young master from a wealthy family; his depth of character is as different from Wei Se's as heaven and earth, and he hasn't even seen through a single layer of Wei Se's skin.

Tang Zhao only glanced at the other answers before looking at the last doodle.

Wei Se's doodle was very simple, just a few lines crossing and pulling at each other, looking much cleaner than the other doodles that seemed to want to fill an entire sheet of paper.

Tang Zhao pondered: "What was the feeling when testing this?"

Wei Se said: "It was just entering a room with four white walls. There was only a table in the room with paper and pen. I sat at the table. In front of me was an ornament, like a gemstone Bead, and also like an eye."

Tang Zhao thought to himself, this is the Dharma Artifact of the Gaoyuan Marquis. This kind of test was originally developed by the Gaoyuan Marquis.

"Then I stared at that eye and looked at it. Gradually, I entered a mysterious state where my mind seemed particularly clear, but I couldn't remember anything. Then a voice asked me: 'What are you thinking? Write it down.' I couldn't help but pick up the pen and write according to his instructions, writing down whatever I thought of. I thought I had written quite a lot, but when I woke up and looked, the paper was full of doodles. I also couldn't remember what I wanted to write."

Tang Zhao nodded while listening; he remembered that the Gaoyuan Marquis had recorded his train of thought when developing this testing method—to simulate the state of a Sword Guest when comprehending the sword as much as possible.

Tang Zhao himself had held a sword and remembered that at that time, it was that state where his train of thought was clear, but many memories and common sense faded away, as if only a single soul was left floating there. The Gaoyuan Marquis imitated this quite successfully, but there is one point: after he comprehends the sword autonomously, he can retain clear memories and even often reminisce. But this test doesn't seem to work; once awake, the memory fades like a dream, and the person in the test finds it very difficult to write down their train of thought clearly at the time.

Because comprehending the sword is a "natural" state; at this time, a person has thoughts but no "knowledge". Writing is also a kind of knowledge, a process where a person records their thoughts and ideas using specific symbols. Human thoughts and emotions do not follow text; losing the intermediary of text and outputting thoughts directly is harder to receive than telecommunication signals.

Wei Se said: "Can you know what I was thinking at that time?"

Pei Renfeng on the side said: "Don't make things difficult for the Instructor. It's not that I'm saying... this method is said to be unique and advanced, but it's actually a bit too profound and therefore useless; it can only be used as a reference for data recording. This is not something a human can interpret. It would be better to go to a Taoist temple and invite an old Taoist who understands spirit-writing to take a look."

Tang Zhao was also amused and said: "It is really hard to understand. But yours is slightly clearer; it should be... Chaos."