Then he looked up and smiled, saying, “Because of his accumulated military merits, he received a letter of recommendation from the military. The boy has indeed made us proud—he passed the preliminary assessment half a year ago. Now that he’s returned to the capital, he’ll be reporting to the Academy.”

At the mention of the Academy, silence suddenly fell behind the curtain, and that distinguished personage spoke no further.

After David Carter left, the old man in the worn robe slowly opened his eyes. In his aged yet calm gaze, a rare hint of interest appeared. Looking at the draped curtain, he smiled gently and said, “In this remote border town, it’s truly surprising that a soldier could be admitted to the Academy. Since that’s the case, the young man must be outstanding in both character and ability—having him as a guide is no bad thing.”

“It’s only been a year since I left the country, and I didn’t expect that even a sacred place like the Academy would start admitting such riffraff soldiers.”

The tone remained cold and disdainful, but the actual attitude had changed. At the very least, the distinguished personage no longer objected to having Adam Spencer as the guide for their party—just a single name was enough to make a great figure change their mind. That simple place called the Academy must indeed be extraordinary.

The old man brought up another matter, his expression somewhat puzzled: “Earlier, I went to look at the characters he wrote in the mud. He was copying the third section of the ‘Treatise on Supreme Response.’ The strokes were simple yet extremely lively. Though he only used a twig, the marks left on the wet ground had the sharpness of a blade cutting through clay. This soldier named Adam Spencer has already set foot on the right path in calligraphy… I truly wonder how he practiced, and who his teacher was.”

“That soldier merely has some superficial skill. When I glanced at it before, I was struck by its novelty, but thinking it over now, it’s just some flashy tricks—hardly the right path. In the future, he’ll probably end up as a street calligrapher outside the capital’s incense shops.”

The noble replied indifferently.

The old man shook his head and said, “The word ‘novelty’ you mentioned is the key. I don’t understand calligraphy, but watching that soldier’s twig touch the ground, I could vaguely sense the spirit of metal and stone in his writing. Such vigor in calligraphy is extremely rare. It truly resembles the techniques of those great talisman masters in the Daoist temples.”

“You mean divine talismans?”

The noble behind the curtain was momentarily stunned, then sneered: “There are billions of people in the world, but only a handful of true talisman masters. Those experts either hide in the palace or meditate in temples, spending a lifetime in contemplation and bitter cultivation just to condense the breath of heaven and earth into their golden and silver strokes. That boy has no trace of spiritual fluctuation—he’s just an ordinary mortal. Even if he studies the ‘Treatise on Supreme Response’ for another fifty years, he probably won’t even step into the initial realm, let alone be compared to those masters.”

The old man smiled and said nothing more. Though he was a cultivator and had been treated with great respect along the journey, the difference in their status was too great. The so-called respect was, in truth, just pity for the old and talented. Since that was the case, some things were better left unsaid.

Of course, he did not agree with the noble’s words. Regarding the soldier named Adam Spencer, the old man had his own judgment: in the mundane world, all are ordinary people. Those who can sense the breath of heaven and earth and step into the initial realm are truly one in a million. The first step of spiritual response is the hardest and by no means easy. However, if Adam Spencer truly enters the Academy to study, and by chance one day ascends to the legendary second floor and embarks on the path of cultivation, then his strange yet powerful calligraphy will surely be of great benefit to him.

Even if that fellow never gains enlightenment, his calligraphy alone would make the experts of the Academy and Daoist temples look at him differently—at the very least, it would impress the scholars and calligraphers.

Adam Spencer put down the book in his hand, shook his head, and walked toward the door, a faint look of disappointment and unwillingness still lingering on his face.

This copy of the ‘Treatise on Supreme Response’ he bought at the market in Kaiping as a child, when he went with the grain transport team, was, just as the noble’s maid had said, a common and cheap edition found everywhere. He knew this very well, yet he still never forgot to recite and study it, as if this book were one of the legendary seven volumes of heavenly scripture enshrined in the unknowable realm of the Way of the Vast Heaven.

The book’s pages were already curled and worn, looking shabby and battered. If Lily Spencer hadn’t sewn the spine tightly with cotton thread, it would probably have fallen apart into scraps of paper with a single turn, fluttering away in the wind as offerings to impoverished sages. Unfortunately, after so many years, the pages were tattered and the words deeply engraved in his mind, yet he still couldn’t find the way in. Not to mention stepping into the initial realm of cultivation—he couldn’t even achieve the simplest sense of spiritual response described in the book.

He had once been disappointed, even in despair, but later learned that the vast majority of normal people in this world could never sense the breath of heaven and earth. Only then did he become much calmer—yes, those legendary reclusive masters were not normal people at all; they were all freaks, because only the rarest of freaks could perceive the breath of the world. Otherwise, with so many copies of the ‘Treatise on Supreme Response’ in circulation, why had no one ever heard of flying swords flashing across the night sky of Chang’an, or masters drifting about everywhere?

And he, Adam Spencer, was very normal—or rather, very ordinary. Still, if you suddenly discovered a wondrous treasure mountain before your eyes but could only return empty-handed, if you suddenly realized that the world was filled with a marvelous thing called vital energy, like invisible white clouds, yet you couldn’t grasp even a wisp—wouldn’t you still feel a bit unwilling?

“River City is so poor, and the barbarians on the grasslands have long since been cowed by His Majesty the Emperor. They haven’t dared to come over for years, so it’s impossible to accumulate military merit quickly. Being able to return to the capital is naturally a good thing—how could I possibly feel unwilling?”