Jack watched until the last White River family member left his sight, and started walking towards Wu Angrui's residence.
Before he came close enough to announce himself, a golden-robed figure darted out of the workshop and reached him a couple of seconds.
"The mistress is resting. She worked hard through the night. I cannot allow you to disturb her, Jack Song." Wu Angrui's servant declared while still not meeting his eyes.
Jack tilted his head to the side to try and see her better while he said "I see, please tell her that you both can come and have a meal any time you like when she wakes up…"
He tried to coax the strange woman to tell him her name, but she only gave a slight shake of the head and replied with "There is no need for that. I will prepare all of the mistress' meals during our stay here."
Jack thought that he would probably do the same thing in their shoes so he took a different approach and asked "Did you get any rest since you came here or do you have to sleep on your feet?"
The woman shook her head once more and said "I have just woken up. You need not worry for me; I do not require much sleep. While coming here from the Tribal Assembly I did not get any rest and had no issues."
Jack's brows furrowed for a second before he looked over her shoulder at the larger building and asked "You slept in the workshop?"
The woman still kept her eyes down on the ground and nodded her head while she answered "Of course, a servant cannot sleep in the same room as her mistress."
Jack refocused his gaze back on the woman's bowed head while his frown deepened. A second later, he asked "Are you really a servant after all? I thought that Wu Angrui's father sent you as a bodyguard and everyone just pretended that you were a maid."
To his surprise, the woman nodded her head once more and said "I am both, but there is no shame in being a servant to the great White River family. Like the two brothers that guided us here, I have no regrets about my role."
Jack stared at the strange woman for a couple of seconds before he asked "Why are you telling me all this?"
For the first time, the woman looked up and locked her dark eyes onto his to say "You are serving the glorious White River family too, are you not?"
It took him a few seconds to shake off the shiver that threatened to go down his spine from the empty gaze in the woman's eyes. He squared his shoulders and declared "I am not; we are doing business as equals."
The woman studied him for a moment longer, before she looked back down at the ground and said "I see. Well, give it time and you will. Excuse me."
With that, she turned around and walked back towards the workshop.
Jack watched the disturbing woman until she entered the building. 'What did they do to her to mess her up so much?' he thought while he stood there, A second later, he dismissed the thought and turned to walk back to the company's camp.
Most of the company started getting ready for the English lesson so he left them to it and went to look for some answers.
He found old Long alone in his house, drinking as usual.
When the old man saw Jack, he shot him an annoyed look and asked "What do you want now?"
Jack walked up to the stone table and sat down. He poured himself a drink, emptied it, and said "I came to tell you that I set aside the payment for your loan, and to ask you for some information."
Old Long emptied his cup too and asked "What kind of information?"
Jack took out one of the daggers he plundered from the dead White River family member and placed it on the table before he said "I want to know how a grade five cultivator managed to move this dagger with his spirit energy while I can't. Also, why could you and my Senior Brother from the Sect do it, while most grade six people that I've seen can't?"
Old Long placed his cup down on the table and took up the dagger to study. After a minute he looked up at Jack and asked "Did you kill that young man that struck Zhu Lielei?"
They locked gazes for a couple seconds before Jack blinked and asked in return "What can you tell me about the dagger?"
Old Long snorted and pointed at the sigils on the dagger to explain "Anyone with half a brain would recognize this as made by the White River family. I am not sure about most of the sigils, but it should be the same as with that sword of yours."
He looked up at the teen in front of him and concluded "You need to know a special method to use it."
Jack sighed and took the dagger back while he said "I figured as much. Any idea why he could use it like you and my Senior Brother could?"
Old Long shook his head and poured them both a cup of wine.
After they downed the drinks, he declared "I do not know for sure, but it should have something to do with the dagger itself and not him. No one below grade six can use spirit energy to move objects."
Jack looked the old man in the eyes and asked "Why?"
He had wondered about this ever since the first time he saw Du Angliang using his spirit energy to control Spirit Capturing knives.
At first, he figured it just came on its own with the rise in cultivation grades, but after facing so many grade six cultivators and becoming one himself, he realized that something else had to influence it.
Old Long broke their eye-contact and poured himself another drink.
After finishing it, he started speaking "There once existed a sect that fought with the Endless Cycle Sect for dominance. A young boy lost both of his parents in one of their many battles. He swore to the heavens that he would get revenge against the enemy sect and focused his entire mind on cultivation."
Jack's brows furrowed and he opened his mouth to ask what the story had to do with his question, but the bloodshot look that the old man gave him stopped him.
When old Long saw that the teen didn't want to anything, he cleared his throat and continued "The young boy started advancing through the lower cultivation grades so fast that an Elder noticed him and took him on as a disciple. The other disciples even started calling him Golden Dragon for the fierceness with which he acted."
He downed another drink, sighed, and said "Just when the boy broke through to grade six, the war with the enemy sect ended. The Endless Cycle Sect exterminated everyone in the enemy sect to the boy's endless sorrow. Having lost his chance for revenge, the boy couldn't force himself to breakthrough to grade seven no matter how much he tried. After a couple of decades, his teacher bought him a store in Tranquil Lake Town and broke all ties to him."
With that, old Long stopped talking and just stared down into his cup.
Jack studied the old man for a long time and tried to see a hint of the past Golden Dragon, but he couldn't peel away the years from the bent over bald man.
"You lost your goal and couldn't break through?" He asked after considering the story.
Old Long snorted and filled them both a cup. When they downed it, he explained "Goal, willpower, desire, whatever you call it. A cultivator needs to strive for something to continue breaking through the thresholds of the Spirit Accumulation realm. Only those with a firm will can reach the top."
Jack's brows furrowed once more as he asked "Then why can you use your spirit energy to control other things?"
The old man looked up at the teen and showed a hint of his older self when he said "At rare times when cultivators have powerful obsessions. These obsessions make their breakthrough from the fifth to the sixth grade so powerful that they crack the barrier of the threshold in your mind. From then on, you can train your spirit energy to do the same thing that the higher grades are able to do even if you can't break through."
He chuckled at himself and added "This usually means that the cultivator will have no problems with breaking through to the higher grades. Trust me, if you cracked your threshold you'd know it."
The stone table shook as Jack leaned forward and asked "What do you mean?"
Old Long looked at the eager teen in front of him with scorn and said "When you break through you can sense the area around your body with the same clarity as the higher grade cultivators do."
Jack's brows rose in surprise and he asked "You mean like sensing the ground, rocks, and air three chi in all directions around you?"
The old man snorted and answered "Yes, but you'd only sense a chi at most. Only people with enormous… Wait." His eyes widened and he exclaimed "Did you sense three chi of your surroundings?!"
Jack shrugged and said "Something like that, I didn't have time to measure it exactly."
Old Long stood up and pointed a finger in Jack's face while he shouted "Do not be flippant with me, boy! You have no idea what would happen if you did that in the Sect."
He started pacing on his side of the room and muttered "Damn, damn, damn. I will have to teach him. Damn!"
When he stopped pacing and looked back at the seated teen, the old man's face had a hint of fervor that Jack had never seen in it before.
"From tomorrow morning, you will stop wrestling in the mud with the other imbeciles and will come here to learn how to control your spirit energy properly." He declared while he tried to stand as straight as he could.
Jack stood up too and started saying "I can't just drop everything and…"
"You can and you will, boy." Old Long interrupted and continued "I don't want to do this either, but I want to keep living and my survival hinges on yours. If you want to survive in fights against higher grade cultivators you will learn everything that I can teach you."
Jack studied the determined face of the old man for a couple seconds before he nodded his head and said "Fine, but I have to go hunting in twenty days. If I can't learn it by then, we'll have to continue when I come back."
Old Long snorted and declared "If you can lift a pebble in twenty days I will proclaim you the greatest genius that has ever lived, boy."
Jack's face spread into a smile and he asked "Want to put some spirit stones on that claim, old man?"
Old Long's face turned serious while he studied the teen in front of him for a second and shook his head.
Jack chuckled, said "I'll see you tomorrow morning then.", and left the old man's house.