Jiang Mang woke up at sunrise and went to the training ground after eating some breakfast. Chu Lingxin was already there fighting against the imperial guard captain who was at the low saint stage. She had already reached the saint realm one year before Jiang Mang at the age of eighteen which would be equivalent to Jiang Mang's talent before undergoing the empress's trial. She was able to push a 200-year-old man to a stalemate after only cultivating for one year in the saint realm this shows her monstrous talent compared to the guard captain.
When Jiang Mang arrived they stopped their fight to greet the young man but they noticed that something had changed about him. It took a couple of seconds before they realized that he had reached the low saint stage and had caught up to the little princess. His breakthrough astonished both of them as they only expected a breakthrough in a month at a minimum. Chu Lingxin, however, rapidly became exhilarated as it was now sure that Jiang Mang would also partake in the recruitment.
She went up to him for a hug before asking him about his breakthrough. Both of them had become close friends over the past few years and their relationship had even come to the point that they knew each other better than even their parents knew them.
After catching up, Chu Lingxin and Jiang Mang started fighting to test his new prowess and to become used to his new cultivation. In the beginning, he was already pressured when she only used thirty percent of her abilities, but as their fight went on and he became used to his new abilities and cultivation realm, he became stronger and stronger until he was capable of dealing with sixty percent of her abilities which showcased his combat ability as he was only using peak Xuan tier techniques.
They finished their fight after an hour and were able to assess the abilities of the current Jiang Mang. He planned to train Fox dance and Fox claws together with the third stage of Charm body for the following month before they had to depart for the recruitment, which would take place in four months, but they would need to travel for two months without obstructions to arrive at the venue. They would stop only three times during their journey, and each time would be to stop at a well-known trade city to buy eventual techniques, pills, or artifacts that could increase their chances of succeeding in their recruitment. Their departure would be a month later to guarantee timely arrival at the location of the venue.
Jiang Mang started his training by gathering the required herbs for his body cultivation. He was lucky as the Chu empire was in the possession of one stalk of the main ingredient for the herbal baths in which he tempered his body to the third stage.
When he had made his first herbal bath, he entered it before starting to perform certain postures. These postures were extremely painful but allowed Jiang Mang to train his skin, muscles, and tendons and increase his absorption of the medicinal properties. A normal person would never be able to endure such torture for an entire session of three hours, but he was capable of it as he had withstood the previous two temperings and the five elements torture. Each time he remembered that torture his body would shiver, this experience was engraved into his soul and would never be forgotten. It had even slightly altered his character to become more isolated and calm. However, under that calm and isolated character was a killing intent as strong as a general who had gone through centuries of battles of killing and blood. This killing intent was gained during his Jianghu time as an assassin and was increased by that miserable experience, which pushed the boy to become stronger and be resolute to never be tortured again.
After tempering his body, he trained the two physical skills by fighting against low saint stage opponents to refine his technique mastery and strengthen it to the Di tier. Martial techniques at the Di tier and above were special as they not only required the user to understand how to perform the technique through qi manipulation, but they also required insights into nature, which are called intents. These could only be acquired by those who reached the one with nature stage and thus those who had reached the saint realm.
Jiang Mang had to learn speed intent and claw intent to understand Fox dance and Fox claws essences for the Di tier. There exist a million types of intents, but their mastery decides their power, and it can be graded in initial mastery, small accomplishment, great accomplishment, and perfection. It is easier to comprehend intents through Di tier techniques, but this isn't a requirement to learn an intent.
Jiang Mang had only fought for a day but had already accumulated certain insights into the two intents, and this made him expect to comprehend both intents to initial mastery before the end of the month.
When it was night time, he meditated while playing music with a leaf to increase his absorption of qi. During his meditation, he observed the changes in his surroundings to deepen his comprehension of nature itself and its corresponding intents. These meditation sessions allowed his comprehension of nature and intents to increase by leaps and bounds.
After two weeks of training, he had comprehended the speed intent when he was meditating through his observation of a fly. He understood then that pursuing the fastest possible speed is not the key to the speed intent, but the change from slow to fast thus the key was acceleration. When he used Fox dance the next day, he had completely changed from a speedy fox to a dancing fox, who would suddenly be at one position and then at another. This change had astonished his opponent, but he immediately recovered his attention which allowed him to cope with Jiang Mang. Jiang Mang, however, dominated his opponent from that day on, which was the reverse of the previous days.
A week later, when Jiang Mang was battling a tiger saint beast, he comprehended the claw intent through observing the beast's usage of its claws. He comprehended that the intent to shred or injure your opponent with a single claw is needed to optimize the user's claw attacks. He was at first unable to damage the tiger saint beast's fur, but after comprehending claw intent he was capable of injuring its fur through the usage of Fox claws. The tiger was one of the tamed beasts of the emperor who was Chu Lingxin's father, and its power was equivalent to a mid saint stage cultivator but its agility was lower than Jiang Mang which allowed Jiang Mang to fight it as long as he dodged its every attack. During the last week before their departure, he attained the third stage of the Charm body, which increased his close combat power to become equal to the tiger saint beast he faced the previous week. This is quite shocking as Jiang Mang's body quality is equal to a saint beast, which allowed him to battle saint realm cultivators with his physical body alone.