Chapter 3 Recruiting students On the first night when the Taoist Academy announced the results, almost everyone couldn't sleep! From the students' mansion in the back garden to the wine houses and flower alleys in the city, almost all the people lingering there were students from the Taoist Academy. The proud and triumphant Qigong practitioner held a grand banquet and invited his friends to come! The failed student, feeling sorry for himself, drank to drown his sorrows, sitting alone under the eaves. Wu Yong sent out servants to find the frustrated students who had failed to successfully plant spiritual roots in their qi sea, and invited them one by one! "Please sit down!" Wu Yong was wearing a half-armor Taoist robe, a green scale armor, and a half-body Taoist robe, sitting at the head of the seat. The students from the same class who were invited to practice Qigong but failed sat around the long table for two weeks. "No more polite words! I want to repair the remaining veins and form another Taoist army to participate in the Taoist secret realm at the end of the year!" "Several important cities in Liangzhou, Jizhou, and Youzhou have responded to the call of the Dao Court and started courses on protecting the law. The Daoist academies under them have already established a course on protecting the law as a regular course!" "You are all outstanding students who have achieved success in the Taoist Academy, but the path to immortality is like this. If there is any mistake in the spiritual roots and the sea of qi, there will be no hope of immortality. Talent and opportunity are both indispensable." "Although the Daobing path is a side door, it is also a way to transcend the mundane world. Even if one is not careful enough and dies, it is better than returning to the mundane world and living a mediocre life!"
During these two decades, Dao Court was wrestling with a second-grade world called "You". Both sides suffered heavy losses, and all the top families in Jiuzhou had their own hidden plans. The three states of Liang, Ji and You jointly attacked the third-grade great realm "Cloud Hammer", and the battle situation fell into a stalemate. Under pressure, the Dao Court, together with the three states, distributed a lot of Daoist soldier guardian scriptures, encouraging the states and counties to compete for the Daoist soldier guardian position, in order to restore blood for the four directions. The status of Taoist soldiers has at least been slightly improved compared to before, and they are no longer called servants and guards of the immortals. It’s nothing, just a threshold! After all, as long as they have a little bit of background, even if they fail in practicing Qi and cultivating spirits, their family will let them go back to practice Taoism or become soldiers, and then use the spiritual roots of plants and trees to cultivate spirits again, and contribute to the cultivation of the clan! Those who only use external force to plant spiritual roots in the sea of qi have no better method and can only remain sorcerers for the rest of their lives. In less than a moment, two more people stood up and said goodbye. The contracts of the Wu family often have a term of thirty to fifty years, and the lowest level contract requires a term of thirty years. Which student can stand such restraint? "The term of the Daoying under the County Magistrate's Office is only ten or twenty years. There are too many accidents that may happen in the middle of a thirty-year contract!" What he meant was that he could not accept this thirty-year contract. Which student had not been cultivated in the Taoist academy for many years? Who could endure serving like a servant for thirty to fifty years! "But in return, I will invest more in you!" "If I invest a lot, in ten or twenty years, I can train you to be strong men, and you will leave when your time is up." "Then wouldn't it be that I have been doing this for nothing?" Wu Yong did not give in at all. "My Wu family's new martial arts was passed down by a Taoist general. It can move mountains and fill the sea, increase strength and spit fire, and control wind and thunder. It must be the most advanced method of protecting the law!" "It will take at least thirty years!" The food resources consumed by the advancement of Taoist soldiers are not small. If Wu Yong wants to set up a Taoist barracks, he will definitely not do as other families do, imposing severe restrictions on it and treating it as ancillary consumables. The Yellow Turban and Golden Armor Warrior's skills and the art of exorcising spirits obtained from the Lingguan Baogao are much stronger than the Taoist soldiers' skills of the time! There were also ruthless people among the failed students. They knew that they had no chance because of their ordinary background and had not yet mastered Qi training, so they signed the contract immediately and became Wu Yong's disciples. "But there is one thing I don't understand!"
The cold and aloof woman who had been sitting below without saying a word suddenly closed the contract, raised the teacup on the table and gently gestured to Wu Yong. "If you are just looking for Taoist soldiers, why do you have to go to all the failed students at night after the Taoist Academy announces the results during the day?" "I guess Senior Wu Yong has some deeper intention?" If he just wanted to recruit Taoist soldiers, wouldn't his family servants be more loyal and reliable than the losers who went to so much trouble to be recruited from the Taoist temple? You Xue keenly noticed something unusual about this, and she stared closely at Wu Yong's eyes as he sat in the first position. "nature!" Wu Yong glanced at the empty seats below and said calmly: "The path to immortality is uncertain, and it is difficult to pass on the family tradition!" "I want to take up the path of Dharma protection and make the Taoist soldiers elite!" "In the three border continents of Liang, Ji, and You, many aristocratic families have already raised Taoist soldiers to protect the law. However, we are in Dongzhou, which is a remote corner, and we don't pay much attention to this." If the spiritual roots and qi sea are deficient, even the descendants of immortals cannot change their fate! If the Taoism is not prosperous, even the most powerful family will decline one day. The weaker the time, the more important the Taoist soldiers are. In the past, the Taoist soldiers were regarded as the ladder to immortality and the protectors of the Tao! "I don't want to build a group of miscellaneous soldiers like the ones under the county governor. I want to streamline the elite warriors, the Gondor Guardians." "The students of the Taoist Academy are the most outstanding elites in Dongjun. They are naturally better than the servants and guards of various tribes!" The Dao Court is weakening, and the border states are in a stalemate. It is conceivable that there will be major changes in the Nine Provinces! Wu Yong does not want to miss this opportunity. The students of the Dao Academy are the first beneficiaries of the Dao Court's streamlined selection system. They specialize in the path of Taoist soldiers, and with a little practice they can surpass ordinary guards who have practiced for several years. "I know you, You Xue! You are excellent in swordsmanship, chess, talismans, strategy and other Taoist subjects! And you have a Taoist body." "It's a pity that we are no longer in the ancient times. The world has changed drastically. Without spiritual roots and sea of energy, one cannot embark on the path to immortality!" "But even if you specialize in the path of Taoist soldiers, your Taoist body will have one more innate magic spell than ordinary people!" "Within ten years, you will become a strong warrior, and in thirty years, you may be able to get the title of Dharma Protector." "If you are willing to serve the Wu family, I can provide all the food and supplies for your Taoist soldiers, strong men, and guardians. The price is that you must drive them for me for two generations! The fourth turn is for the ordinary, the fifth turn is for the immortal! The first-level Dao Court Guardian who supports him to the third turn has exceeded the imagination of most county Dao Academy students! After all, the deacons and Taoist masters in the Taoist temple are nothing more than sorcerers who have successfully established a foundation, and there are even some first-level Qigong practitioners who have become famous. This statement shocked the other people in the seats. All the resources before the third level were free of charge! Including the Wu family followers who followed Wu Yong, everyone's eyes turned to the beautiful woman at the same time. Is her Taoist body really that strong? Or is Wu Yong simply attracted by her beauty? "Ha! I am the Fuyao Taoist Body. I changed my training to become a Taoist Soldier a year ago. Now I have become the Fuhai Lishi." Wu Yong suddenly stood up, and a huge wave of air suddenly pushed towards everyone, causing the contracts, cups, fruits, vegetables, and desserts on the table to fly all over the place. But at this moment everyone's attention was on Wu Yong. Wu Yong stretched out his right hand with five fingers spread out and stretched out his hand towards the huge incense cauldron behind the dragon pillar. The copper cauldron weighing more than a thousand pounds became like cotton wool. The round furnace-shaped cauldron body was suddenly twisted into a lump of iron and was lightly sucked into his palm. Wu Yong slapped the bronze tripod again, and the latter instantly broke through the doors and windows and was deeply imprinted in the rockery in the courtyard! As a Dharma protector, he is a second-level warrior with the power to cover the sky and the sea. "Senior Wu Yong is truly a man of natural talent, with the strength to cover the sea!" The students in the field saw that this power was in no way inferior to that of the sorcerer's instructor, and they began to have more expectations for the Taoist soldiers to protect the law.
The Taoist guardian soldiers are not physical cultivators, but they have no spiritual roots and sea of energy, which absorbs spiritual energy into the meridians and acupoints throughout the body. The human body is like medicine, boiling it can make you immortal! But in essence it is still inseparable from spiritual energy. The Dharma protectors mainly cultivate the acupoints of the Zhoutian meridians. The physical strength is naturally stronger, but the root is still in the magic power in the acupoints of the Zhoutian meridians. Compared with immortal cultivators, guardians of the same rank have weaker magic power and fewer choices in the magic they can practice. "Then how did Senior Wu Yong know what my Dao body is? Even I don't know it myself." You Xue was also stunned. She had never heard of the term "Tao body". "Ancient Immortal Dao! Seventy-two Dao bodies, twenty-eight immortal bodies! Together they are called Dao body and immortal body. They are the most advanced physiques in ancient Qigong. They gradually faded away when the alchemy became popular in later generations." "However, the ancient great way has long been outdated and no longer useful. The Dao body and the immortal body have only some special comprehension of magic skills until now, and have long been eliminated by the method of cultivating spirits in the sea of qi." "You entered the Taoist Academy at the age of nine, and in the first year of the test, you were rated as having the best Taoist skills, the Heavenly Fire Taoist Body!" "This is well-known news among the high-ranking officials of the East County Taoist Academy. Our ancestors wanted to welcome you into the Wu family." It's just that You Xue and Wu Yong share the same problem, one has an incomplete spiritual root, and the other has a defect in his sea of qi. "Speaking of which, we all share the same regret!" "But there is no need to be confused! What if you are inferior to others in the Daoist path? If you are not as good as others at the same level, then concentrate on practicing and become better than your opponents!" "A second-level warrior is insurmountable in front of a sorcerer, so let's cultivate to become a third-level guardian." "The third-rank guardian is slightly inferior to the great wizard, so let's try our hand at the fourth-rank Taoist general!" "Don't feel bad for yourself. Be patient and you will find a way out!" Wu Yong raised his cup and encouraged the failed students. These words hit the nail on the head. Even if one cannot achieve immortality, the path of being a Taoist soldier and a Dharma protector is not without merit. "In that case, I will go ahead and call Senior Wu Yong the chief military officer. The chief military officer's words are really inspiring and give people a sense of hope!" "Chen Qun offers a toast to the captain!" Some of the students below immediately stood up, raised their glasses to Wu Yong, and drank it all! Wu Yong's words really made them see another possibility, another opportunity. They were not complete losers. At least, there was another way to continue on the road! (End of this chapter)