Chapter 4 The Shen Family (1/2)

Having made progress with his physical recovery, his physical condition was then on par with normal healthy people. However, it would not be possible to recover the vital Qi that he lost in the past overnight. The Shen family was influential in many fields and it would be easy for them to get their hands on precious herbs. Thus, Shen Lian very likely would have tried to find a way to return to the Shen family even if Steward Wu had not come.

As the saying went, 'Academia is for the masses, while martial art is reserved for the wealthy ones'. The same could be said about cultivation.

Even back in the ancient times on Earth, the famed Daoist monks were from an affluent family. The founder of the Way of the Celestial Masters, Zhang Daoling, was from a wealthy family. Even the well-known Celestial Master, Sun En, was from one of the great and affluent families. Ge Hong was even the Secondary Marquis, while Tao Hongjing was known as the 'Prime Minister of the Mountains'.

Regardless of their achievement in relation to their celestial training, all of these cultivators of Daoism that we were familiar with had plenty of resources at their disposal. Even if they were geniuses, they would not be who they were if they had to concern themselves with supplying the basic needs of life.

The real Shen Lian was a frog in a well. His lack of guidance led him to think that the greatest masters became who they were by training hard with any secret texts of martial exercises.

Both cultivation of Daoism and martial arts training focused on the evolution of an individual. Gathering knowledge from the information-rich era that he came from, Shen Lian figured that cultivation required much more than the attainment of one's mind. On top of that, the accumulation of information and resources was just as important.

In the modern world, even a project as simple as the Human Genome Project required the cooperation of different nations; a clear indication that the road of evolution was not something that Shen Lian could conquer on his own.

”Method, companion, resource, and land,” said the Ancients.

In relation to 'method', he was aware of the method of cultivation; albeit his understanding was a shallow one.

'Companion' could be the kindred spirits that he would meet on the path of cultivation or a famous Kung Fu Master who would impart knowledge unto him. It could even be friends who share information and their experiences with him. Just as the modern world, scientists would attend conferences and be involved in universities in order to take advantage of the databases.

'Resource' refers to the resources concerning the cultivation of Daoism. This was limited to knowledge, as he himself was unaware of any tools that could be relevant to his cultivation.

As to 'land', he did have training rooms that were safe and quiet at his disposal.

It would seem that he had everything that he needed, but there was a lot of room for improvement.

At that moment, the most important thing was not training, but companionship.

As someone who came from the modern age, Shen Lian agreed with the saying that 'learning alone without interactions with others will lead to ignorance'. For instance, the real Shen Lian would not have been so frail and ended up losing this body to him if he had someone to guide him along the way.

If that was the case, when he traveled through time, he would have been assimilated by the real Shen Lian instead of taking over his body.

All of these would have been pointed out by doyens of the various schools of cultivation.

Judging from the real Shen Lian's memories, those who managed to attain celestial status did so after they joined one of the cultivation schools.

Just as the case of a great scholar – one would first have to learn before proceeding to carry out independent research.

Based on the reasons stated above, Shen Lian knew what he had to do.

In the long run, it would be great if he could be accepted into one of the elite cultivation schools.

In the short run, it would be to get his body into good shape in order to have a solid foundation.

Despite his frailty, there were perks to having a stronger than average spirit. He was able to detect even the tiniest stimuli. Coupled with some training, he would be able to have a good grasp over his own limit. With that, he could exert himself at his maximum capacity without causing harm to his body.

After training day after day, his hand-eye coordination and sensory organs were in tip-top condition.