The low-key prince summons trainees from the Imperial Household Department at the start of the game.

Fang Xuanling studied the few pages of teachings given to him by Chen Jing'an word by word for three days.

During these three days, he did not rush to break through, but instead focused on mastering the key points of qi and blood circulation in the method.

I have repeatedly examined the correspondence between each verse and the flow of Qi, and further verified it by combining it with my own insights into literature and Taoism that I cultivated in the Zhenguan era of my previous life.

Until you are sure you understand every single detail.

On the fourth night, he closed the doors and windows of the duty room, sat cross-legged on the prayer mat, and closed his eyes.

He slowly channeled the righteous energy he had cultivated in his chest for over twenty years, following the path taught by the Dharma.

He steadily pushed towards the fourth-rank threshold that had held him back for most of his life.

This time, the threshold did not stop him.

He only felt a very faint buzzing sound in his dantian.

That righteous spirit, which had been dormant for many years, was like a flood that had finally found a breach.

It surged forth, flowing along the meridians with unstoppable momentum.

Fourth rank is broken, fifth rank is opened.

Within just a few hours, he broke through two ranks from the peak of the third rank and steadily stepped into the fifth rank of literary cultivation.

At almost the same moment, Du Ruhui, who was in the Ministry of Works' duty room, also sat cross-legged beside the desk.

On his lap lay the handwritten copy of "Commentary on the Waterways Classic" given to him by Zheng Xuan.

He wasn't reading about river course changes and hydrological measurements, but rather the yellowed slips of paper tucked between the pages of the book.

Besides the annotations on the river works, those slips of paper also had annotations on them.

It also contains a great deal of insight from Zheng's ancestors on classical studies and the circulation of Qi.

Each slip of paper is a short passage of a key principle, scattered throughout the hundreds of pages of the manuscript, as if deliberately hidden within this specialized work on river management, leaving it for those with the inclination to discover and piece together.

Du Ruhui spent three whole days arranging these slips of paper in order, finally piecing together a complete set of Zheng's methods.

His breakthrough was more measured than Fang Xuanling's.

There was no surging air, no buzzing in the meridians.

But the righteous energy that had been dormant in his dantian for many years suddenly seemed to be gently pushed by an invisible hand.

It quietly overflowed that invisible dam.

Fourth rank is broken, fifth rank is opened.

The two underwent the same transformation in different duty rooms, one with unstoppable momentum, the other with profound and unpredictable progress.

Yet, the moment they stepped into the fifth rank, they all felt the surging power of righteous energy in their meridians.

This power is completely different from the qi and blood of martial arts.

Qi and blood are vigorous and outward-flowing.

A single punch or a single palm strike can injure someone.

The righteous spirit is restrained and gentle, but it can resonate with the righteous spirit between heaven and earth, empowering oneself and deterring external evils.

A single policy essay can quell the clamor in the imperial court.

A single imperial edict can appease disaster victims thousands of miles away.

A poem can even disrupt the fighting spirit of an enemy warrior on the battlefield.

However, they all knew in their hearts that whether one was a fifth-rank or a seventh-rank literary cultivator, their true weight in this court was never measured by rank.

A seventh-rank official in the Ministry of Revenue could restrict the allocation of funds and grain to local officials.

A seventh-rank official in the Censorate could impeach a third-rank official.

A fifth-rank scholar in the cabinet can draft an imperial edict to be issued to the frontier camp.

This is the rule of the imperial court.

An official position is an official position, and a rank is a rank.

Official position grants you power, and rank grants you cultivation; the two complement each other, but they are never the same thing.

Since the founding of the Great Zhou Dynasty, Emperor Taizu personally designed a sophisticated and almost ruthless bureaucratic system.

The core of this system is not to give the most power to the strongest person.

Instead, it allows power itself to become an independent entity that transcends individual force.

Even if you are a ninth-rank martial artist, you cannot mobilize troops without authorization from the imperial court.

A mere third-rank civil official like a minister could dispatch thousands of elite troops to the frontier with a single official document.

The foundation of the imperial court has never been a single strongman, but rather this vast and sophisticated system.

This is precisely what those ancient aristocratic families fear and are most helpless about.

They can train ninth-rank martial artists and accumulate wealth that rivals that of a nation.

They can weave a vast network of relationships, but they can never directly confront the imperial system.

However, these aristocratic families did not confront the imperial court head-on.

They took a different path.

They did not vie for positions in the imperial court, but instead controlled more fundamental resources such as land, wealth, Buddhist teachings, and lineage.

No matter how sophisticated the imperial system is, it ultimately depends on people to operate it.

The origins of these people's teachings, their lineages, and their local connections are often intricately linked to these ancient families.

Especially the methods of cultivating oneself through literature.

For three hundred years since the founding of the Great Zhou Dynasty, the cultivation of literary arts has always been firmly in the hands of aristocratic families and lineages, never being recorded in writing, and never being passed on to the common people.

The imperial court was not unaware of the seriousness of the problem, but Emperor Taizu had once had a tacit understanding with several powerful families.

The powerful families supported the Great Zhou, and the Great Zhou recognized the privileges of the powerful families.

This tacit understanding has lasted for three hundred years and remains unbroken to this day.

The imperial court's wariness of these ancient families was never solely due to their wealth and connections.

It is also because their foundation contains a secret that even the royal family cannot ignore.

Above the ninth rank.

During the Great Qian Dynasty, the ninth rank was not the end of martial arts.

Above the ninth rank are even higher realms, the names of which and the cultivation methods are recorded in detail in the "Great Qian Martial Scripture".

It is the path to heaven that countless sages explored with their life's blood during the golden age of martial arts.

However, after the founding emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty destroyed the Great Qian Dynasty, he did something that shocked the entire world.

He personally burned all the cultivation manuals and secret techniques in the world that recorded the realm of those above the ninth rank, using his own cultivation level above the ninth rank.

They were all collected in the palace and burned along with the martial arts manuals and cultivation methods left over from the previous dynasty.

He wasn't destroying martial arts skills, but cutting off the path to enlightenment.

Emperor Taizu himself was a figure of rank above the ninth grade.

He knew the power of that path better than anyone else, and he also knew its dangers better than anyone else.

A ninth-rank martial artist can take on a hundred men on the battlefield, while someone above the ninth rank can take the head of a general amidst a vast army.

He can single-handedly change the course of a war.

If too many people in the world reach that level.

Imperial power would no longer be supreme, the court's system would be crushed by individual military force, and the Great Zhou's empire would disintegrate in the endless struggle for supremacy among the strong.

So he cut off this path at its root.

All the cultivation methods were burned, and all the records were destroyed.

All secrets concerning those above the ninth rank were sealed within the royal family's taboos.

No one may touch it.

More importantly, he used the national fortune of the Great Zhou Dynasty to suppress the martial arts fortune of this land.

For three hundred years, the Great Zhou Dynasty was prosperous and the imperial power was stable. As a result, the fortune of heaven and earth on this land was suppressed by the fortune of the nation.

Breakthroughs above the ninth rank require not only cultivation techniques and talent, but also the blessing of the world's fortune.

The fate of the Great Zhou Dynasty is like an all-encompassing net, firmly pressing down all those who attempt to break through to the ninth rank.

This is the real reason why those above the ninth rank are not prominent in the world.

The roads were burned, the fortune was suppressed, the martial arts techniques were lost, and the nation's fortune was suppressed for three hundred years.

This means that martial artists on this land will never have the chance to reach that legendary realm again.

But this does not mean that the secrets above the ninth rank have completely disappeared.

Those ancient families that have been passed down for hundreds of years, their ancestors once witnessed the glory of those above the ninth rank in the Great Qian Dynasty.

Their family archives may still contain fragments of information about that realm.

Although the complete cultivation method had long been reduced to ashes by the Emperor Taizu's order to burn books.

However, there are records about ranks above the ninth rank, speculations about the conditions for breakthrough, and discussions about the relationship between the fortune of heaven and earth and martial arts.

These fragmented pieces of information are likely still preserved deep within the libraries of the major aristocratic families.

The reason why the imperial court both feared and tolerated these aristocratic families was not only due to their wealth and connections, but also for this deeper reason.

Whoever masters the secrets above the ninth rank may one day break the seal set up by the founding emperor.

Reopen the path to heaven that had been severed for three hundred years.

After breaking through to the fifth rank, Fang Xuanling and Du Ruhui reviewed everything from beginning to end and finally understood the whole picture of the game.

The Ninth Prince's plans in the capital, his infiltration of local areas, and his expansion within the military and business communities.

These are certainly necessary means in the struggle for succession, but if his goal is only the throne.

So the only opponents he needs to deal with are the eldest prince, the second prince, and the fourth prince—these are his obvious rivals.

But if his goal is to completely change the power structure of the Great Zhou Dynasty and free the court from the constraints of powerful families.

To enable scholars from humble backgrounds to have a path to breakthrough, and to allow the martial arts path, which had been burned for three hundred years, to see the light of day again.

Then he will be facing the oldest, most powerful, and most deeply rooted force in the entire Great Zhou Dynasty.

The road ahead is long; they have only just begun.