"Ten days. I'm giving you ten days." Jiang Chen held up a hand, fingers spread. "In ten days, no matter what methods you use, you must break through to the Seven Meridian True Qi Realm."
Jiang Chen's ironclad deadline sent a jolt of urgency through all eight personal guards.
Only five or six days had passed since they'd drawn the second mission. For Jiang Chen, the timeline was still reasonably generous.
He had chosen ten days after careful calculation—a deadline that was slightly pressing yet not so tight as to be crushing. It was just right for pushing them to unlock their potential.
These ten days, Jiang Chen intended to make full use of.
First, the upheaval with the Zijing Tribe had left many loose ends in the Jianghan territory that needed time to settle.
Second, he had no intention of wasting even a moment. He planned to dedicate this stretch of time to serious cultivation in the Jianghan domain.
An inch of time was worth an inch of gold. For Jiang Chen, every second after his rebirth was infinitely precious.
Over the course of ten days, Jiang Chen maintained a disciplined and rigorous routine. Each day, however, he carved out some time to handle territorial matters and review intelligence reports coming back from the Zijing Tribe.
He was the one who had poked the hornet's nest, so it was his responsibility to manage the aftermath. If the fallout disrupted the bigger picture or shook the Jiang family's grip on power, that was the last thing Jiang Chen wanted to see.
Fortunately, the Jing family's long history of arrogance and overreach had cost them a great deal of popular goodwill. After their eradication, the various factions across the Jianghan territory reacted with surprising calm—no backlash whatsoever.
"Little Yu, I hope you can use this opportunity to grow up," Jiang Chen silently wished. He knew better than anyone that if the Jianghan territory continued to be held by the Jiang family, then Jiang Yu would inevitably be the next heir to the title of Marquis Jianghan.
As for Jiang Chen himself, his ambitions reached far beyond a mere vassal lord's seal. He would never abandon his pursuit of the martial path for something so trivial.
Ten days passed in tranquility.
"Time really does fly. These ten days slipped by, quiet and swift. I haven't broken through to Nine Meridian True Qi, but I've already built the foundation to attempt it. I wonder—how did those eight fare?"
The eight guards had not disappointed Jiang Chen. After ten days of relentless effort, every single one of them had advanced.
Xue Tong had been the first to break through, accomplishing it on the fourth day.
Wen Ziqi and Guo Jin took six days.
The Qiao brothers broke through on the seventh day.
The remaining three achieved it on the eighth and ninth days respectively.
"Excellent. None of you let me down." Jiang Chen nodded with satisfaction. "This mission doesn't just require me to recruit eight personal guards—I also have to pass a trial. That trial will certainly involve martial matters. Right now, every one of you has reached the Seven Meridian True Qi Realm, so in theory you should be able to handle whatever comes. But to be safe, I'm going to teach each of you martial techniques suited to your individual strengths, as well as a set of offensive and defensive battle formations. That way, when you face the enemy, you won't be fighting as scattered individuals. You'll be able to unleash truly devastating group combat power."
During this period, Jiang Chen had devoted considerable thought to how best to train these eight personal guards.
That said, at this stage he wasn't going to be reckless and hand over heaven-defying cultivation methods. The techniques he selected were tailored to each person's attributes—the finest arts within the Eastern Kingdom, yet nothing so extraordinary that it would exceed the realm's bounds of comprehension.
Even though they were his personal guards, Jiang Chen had no intention of trying to force rapid growth. First, martial cultivation could not be achieved in a single leap. Second, withholding heaven-defying techniques from them was also a form of protection.
When it came to battle formations, however, Jiang Chen had far more options at his disposal.
For an eight-person integrated formation, he chose something on the more advanced side.
"This is called the Eight Desolations Spirit-Collecting Formation. It's an eight-person integrated battle formation that works for both offense and defense. Against an enemy, it offers countless variations—attacks and guards shifting unpredictably. If you can grasp even sixty or seventy percent of it, with your current cultivation, even several True Qi Grandmasters wouldn't be able to break the formation. Against opponents of your own level, even a hundred of them, you could handle the fight with ease."
"Several True Qi Grandmasters? Eight of us against a hundred same-level fighters?" Qiao Shan's enormous eyes blinked rapidly, shock written all over his face once again.
"Qiao Shan, stop jumping to conclusions. If the young Marquis says so, he must have his reasons." After the experience of locating True Qi vital points, all eight guards had developed a thorough appreciation for Jiang Chen's extraordinary power and mystery.
"Heh, I'm just stunned, that's all. The idea of going up against True Qi Grandmasters—it gives me goosebumps just hearing about it!"
"That's only if you achieve sixty or seventy percent mastery. If you reach eighty percent, slaying a True Qi Grandmaster isn't out of the question. And at ninety percent? Killing a True Qi Grandmaster would be as easy as killing a dog."
Even this was a somewhat conservative estimate on Jiang Chen's part.
"Then... what about full mastery? A hundred percent?" Qiao Shan stammered.
"A hundred percent?" Jiang Chen chuckled. "Let me put it this way. If all eight of you achieve complete mastery of this formation, then within the entire Eastern Kingdom, you would be invincible against anyone short of a Spirit Dao powerhouse. And if you each advance to the True Qi Grandmaster level, even newly ascended Spirit Dao experts would think twice before crossing you!"
"Spirit Dao powerhouses... thinking twice?" Qiao Shan's tongue nearly tied itself in knots. His eyes blazed with fervent excitement—he could barely stop himself from diving into the formation right then and there and finding a Spirit Dao expert to test it on.
"Qiao Shan, slow down again." Guo Jin stepped in to pour some cold water on his enthusiasm. "What the young Marquis is saying is that every one of us must reach True Qi Grandmaster and fully master the formation before we'd be qualified to face a Spirit Dao powerhouse."
"Heh, True Qi Grandmaster—there's no doubt we'll get there! But these legendary Spirit Dao powerhouses, I've never even seen one. My uncle holds such a high position and spent so many years in the Royal Capital, and even he's apparently never laid eyes on a Spirit Dao expert."
It was no wonder Qiao Shan was so worked up. Spirit Dao powerhouses were, for all practical purposes, mythical beings in the mortal kingdoms—existing only in legends and hearsay.
Throughout the entire Eastern Kingdom, while rumors persisted that Spirit Dao experts did exist, hardly anyone had ever actually seen what they looked like.