The army of the State of Jin had suffered far too many defeats. Even someone like Meng Jingzhou had fallen into despair, convinced that victory was impossible.
"Can I really win?" Meng Jingzhou asked himself inside the cave, finding the answer too bitter to swallow.
"Wait, a spider?" He noticed a spider weaving a web.
Time and again, the spider failed, and time and again, it tried anew. The sight left him deeply shaken.
"If a spider can fight on despite repeated failures, could I truly be worse than a spider?"
Greatly encouraged, Meng Jingzhou rallied his spirits, determined to face the State of Liang once more!
"The Liang army is stronger than ours, but the difference isn't an insurmountable chasm. How could I give up over a few petty defeats? If I give up, what will become of the State of Jin behind me?"
"I'm sure that as long as I use the right strategy this time, victory is within reach!" Meng Jingzhou clenched his fists, a plan already forming in his mind.
After several defeats, he had grown familiar with the Liang general's methods. That general had won so many times that his ego was bound to be inflated. Meng Jingzhou could exploit this complacency: first feign defeat and flee in disarray, lure the Liang army into a canyon, and then encircle them from all sides.
This time, he would catch them completely off guard and live up to the hopes of Jin's people!
"Thank you for the lesson," Meng Jingzhou said, clasping his hands in gratitude toward the spider. Without its inspiration, he would have remained thoroughly dejected, and any hope of victory truly would have vanished.
The cave harbored plenty of insects. To show his appreciation, Meng Jingzhou caught a bug and presented it to the spider.
The spider seemed entirely incapable of understanding his gesture. Treating him as an enemy, it bit him.
"It's venomous..."
Meng Jingzhou's head spun, and he passed out.
He didn't know how much time had passed—perhaps a few minutes, perhaps a dozen—but it was not long before he woke, feeling his body surging with power.
"What happened to me?"
He felt an extraordinary change throughout his body. His vision, hearing, and perception had all sharpened, and his limbs felt nimble beyond precedent, as if he had undergone a complete rebirth.
His right hand moved instinctively. He curled his middle and ring fingers inward, and a strand of white silk shot out from his wrist.
"?!"
"What on earth is this?"
The white silk stuck firmly to the stone. Meng Jingzhou yanked on it and found it remarkably tough.
"Is this spider silk?"
He pressed both hands against the wall, startled to find his palms sticking to the surface. Scaling walls and vaulting across rooftops would now be child's play.
"I remember getting bitten by that spider... Wait, where is it?" When Meng Jingzhou found the spider, a mantis had already killed it.
He stomped the mantis to death, avenging the spider's murder.
Taking up the spider's unfulfilled legacy, he reorganized his forces to wage war against Liang once more.
On the night before the decisive battle, clad in night-traveler attire and armed with his newfound powers, he carried out a solo decapitation strike, killing the Liang general on the spot.
The Liang general had died utterly flabbergasted. As opposing generals, shouldn't they have met on the battlefield with clashing blades and fought a final, climactic duel? Why did this bastard skip straight to the end with a general-on-general assassination?
The Liang general was flanked by cultivator bodyguards, but none possessed Meng Jingzhou's agility. He struck the general down without a hitch.
That general had been a rare military genius. Once he fell, the Liang army was left leaderless with no one capable of taking command, and Meng Jingzhou led the Jin army to crush them.
Meng Jingzhou cleared the trial.
...
At the headquarters of the Immortal Cult, the Cult Master and the Vice Cult Master stared at the record of Meng Jingzhou's victory, struck dumb for a long time.
A second method of clearing the trial had actually appeared.
The Cult Master massaged his temples. "What's the deal with that spider? How does a single bite grant someone spider abilities?"
"If I bit the spider back, would it gain human form?"
The Vice Cult Master was just as bewildered. He pondered for a moment, as if struck by a thought, then retrieved an ancient text from his storage ring. Pointing to a passage, he explained, "Found it. Look, the ancient texts record that a peculiar species of spider once existed on the Central Continent. Its innate strength was no different from an ordinary spider, and it never bit humans, but whenever someone was bitten by one, their body would undergo a mutation."
"This spider went extinct tens of thousands of years ago."
The Vice Cult Master reasoned soundly, "The war between Jin and Liang occurred one hundred thousand years ago, and we recreated that exact era. In theory, it is entirely possible for such a peculiar spider to appear in that cave."
The Cult Master nodded. "It seems this Meng Jingzhou not only has perseverance and quick wits, but also tremendous luck."
Luck was an elusive, ethereal thing; perhaps only the legendary Qi-Gazing Technique could truly measure a person's fortune.
Yet it could still be seen through other signs. For instance, out of so many candidates attempting this trial, Meng Jingzhou alone had been bitten by that spider and mutated, proving his fortune far exceeded that of ordinary men.
Those blessed with extraordinary fortune enjoyed smooth cultivation journeys and attained towering heights in the future.
"Let's check the others. I refuse to believe there's a third way to clear this trial."
...
Lu Yang stared at the spider repeatedly failing to weave its web, lost in deep thought.
"A spider spins a web to catch prey, so why did the man waiting by the tree stump for a rabbit fail? Aren't both just staying in one place waiting for prey to come to them? What's the real difference?"
"Is it because bugs have no brains and mindlessly fly into the web, while rabbits are smarter and know to avoid trees?"
"If bugs have no brains, that means spiders don't have brains either. Does a spider's constant rebuilding after failure demonstrate willpower, or is it just the stubbornness of a fool?"
"Even a rabbit knows not to ram into trees, so why are there people who refuse to turn back until they smash into a wall?"
Lu Yang's mind wandered into distant, abstract tangents.
He hadn't been discouraged in the least after his defeats; he was merely taking shelter from the rain in the cave, taking the opportunity to ponder a way to break the enemy.
Now, watching the spider weave its web, he found himself contemplating many questions that sounded profound but were utterly useless.
Suddenly, a mantis appeared. Catching the spider off guard, it launched a sneak attack. The spider fought back fiercely using the advantage of its web, but the mantis moved with lethal agility, striking fiercely. Within a few exchanges, it killed the spider.
Lu Yang watched the entire struggle thoughtfully. He stood up, recalling the mantis's movements.
For hand techniques, he mimicked how the mantis deftly employed its flexible forelegs; for footwork, he copied its sudden leaps, lunges, and evasions in every direction.
"Envision myself as a mantis..."
Lu Yang murmured to himself. He felt as though he had learned something similar before, possessing an innate talent for it.
Moving like a humanoid mantis, combining hardness with softness, fierce and lightning-fast, any opponent would crumble beneath his strikes.
Historically, the Jin general had been at the mid-stage of Qi Refinement, and having inherited the general's cultivation, Lu Yang was also at mid-stage Qi Refinement.
By the end of his practice, his very form transformed into that of a massive mantis. His forelegs struck with blinding speed, bringing down the entire cave with a single punch.
Lu Yang marveled, "So this is the Praying Mantis Fist whispered about in martial circles? The power is astonishing—though ordinary people could never learn it."
He streamlined the Praying Mantis Fist, turning it into a simple, easy-to-learn style, and popularized it widely throughout the ranks. The combat strength of the Jin army surged past Liang's in an instant. Without bothering with complex stratagems, they bulldozed their way straight through the enemy lines.
Lu Yang cleared the trial.
...
"Who on earth clears a trial like that?!" the Vice Cult Master roared in fury.
Chapter 69