Jian returned to the Wang residence with the same amount of money that he had when he had left, but only now was he aware of his poverty. He spent more time on his cultivation over the next week than his crafting. It was hard to throw himself into a project that might let him earn a spirit stone or two when he needed to rack up a hundred of them to buy the material he truly wanted. At least cultivation was its own reward.

He originally had felt nostalgic when he started progressing in his cultivation once more. By now, he was no longer amazed at the simple sensation of progress. Instead, he began to regain his old instinct that progress was expected, and true success was measured by progressing faster than other people. Cultivation was a road where everybody was attempting to walk to the same destination. Naturally, the person who walked faster would get there first.

Tempering his tendons was different from tempering the skin. He was working with more complex structures that needed to be suffused with spiritual energy. The good news was that there was still a safety net of sorts. An inept cultivator directing their spiritual energy to the wrong place would merely see a lack of progress. It wasn't like the later stages where misplaced spiritual energy might cause a heart to explode. Or, in Jian's case, some other vital organ.

He couldn't tell exactly how quickly he was progressing. Cultivation wasn't something to be measured with the same precision as a formation diagram, after all. But he could tell that he was progressing. For now, that was enough.

He did ask the maidservant to take a look at his jewelry and see if there was anything worth selling. She picked out three of the pieces and disappeared for the rest of the day. The next morning she came back with ten spirit stones.

If he'd come by such a windfall a week ago, Jian would have been ecstatic. With his new sense of perspective, he was still happy, but only so much. Ten spirit stones was a step towards his goal, but it wasn't a tremendous leap. Moreover, sales prices would only go down in the future, as the novelty of the jewelry wore off.

In a way, Jian's money situation mirrored his cultivation progress. He was improving. Things were getting better. It's just that they were getting better very slowly. If he was to have even a ghost of a chance in his duel against Meirong, then he needed to race down the path of cultivation, he needed to be rolling in spirit stones. Slow and steady accumulation was all well and good, but not when he was up against a looming deadline.

Of course, the whole point of his visit here had been to remove that deadline. There, too, he was at a standstill. In theory, the old man could be persuaded to dissolve the betrothal. First, though, he would have to talk Meirong into helping him out, and in order to even have a chance at that he would have to find her. Just waiting around for her to come home might be safe, but Jian was starting to feel suffocated at staying in one place while making such slow progress towards his goals.

So it was that he asked for another meeting with the Wang patriarch. It took a few days to receive a response. His request had been granted, for the following evening. Jian made sure to wear his finest clothes-his own finest clothes, not the costume he had borrowed from the man he was meeting. He wanted to meet on as equal terms as he could manage. Even so, he found himself tongue-tied as he stood in front of his host's desk, wilting under the old man's cheerful greetings.

"So," the Wang patriarch said, "I've heard you're making some impressive things."

"I was fortunate to sell a few trinkets for a good price," Jian replied.

"It's all right to brag a little while you're young, you know," he said.

"Only when you have the strength to back it up," Jian said.

"That's just a matter of time, now."

The old man chuckled, and for a moment Jian was a child again, listening to grandfather Wang hold court. He had to fight the temptation to relax into the feeling. He had traded in his childish worries for adult troubles, and he needed to keep his head if he was going to get through them.

"I hope you're right," Jian said.

There was a lull in the conversation. Jian wished he could share grandfather Wang's optimism when it came to his own cultivation progress. He had jumped past the barrier that had been holding him back for years, yes, but that wasn't to say there were no new barriers lurking in wait. Obviously, he needed to build a whole new artificial heart before he could make the leap to the Core Refining stage, but that was just the trouble that he knew about. Most people faced at least a few bumps along the road of cultivation, and most people hadn't spent five years stalled out at an early stage.

"So," the old man said, breaking the silence, "what's on your mind? I imagine you didn't come here just to chat."

"Well," Jian said, "I was wondering if you might know when Meirong will be coming home."

"Eager to see your fiancee, eh?" he asked. "Unfortunately, it will be a while. Her latest mission could last a year or more."

Jian did his best not to react to either the question or the statement. Both were dismaying, albeit for different reasons.

As he watched, the Wang patriarch tapped the table with his fingers, lost in thought. "Although... you're looking for living jade, right?"

Jian nodded. He hadn't made much of a secret of it, and it was only to be expected that anything the maidservant heard would eventually find its way to the old man.

"Do you know where it comes from?"

Jian nodded again. "The Verdant Doom."

The vast jungle that defined much of the southwestern border of the Empire was one of the few places that was generally agreed to be more dangerous than the Devil's Teeth. The unnatural vitality of the place did have some salutary effects, such as infusing spiritual energy into the very bones of the earth, but for the most part the jungle was a collection of painful ways to die.

"Little Rong will be leading a mission there," the old man said. "And where better to buy living jade than at the source?"

Jian blinked. "You think I should visit the Verdant Doom?"

He'd thought that he got along well with the old man. Or at least well enough that he didn't actively want Jian to die. Perhaps he'd been too optimistic.

"Not the jungle itself," the old man said, waving a hand dismissively. "Baolei Town, the citadel on the outskirts. That's where all the jade comes through, and that's where she'll be making her base camp."

Jian considered the idea. There would be some risk in venturing outside of the Wang compound. As long as he stayed within the borders of the Empire, though, traveling even as far as Baolei Town wouldn't really change that risk. He didn't want to presume on the old man's hospitality for a full year, and waiting around for Meirong wasn't going to get him anywhere.

He also had to wonder if there was a connection between the disruption in the supply of living jade and Meirong's mission to the Verdant Doom. If so, then heading down there might indeed offer him a chance to buy some of the material before it made its way up to the capital. If he could do so without having to pay the inflated capital price, all the better.

He did like the idea of taking an active hand in solving his own problems. He would have to talk to Shan and get his friend's opinion on taking the risk, but if Jian was already starting to get itchy feet, he was pretty sure Shan had long been ready to leave.