The rest of our journey was uneventful in comparison to the explosive beginning. The Huaxian team remained confined to our compartment until we made our first stop at the station of the Central Province where they pretended to board for the first time. After that, they could reveal their presence without fear of the staff raising questions about where in the blazes they had popped up from.

We made several more stops on our way to the border between Regiis and Egypt. Each time we would stay for about half a day, dropping off a part of our cargo before reloading with trade goods that were the specialty of the region. Half a day wasn’t too long, but it was sufficient time for a quick tour of the shops and a meal.

We quickly accrued an impressive number of curios and knick-knacks from all across Regiis as well as a taste of the many cuisines it had on offer.

Travelling the world with my wives at my side, sampling the local dishes and specialty products, observing the various cultures and customs. In a way, this was the life I had always envisioned myself leading as a child. It’s just that it was a lot less leisurely a journey than I had thought, and there was no living hand-to-mouth or fighting Ferals involved. I couldn’t decide if that was a good or a bad thing. I was enjoying myself quite a bit though.

In this period, we got to know the Huaxian team a lot better. Our mealtime conversations about magic and the current political climate were quite enlightening, giving both our teams a better understanding of the other’s nation.

I personally found the sect system of theirs quite interesting, while they were curious about the feasibility of the family system practised in Regiis. In the end, both seemed to boil down to the same essential concepts: A relatively ‘fair’ method of resource distribution based on individual contribution to a collective whole, and a well-established rank structure with an unimpeded rise channel.

As Ceres had summarized, “It’s natural, right. If you put in a lot of effort into something, you want it to succeed.”

By rewarding meritorious service by a position of higher authority, rather than with just cultivation resources, it would motivate high ranking members of a sect or a family to wish for its success. After all, the better the sect performed, the more their hard-won positions were worth. And if it declined, all their efforts would be in vain.

And as for magic… I feel all of us benefitted quite a lot from being exposed to a different school of thought. My discussion with Shang Qing, was especially profitable. His half-step Grandmastery in the Aspect of Radiance wasn’t just for show.

In return for me explaining my method of Mastery to him, he offered to teach me the technique he had used to become invisible. Although his explanation was quite long-winded and chock-full of obtuse statements like: “Each Dao is a path and all paths point to the Grand Dao…” what I managed to gather from it in the end was that he used his Daos of Reflection and Refraction to bend the light around himself, turning himself invisible.

At first, I had been quite cross with the guy. I mean, I had parted with a method of Mastery that could not only turn me invisible, but could also greatly speed up my rate of comprehension based on how famous I was. And in return, all I had gotten was a Dao that required two other Daos as a prerequisite to practice. Two other Daos I had no idea about. No matter how you looked at it, I felt like I had been cheated.

But then, when I thought a bit more about it, I realized that the important thing wasn’t the technique itself, but the idea behind it. By mastering two Daos, Shang Qing had automatically mastered a third, composite Dao. I realized that this was the secret to reaching Grandmaster.

In their lifetime, no one had the time to master the same Aspect in over a hundred different ways, not without turning into a hoary headed old man before succeeding. And combined with the time it took to accrue enough merit to gather and digest enough resources to cultivate up to Tier 5... they would be too old to attempt to transcend into a Demigod by that time.

Or, more likely, already in their grave.

Some sort of shortcut was needed. And the idea of composite Daos was that shortcut.

A Dao, like the one mother had created, tied a concept to a technique. In this case, omnipresence to invisibility. This gave it an auxiliary effect like a boost to cultivation speed.

Shang Qing’s Daos of Reflection and Refraction were the same. It was less the ability to reflect or bend light... a mirror or a prism would have been sufficient if it had been just that… no, it was the concepts of reflection and refraction that he had mastered. It was the reason he was able to redirect my fire right back at me even though that shouldn't have been possible under the natural order of things.

The composite Dao, though, didn’t have a concept associated with it. But it could be used to quickly fill the requirements to reach Grandmaster with minimal effort. This opened up a broad vista of possibilities in front of me.

Stuck in that train with little to do, I spent a lot of time theory crafting with my wives. And when some of our sessions went too far past bedtime, leaving us as the only ones awake, I found myself being dragged off to bed by whoever it was that I had been discussing with.

With the Huaxians travelling with us, I had thought that I would be using Abstinence a lot more than I actually did. In fact, I ended up not needing to use it at all.