Immortality Through Array Formations

Chapter 2558: Chapter 39: Body Cultivation Mo Hua (3)

The boat company was very shabby inside, and at a glance it was obviously poor.

Scattered boatmen were doing odd jobs, each person wearing several hats, having to do everything.

There wasn’t even a Steward; an elderly, stooped old boat captain personally handled recruiting people.

The old boat captain looked Mo Hua up and down in puzzlement and asked, "You lad, you want to work as a menial?"

Mo Hua nodded.

The old boat captain then asked, "You’re a Body Cultivation cultivator?"

Mo Hua nodded again. "Yes."

The old boat captain clicked his tongue, shook his head and sighed:

"You’re doing Body Refinement, and you don’t eat more meat to grow some bulk?"

Mo Hua was helpless and could only say, "I may be thin, but I’m strong."

"Strong?" The old boat captain’s face was full of doubt. Pointing at a stone pile to the side, he said, "Go punch that."

Mo Hua walked over and punched. His fist crashed into the stone pile, leaving behind a fist mark.

The old boat captain’s expression was shaken.

A group of boatmen also cried out in surprise.

"This kid... what great strength."

"He looks skinny and weak, who’d have thought a single punch could have such force—remarkable..."

"He’s got some talent in him. In future Body Refinement, his prospects can’t be underestimated..."

Mo Hua kept a serious face and said nothing.

The old boat captain was stunned for a while, then said, "You... how did you train your body? You clearly don’t look like you’ve got any foundation in Body Refinement, so where does this strength come from?"

Because I’m a Foundation Establishment Late Stage cultivator...

But that was something he absolutely couldn’t say.

Mo Hua was silent for a moment, then said slowly, "Since I was little... I’ve had Innate Divine Strength, my strength has always been great..."

"Innate Divine Strength..."

The old boat captain’s expression was full of wonder. After a moment, he frowned slightly and asked in puzzlement, "Judging by your looks, you’re not local, are you?"

Mo Hua nodded. "I came from the north, from the Canglang State."

"Canglang State..." The old boat captain frowned. "That’s a bit far from this Dafeng Crossing. You came alone? Where are your parents?"

Mo Hua shook his head and said, "My hometown is very poor, we never had enough to eat. For the sake of letting me have a bite of food, my parents sent me out very early to fend for myself. I’ve been cultivating along the way, making a living, and I ended up here..."

The old boat captain glanced at Mo Hua’s slightly sallow skin, his thin body, and that pair of clear eyes. Feeling a surge of sympathy, he nodded and said:

"All right, you can stay and work as a menial."

A boatman to the side said, "Captain, this..."

The old boat captain waved his hand, then with a grave expression said to Mo Hua:

"Ours is a small boat company. The boats are small and old, problems crop up all the time. Sailing on the Sand Sea is extremely dangerous. If we run into a sand demon attack on the ship, that’s a death sentence, and there are also sand bandits and the like, robbing ships and killing without batting an eye..."

"The Sand Sea is merciless. We boatmen live every day with our heads hung on the sail. Once we leave port, it’s wind and sand and hardships the whole way. Being able to come back with all our limbs intact is already a blessing."

"If something happens, we might not even be able to protect ourselves, let alone keep you safe."

"If you really end up dying in the Sand Sea, we can’t afford any compensation..."

"Precisely because of this, our little boat company is always short-handed every few days. A lot of the time, I don’t have much choice."

"If it were some other poor fellow, who’s lived most of his life, with a cheap life that isn’t worth much, coming to do this menial job, I’d just turn a blind eye and say nothing."

"But you’re too young, and you’ve got Innate Divine Strength. Your aptitude is truly rare, so I’m spelling all this out for you."

"Think it through clearly before you decide whether to board the boat."

"Don’t muddle your way onto the ship, only to never make it back."

The old boat captain spoke with earnest weight.

Mo Hua was a bit surprised. After a brief thought, he said solemnly, "I want to board the ship."

"You really thought it through?" the old boat captain asked again.

Mo Hua nodded. "I don’t have food to eat anymore. I need to find a means to live, just to get a bite."

The old boat captain let out a sigh and nodded. "All right."

After that, the old boat captain gave Mo Hua some time to make a few simple preparations. Three days later, the sand boat set out.

In the boundless Sand Sea, on a crude little sand boat.

Mo Hua mingled among a group of boatmen, just like some small Qi Refinement Body Cultivation cultivator.

As the old boat captain had said, this really was a small boat, only a tenth the size of those large sand boats, and there were only fifty or sixty people aboard.

Among them, five were guards and fifteen were menials.

The rest were basically passengers.

Besides passengers, the sand boat also carried some cargo, but not much, to avoid the boat becoming too heavy and sinking into the sand halfway, unable to break free. If that happened, everyone on board, all the cultivators, might lose their lives.

The tasks Mo Hua did were those of a menial. Basically he had to do everything: serving tea and water, ferrying and steering the boat, standing watch and keeping guard, and he even had to cover part of the "guard" work.

It was a very tiring and quite undignified job.

An ordinary Foundation Building Cultivator wouldn’t even deign to do such work.

Disciples from aristocratic families and Sects, even if they weren’t of the Direct Lineage, as long as their family background was a bit decent, as long as they had a little bit of status, would never associate with "coarse" bottom-level cultivators like boatmen, much less lower themselves to personally do bottom-level "menial" work.

Mo Hua, however, didn’t mind.

Even though he was now a genius of a Fifth-grade Major Sect, the Junior Brother admired by his peers, and the Qianxue Formation Path Leader, his status already quite "honored."

He had not forgotten that he himself had come from a poor Loose Cultivator background.

Under the Great Dao, all living beings are equal. In his mind there was not much concept of high or low, noble or humble.

Toward cultivators who relied on their own labor and worked hard to live, Mo Hua felt quite a bit of respect.

So when he himself did menial work, he didn’t feel he was lowering himself in any way.

On the contrary, working diligently like a Body Cultivation cultivator, and then collapsing on the bed for a deep sleep when he was tired.

Thinking about nothing, caring about nothing, briefly casting off his identity, forgetting all sorts of troubles—refusing to think about his Uncles, about his fateful evilness, about the Great Wilderness, about the wars, about all those Heavenly Mechanism Causality, schemes and calculations... instead made Mo Hua’s mood, for the first time in a long while, much more at peace.

The laborers doing the same work also treated Mo Hua with great kindness.

Seeing that he was young, far from home, and struggling to make a living, they wouldn’t let him do some of the heaviest and most exhausting tasks.

Whenever there was a chance, they would try to let Mo Hua rest.

If any passenger tried to make things difficult for him, they would step forward to speak up for Mo Hua.

They would even ladle an extra spoonful of porridge for him at mealtime.

Mo Hua’s feelings were rather complicated for a time.

From these poor bottom-level cultivators, he could sense a tenacious, simple, and kind humanity.

Vaguely, it seemed that his own humanity was also being nourished, becoming a bit more "steady."