Chương 5: Natural Cultivator

Guan Li and Kong Paike ended up picking a house of middling size. The male and female housing each formed a circle around the inner workings of the sects, where the market, library, archive, and various other administrative buildings and training halls were located. The wilds below the tree line and the icy peak of the mountain were outside the compound. Of the five rings of housing, they were in the third. It was a nice enough building, having a living area with a kitchen, two bedrooms, and a cultivation chamber.

If they were any lower, they would either have to give up on a cultivation chamber or individual bedrooms. He was uncomfortable picking anything higher as, with his lacking talent, he expected to fall behind eventually. However, given his time getting up the stairs, he felt that he had earned a decent place. Paike didn't feel the need to speak much, and neither did Guan Li, as they mostly held quick conversations. This suited Paike just fine as it gave him time to study his new roommate.

Guan Li moved with a strange pattern. It wasn't like the trained fighters he'd grown up around, nor the nobility who had people to do their fighting for them and didn't cultivate combat arts. No, it was as if someone had no training at all. How he had managed to make it up the stairs at all was a mystery. As they settled into their rooms, Paike finished and walked out into the common room, finding his new roommate sitting at the kitchen table.

He stood in the doorway and watched for a second as the boy sat there, tracing something on the table with his finger. After a moment, he cleared his throat. The boy shot up, turned around, and gave a polite bow.

"Kong Paike. Is there something I can help you with?"

"No, just wondering what you were doing," Paike replied.

"I was just contemplating," Guan Li said, his words coming slowly as if he was picking each one with care. Paike nodded, allowing the boy his privacy.

"I'm going to the sect market to stock up on supplies. Would you like to come with me?" He spoke a bit more casually than was perhaps acceptable to a stranger. Still, hopefully, it would allow their relationship to soften a little and put the other boy at ease. The formal sect robe the boy wore was indistinguishable from the others. He wore them mostly correctly, but the sash was tied wrong. Paike debated if he should correct him.

He had the feeling that if he had met the boy before he came through the test and received robes like all of the scholarship students, he would likely have found him just like the other disciples he passed. Raggedy clothes that barely held together were the norm. Paike and his sister had received their robes at home, so naturally, they wore them through the test. The boy nodded.

"Yes. I would also like to pick up my allowance?" The statement came out slightly more as a question, and Paike nodded. Certainly, if he remembered correctly, all outer sect disciples received five Ruby cultivation stones once a week when they were in the first stage. Of course, the sect wouldn't deliver them, so they had to pick them up at the administration building. This was fine for the first week during orientation, but once things became a little more combative, you had to be strong enough to hold on to them.

He had certain funds provided by his local sect and family, but the stipend would be nice to supplement them as well. He really didn't know what he needed for cultivation, as doing it the traditional way didn't seem to be working for him. The two of them left the house and marked the door as theirs. Hopefully, they wouldn't find any squatters when they came back.

With Guan Li now wearing his sash correctly, the two boys carried their grocery haul into their house with no fanfare. They stored their food in the pantry and sat in the kitchen, wondering what to do. They had tried to stop by the archive and the library, neither of which were open without special permission. However, on the central bulletin board, it was announced that there would be two classes available for students. Each class was offered in the morning and afternoon.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it The first was the basics of cultivation, where students were instructed on the fundamentals and given the possibility to earn rewards based on their progress. The second was martial combat and physical cultivation, where students would learn how to fight. Neither were mandatory, but that didn't mean they weren't useful. Certain families had their own methods of cultivation.

The students would practice that or maybe something unique or secret that they wouldn't want to do in front of others, or they just wouldn't benefit from the lessons. They had no reason to attend. This was not true for Paike at all. His family was very standard, and he could do with some refreshers. Before awakening, he'd spent so much time researching and reading methods for forming one's Dantain that what had come after had kind of slipped his mind.

When Guan Li asked what his intentions were, Paike could tell that the question was a little bit more than what it seemed.

"Yes, I plan on going to both of them," he said.

"At least to start, at least once, to see what is being offered." It was likely that he wouldn't get much from them, but he wanted to see what was going on. He definitely didn't expect to win any awards. But maybe he would learn something that would help his unique situation. The boy nodded, but a certain amount of nervousness was present in his eyes. Paike could guess what he was unsure about, but he wasn't so rude as to ask. So, instead, he gave a little nudge to get the conversation flowing.

"I do think that you'll benefit from them and should definitely go," he said. Guan Li nodded as if that was obvious.

"Yes, I'm a bit concerned about what I might need to know ahead of time. Do you think there's any prerequisite knowledge?"

"Well, I assume everyone should know a basic cultivation technique that you practice when you're awakening," Paike began. Still, at the blank look in the younger boy's eyes, he paused.

"You do know a basic cultivation technique, right? Basic cycling? Something like that. There are different terms for it, and I don't know what you might have heard." Guan Li just shook his head. Paike started again, "How did you awaken if you don't know any cycling technique?" Guan Li looked down at the floor and hunched his shoulders slightly defensively. His answer came in a near whisper, "I don't know. I just did.

A couple of days ago, I was sitting and waiting, watching for--" He cut off before explaining the rest.

"All of a sudden, things became clearer... Minutes later, a member of the ministry found me and told me I had to come here." Kong Paike blinked in absolute astonishment. He was a natural cultivator. Someone who awakened with no technique. Awakened from just sitting and breathing. He couldn't help but feel his blood boil in jealousy. This boy had everything handed to him, and Kong Paike had to work and fight for his entire life. But he quashed those feelings down. Just cultivation talent didn't mean everything.

He had plenty of other advantages that many other people couldn't claim, and it didn't fit him or his family to be jealous.

"Well," he said after a moment, "I don't want to teach you a particular cycling technique." Not because he didn't want to, really, but because he pretty much couldn't as he couldn't perform it himself.

"But also," he continued aloud, "I don't think it would be good for you to copy mine. Maybe you could have an elder instruct you, but learning something rote that doesn't match your style might hinder your cultivation. If you were lucky enough to awaken without assistance... well, that is outside of my knowledge." Guan Li nodded seriously and looked as if he wished he had a notepad. But Paike continued, "However, I will help explain the basic theory."

He launched into an explanation of the process of gathering qi from the world and pulling it into one's dantian to fill it for power and stretch it out. The explanation was entirely in general terms. If Guan Li was some sort of genius, he might develop his own method that was perfectly suited to him. Even if not, it should at least let him understand what he saw when he found a cycling technique. That explanation turned into how one would reach the next stage of cultivation.

Then, how to cycle qi through your body and carve channels through your flesh such that the qi could flow and reinforce the body, soaking into the very cells, strengthening them, and empowering them. Paike explained how meridians could be carved between the spirit and different parts of the body or soul that would then be tuned to certain flavors of chi. These meridians would then be used to perform arts of varying effects that would get more complicated as they rose through the realms of cultivation.

"So," said Guan Li, after listening to the explanation and thinking on it, "that asshole you fought used a fire-attuned meridian in his hands?" Paike smirked.

"Yes, but you probably don't want to let him hear you calling him an asshole. Also, that was not just a simple use of a single meridian. Likely, he opened one or two before he even came to the sect. His family is known for their fire techniques, after all."

"Is he a big deal?" Guan Li asked with a frown. Paike nodded, feeling a sense of déjà vu, thinking about the conversation he had with his sister not more than a couple of hours ago. He should go check on her and make sure she was doing all right.

"Very much so. You should avoid him if at all possible."