“Then come and kowtow three times, as is tradition” Lai Daiyu said, before standing and walking to a free space. His prospective master summoned an image formed of essence, showing an individual bowing on his knees. This image clearly showed the specifics of the form of bowing known as a kowtow. Aaron stood and strode to stand before his new master, before kowtowing three times with as much respect as he could.
“So the bond is formed, now come and sit, my disciple. Let us discuss your expanded technique and the changes it has wrought on you.” His master smiled gently as she spoke. He stood and followed her to the low table. He seated himself as his master stored the mostly empty plates, before retrieving the familiar tea set.
“You have expanded on your Meridian Helix technique. This new second form extends to both your skin and your newly expanded peripheral meridians. This second form, the Outer Spiral, increases your essence intake even further. The first form, the Inner Spiral, uses pressure in the primary meridians to create suction that draws essence into the body faster. It is, however, restricted by the saturation of essence in the air surrounding your body. The Outer Spiral solves this issue by creating a whirlwind of essence that draws on the surrounding essence, compressing it into the space around you. With both forms active at their highest level, which requires your complete focus, you likely draw in essence twenty times faster than usual.” His master's voice had once more taken on the cadence of a mother telling a story. This seemed to her Lai Daiyu’s standard tone for teaching.
“This second form also reshaped your meridian network, giving you two separate sets of peripheral meridians. One specialized for moving refined white essence, and the other for moving unrefined gray essence. These altered meridians are now truly part of your body, and will undoubtedly be passed down to your children” Lai Daiyu said, before her tone became serious, almost scolding.
“However, you should not go trying such alterations again. Without the guidance of your Cosmic Insight ability, attempting such a change would have torn your body apart.” Lai Daiyu warned, before looking at the sun, which was already descending towards the horizon.
“Your body is far too depleted to make another attempt at cultivating today. Return at dawn tomorrow and we will try actually tempering your skin.” His master smirked as she spoke, before storing the table and tea set. Lai Daiyu rose and turned to enter her home, while he turned and exited the courtyard. He moved through the city streets, taking a full hour to return to the Weeping Crane. Aaron ate a hearty dinner before retiring to his room.
The next week fell into a simple schedule. Aaron would wake before dawn, bathe, and then head to his master’s courtyard. There he would eat breakfast, before cultivating until midday. Lunch was followed by training in formal martial arts training. Lai Daiyu insisted that he refine his street fighting style using influences from several Lanuran martial arts. He then returned to the Weeping Crane, where he ate dinner before retiring to sleep.
This routine was interrupted on the eighth day of proper cultivation. Aaron sat in meditation, an essence barrier covering his body as he tempered his skin. His skin had grown ever stronger over the past week. It was at least five times sturdier now, with damage resistance more akin to animal leather armor. He had just refilled his dantian, which took him only a couple of minutes, and refined it, which took him half an hour.
His essence was flowing smoothly into his skin, when the essence spiral in his dantian suddenly began to rotate wildly. The kernel of neon yellow essence began to shine, the color seeping into the rest of his spiral. He felt a flood of yellow essence pour out of his dantian. The essence filled his skin, which began prickling, which transitioned to a painful burning sensation. This lasted for around ten minutes before it began to fade. He felt that this event had completely drained his dantian, leaving only the fading wisps of his essence barrier. Feeling his skin, Aaron was astonished to discover that the durability of his skin had tripled. His skin was now fully fifteen times tougher than before he began cultivating. It was now on par with weaker beast hide armor.
“Did he really break through so quickly? Clearly not a standard breakthrough, either. My student grows more interesting with every passing day.” His teacher muttered under her breath before turning to speak to him “Restore your dantian spiral, then come and take a seat.” Aaron complied, sitting beside the table once his dantian was restored.
“It would appear that your breakthrough was special. What exactly happened during your cultivation?” Lai Daiyu said, both her tone and expression filled with curiosity.
“That was the breakthrough into Muscle Strengthening? I assume that cultivating to the completion of Skin Tempering does not usually occur so fast.” Aaron was filled with a mixture of confusion and awe as he spoke.
“You would be correct in that assumption. The completion of Skin Tempering usually takes between three months and two years, depending on the individual’s talent for cultivation. Now, the recounting of your cultivation and breakthrough.” His master's interest was clearly still on his unusual breakthrough, even while answering his questions.
“While I was cultivating as normal, my dantian spiral began to rotate wildly. The core of yellow essence began to shine, before it’s color slowly spread to the rest of the spiral. The yellow essence flooded into my skin and tempered it. My skin is now three times as durable as it was this morning.” Aaron answered with a succinct description of his breakthrough. Lai Daiyu sat and pondered his recounting for several minutes. Aaron simply drank tea as he waited.
“The early appearance of your elemental essence seems like it will have a much greater effect than I first believed. It seems likely at this point that it will provide greater than usual gains for every body tempering stage. To provide contact, most people only experience a twofold increase during their breakthrough to Muscle Strengthening.” Lai Daiyu spoke after several more minutes of silence.
“Which brings to mind your highly unusual cultivation speed. This could be partially explained by your world of origin. While some of the impurities remain in the meridians, most are pushed out into the body. Most cultivators have to laboriously cleanse each body part of impurities as they enhance them. Your body, however, not only contains less impurities total than any single part of a normal cultivator’s body. Moreover, there is your description of the battle that unlocked your elemental essence. It sounds to me like the manifestation of your elemental essence burned off all of the impurities in your body. Meaning that the only impurities that your body contains are those that have accumulated since then.” Lai Daiyu gazed into the distance as explained. His master gradually returned from contemplation, staring into his eyes
“All of that notwithstanding, it has also become clear to me that you are exceptionally talented, and your Meridian Helix technique only exacerbates this. There is a real possibility that, had you been born on Lanura, you would be well into Essence Harmonization at your current age. Yet, despite your late start, your array of unique advantages paired with your talent will quickly drive you past the majority of your peers.” His teacher’s gaze softened with these words.
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“We shall have a longer session of martial art training today, and tomorrow we will begin on your muscles.” The remainder of that day bled into the following morning.
Aaron’s schedule continued up to the cultivation after breakfast, where he instead was taught the process for his muscles.
“Just as before, start by feeling the fractional pieces that form your muscles. Here the method differs from what came before, because your muscles are not all similar in function. There exist three kinds of muscle, two natural, and one possible only through the use of essence. First comes white muscle, specialized for swift explosive motion, good for swift attacks and sprints. Next is red muscle, specialized for endurance and slower, steadier motion, good for long distance running and holding great weight. Lastly is pink muscle, possible only with essence, which is a perfect balance between red and white. You will want to shift the composition of your muscles towards a specific ratio of the three types.” Lai Daiyu lectured with the now familiar maternal tone.
“ The majority of common individuals simply do the most basic ratio; thirty percent red, thirty percent white, and forty percent pink. Your ratio would typically be devised with the use of an artifact that determines the nature of an individual. Such is the case for the children of powerful clans, or those with personally powerful masters. The use of such an artifact on you would display a nature for speed. This would usually give some idea of your likely elemental affinities. This information would then be used to decide which Essence Arts suit you best, and guide your muscular ratio, among other things” Aaron listened to his master’s explanation, interested in the lives of both the common people and the aristocracy.
“In your peculiar case, however, we already know your specific elemental affinity. This will allow us to provide the most precise muscular ratio possible. This ratio will be as follows; ten percent red, sixty five percent white, and twenty five percent pink. Now, begin infusing your muscles, and once they are full, guide them into changing.” Lai Daiyu turned to watch him as he began his true cultivation for the day.
Aaron spent the following three weeks in a schedule similar to the previous week, only changing the nature of his morning cultivation. He decided to begin the restructuring of his muscles with the shortest step, changing red muscle to white. He did this to gain a better handle on how to determine what portion of his muscles were which color.
The strangeness began on that very first day. When he tried to start at the outside and move in, he immediately felt a painful jolt from his dantian. Closer observation showed that the small kernel of lightning essence was producing small arcs of lightning. Whenever he attempted to shape his muscles in certain ways, the lightning essence would attack the inside of his dantian.
He spoke about this to his master who simply nodded, before proceeding to explain. Since a cultivators element was technically part of their soul, it was capable of some degree of instinctual action. This was likely the reason for the early awakening of his element. His element, marginally cognizant due to his partially bloomed soul, had acted to protect itself. It was now acting out to guide him into the muscular ratio most beneficial to itself. His master advised him to simply follow it’s instructions, the ratio she had provided him was merely a best approximation. No master could possibly guide him better than his own element in this regard.
Lai Daiyu changed his afternoon training at the end of the first week. His master handed him a stack of books, and after looking them over, he realized that they were manuals for Essence Arts. These arts were either lightning based or otherwise focused on speed. His afternoon training was split in half, the first part was the familiar martial arts training. The second half of his afternoon was studying the manuals until he could practice the arts they contained.
He achieved his first art part way through the second week. It was the first of his two movement arts, the Bolt Rush, a lightning elemental movement art focused on maximum speed on a straight line. Next was the basic Shocking Strike, the most fundamental lightning attack art, simply converting essence to lightning to shock struck enemies. Then came the Arc Barrier, a defensive art that created electric arcs that jumped from one portion of his body to another. Lastly was the Drifting Leaf Step, a movement skill that focused more on agility and avoiding attacks over direct speed.
His next breakthrough came at the end of the third week, just at the end of his morning cultivation. Having followed the guidance of his element, his actual muscular ration was; ten percent red, seventy five percent white, and fifteen percent pink. His bones were surrounded fully by white muscle, while the remainder of his body was bundles of red and pink, separated by white. His strength was already five times earth standard, while his speed and striking power were a staggering ten times earth standard. Aaron was beginning to grow concerned, he could already feel his bone creaking when he moved at his current full speed.
This breakthrough was mostly similar to the last. His dantian transitioned to lightning essence, before pouring its entire contents into his muscles. He was caught off guard when his muscles began to seize and spasm. He toppled over to lie on his side as his muscles continued to seize for half an hour. Once more the presence of lightning essence caused his abilities to triple instead of doubling. He rose once his breakthrough had ended, and he had refilled his dantian.
He sat with his master at the table and began to eat, considering his current situation as he ate. His funds were getting dangerously low, he currently had only chips. He had been paying for his room at the Weeping Crane for the last three weeks, and today was his last paid day. In addition to his room, he had also purchased a number of what he deemed necessary goods from the local markets.
His purchases included a tent, cooking equipment for traveling(including an array plate that replaced a fire for cooking), Several containers for water, food supplies for several weeks, navigation tools, and a small supply of mid grade healing pills. He had also purchased a primer on herbs that could be found in the empire, a similarly empire specific bestiary, a compendium of treasures such as rare ores, and an informational primer on the empire's most influential and powerful clans and sects.
Aaron was going to have to go back into the Great Eastern Wood. Unfortunately, Deng Fang had left on his own expedition to the northern mountains the week before. This meant he would have to hunt and forage alone. He decided to inform his master at the end of the day.
“Master, I am out of funds. I will need to go into the woods to hunt and forage.” Aaron said, to which his master began to nod.
“This is good, both cultivation and the learning of Essence Arts are advanced by occasionally putting oneself in life or death situations. Even though static cultivation and quiet consideration form the basis of these processes, one will only get so far without facing true danger.” His master said, before moving to retrieve several objects from the house. “Here, take these to assist you in your hunting.” Lai Daiyu said, while holding out several items.
“First are three high grade healing pills, these will be useful for emergency situations.” The pills were contained in one of the familiar frosted glass bottles. The bottle was stored in his spatial ring, which he wore openly in his master’s courtyard.
“Next is a protective amulet, charged with my qi. It will protect you from any three attacks at the equivalent of core formation.” The amulet was made of a gleaming silvery metal, shaped into a phoenix holding a flower in its claws. He immediately placed the amulet around his neck, with the metal hidden within the folds of his robes.
“Lastly is a map of the Great Eastern Wood, written by my own hand. You will not enter any section other than the outer forest until I say otherwise.” The map also went into his spatial ring, which he hid before nodding gratefully to his master. Lai Daiyu simply smiled gently at him as he turned to leave the courtyard.
Aaron slept in the Weeping Crane for the last night. He woke, washed, and ate before setting out of the city.