After a few days of acclimating ourselves to the required chores and duties expected of us as outer disciples, I decided it was time to start Jia’s journey of body cultivation to begin!
“Jia! Today is the day!” I told her. She looked at me confused.
“We don’t have any chores today Astra, what do we have to do today?” She asked.
“Body cultivation of course! You said you wanted to try. Well there’s no time like the present!” I said.
She blinked at me but then smiled.
“Ah of course, yes today is indeed the perfect day for that I think.” She said.
Without further discussion we left our room and went to find someone who knew the sect better than us. We had no idea where we could body cultivate after all.
Not too far from the dorm we ran into Cassandra.
“Oh hi cuties!” She said, while tying her hair into a braid.
“Hi Cassandra.” Jia said.
“Hi Cassandra, we were just looking for you!” I said. She looked at us quizzically with a smile on her face.
“Oh yeah? What about?” she asked.
“We were looking for places around the sect where we can body cultivate.” I told her. She looked at both of us confused.
“I didn’t take you two for body cultivators with you being such small girls and all, but I guess you should never judge a book by its cover.” She said with a nod.
“Well if it's body cultivation you’re looking for, each of the petals has a body cultivation location on their peak. For our flowing peak we have the blooming pools which is perfect for cultivating your body with water qi. What elements do you guys need?” She asked.
“Water and wind.” Jia said.
“Wind, earth, and wood for me.” I said.
Cassandra was pensive for a moment then smiled again.
“Well that all should be doable. Wind is on the quivering petal peak and wood is on the nourishing petal peak and our peak has a good relationship with both of those peaks so we shouldn’t have any problems getting you guys access to their peaks for body cultivation, let’s go check it out together!” She said.
We accepted and followed Cassandra down the mountain and a peak across the main campus from our own flowing petal peak.
“If each petal has its own body cultivation training location, and there are six elements to cultivate and seven petals, how does that work out?” Jia asked. I had never thought about it but it was a good question.
“Ah yes, good question, the myriad petal peak is where the patriarch resides. Only core disciples of the patriarch are allowed there without special dispensation. That peak has locations to train for each of the six elements on it.” She answered.
My eyes grew brighter and shone with awe.
“That’s awesome! I totally want to go there one day, it would help me cultivate my body so much faster!” I said.
Cassandra smiled at me wanly.
“Good luck with that Astra, I don’t know anyone who has been given access to that peak in the time I’ve been here at the sect.” she said.
“Well how hard could it be! I think all of the elders like me, except that old grouchy one.” I told her.
“Which one didn’t like you?” Cassandra asked. I described what he looked like and she paled.
“That was elder Chin Lao, he’s the disciplinary hall elder. If he doesn’t like you, that’s not good. I’m not sure what you did to get on his bad side, but I would suggest you do whatever you can to fix it. He’s not a man you want to be on the bad side of.” She said, shuddering as she spoke.
I frowned, thinking back but I had never interacted with the man. I wasn’t sure what I could have done to upset him.
We made small talk on our way to the next peak chatting about various parts of sect life, what we were enjoying about it and what we weren’t enjoying about it.
We walked up the stairs of quivering petal peak and weren’t stopped by any of the disciples we passed on our way up. It seemed that the peaks were friendly. After the long trek up to the top, Cassandra walked us over to a large building off to one side of the mountain.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
“Here we are, the scything winds arena.” She announced.
The building had guards at the front, and we could hear an ominous howling sound coming from inside the building. We walked up to the front of the building and the guards stopped us.
“Entering the scything winds arena will require one hundred sect points per hour you spend inside. Or seven hundred sect points for the entire day inside.” The guard at the front stated. I looked over to Jia and shook my head. She mirrored my movement, neither of us had enough sect points to spend on the arena, but Cassandra spoke up before we could say anything.
“I’ll pay for both of these cuties.” She said to the guard, handing over her sect token. The man held it against a nearby stone edifice and then handed it back to Cassandra.
“Thank you, Cassandra, we’ll pay you back for sure!” I said, and Jia nodded in confirmation.
“No worries you two, let’s say I’m investing in two future pillars of the sect.” She said, sending a wink at both of us.
We smiled and thanked her before walking into the building. We were led by a disciple to a room off the side of one of the main hallways. When we entered the room the loud sound of wind buffeting throughout the room resounded in our ears. In one corner of the room a pair of sect robes were laid out next to a large basin of steaming water on a formation that kept them safe from the buffeting winds. It was clear that they understood the effect that cultivating one's body had.
I looked at Jia and then shrugged my arms and disrobed. She covered her eyes momentarily looking embarrassed and blushing furiously.
“Astra! What are you doing!?” She asked, aghast. I rolled my eyes.
“When you cultivate your body, you get this weird gunk that builds up on your body that smells horrible. If you don’t want to have to switch robes, then you should get undressed too.” I told her. She thought about it for a bit and then shrugged her shoulders too and undressed. She was still blushing furiously but once we were both undressed, I showed her how to cultivate her body. We both steeped our body in the flowing wind qi within the room. It made my whole body feel light like it was floating.
I felt the wind suffuse my flesh first, then my viscera, then my muscles, bones, and marrow, and before long I was finished cultivating my body. It must have been a few hours at least already, but I wasn’t able to keep track of time while I was cultivating. I was coated with the same black gunk as always. I looked over to Jia, and instead of her smooth, alabaster skin I saw she was also coated in gunk. I’m not sure why she wasn’t done cultivating yet, but I went over to the wash basin, cleaned myself up and put my robes back on. I decided it would be a good time to cultivate my wind qi while I was here as well and sat down back in the room next to Jia. I cultivated until I heard a knock at the door.
“You two have an hour left before it’s time to head back to your own peak.” The voice said. It was kind that they gave us a warning instead of letting us miss curfew. I looked over to Jia and it looked like she was still cultivating. I walked over to her and tapped her on the shoulder. She started and looked up at me, confused.
“What’s up Astra?” She said, a little out of breath.
“It’s almost time to go for the day, you need to get cleaned up.” I told her, pinching my nose.
She looked down at herself and recoiled in disgust. She padded over to the wash basin and bathed. I gave her some privacy by turning my back to her as she washed herself and we talked.
“How far did you manage to cultivate your body to Astra? I only managed to cultivate my flesh and part way through my viscera” She said. I looked over to her, confused.
“What? I trained my entire body in wind qi all the way, like I always do. I was done around halfway through our time in this room I’d say.”
Jia looked at me wide eyed.
“How did you do that so fast!? It took me all of my concentration just to cultivate what I did in the time we had. I’ll have to come back here at least three more times to fully cultivate my body to the body training realm, unless the further realms take longer to cultivate to.” She asked.
“I’m not sure, I’ve always been able to cultivate quickly, I think. Text did say I was a little special when it came to body cultivation.” I said.
“More like a monster…” Jia said under her breath, but I heard her. At this point Jia had finished washing and dressing herself and we both walked to the exit of the training building. Jia stopped outside and struck up a conversation with the guards out front, a different set from when we entered.
“Excuse me, how long would you say it normally takes an average cultivator to cultivate their body with one element?” She asked.
The guard thought for a moment before speaking.
“I’m not a body cultivator so I can’t say for certain, but from the people I have seen coming and going, it usually takes someone about a month or two to cultivate their body to the body training realm. The first day people go in I always see them exiting much happier than when they went in so I think the first realm might be the easiest to cultivate.” He said.
Jia looked at me pointedly, but I couldn’t look her in the eyes. I had the good grace to look sheepish under her gaze.
“Thank you!” She said to the guards and we both began walking back to our peak. It was nearing sundown at this point, the setting sun casting the nearby mountains in an orange glow. It really accentuated the beauty of the surrounding areas.
Jia told me about her experience cultivating her body and while it was slower than what I did, it was the same as my method.
“I’m jealous of you Astra, being able to cultivate your body so rapidly will give you a big advantage over others who cultivate their bodies.” she told me.
We continued talking about various things as we walked and made it back to our dorm room. We were both tired after a day of body cultivation, but we talked a little before going to sleep.
“I think we’re going to have to get some more sect points so we can cultivate our bodies more, but at least you know it’s possible to cultivate your body now!” I told Jia
“Yeah, I agree. It looks like it's going to take me quite a while to cultivate my body, but you should be able to reach the body training realm the next time you go out if you go to the other peaks quick enough. I’m curious to know how much stronger you’ll be once you reach the next realm.” She said.
We talked some more about various things before we got tired enough to go to sleep. As I drifted off, I imagined what it would be like to reach the body training realm. I would be breaking boulders with my bare hands in no time.