There were two more classes before the end of the day, and like he told Kitty, Cody managed to stay awake for both. Even the last class of the day, the Accumulation class taught by the boring Mr Frank.

Not that Cody would ever say that to his face.

Rumours in school say that Mr Frank was an Adept-Three cultivator, a rank Cody could only dream of ever achieving, and he was also the foremost expert on improving cultivation via Accumulation in Venspur West Cultivation High. Mr Frank runs the Accumulation Department in the school, and his knowledge on the subject was second to none. However, Mr Frank was also set in his ways. He was a teacher from the old-school of teaching and believes that you do not fix what’s not broken, no matter how boring the students think he is.

“Accumulation, Stimulation, Exhaustion; the three Methods of improving a person’s cultivation. There are others, but these are the main three and of these three, Accumulation has the longest history. For over three thousand years, from the very beginning of the Cultivation Age and even before the forming of the Cultivation League, cultivators have been using the Accumulation Method to gather Essence. Using the method to slowly accumulate Essence to widen their meridians, forcing it to strengthen their Bodies, expand their Mind, and improve their Soul. Accumulation is the most tried and proven method of cultivation, and it is only through slow steady improvement could a cultivator reach the pinnacle that is immortality.”

Cody almost chuckled at that. Mr Frank spoke as if anyone in Venspur West had a chance of reaching immortality. To achieve immortality, you need to be a deity, and in three thousand years, the number of deities could be counted on one hand. There hasn’t been a new one since Trent Prawoski, the Golden Scholar. That was a few centuries ago in the Union of Eastern Europe, and no cultivator had come close since. Immortality might as well be a children fairy tale by now.

“Cody, focus!” Mr Frank said.

Cody mentally sighed. He may be a boring teacher, but Mr Frank takes his job seriously and was always keep an eye on the students in his class. This is one class Cody would not be able to slack off in.

Sitting cross-legged as the moustached teacher began his rounds around the class, Cody tuned out the teacher and focus his mind back on his mediation. Mental visualization was the key.

Cody focused on his breathing. Breathing in through his nose and exhaling with his mouth. Each breath was in a slow steady rhythm, and Cody kept the mantra of the cultivation system in his mind.

Breathing is the source of life. All living things must breathe, and the act of breathing was the basic building block of life. To breath is to live, and to live is to cultivate.

At least, that’s what the Phoenix Breath Cultivation System taught.

There was a difference between a Cultivation Method and a Cultivation System. A Cultivation Method is a procedure, a specific way to cultivate, but to cultivate, a cultivator needs a Cultivation System. A detailed plan on what to do, the steps the cultivator need to take to cultivate the Essence in the air and improve his Mind, Body and Soul.

The Phoenix Breath Cultivation System was one such system. Based around breathing, Phoenix Breath was not the best cultivation system in the world or the most powerful, but it was easy to learn and simple to use. So simple that the Cultivation League used it as an introductory method for children.

All children start their ten-years compulsory education at six, and the Phoenix Breath Cultivation System was the first cultivation system most of them encounter. A simple, easy to learn system to introduce young kids to the benefits of cultivation, Cody had been using the method for ten years. Cody continued his breathing and tried to visualize how the air he was breathing in was improving his body.

Despite how much Cody complained about his teaching methods, Mr Frank was right about the history of Accumulation. It was the most common and respected method of cultivation and though considered a little old fashioned among Cody’s peers, Accumulation was still taught and practised throughout the world.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Since the start of the Cultivation Age, there is Essence in the air. As Cody breath, the air flowing into his lungs would cause his stomach to expand and his body to be filled with the Essence of the world. The essence going through every part of him cleanse and scour away his weakness and when he exhaled, Cody visualized it as an act of the poison and weakness of his body being released. With each breath, Essence would flow into Cody’s body, making it stronger and the accumulation of Essence was how a cultivator would progress up the ranks.

Cody felt the stirring of energy within his body. As always, there was pain. The pain was a by-product of his body getting used to the excess of Essence and his meridians slowly breaking open. Researchers have confirmed that there are one hundred and eight meridians in a cultivator’s body, tiny veins that are essential for the gathering and flow of Essence.

However, most cultivators were born with only ten to twenty open meridians. A cultivator can live a healthy life with just that many open meridians but to seriously cultivate, to be a Novice-One cultivator, a human need to open at least a hundred. Technically, eighty-five would be enough, but a cultivator’s progress would be severely hampered by the lack of open meridians and a hundred was considered optimal. To open a hundred and eight would be golden.

As they say, the more the merrier.

The theory behind Accumulation is simple. Keep gathering the Essence till it overflow your meridian, and then let the overabundance of it force open the closed meridians in your body. That’s why there is pain. Accumulation teach that a cultivator cannot improve without pain and effort, and Cody ignored it as he had been taught. He tried to gain some comfort in the knowledge that more of his meridians are opening with each breath he took.

Cody was a Mortal-One, which means his open meridians numbered below fifty. A cultivator with fifty-one to eighty-five open meridians was in Mortal-Two, and someone in Mortal-Three, like Kitty, had between eighty-six to a hundred open meridians. Once an individual open more than a hundred, he was officially in Novice-One and his body would undergo a qualitative change.

This was considered the level of true cultivators. To many, Cody was barely a cultivator. Some even insult him by saying he was almost a human. Cody knew the only way to shut them up is by going up the ranks. However. that was easier said than done.

Ten years of cultivation and his meridians only numbered thirty. Cody knew of prodigies who had that number of open meridians at birth! Cody continued his visualization as the pain grew. Before long, each breath he took became painful and Cody had no choice but to stop his cultivation. He slumped in his seat and opened his eyes. Cody looked around and was glad to see he was not the first. Several of his classmates had already stopped their mediation.

Mr Frank was walking around the class. He did not glare at the students who stopped; Mr Frank did not need to. With a disappointed look, a raised eyebrow, or an audible sigh, and the students would go back to cultivation. For the stubborn students who refused and looked away, Mr Frank would call upon his cultivation and exert pressure on the wayward students. The aura of an Adept cultivator was not something mortal cultivators could ignore.

Cody took a deep breath and try to steady himself. Cody had long accepted that he had no talent in cultivation, but some people say there is no such thing. They say there was a cultivation system for everyone, and that hard work could overcome anything.

Mr Frank was one of those people.

He was old-school and believes that having low talent just means the student need to train harder. Mr Frank did not accept anyone not putting in the effort and was known to be a hard taskmaster who could push his students to new heights. He also doesn’t mind putting pressure on a student to get them to train harder. That’s why he still has a job despite his boring lessons. Mr Frank gets results, and Cody knows it is only a matter of time before the teacher turned in his direction.

Seconds after stopping his cultivation, Cody was already feeling better. He hates Accumulation. In theory, mediation could help with the pain. Mediation was to allow Cody to separate his mind from his body, and let his mind be unaffected by the pain he was feeling as he cultivates. Cody never got that.

Cody had heard rumours that mediation was a cultivation method that had been around even before the Cultivation Age. It was a method originally invented by humans and had been adopted by cultivators for the modern age. Despite its storied history, Cody could not understand how someone was supposed to mediate when using a cultivation system.

A system is a process, a series of steps that must be taken in a particular order to achieve an end result. Cody needs his mind to tell his body what to do, but under mediation, he was supposed to separate his mind from his body. That made no sense, and he knew he was not the only one who thought that.

Cody heard that some rich families do not bother with meditation at all. They would buy pills for their children to deal with the pain, and some even build special arrays to help improve the accumulation of Essence. More Essence absorption for the same amount of pain.

Unfortunately, all that cost money and they were beyond the reach of Cody’s family. Mr Frank walked over to Cody and gave him a look. The teacher obviously thought this student had rested enough.

Cody grits his teeth and goes back to cultivation.