Today she was one of the first to enter the hall, just a few other children were here already, nobody Kou knew or was confident in talking to, so she made her way slowly to one of the chairs in the back, sitting down and placing her notebook on the table.
She was a bit surprised to see someone actually approaching her, it was a girl, small black hair, a bit thin - with large black eyes, she seemed to constantly shiver somehow - carrying with her a large not book. “M..May I sit next… next to you?”
Kou was a little taken aback, why was she stuttering?! Blinking in confusion for a moment she nodded. “If… you want to.” she pointed towards the empty chairs around her.
“T…Thank you, I’m Li Zhi.” The girl introduced herself with a small bow. Kou herself did not want to bow and simply said “Kou…” thinking about that for a moment she added. “Yun Kou…” she had realized that forcing her name onto people might be a bad idea.
“Yun Kou..Ok..” The girl was rather timid and Kou could already guess that the reason she came here was just that Kou herself took notes. Still, the two of them did not exchange much more words just sitting silently next to each other until Hei Tian showed up. The boy made a bee-line for the free chair next to Kou and grinned wide “He, I’ve heard you did the full run yesterday? Good on you!” Almost casually he slapped her left shoulder which made Kou stiffen immediately her golden eyes darting to Hei Tian as if he was some kind of ghost. The boy was a little surprised “Uh? Did I do something wrong? Does your shoulder hurt?”
“No..why did you do that?” There was no accusation in her voice just plain confusion as she looked at Hei Tian, which made the boy scratch the back of his head somewhat at a loss.
“Well… Friends do that? Like when somebody did something good you give them a clap on the shoulder.” His explanation seemed a bit awkward since Kou was suspiciously eying him from the side - before her questioning glance went to Li Zhi.
The girl seemed startled but towards Kou’s unasked question she slowly nodded “Boys do that, yes.” She mumbled shyly.
Casting her glance back to Hei Tian, Kou was somewhat at a loss but nodded “I’ve never had a friend before, so... I didn’t know.” stating this bluntly to the boy she moved back and forth in her chair feeling somewhat tight in her chest. The boy himself did not feel any less awkward at this and continued to rub the back of his head “Well, you.. got your first one, right?” His words did shake Kou a bit but she nodded slowly. Their awkward conversation was now cut short by the elder showing up - her eyes wandered over the people around there were significantly fewer people here today than yesterday - with just about half the seats filled.
Still she did not comment about it - apparently, it was normal. “Good, today we will work on meridians, opening meridians for one, allows better Qi flow in your body - it also allows you to use your Qi on the outside world, all techniques, we call them art - need meridians.”
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“A Wind Art for example that lets you guide an arrow will need an arm meridian attuned to the wind element. There are uncountable amounts of arts - some are simple some might take years to comprehend, but all of them use your meridians, and trying to use them without them will just end in failure.”
Then the woman went over how to open meridians, it was apparently simple enough if you had the resources, for the first few meridians taking an opening pill and focusing your Qi towards them would apparently be enough to open them. Later on the pills for this would get more expensive and the failure rate in opening meridians would increase there more you opened up for use.
At the end of the lesson the elder handed out 2 ranks 1 pill to every student that had jet to open any meridians - and one to everyone else, she stayed around for little answering questions before vanishing on the spot just like last time. Kou eyed her two pills somewhat suspiciously. Inside the small glass flash were 2 green pills about the size of an adults fingertip, they were round and shiny - almost like a gem. Shaking her head a little headed home, saying a simple goodbye to Hei Tian and Li Zhi.
At home she runs into Xiu Shihong just leaving the cultivation room - the girl nodded slowly but did not want to talk since she immediately went into her room, but that was alright with Kou - she hid her pills in her room before leaving quickly. She wanted to be at the training fields early to cultivate a little before the run started!
Kou sat cross-legged on the edge of the training field silently absorbing one of her spirit stones, she felt the energy shooting into her body fusing into her dantian. There was a good reason for her doing this! Whenever she absorbed energy from the stone she would feel super energetic for a while.
This was caused by the spirit stones energy that she was unable to absorb fully - there was always some waste that just would slowly leave her body, but cultivating like this just before the run would give her the opportunity to use this otherwise wasted energy. Unknown to Kou herself the Elder was already there - standing silently to the side, he appeared out of nowhere and did make the smallest noise. He did, however, have quite the amused glint in his eyes while looking down at the scruffy girl “Smart girl - overloading yourself just before we start will let you use that energy without any harm to your body.” He nodded to himself while thinking this.
While it was little more than a drop on a hot stone, the sect elders appreciated resourcefulness like this! Not many people would think this way, just those that would use any scrap of whatever they were given.
The run this time was longer than yesterday, but Kou managed - just as yesterday the man had them sit down and cultivate after the run before handing each of them a bottle to drink, then they started to climb the mountain, it was simple - still - every one that went through with it all was pale and deathly exhausted afterwards.
Her trip home was a pain, all of her muscles hurt and when she finally opened the door she almost dropped down again, catching herself she made her way to the bathroom - spending a good half hour inside. With her eyelids heady but her body clean Kou slowly made her way down the mountain, her goal was the art archive, after all, she had to get this over with soon. It did not take to long to get here and there were not too many people out and about - Kou was granted access to the first floor containing the simplest and fundamental arts.
The Pavilion had 5 levels, finding herself on the lowest one she was surrounded by shelves - hundreds of them, each holding scrolls, jade pieces, even old bamboo carvings. She also was not alone at all here.