There are around 20 children in a room all waking up from their cots on the floor, the first awake is one of the oldest ones among them who is 8 years old, and the youngest one is five.

The 5 year old is the only one so young as almost all the others are around 7 years old but he is still expected to keep up with the others in his tasks as well as at least reach basic requirements in the courses they all attend together despite their age differences, he was only accepted because an old and long loyal maid asked for him to be allowed despite being late.

Despite the disadvantage he has been able to stay in the running because of him barely outdoing the competition, despite being younger he was able to stay in the top 15 to 20 since he joined their lessons and has made up for what he missed.

In combat classes he is able to use his smaller size for an advantage and is able to pass the physical requirements despite his younger body.

He is far from the best but he is keeping up with the requirements the Lord has set for them making it so they couldn't force him out, of course he is still picked on as the weakest and smallest but he has kept respectful and in line with everything and despite having double the amount of chores finishes them all before he sleeps even if it means sleeping later.

Slowly the boy has earned the respect of the teacher but that only made the teacher even harsher on him, expecting the boy to do even better and trained harder.

But the true test for this guard is coming once half the children have turned eight years old and the child will be far to young for cultivating without massive risk, if he can even cultivate to begin with.

The teacher has spoken with the Baron on adopting the child himself and so removing him from the soldier training but was refused claiming he had no right to any of the mans property, so in the end it all came down to the child getting kicked out and finally no longer counting as the Barons property to claim him.

Finally the day of cultivation comes and the cultivation books are handed out for all to read, a commoner family could never get their hands on such things, only a noble is allowed such things in order to build a military for themselves.

The teacher is meant to give personal advice along with the book but instead chooses to wait and approach all but the youngest in order to guarantee the child fails in order to protect the young one, wasting such a young talent like this is a waste in his eyes so he will simply make it so the child can truly succeed through failure.

As the children enter isolation rooms in order to try and absorb the energy of heaven and earth the teacher visits each one to give guidance while peaking in on the youngest but not helping.

An hour a day is the amount of time each child is allotted to use the rooms, the youngest can only wake up even earlier then the rest in order to have enough time in order to use them.

'The art of cultivating starts by sensing heaven and earths energy, once you have accomplished that step you need to begin to pull the energy into you and condense it into a core. The core should be where the energy flows to most naturally and congregates on its own, then once you have built the energy up in the area of your core you will start up a cycle for your energy that allows it to flow seamlessly through your body and connect all parts to your core. Once both the start of both your core and energy cycle are built up increase the amount of energy in your core area until it begins to harden on the outside, once this step has begun you must not stop, or all your work will be forfeited. Pull all the energy in your body into the core and push the core to the greatest size you can get it, once all the energy in your body is there condensing the energy into a wall. With this you have completed the core forming stage.'

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This book only gave the basic overview of how to do it with no diagrams and purely based off feeling and sensing things on one's own, for low talent people this meant they would never succeed, and even talented people would struggle and fall behind using this method as it would be all trial and error to work.

In order to succeed one must have built a core by the age of sixteen which is considered mediocre talent for most but decent talent for such cultivation.

The boy will fall behind with no training and the energy test required for them each year will most definitely fail as he will not be able to pass, once he fails the energy test the teacher plans to take him for himself and teach him his personal cultivation so as to properly nurture the boy.

But unfortunately for him the child was a talent unlike any other as although only having one hour, with a barely existing explanation and no help he succeeds in sensing the energy of heaven and earth after nearly six months have passed.

The others all succeeded in 4 months but for one so young he was considered incredible and so despite wanting and planning the boy's failure when the test came, he once more passed by the skin of his teeth.

He turned 6 with little fanfare like always and was given a single day off for personal use which he decided to use for cultivating.

The entire day was spent meditating and practicing.

Like always time passed and the older children began to approach the age of fourteen with five having been removed from the training due to slacking as they were discovered to have not been practicing one hour everyday like we were required.

The eldest child was approaching the age limit and had still not formed a core but two of the middle pack children formed a core around their fourteenth birthday's.

It is clear he is nervous as he has started foisting his work on us to practice more everyday making it even harder on the rest, of course some refused but he is the oldest and responsible for giving chores so if they claimed it wasn't ours the caretakers wouldn't know, and they would be punished.

Slowly as his sixteenth birthday approached, he finally went into seclusion for core formation, but he was not successful, and all his work was down the drain.

He was booted from the home the afternoon of his failure despite him begging for a second chance. We watched him be dragged away by guards as he fought to stay, no one felt any remorse to see him leave though some felt worried as their own time limit would eventually be upon them.

One by one, bit by bit, the remaining 14 was whittled away into 7 with the youngest still there as his sixteenth birthday approaches.

Sitting in closed door cultivation he began to sense his body feeling the energy dense areas he has made, the book said to let the energy go to where it wanted and congregate but unlike most his didn't move from the absorption points so instead of a single core he had 20 miniature cores all over his body in vital spots and his energy system connected all of them together like weaving branches.

He wasn't aware that his was so drastically different from the rest as he has never received further explaining on his cultivation after their previous teacher was thrown out once he turned eight years old.

Unbeknownst to all he had somehow made a completely unique and special cultivation style using purely instinct and natural flow, his talent was far beyond even the best but no one knew. Slowly he began to gather all the energy into the cores and expand the nineteen cores all over his body formed easily and with no problems but the one at his dantian was not cooperating and was starting to destabilize.

With the others stable and fine he focused all the energy into the core in the center of his lower abdomen, expanding it until it was the size of a cherry, like that it finally stabilized and finally condensed.

His other cores are the size of a pea making the difference in energy amount clear, his central core is the one in his dantian while the rest act like pit stops for the energy to gather.

Two days before his sixteenth birthday he succeeded in forming his core.