Three weeks. It had been three weeks since the day Alina met Jaki Jokull. Why did cultivators always have alliterative names, what’s up with that? Anyways, three weeks since she met her abusive mentor, an arctic fox Beastkin with pale blue eyes and a fluffy head of very short white hair. He might’ve been cute when he was younger, but she’s not into men in their forties. Or however old he is, as a cultivator. She’s also not into men who hit her.
Whack!
“Straighten your back.”
Whack!
“Loosen your fists.”
Whack!
“That’s not a proper Lotus Pose. Back of your hands on your knees, not your thighs.”
Every day, day in and day out, it was the same. He was teaching her his old sect’s martial arts, but there was no actual fighting going on. Just poses, forms, how to hold your weight, where to put your feet, how to make a proper fist, how to do this or that. And if she was off by a millimeter? He’s hit her with his sword, still in its scabbard. It hurt.
And to make her focus even worse, while she was undergoing this training, he’d drill her on his “education” on cultivation.
“How many Layers of cultivation are there?”
“Se-”
Whack!
“Nine. Name them.”
“Mortal, Body, Mind, Qi, Sta-”
Whack!
“Soul before Status.”
“Qi, Soul, Status…”
Whack!
“Seal, Foundation, Immortal. You always forget the last three. How many levels per Layer?”
“One level for the First, two levels for the Second, three for the third, continue the pattern until nine levels for the Ninth Layer.” No whack this time. She had actually answered that one right.
Whack! Nevermind.
“Lower your chin. How many levels is that in total?”
“Uhh… Wait, don’t hit me! Uh, sixt-”
Whack!
“Forty five. How many Qi Compressions per level?”
“The same number as the number of the Layer. One Qi Compression for the First Layer, two Qi Compressions per level for the Second Layer, continue the pattern until nine per level for the Ninth Layer. Before you even ask, it’s the same with Tribulations, except only the last level in each Layer has Tribulations. Two Tribulations after the second level of the Body Level. Three Tribulations after the third level of the Mind Layer.” The pattern questions were easy. It was an easy pattern. No hit this time.
“What Layer are you in?”
“The First Layer. The Mortal Layer.”
You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.
“What level are you in?”
“The Mortal State. It’s the only level in the First Layer.
“What’s the next level you are trying to achieve?”
“The Peak Martial State. It’s the first level of the Body Layer.”
“After that?”
“The Body Tempering State-”
Whack!
“Body Tempering Stage.” Her instructor emphasizes the difference. This pattern was a harder one for her to grasp. Apparently, each level follows a pattern so that the first level of each Layer ends in ‘State,’ the second ends in ‘Stage,’ the third ends in ‘Phase,’ and so on. Since the Mortal Layer only has one level, it’s a back-to-back ‘State’ level as you’re in level one of a Layer back-to-back. But after that, it’s a ‘Stage.’
“Didn’t you say this will be easier to understand once I can hear the Voice of Heaven?”
Whack! This time, Alina hisses, sucking in a breath through her teeth. That one hurt, he hit his sword’s scabbard across her fingers.
“Assuming you can. That only happens if you’re a Twin Soul, and we don’t know for sure if you are. Speaking of, what is a Twin Soul?”
“Someone who has finished the path of cultivation in their first life and Reincarnated, starting again all over from scratch. But with some extra bonuses, or whatever.”
Whack!
“Ow! I was right!”
“You were vague at the end.”
“The bonuses are vague! You said it’s different for everybody and that you don’t know all the details because you aren’t a Twin Soul!”
“Yes, but you only answer what you know, you don’t go into details about speculation without specifying that you are speculating. And to nitpick, it’s not in their ‘first life,’ it’s in any life. No one knows how many times they have been reincarnated. If you are a Twin Soul and you die, you will still reincarnate as a Twin Soul again in the next life. It’s permanent.”
“I don’t even get it. Why is it called a Twin Soul if they still only have one soul like the rest of us?”
“I don’t know for sure, but from what I understand it’s like Qi Compression but with the entire soul. Speaking of?”
“Qi Compressions are when you compress an outer layer of qi over your soul like a shell. Each Qi Compression that you do takes as much qi as all past Qi Compressions you’ve ever done.” No whack again. She answered correctly, and she didn’t speculate on any information that she didn’t know for sure. She could learn.
“And how do you do a Qi Compression?”
“It’s instinctive, you cannot manually do it until later on in your cultivation path. For those in lower Layers it happens automatically if they intensely meditate for a long time, undergo a lot of martial arts training, or passively soak up enough qi in a qi dense area.”
“Among other ways, these are some of the ways a mortal can begin the path to cultivation, yes. Why those three methods in particular?”
“They correlate with the Body, Mind, and Qi Layers. The Second, Third, and Fourth Layer… Though, teacher, I don’t get it entirely. What about the First Layer? Or the Fifth?”
“The Mortal Layer actually does have an instinctive way to produce Qi Compressions. Live to old age. Just living long enough and it can happen on accident. Though there’s not any real use to it, do you want to have to do your first Tribulation at ninety years old? As for the Soul Layer, we’re in speculation territory. Same for the Sixth Layer, the Status Layer. There may or may not be instinctive ways associated with those Layers, and further higher Layers, but no one, that I know at least, knows for sure.”
“And you’re teaching me the martial way of Qi Compression? The way associated with the Body Layer.”
“Yes. It is how I learned, so it is the most effective way for me to teach. If you want to try to meditate, you can do it on your own time. I’ve told you the basics of how meditation works already but we won’t be wasting our training sessions on practical lessons. As for the qi method, well, there isn’t anywhere nearby with enough qi density to try that. Now, how about soul organs?”
“The soul has organs just like the body has the heart, lungs, and stomach. Some of the soul organs are the seven chakras, the kundalini, nadi, meridians, dantians, and aura. There’s a lot of soul organs, just like the body has a lot of organs, and we don’t know all of them for sure. Unlike the body, the soul isn’t born with all of its organs, and many soul organs form during the path to cultivation.”
“You didn’t name all of the ones I taught you. No matter, it’s not important, and we can go over more of them again in the future.”
Jaki, her mentor, looked up at the Twin Suns in the sky and southwards towards the Ring to see night approaching soon. “Alright, that’s enough for today. Remember, first thing in the morning. No sleeping in. If I have to go to your home and drag you out of bed, you will not enjoy your training that day.”
Like she enjoys it normally.