After he finished glancing at the different disciples gathered, glad to see some faces, the elder began his speech:

"First, I would like to welcome all the new little brothers and sisters to our sect. I would like to also greet the disciples from previous batches. It is my honor to see so many of you coming back to listen to my lesson. And now, without further ado, we shall start talking about cultivation"

"That brings us to the very first and foremost question. What is cultivation?... ... ... Is it to be stronger? Is it to live longer? Is it to shed your mortality and differentiate yourself from the masses? It is neither of those and all of them at the same time. Everyone has different goals that lead them to cultivate but cultivation doesn't discriminate about those. It only rewards diligence. Though some might be more talented than others, diligence is the foundation of cultivation"

"Now, what is cultivation? In principle, it is the act of absorbing the spiritual energy surrounding us and making it our own. Every living organism has spiritual energy at his origin but few are capable of absorbing more. That is because some aren't aware of its existence even though it is everywhere and also because the spiritual energy doesn't want to be absorbed"

"Compared to air itself that we breath, spiritual energy is a moving entity that we believe impossible to absorb unconsciously. At first of course. There are ways to do so that you will discover throughout your journey. However, as of now, you can only absorb spiritual energy by being conscious of it and concentrating on doing so"

As he finished, most disciples were acknowledging what he had spoken of. It was obvious as they had all reached at least the second stage of refinement. They had their cores and knew how to find the spiritual energy. Jin did not though and was very captivated by the beginning of this lecture. It was interesting. And it opened a brand-new door towards the search of power to him.

Spiritual energy...What a wonderful new weapon to be discovered, studied and harnessed. He couldn't wait to absorb some and feel it for himself.

The lecture of course went on as the lecturer took out a candle. A candle that Jin recognized for he had two cardboard boxes full of them.

"Those candles are what we cultivators use to distinguish the spiritual energy while we are in the refinement realm. Which is where you guys are at. With this candle lit, in a small circular space around it, spiritual energy which is otherwise invisible will become visible. It will take on the look of sparkling little grains floating around. You are likely familiar with it"

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"Now, the way to correctly absorb them is simply to focus on the grains, one by one, and slowly but surely breath in until they are guided to you and finally absorbed inside of you. It is a long and tenuous process but the very basic of cultivation. We absorb the spiritual energy inside ourselves"

"You might be asking yourselves of how it is possible for those little particles to remain inside of you and keep providing energy? The answer lies within the crafting of your cores. All of you have already done so some time ago I believe but we should go over the process one more time, to make sure"

"In order to trap the energy inside ourselves, we need something to contain it. Very much like we would need a bowl or a glass to contain water. But what can contain energy? Our predecessors have found that the only way to move spiritual energy was through using spiritual energy and as such, to trap spiritual energy, we need spiritual energy"

"As such, we have found a way to use the very first specks of energies we absorb and turn them into a recipient. We call this recipient the core. By ordering the energy yet to dissipate inside ourselves to turn from a miniscule grain to a thin line, we can then link the spiritual energies together"

"It was found after much trials that creating a three-lines triangle could form a barrier. Let me demonstrate for you guys"

As he said so, the elder took out three identical wooden rods and made them float in the air.

"Let us say that you have turned your energies into strands and these rods are said strands. Now, if we link them so as to form an equilateral triangle like so"

As he spoke, the rods moved to form a triangle in front of him. Jin was more and more captivated by the lecture. It was easy to understand and he soaked into this new knowledge.

"This is a triangle formed from linking three strands. With such a triangle formed, we have learnt that no spiritual energy could come through the inside of it. To illustrate this, look closely. This is the inside of the triangle. Through here, no energy could pass. Like a triangular shield"

"Of course, it requires one to form the right triangle suited to themselves. Strands have to be of a certain size for this to work. All of you have likely found the perfect balance that suited you already but don't consider it the end as you might have to readjust this balance later on depending on what cultivation you will pick"

"Anyways, as you can see, this triangle stops the energy from crossing through it. It doesn't stop it from going around it though. Which is why our ancestors pondered hard on what to do and finally, they decided that since one triangle wasn't enough, they would add some more. That is how the final form of a core was invented"

"A pyramid made from four triangles"

"You might wonder why we do not make a core with more lines? Why not a square? After all, if a triangle works, why not a square? Well, it turned out that it didn't"