Chapter 31 - Start of Training

It was late at night, and the formation of the spirit vein’s restoration had now finished its task. All the weeds on the ground seemed to have been invigorated and were brighter than ever.

After Bao Bei’s speech, all those present were silently admiring the stars waiting to finish the formation. Their mood was sad, but everyone had a resolute look after making a promise with themselves.

When the process ended, Hei stood up. The words his mother had said still echoed in his head. Suddenly he noticed something and asked his mother,

"Mother, you said you gave me your bloodline. So I have a spider's bloodline?"

His mother immediately replied affectionately, "Yes, and no. Every divine beast, even if of the same species, diversify themselves by the element they maneuver. In my case, the bloodline I possess allows you to control the Law of Poison.

It must be said, however, that in my time, I was known as the Spider of the Nightmare. That was because of my ability with another elemental law: the Law of illusions.’

Law of Illusions. Among the rarest for a living being, whether it be a divine beast, human or demon, to learn, it allows casting illusions to confuse the enemies’ minds. The more powerful the illusion, the more real it would appear to the target.

That law caused the scene of bandits who committed suicide by scratching their necks in desperation.

"Mother, if your bloodline allows me to control poison, then I still have another element, right?" Hei curiously asked as he turned his eyes to her.

Inside himself, he felt a little better now because his bloodline belonged to the poison element. Even though he didn't know what elements there were, he was grateful to have the chance to be able to maneuver poison in the future.

‘Yes, in total, there are 18 types of elemental laws. Excluding the Law of Space, the Law of Time, and the Law of Energy, there are 15 elemental laws that can be learned. When you open your meridians, you will undergo a trial to understand your innate element.’

"Innate element?"

‘Yes, even if I told you that you could control a single element; in reality, it isn’t entirely true. It is possible to try to study various elemental laws. The problem, however, is that the person in question will end up exhausting all his talent without getting anything. There have been many genes that have ruined their futures for that reason. Therefore, in the end, it became a common rule that one could only control an element because the study of a single elemental law is already in itself so demanding. In order to overcome this, various methods were invented to understand which element was the most suitable for each being.’

When Bao Bei finished saying this, Xing who had recovered from before, asked,

‘Mother, and what about Ye and me? What element do we have?’

Bao Bei turned therefore to her daughters,

‘Because you are divine beasts, you can control two elements like Hei. You, Xing, have my same bloodline and so you can control poison; you instead, Ye, took from your father, so you can control darkness.’

Initially feeling sad that only she didn’t have the same bloodline as her mother and her brothers, Ye felt distressed by this. But she was immediately relieved because she had her father's bloodline instead. Xing, on the other hand, was happy that she had the same element as Hei and Bao Bei.

‘Mother, if there are 18 elemental laws, why there are only 15 that can be learned?’ Ye asked immediately after, while she scratched her back with her tail.

‘Actually, they are all learnable. It’s just the Law of Time, the Law of Space, and the Law of Energy are very particular. Theoretically, anybody can learn the Laws of Time and Space, but the difficulty in acquiring them is superior to those of other laws. Usually, it is something that one tries to do only after having reached a certain level of power, and it is often possible that you cannot succeed.

The Law of Energy is particular instead. Initially, it should bound together with the other elemental laws, but the fact is that there was only one being that had such elemental law: a divine beast, Bai Ze. He was your father's advisor.’

Now that she had told her story, Bao Bei could refer to her old companions, although with difficulty. Even though many years had passed, it had only happened a decade ago to her. Then she resumed her speech.

‘The other 15 laws are: Fire, Water, Wind, Earth, Lightning, Blood, Poison, Wood, Metal, Gas, Ice, Ghost, Illusion, Darkness, and Light. Among these, the rarest are the Laws of Darkness, Light, and Illusion. In addition to the element of your bloodline, your second element belongs to one of these 15.’

Although it was very intuitive to understand what they could do, Hei couldn’t understand two of the laws announced by his mother, and so he asked,

"Mother, what is the Law of Gas and the Law of Ghost?"

‘The Law of Gas should be divided into 2 in reality: Steam and Smoke. It simply consists in modifying one's spirit power in one of these.’

To facilitate their understanding, Bao Bei sent them mental images depicting some human martial artists who used this law.

‘The Law of Ghost instead allows you to control and modify the corpses and to maneuver them to your liking. Furthermore, it is possible to enhance them, making them stronger than when they were alive. Users of this law can also change their bodies, making them non-corporeal for short moments or increase the density of their bones to use them as weapons.’

Concluded this further explanation, Bao Bei looked at the sky and said,

‘It's late. It's time you go to sleep. We have a long day ahead of us. We need to start your training.’

Hearing about training, the eyes of her three children lit up. Although it had been a while since their spirit power awakened, they hadn’t yet done any sort of training. Now they could finally start it.

While they were caught up in the excitement over the news, Hei remembered one thing.

"Mother, can we bury that woman before we go?"

Remembering what he had told her in the merchant's home in Green City, Bao Bei slowly pulled out the corpse of the woman they had taken in the same room as they found Lian.

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When the woman's body came out of nowhere and was placed on the ground, Lian began to tremble and resumed her crouching position in which they had found her for the first time. Seeing her in that state, Hei approached her and knelt down. Then he put his hand over her head, stroking it lightly.

"It's okay. You don't have to be afraid. I just want to bury her, that's all. You are no longer in that place."

Initially, Hei had agreed to take Lian with him only behind the insistence of his mother and his two sisters. During the trip, it was indeed problematic to help her with everyday actions, but fortunately, her mother knew what to do. However, after tonight, his initial feeling had changed.

He had heard what his mother had asked her to do, and she had accepted it without hesitation. She had also always been considerate of Ye and Xing, albeit in her own way. For these reasons, he decided to treat her not as a stranger who traveled with them, but as a member of their family. If her mother had trusted her in revealing her past and his sister’s origins, he would do the same.

Lian, on hearing those words, gradually calmed down and reached for Ye and Xing to squeeze them into her chest. The two of them allowed themselves to be taken and willingly accepted the embrace. Hei instead just smiled and got up to go to the woman's body.

He decided he would bury her at that precise spot where they were, to commemorate this day. So he started digging the ground with his hands. Shui also began digging to help him, followed by Xing and Ye, who had then freed themselves from Lian's embrace. The latter, too, after a while, got up and started digging slightly with all of them. It was the first time she moved voluntarily in that way.

While Bao Bei was watching happily, with their united effort, they finally managed to dig a hole large enough to contain the woman's body.

Hei then asked his mother to make a small incision at the dead woman's heart. Then he placed some Rafflesia seeds inside that incision that would absorb the woman's remains. Finally, he gently placed the woman inside the hole that they covered again with earth.

After this process, they remained silent for a while before finally returning to the spiderweb house. Shui went instead to join with the other buffaloes who were sleeping peacefully.

So many things had happened tonight. But despite all the sudden changes in emotions and surprises, Hei fell into a deep sleep with the others.

*

The next morning, when they woke up, the sun was already high in the sky. Even if they had to start their training, Bao Bei didn't feel like waking them up at dawn, and she let them sleep peacefully. When they awoke, Hei and the others found breakfast ready and hurried to eat it.

Since they had recently eaten, Bao Bei decided to let them digest for the time being, while instead, she proceeded to explain what their training would consist of.

‘Before we begin, I have to explain the differences in cultivation between human-demons and us spirit beasts. Humans and demons mainly use breathing and meditation to increase their spirit power. Assuming a position of meditation, typically that of the lotus with crossed legs, they absorb the environment's spirit power by breathing in the air. Then, they make it circulate through their body, making it resonate with their original spirit power. Finally, they expel the impurities present inside them from the process of assimilation through expiration.’

Bao Bei paused to confirm that everyone was following and then continued.

‘We spirit beasts instead assimilate the spirit power from the whole body and through a continuous process of our spirit power’s exhaustion, we increase our cultivation. This process, although faster than standard cultivation methods, has a significant flaw: the load on the body. For this reason, you will need to increase the strength of your body to be able to withstand such training.

For Hei and Lian, however, this method of cultivation isn’t feasible for the moment, because typically humans have their acupoints closed. Therefore it is necessary to open them, but the process itself is exhausting for your body too, especially for Lian. Thus, for now, we will do physical exercises to enhance your bodies, and then we proceed to open your acupoints.’

Bao Bei then pointed to weeds on the surrounding land. On the ground, the perimeter of a large rectangle had been drawn that extended for meters and meters. Their job was to tear the weeds of that rectangle with their bare hands.

The training for Ye and Xing instead was to fight against Shui, trying to resist as much as possible. For the spirit beasts, fighting was the fastest way to grow.

Folding the sleeves of his tunic and that of Lian, Hei began to tear the weeds planted in the ground with Lian. This process was much tiring because the weeds had thick roots, and therefore they had to go digging the earth with their bare hands trying to extract them. But since they were on the ground, Lian and Hei had to take a crouched position, which brought a significant burden to their backs. With the sun high in the sky, soon, the two of them began to sweat profusely.

Hei tried to take off his tunic but was stopped by his mother, who ordered him to keep it. In any case, she had prepared for them, warm water that she would supply to them only after a specific interval of time had passed.

Lian, though she made no complaints, was breathing heavily. Her body had long been enclosed in a small space, so she wasn't as athletic as Hei's.

Shortly after, she collapsed to the ground exhausted, getting completely dirty with earth. Hei wanted to go and help her, but Bao Bei beckoned him to continue with his training while she gave Lian some water. The spider let her rest for half an hour and then returned her to remove the weeds, although more slowly.

When it was lunchtime, not even half of the designated perimeter had been cleared of the weeds. The two sad and tired went to eat with the rest of the family.

Bao Bei left them a couple of hours of rest after the meal, and then she resumed their training. Ye and Xing would continue to spar with Shui while Hei and Lian had to finish clearing the weeds from the soil

This time, since they had the experience of that morning, they worked with more confidence than before, and their rhythm was decidedly better than before. But even so, this didn’t change that this task was tiring.

At one point, Bao Bei told them to activate their spirit power. Soon two light auras enveloped the bodies of Hei and Lian, and the burden on their body faded, increasing their working speed. However, after a while, their spirit power ended, and they felt considerably fatigued, much more than they had felt in the morning.

When sunset fell, the rectangle assigned to them hadn’t yet been completed, but by now, their training day was over, and they returned to the spiderweb house to eat and rest.

The following day, the perimeter assigned to them had increased even though their task remained the same. This time also Ye and Xing joined them, and the four succeeded in removing many more weeds from the day before when they were only Hei and Lian. During their training, Bao Bei would have them use their spirit power at precise intervals. But even so, they failed to complete their assigned perimeter, which became larger the following day.

Furthermore, they weren’t allowed to work outside training hours. This was firmly imposed by Bao Bei, who taught them that resting, together with abundant and balanced nutrition, was indispensable to increase one's strength.

Meanwhile, from time to time, some sect’s members would come to take a look at Hei and Lian. Bao Bei, except when she told her past, had maintained the appearance of a minute spider. So, she went unnoticed by the strangers who came from time to time.

The sect leader and the two elders had sent emissaries to confirm what kind of work Hei had chosen and to control him at the same time.

When the emissaries returned, the three were surprised that Hei had chosen to grow plants. Usually, with his skill with animals, he should have chosen to look after the animals.

They were even more surprised because he had decided to prepare crop fields near his home instead of joining other farmers. After all, the place they had assigned to him lacked an active spirit vein.

Without it, it would have been impossible for him to grow plants with spirit power and earn contribution points. Even if they assumed that he should already have cultivation methods, it was unthinkable that he wasn't curious about the sect's techniques.

Indeed, Hei was very curious about what he could buy from the sect, but he knew that he had to prepare the fields and follow the training his mother had imposed first. There would be time to see the various manuals; after all, they had no reason to leave that place, and they could quietly proceed with their program. Not to mention that the sect leader and other elders didn’t seem to want to disturb him too much, except for some sporadic visits.

When a week passed, and there were slight improvements in Lian's body, Bao Bei gave everyone a couple of days off. This time was used to prepare the Hei and Lian’s bodies for their acupoints’ opening.