Xia Fei waited two weeks after his advance, when he was more accustomed to the wood element, then she began to teach him how to channel his energy into the Nine Stances.

“To use cultivation energy, we must first activate it. You can activate any meridian, or a series of meridians in a channel, or even multiple channels, so long as you are prepared to circulate the energy to the point of your body you wish the energy to go. The more meridian points you activate, the more powerful the effect will be,” explained Xia Fei. She paused to ensure Kai Lan understood before she moved on.

“Now, you can use the energy in five ways. You can use it to nourish the muscles, bones and vessels of your physical body, which is useful in a fight and can also help when self-healing. This is called Body Strengthening. You can push the energy out all at once, which is called an Energy Burst and is typically used in fighting. You can use Circulation, a way to nourish the body and purge it of impurities as well as a protective measure. Circulation can also be used between Cultivators as a healing method, but is often only done in desperate or dire situations. You can Project, which is most commonly a sensory usage. And finally, you can Manifest, but this is probably the most difficult as it involves using your Golden Core to turn the energy back into a controlled form of the element, and only those in the Profound Realm can attempt this use”.

Kai Lan nodded after taking in all of this information, “So what are we doing today?”

“Today, as you’re doing your stances, I want you to focus on Circulating energy to the most strained muscles of each stance. Use only 1 meridian each time, the minimal amount. Clear?” asked Xia Fei.

“Clear,” Kai Lan replied.

In the first stance, the most strained muscles were his inner thighs, so he decided to use the Spleen Meridian 11. The Spleen Meridian Channel flowed from the base of his feet to beneath his tongue. It was one of the Channels with more Meridian points.

“Alright, begin, stance 1,” said Xia Fei and she began counting as soon as Kai Lan was in position.

Feeling the slight strain on his muscle, Kai Lan closed his eyes and focused on the meridian point he had picked out. Xia Fei hadn’t described how to activate the Meridian point, but she had described what the uses of activation were. First, Kai Lan tried directly taking the energy out, but that was met with resistance. A minute passed and he rested whilst in deep thought before Xia Fei instructed him to take the stance once more.

On the second try, Kai Lan tried coaxing the energy out more slowly. This was more successful, but as the energy flowed to his muscle, he realised that he was left with no where for it to go.

As the second minute ended, he realised that the clue was in the name.

The third time, Kai Lan coaxed the energy out of the meridian point, circulated it through the affected muscle, then back into the Meridian point.

He could feel the energy flow, but it was doing little else other than that. On the fourth try, he concentrated on the feeling of a muscle being eased of pain. It began to work as he circulated the energy, and on the fifth try he was finally successful.

He stood into the second stance, focusing on a different muscle and a different meridian point. The process was the same, but this time he obtained the desired result faster.

As he moved through the stances, he realised he was growing tired much faster than normal. By the time the ninth stance ended, he was even more exhausted than the first time he had tried the stances.

“Good,” said Xia Fei.

“Why…why am I so tired?” asked Kai Lan as he struggled to stay on his feet and keep his eyes open.

“Because injecting will into your cultivation energy for your own purposes takes a substantial amount of concentration. You have been working on this through ordinary cultivation, but imbuing will into energy is not as simple as it sounds, it requires tremendous processes and concentration,” said Xia Fei, “Don’t worry, as you get better at this your concentration capacity will grow”.

What Xia Fei didn’t mention was that most individuals took weeks to do what Kai Lan had managed in a single session. His cultivation process was also astonishing. Xia Fei had no intention of slowing his progress, but she was also well aware that if she made it fully public, they would undoubtably draw more attention than they already had. She came to the conclusion that she would have to teach Kai Lan how to appear at a lower level of cultivation than he was, and that was only possible through use of a tool and a solid understanding of the capabilities of each level.

She would need to teach him Circulation to get used to using his cultivation energy, then she would have to get him to learn Body Strengthening for his own safety, as well as Project so that he could sense the level of those around him and better understand what he was supposed to appear as.

It would make him a subject of ridicule. By the time he started school, he would be known as the one who hadn’t advanced at all with his cultivation in three years. But Xia Fei was well aware that by that stage of his life, Kai Lan would likely be approaching the Profound Realm. Unthinkable for a five-year-old. Most, if they were going to reach that point, reached it between the ages of 12 and 17.

Xia Fei became more and more sure of her decision to serve Kai Lan the longer she taught him.

Another six months passed, and Kai Lan grew more and more adept at circulating the energy in his body. He could even heal small cuts and bruises at a pace twice as fast as normal. He also, much to the pride of his parents, moved to the Third Step of the Foundation Realm.

It was at this point, after Kai Lan had stabilised and begun cultivating the light element, that Xia Fei began moving past the Nine Stances and to more combat-like training. She ensured that he ran every morning to build his stamina, and worked on his reactionary timing and agility through a small obstacle course that she devised. The new challenge excited Kai Lan, who jumped at the chance to learn something new, and was happy at the faith his teacher had in him.

Kai Lan turned 3 roughly a month later, and it was around this time that Do Han started expressing his interest in Kai Lan’s training more and more. Finally, after much nagging on Do Han’s part, Kai Lan allowed Do Han to come over to his training sessions once a week. That only made Do Han more excited though. It also made Ran Ran feel left out, so she ended up coming and watching as well.

Finally, after some coaxing, Xia Fei started them at the absolute basics despite the fact that they had not forged their golden cores.

She taught them how to meditate.

At first, this was nearly impossible for the two as they didn’t see the point, but Xia Fei pointed out that Kai Lan meditated for two hours a day (though this was technically cultivation, not meditation).

Through confirmation from Kai Lan, who admitted that that was where he’d started, the two were a bit more tolerable in the sessions. But teaching two toddlers patience was a test of one’s own patience.

Xia Fei was more straight forward though, and unforgiving. She told them plainly that if they didn’t listen, and they didn’t try, she would not teach them.

In the six months that followed, they showed rapid improvement in their ability to calm their minds and sit still for extended periods of time. Their first goal had been 10 minutes, then 20, then half an hour, and when they met each goal, Xia Fei took them for a meal. This served to be a better motivator than any other she tried.

Ran Ran turned three and Do Han turned four. Kai Lan moved to the fourth step of the Foundation Realm and moved all of his training apart from his morning run to the afternoon. He spent the mornings with either of his parents, learning about the herbs that grew in the garden and how to care for and prepare them. He spent some days with Hei Hei as well, with Hei Hei beginning to teach him knowledge about Talismans.