I blinked my eyes as I woke up in the Blue Wind Pavilion’s carriage. It took me several moments to adjust to my new surroundings, but as soon as I got my bearings, I remembered what I needed to do.
“System, set a temporary reset point to bring me back to this point in time when I die.”
Confirmed. Cost 60 credits. 93,485,565 credits remaining.
Smiling, I waited for the carriage to come to a stop. When it did, I saw the Pavilion outside once more, but I didn’t have any reason to visit. Instead, I directed my attention to the driver.
“Can you take me to the Yellow Orchid Academy?”
He smiled and bowed his head gently. “Of course, sir.”
The ride to the Yellow Orchid Academy took nearly an hour. The school was not located within the city limits but was instead a sprawling complex on its hilly outskirts to the west of the city.
The building the driver dropped me off at was large and imposing. It was two stories tall with a traditional design of bright red walls and a marble colonnade carved with various scenes of cultivators doing battle.
I began to walk toward the entrance, but before I took two steps, I turned back to the carriage where the driver was nearly about to leave. I reached into my storage space and pulled out one of the gold bars stored within. 500 gold was a small repayment for the assistance his 10 silver had given me.
“Thank you for everything,” I said, tossing him the bar.
Through his expression of shock, I could see he wanted to say something to stop me, but I just turned around and headed into the building.
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Inside was a reception area with a middle-aged woman wearing a yellow uniform with white trim seated behind an ornate marble countertop.
I walked up to her and gave a slight bow of my head. “I need to register for classes as a Martial Disciple.”
“I see.” She gave me an appraising look, likely noticing my lack of cultivation. “What is your name?”
“Su Fang.”
“Age?”
“16.”
“Blessing?”
“Enhanced cultivation comprehension.”
She raised an eyebrow. Was she wondering how I could know this? I wasn’t sure, but she decided not to ask any questions and just pressed on.
“Have you ever cultivated before?”
“No, but the basics have been explained to me.”
She took out a standard affinity testing orb which I had used many times before. “Place your hand here and insert your qi.”
I winced slightly. These orbs weren’t good with mixed affinities. I pushed my qi into it and the orb lit up with an array of chaotic lines.
The receptionist raised an eyebrow at the sight. Instead of saying anything, she reached out with an index finger and tapped the side of the orb.
Instantly, the chaotic lines coalesced into nine bright images.
“How—“
She cut me off. “Your affinities are all decent. Two peak sixes and the rest are all peak seven. Nothing too spectacular on its own, but it’s a solid mix that will serve you well even in the Lord realm.”
She tapped her fingernails on the counter as she looked at me. “We are already one month into the term, but students have been focused on understanding the basics of their techniques so they haven’t started cultivating yet. If your blessing does help with comprehension, you should be able to catch up. However, please note that there is a potential for this to cause problems.”
I nodded in acknowledgment, glad that she was willing to tell me upfront, but I didn’t want to wait another year unless I had to. “I would like to start classes now if that’s possible.”
She smiled curtly at my direct answer. “You have two options. The first is the standard one-year course. It costs 500 gold, and at the end of the year, if you wish to continue your studies with us, you can sign up for a second term at that time.”
This was what I had heard about in the Pavilion so I didn’t have any questions. I simply gestured for her to continue.
“While you lack any outstanding affinities, the fact that every one of them is at least decent also qualifies for a four-year comprehensive education. You will be placed in a group of other Disciples who are just learning to cultivate, and you will be assigned a Master to guide you throughout all four years. This course will be slower than the normal one, but it will be structured to make you the best Disciple possible. This comprehensive education costs 5,000 gold a year.”
I blinked. “10 times the price?”
“Yes. The standard courses are taught by inner sect Grandmasters of the Nine Rivers Sect who have all been evaluated as excellent teachers. However, they have not yet been deemed qualified to teach Masters. The comprehensive course, on the other hand, is taught by the protégée of a core disciple. The teachers for these courses are only Martial Masters, but they are all extremely talented, and their Grandmaster will be monitoring classes to provide assistance where necessary.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
I tried to give her my best weighty stare. “If I have the money, is it worth the extra price?”
She just looked back at me calmly. “Yes. Aside from any other benefits, having a single teacher properly structure your entire education as a Martial Disciple is extremely beneficial. Is it worth ten times the price of a normal education? That is for you to decide, but if you have the money, you should spend it.”
All I could sense from her was honesty. She might be here to up-sell me, but it was also what she believed.
“Let’s go with the four-year course then.” I reached into my storage space and pulled out ten gold bars. It would eat into my savings, but that money was there to be spent.
”Excellent,” she said with a bright smile. She pulled out a large map. “Let me introduce you to our school.”
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The introduction mainly consisted of showing me the important locations on a map and giving me my schedule. Most importantly, she showed me where my apartment would be during my stay.
After her introduction was complete, I left to get settled down. Because of the timing of my reset point, it was already late and I wouldn’t be joining classes until the next day.
I had just been reborn, so I wasn’t exactly tired, but I wasn’t sure what to do with my evening. Remembering the books I had copied on my trip to the city, I found a chair and sat down for a night of reading. After pushing myself hard to gather funds in my last life, a little downtime was nice.
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The next morning, I dressed in the school’s white training uniform and waited for classes to start.
I delayed my entry into the classroom until five minutes after the scheduled time as I was instructed, then knocked and opened the door. At the front of the room was a young man wearing a dark brown uniform who didn’t look much older than his students.
“Come in.” He gestured me toward the front of the classroom. Inside there were only four other students. “This is Su Fang, our new enrollee.”
I gave a deep bow to the class. “Nice to meet you. Please take care of me.”
“Su Fang, these are your classmates.” He pointed to them one by one. “Lin LiTing, Chai Jiaqi, Shi Yulong, and Zhuge Yan. You will have time to get to know each other later. For now, we will continue with the day’s lesson. I will be your instructor, Sun WanYu.”
Bowing my head, I took a seat on the left side of the room.
“Our first month has been spent training you on the basics of cultivation. You are all now able to form proper qi filters, so we will begin cultivating today.”
He took out a stack of thin manuals and handed them around the class.
“I know several of you have your own techniques you wish to cultivate. However, we will put those to the side for now. This is the cultivation technique you will use.”
I looked at the manual he handed me and triggered my analysis ability to see what it was.
Raging Fires Mantra, Low-Yellow Rank 1 Cultivation Technique, Fire Qi, Effects: Fills the cultivator with unrelenting rage.
My eyes shot up to the teacher. This was among the worst techniques I’d ever seen. What was he trying to do?
“You will all cultivate this to Peak Disciple as fast as you possibly can. As an incentive, the school will allow the first person to do so an opportunity to enter the academy’s library where they will be allowed to choose a single technique.”
Not only was he giving us a horrible technique, but he was also encouraging us to cultivate it as quickly as we could. This didn’t make any sense to me, but I paid for this course, so I was willing to go along with it even if it got me killed.
The class spread out around the room and began cultivating. Using the Low-Yellow technique, it almost felt like tar was entering my body. I hadn’t allowed so many impurities to enter my body since my first few weeks in this world.
Based on my experience, I expected it would take months for everyone to slowly reach Peak Disciple, but shortly after I started drawing in qi, I noticed an immense surge of energy. Someone had enabled a Qi Gathering Formation, and its Rank wasn’t low. Energy flooded into the room, nearly overwhelming me.
I did my best to keep my qi filter in place and cultivate properly, but with the massive amount of energy in the air, it was like I was constantly consuming high-level Qi Gathering Pills. I simply couldn’t contain all that excess energy.
Under the immense pressure of the qi flooding my system, my Low-Yellow filter crumbled, and even more impurities began entering my system. I barely needed to think. My cultivation quickly advanced on its own.
I ascended to Martial Disciple 2, and only a few minutes later, I advanced once more. I moved up the levels swiftly, reaching Peak Disciple in only a matter of hours instead of months.
I looked inward at my foundation and saw what this rapid ascent had done to me. There were more impurities in my body than there was fire qi. As I looked at the travesty that was my cultivation base, I felt something well up within me.
I looked up at our instructor and I was filled with rage. What had he done to me? Why would he do this to me? My anger and disgust at this situation blended with the suggestions coming from the cultivation technique. I wanted to hurt someone I wanted to…
My cultivation base was sending me down the path of madness. Being pushed from Disciple 1 to Peak in a matter of hours using more impurities than qi was beyond anything I had experienced before, but still, it was only at the Disciple level.
I had purchased mental resistances, and my soul had grown far beyond low-Rank techniques, so even though my cultivation was this far gone, I was still able to suppress these urges once I realized what was happening. My soul clamped down on the anger, and I regained control of myself once more.
The instructor’s eyes shot to me. His brow raised, then his eyes narrowed. He walked up to me, looked me in the eye, and slapped me. His palm left a burning mark on my cheek.
The anger I had been suppressing wanted to burst out.
I needed to attack. I needed to… I needed to…
My soul pressed down once more and quickly reasserted its control.
The instructor slapped me again.
This time I had been expecting it, so the anger didn’t breach my defenses.
The instructor snarled and punched me in the gut.
The attack hurt, but it didn’t stop my soul from asserting its dominance over my body.
The teacher looked down at me, but then just rubbed his forehead. He looked to the side where a slightly older man in his mid-thirties appeared.
This new person picked me up, hauled me out of the classroom, and set me down in a small private office. He sat across from me and studied me as I worked to get myself under control.
“Have you cultivated your soul?”
“No,” I grunted out through the pain and anger.
“You caused a problem for my disciple back there. He didn’t know how to handle someone who could suppress the madness.”
I struggled to look at the man who must be the Nine Rivers Sect core disciple I had been told about.
“This little exercise is to let you feel the interface between your energy body, your physical body, and your soul. You may have been told that the qi of a Martial Disciple is stored in the muscles, correct?”
I nodded. I didn’t have the wherewithal to speak.
“This is not entirely true. Qi is stored in your energy body, which is entirely separate from your physical muscles. The mental impulses from cultivation techniques only affect your energy body. Try to feel where the rage is coming from. You are instinctively suppressing it, but you should still be able to feel where it is pushing into your mind from.”
I tried to do as instructed, but it felt like it was coming from everywhere.
“Nine points,” said the man, looking at me intently. “You should feel nine points that connect your physical body to your energy body and to your soul.”
Nine… that was the only clue I needed. I felt toward my acupoints and sensed the rage pouring through them.
Without knowing exactly what I was doing, I instinctively twisted my mind, and the acupoints sealed shut, blocking the impulses from affecting me.
The tension in my body vanished, and I collapsed like a bow with a cut string.
The man nodded. “That’s one way to do it, but it’s the worst. You will not passively absorb qi if you completely block them like that. My disciple can take it from here, though. Return to class.”