His birth was an odd one to say the least. The day the child was born his mother felt a message passed directly to her very core telling her to name the boy “Naath”. To not give him the family name just this singular name alone would suffice. When the child was born a wave of odd energy spread out from the boy and then energy in the surroundings seemed to be drawn back in towards this child. The parents being nobles of a small country in this world knew what this meant. Their child was a cultivation genius and would probably shake the country, if not the world with his dazzling talent.
Naath was a relatively silent child up until the age of three when he began to walk around and ask many questions. His parents were always happy to answer his questions and see him grow and learn. His two older brothers also doted on him and helped him wherever they could. At the time Naath was five years old he was already able to read most books and speak as fluently as any adult. His parents started to school him very early with the assistance of the ruling family of their country. Naath’s parents had made a deal with them. The country was not allowed to directly interfere or involve themselves in Naath’s life until he was 10 years old. They were only allowed to provide support for the young man in secret through money.
The parents used this money in order to buy Naath the best tutors in the country. When he turned six years old he made an odd request at the dinner table one day. “Mom, dad, can I get a cooking tutor? I always like the food on the table here but most of it I have no idea where it comes from or how to make it myself.”
His older brothers Zhu Leng and Zhu Shuan as well as his parents and the caretakers at the table all paused hearing it and then began to chuckle lightly. His mother smiled and looked at his father saying, “ah honey we should probably let him learn, after all who knows what kind of situations he will be in in the future? Our son will be a cultivation genius after all he will probably go on many journeys. It’s best he knows how to make himself proper meals, don't you think?”
Naath’s father sighed and simply nodded his head, from that day forward Naath was tutored by some of the best chefs in the country as well. When Naath was seven he was helping his father in the yard but a particular stone wouldn't budge and Naath asked his father for help. When his father came over he pulled effortlessly on the stone and ended up pulling out a boulder that weighed several hundred pounds. Amazed Naath asked how his father had done that and his father told him he was a cultivator at the energy conversion stage. Naath’s eyes went wide as he asked for more information from his father. When he saw his son's sparkling eyes he couldn't help himself so he put down the boulder and sat his son on top of it.
After he was sure his son was comfy he started, “Naath in this universe cultivators are the top of the food chain, the strong are the ones on top. Cultivation is the great journey of becoming strong through your own efforts. It is a battle against the will of the heavens to take part of their power for your own. Cultivation has many stages and levels to climb, so many that if you look too far ahead you will demoralise yourself and lose motivation to climb. Each stage of cultivation has nine levels and each level has three yet smaller levels. An example is the first stage of cultivation is called ‘energy sensing’ it has nine levels, each level has an entry, intermediate and late stage.
I can tell you the first nine stages and it shouldn’t phase you too much, your mother and I agreed not to tell you until you were old enough. An early education won't hurt anything though, when you were born there was a sign. A giant energy wave and then a syphon appeared from your body. This sign shows that in the future when you turn 10 years old and begin your cultivation path you will become a grand genius that will shake the entire country, if not the world. Because of this I can feel at ease telling you the first nine stages of cultivation.
The first is energy sensing as I have said before. At this stage you will learn to feel the energy inside and outside of your body. Advancing from the first level to the second in this stage will be done by being able to sense further and further away and having greater clarity in what you are sensing.This can be done by bringing in as much energy into your dantian as possible and then letting the walls of your dantian absorb all of it expanding it. This will in turn grow the size of your dantian and the sensory range. There is nothing that can be done about how far you can sense energy in the first place. That is innate for everyone in this world and set by destiny alone. The more talented the genius the further they can sense and better they can discern elements. Some geniuses can feel the flow of energy of entire continents. Not only that but they will be able to tell what place fire, water, earth, wood, and all other energy types are.
True geniuses will be able to feel the wood energy in a fire as it is being transformed even from miles away. The furthest ever recorded awakening was by an ancestor from many thousands of years ago who has since left this world to the greater starscape. His sensory range when awakening was a staggering 100 miles. By the time he reached the next stage in cultivation he was able to sense half of this entire world if he so chose. This is important because the next stage is energy gathering. You can only gather the energy you can feel after all. The amount is limited however to your body's limit, if you try to take too much too fast your dantian won't be able to take it and will explode taking you with it.”
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Naath sitting on the rock was taking in all of this information with his arms stiffly on his crossed legs. Even so he was still young and in order to entertain himself was rocking back and forth on the rock. His fidgeting was just that of a young child, but at the same time his mind was also racing and imagining himself as a cultivator. He was wondering, and enamoured in his imagination of himself pulling in these energies and being a great, powerful cultivator. His father did not pause in his speech,continuing on.
“In this stage you will discover how great your capacity for energy is and your ability to absorb it is directly proportional. That grand genius ancestor while being able to sense half the world could only take in energy from fifty feet around him at first. In this energy absorbing stage you will advance by slowly increasing the amount you can absorb at once. At the ancestor's final level of this stage he could absorb energy from 10 miles around himself. However do not simply absorb all energies willy nilly, you should think long and hard about what type of energy you want to absorb. There are countless paths in this world that can be taken in cultivation.
Every element has an energy to it after all, some elemental energies can even be fused creating entirely new ones. It is best to select a single element to specialise in after all, your dad here specialises in earth element and it has made my body much sturdier than most. The reason it is so important to choose is because the third stage of cultivation, energy conversion, involves converting all of your energy into a specific type. The more of other elements you have absorbed other than the ones important to your choice the more muddled your energy will be and this will make you stagnate in cultivation. Advancing will only get harder and harder as you advance further. To advance levels in this stage you will have to convert your energy into the one of your choosing until all of it is that element.
Once you have done this you may move on to the fourth stage, energy refining. However I’ll have to tell you about that at a later time Naath, I smell your mother’s cooking. It seems dinner will end up being early today.”
Naath sitting there diligently memorised every last word his father said with a dead serious expression. Even when his father mentioned dinner he ignored it, focusing on memorising every single little thing that he could. As if he was a video that was lagging behind he soon sniffed the air. His face turned into one of curiosity and he asked his father,
“I cannot smell anything, how can you father? Is this also because of cultivation?”
His father smiled and nodded his head happy that his son had taken all of the information in so well. Then he picked his son up off of the boulder and carried him inside where they saw a table loaded around with wonderful and delicious dishes. Naath jumped down from his father’s arms and quickly took his seat at the table grabbing the various foods with his chopsticks and rounding his own plate. His mother giggled seeing this and then called out for everyone else in the house to come and eat. Soon the entire family was gathered at the table and eating and chatting happily. Naath's father cleared his throat in the middle and everyone's voices died down.
He only ever did that when he had something important or impactful to say and he always said it at dinner so the entire family knew. He looked to Naath’s mother and said, “Honey, I told Naath about the first three levels of cultivation earlier today, and he seemed to have taken the information quite well.”
His mother paused her chopsticks while she was bringing them to her mouth and put down a dumpling. Her eyes went from smiling and happy to piercing and murderous, her face turned cold as she pointed the chopsticks at him. She asked, “didn't we agree that we wouldn't tell him until it was that time?”
As she asked, a cold aura appeared in the room and the previously steaming foods became covered in a layer of frost. The cold energy came directly from Naath’s mother, it was clear that she had been angered.
Naath spoke up saying, “mother please don't get angry at father, I was the one who asked to learn. I think that learning ahead of time will only prove helpful for me anyway right? What harm is there in knowing how to do things before I'm able, this way I can plan for such events to occur. Imagine if father told me about needing to choose an element only the day before I was going to advance? I would have to make a hasty choice and be unable to follow a path I would truly want to take. In fact I want to learn as much as I can about cultivation before it becomes time for me to start actually cultivating.”
The cold air dissipated instantly and his mother seemed shocked, she sat for a moment processing all of this and trying to come up with a counter argument to any of it. When she failed to do so she simply let out a sigh and spoke up once more. “Okay dear you get a pass this time. Zhu leng, you will bring Naath to the library when your father finishes passing his own knowledge on to him. You will take him there until he is 10 years old and he can handle it himself. Naath, I will let you do this, but since I am I expect perfect scores from your lessons.”
As she said this she shot Naath an icy glare and he gulped and simply nodded his head. Seeing this reaction his mother smiled and the food thawed out emitting pleasant smells and steam once more. However, now only Naath’s mother had the appetite to eat anything on the table. Later that evening Naath was trying to sleep but was simply too excited about learning from his father and going into the city for the first time to go to a library.