Xu Long looked back at her with a big grin on his face, he had been waiting for this day for so long, to finally be here, having successfully taken his first step on his cultivation journey was a little surreal, but mostly it just filled him with unbridled joy.
As his jubilation slightly receded, he started thinking about what he had just experienced and what his mother had just said. If he had not taken a break and calmed the qi in his dantian only to find that he could actually absorb more, he may have run out of qi during the process, at the very least he certainly wouldn’t have had enough for that last step. Then he thought about the pitfalls that could have snared him during the process of finding the right speed to cycle his qi in his meridians, finally he thought about the last step that his mother had told to do. ‘All of this combined makes for a perfect Awakening’, then a thought occurred to him. “Mother, why didn’t you tell me beforehand about perfect Awakenings?”
“Whether it be outright failed Awakenings or just sloppy Awakenings, none of them are a huge detriment to your future cultivation, they are merely hindrances that require time and effort to rectify. However the lessons that can be learned and absorbed by not having the entire process step by step explained to you, merely providing you guidance and letting you discover for yourself the voracity of said guidance, will last a lifetime.
“That being said, I did cheat a little at the end there. You were doing so well the whole time, Long'er, that I couldn’t bear to watch you stumble slightly right at the end. I hope the lesson stuck regardless of my interference.”
“It stuck. I was thinking about your lessons through the whole process and they helped me greatly. So, naturally, I was kicking myself when I followed your instructions at the end and realized that I had let my excitement at finally Awakening distract me from heeding your guidance until the very end. It won’t happen again.”
A big smile on her face, his mother replied. “That is good to hear, Long’er. In truth I was also kicking myself when I called out to you, the mistake you were about to make was relatively minor and would only have cost you a few days of effort to fix, but I let my own excitement over how well you were doing override my better judgment. I suppose we both just let our excitement get the better of us today.”
Xu Long smiled at his mother when he heard that, he then removed the sword from his lap as he stood up before sheathing it. The moment he stepped off the circular stone slab it started sinking into the ground as the formation on top of it started to fade at a rapid pace. Looking back, Xu Long had to smile, his mother really did hate having to make that formation. When he turned his attention back to her, still wearing a knowing smile, she pretended she didn’t see it and started walking in the direction of his grove. Xu Long slightly jogged to catch up to her and held out his hand for Xu Xing who was looking quite keen to return to her usual spot.
As they were walking along, Xu Long, feeling very keen to get started, asked his mother. “So what now?”
She looked to the side at him. “Fortunately for you, given the impatience radiating off of you, the best course of action for you after a perfect awakening is to jump immediately into cultivating the Clear Spring technique while the experience of your Awakening is still fresh in your mind.”
Giving her a cheeky grin and rubbing the back of his head at being so easily seen through. “Sounds great, any advice this time?”
“Remember Long’er, although the Foundation Establishment Realm is named as such, it should not be overlooked that Qi Condensation comes before it and is thus also a part of building your cultivation foundation. They are referred to as foundations for a reason, everything that comes later is built on them and although these first two major realms can be traversed with relative speed compared to what comes next, it is in your best interest to take your time with them, an extra day spent perfecting your foundations can save you years in the future.
“In short, patience, my advice to you is patience, lay each brick in your path with great care and precision and you will walk along it freely without troubles.”
“I understand, Mother.” Xu Long nodded towards her as he answered, then turned his head towards their destination with determination in his eyes.
When they arrived at the entrance to the grove his mother stopped walking and took out the meditation mat that she had previously placed down for his Awakening and handed it to him.
“I will be back tomorrow and we will have a talk about what comes next. Today all you need to focus on is cultivation.” She took a step towards him and directed his head down so she could kiss his forehead. “I am very proud of you, Long’er.” Then she walked away, leaving Xu Long standing at the entrance to the valley holding a mat, watching her leave. He felt the love and pride she had for him with that kiss, but when she walked away he also felt a sadness in her.
Taking a deep cleansing breath he faced the grove and walked forward, he would see her tomorrow, today was about finally beginning the journey he had been waiting years for.
…
Xu Long sat in the lotus position on the meditation mat that his mother had given him by the side of the pond, the small waterfall listlessly falling into it the only noise in the grove. The orange haze of the dawn sky was just peeking over the eastern wall and Xu Xing was asleep on her fur rug on top of his otherwise empty bed. Xu Long had been practicing the Clear Spring technique from the moment he returned to the valley all through the night, though he was currently wearing his blindfold and thus had little to no conception of what time it was or how long he had been cultivating for.
Despite having dedicated so much time to his practice of the Clear Spring technique he had, in actuality, made very little real world progress. After his misstep the day before at the end of his Awakening he had already committed to taking his mother’s lessons to heart and taking his time with his cultivation. However the more he thought about it the more he realized that there was an opportunity here to tackle multiple tasks simultaneously.
He knew from his mother’s description that his cultivation would become a rote set of exercises that he would need to dedicate time and attention to in order to make progress in, but that ultimately, he needed to focus on the sword. He also knew that she had stressed how important and beneficial it was to create a perfect foundation. Thus he arrived at what he considered an excellent solution to both of these requirements, he would completely immerse himself in his cultivation technique until he could cultivate naturally and perfectly with very little thought or active participation on his part, then he could cultivate while he meditated on the sword, or ran his sword forms, or any other form of sword training that he was as of yet unfamiliar with.
While he was very happy with the solution he arrived at, and was indeed quite excited at the prospect, if this extended session of cultivation had taught him anything, it was that in practice this was going to be a daunting task. Still, he felt it was the right decision to pursue this path, besides, with his sparring partner Old Wu indisposed and his mother’s lessons less and less frequent, he did not have much else to occupy his time.
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By the time morning had rolled around, he had spent the entire time familiarizing himself with the intricacies of the Clear Spring technique, he would run through the process as slow as he possibly could, analyzing, manipulating and testing anything he could to get a solid handle on the entire process. As he was slowly completing his current cycle of the Clear Spring technique and preparing for the next, he heard a slight clearing of the throat, it was very feminine and could only feasibly belong to one person in the valley. He removed his blindfold and looked around his grove, quickly finding his mother seated at his table with a teapot and a cup in front of her and a bowl that a small spirit fox had her head in off to the side. He raised an eyebrow, then he looked towards the sky only to discover that it was clearly dawn the next day. With a sheepish grin directed towards his mother, he stood up and moved to sit down at the table with her.
“Good Morning Mother, it appears that I lost track of time.”
“Good Morning Long’er, that is quite alright.” She looked at him intensely, apparently debating whether to broach the next topic. “Long’er, I know that I extolled the virtues of patience and cultivating your foundations to perfection and I am very happy to see you taking my advice seriously, but I fear you are taking it to an extreme, that was possibly the slowest I have ever seen anyone cultivate before.”
Xu Long almost laughed when he heard that, but instead confined it to a small chuckle before he quickly started explaining his plan as well as his thought process and goals when he saw the look he was getting from his mother.
As she listened, her face rather quickly transitioned from skeptical to utterly shocked, when he was finished explaining she just sat there staring at him for quite an extended moment.
“That…that is rather brilliant Long’er. It had never even occurred to me, and would honestly only be possible with the Clear Spring or its simpler variant, any of the specialization derivatives require far more concentration. This will also have the added benefit of delaying the first flushing of your body with qi at your first minor realm breakthrough.”
Xu Long was all smiles, earlier he was rather proud of his objective, but now that he had explained it to his mother and not only gotten her approval but apparently blown her away with his brilliance, he was feeling quite pleased with himself.
Smiling and shaking her head when she saw her son’s reaction to her approval of his plan, she continued. “Before we get any further into your plan, I told you yesterday that I would come to discuss what comes next and that will no doubt be pertinent to your objective going forward so we should start with that.”
Xu Long watched his mother take a steadying deep breath before she continued and was curious just what it was that was affecting her so.
“First I should explain something to you which Wu Zhong assumes you have already picked up on but has never actually been spoken out loud before. Wu Zhong has long felt himself unqualified to be your martial instructor, mainly because like a lot of cultivators, even his weapon of choice, the spear, has been an ancillary concern to him throughout his journey, so trying to instruct someone whose entire path is dominated by a single weapon, one that he has little experience wielding, was suboptimal at best. However, while you were still a ‘mortal’ and with the aid of a qualified friend of his, he felt comfortable enough to forgo his trepidation and teach you.
“Those conditions, and with them, his justification to himself have now officially come to an end, and thus we have agreed that you are in need of instruction fit for an aspiring Sword Immortal. Therefore, in 3 months' time when Wu Zhong returns to the valley he will be leaving again shortly after, however, this time you will be going with him.”
Xu Long was absolutely speechless, he knew that things would change when he started cultivating, but this was such a huge change in such a short amount of time, he only started cultivating yesterday and it was already his last three months in the valley.
His mother continued while he was sitting there completely shocked. “You will no doubt remember the forest that you appeared in on that fateful day when you jumped from the top of the waterfall. That is called the Endless Forest, considering that the valley is located near the center of the forest I am sure you can attest to the fittingness of its name. To the far north of the forest is the Frozen North, where our little girl here hails from.”
Xu Xing briefly looked up from her bowl with a quizzical tilt of the head before she got straight back into it.
“To the far south lies the edge of the Great Plateau, which marks the border of one of the major Human territories in the realm. In the forest with the plateau wall at their backs lies a triumvirate of powers that control the entire area, in the center is the trade city of Tianyun which primarily deals with the plethora of spirit beast corpses, spiritual plants and treasures that are harvested from the forest. To the east and west lie the two Academies, to the west The White Tiger Academy, to the east The Azure Dragon Academy.
“Wu Zhong has organized for you to be enrolled into The Azure Dragon Academy.”
Still largely in shock, yet absorbing the information that was coming at him thick and fast like a man dying of dehydration with an entire river in front of him, Xu Long asked. “Academy? Is that some kind of sect?”
HIs mother shook her head. “The Academies are rather unique in the realm, they were founded by a union of numerous major clans in the distant past in answer to the growing power of the sects. They are not dissimilar to the sects in that they take in new cultivators and train them thoroughly, but in the sects those they take in generally stay members for life, while the Academies are set up by the clans largely for children of the clans, so they enroll, learn what they can, grow in strength and then leave to return to the their clans. This means that unlike the sects who can largely offer their new members a free baseline education, with the caveat of having to complete quests for the sect in order to obtain privileges and higher quality resources, the Academies are not only subsidized by virtually all of the clans at this point, they also charge tuition to all students.”
“Is that going to be alright? I can’t imagine, based on what you told me about the wealth of the clans, that the tuition is cheap for these Academies.”
That actually elicited a laugh from his mother. “Sorry Long’er, I appreciate your concern, but what you will find when you go out into the world is that there is no such thing as a poor Formations Master.”
Xu Long was more than a little surprised to find out that his mother was apparently rich, but still, in the grand scheme of surprises today, this one ranked so low as to get passed by rather quickly. “So you are sending me to one of the Academies so that I don’t have to join a sect for life?”
“That is certainly a consideration, but the main reason you will be attending an Academy, and this Academy in particular, is because there is a perfect teacher for you within, not to mention you will have the added benefit of an Academy education. There is a reason that a great majority of the clans continue to subsidize the Academies and send the vast majority of their children to the Academies, the education they provide is second to none.
“Now that we have covered all of that, I think it is time to get to the next three months. I first have to apologize to you Long’er, my mind was so set in the common knowledge of the specialized derived cultivation techniques that I never even stopped to think about the differences they had with the Clear Spring technique and especially the differences with regard to the cultivation of a Sword Immortal. After you brought up your plan with me it also opened my eyes to another convention that I was adhering to that largely does not apply to you. Namely that for other cultivation techniques it is considered harmful to not let the practitioner discover the intricacies of the technique on their own, providing vague guidance at most, but as I have mentioned, unlike your peers, your comprehension and your cultivation technique are separate and distinct, and thus that convention only applies to your sword and not your cultivation technique.
“In light of this, I have decided that I will help you master the Clear Spring Manual to the level you desire, so I will stay here with you and aid you in any way I can during the day, and then continue Xu Xing’s lessons during the night.
“I think it is going to be an interesting three months.”