Sitting down at the desk in his room, Verus opened the book from the library and began reading. In order to test himself for rare attunements he’d first have to learn one of the channeling techniques detailed in the book, but which one should he try first? Thankfully, the intro to the book explained which attunements were commonly tested for in initiation ceremonies, so he was able to eliminate those. There were quite a few, including the five main elements: fire, wind, earth, water, and metal. After that were some slightly rarer elements like light, shadow, lightning, and wood. Verus was disheartened to learn that he had no talent for using any of those types of elemental ki. He would have loved to have been able to learn to throw lightning around. To him, that was the very image of being an elder, an immortal powerful enough to stand tall in the strongest storms and wield the power of the heavens themselves.

The initiation ceremony seemed to test for far fewer types of emotional ki, mostly because practicing many types of emotional ki was incredibly illegal and could get a cultivator executed.

The empire prohibited almost everything but devotion, which Verus understood and agreed with. To properly cultivate emotional ki, you needed a strong source of that emotion, and there was only one real option for that, the mortal populace. Fostering devotion within the populace to aid cultivation was nothing but beneficial to them, but the same could not be said for other emotions. A fear or rage cultivator would be a plague upon society. In fact, horrifying tales of demi-humans or spirits that fed on fear and despair had been common even among the youth back at Verus’s old home, alongside more colorful – but in the end no less horrifying - stories of lust spirits. Guarding against such monstrosities was one of the principle duties of the Lightbringers.

Still, as sensible as the restrictions on emotional ki were, they left Verus with few options. In the empire, the second most cultivated brand of emotional ki was dream or sleep ki. It was both easy to gather at night when everyone was sleeping and quite useful. You could use it to tire opponents out and even put them to sleep. That made it a good first rare attunement to test for.

His mind made up, Verus headed to the requisition office to get some dream ki. It was a building near the dormitory and inside an inner disciple was sitting behind a desk. There was no one else present. After giving the attendant his name, he was informed of his current account, three red ki shards. Verus gave his options a moment of thought and then decided not to withdraw his shards. Instead, he simply asked for his orb to be filled with dream ki. The attendant subtracted one shard from his account and then took the orb into a back room. He emerged a few minutes later and handed the orb back to Verus. It was glowing faintly purple now and he could feel the strange ki within it. It swirled in slow messy loops that were hard to define. That seemed like dream ki to Verus, so he thanked the attendant and left.

Once back in his room, Verus flipped through his book until he got to the page with the dream channeling technique on it. The detailed ki patterns weren’t that complicated, but Verus knew performing the technique wouldn’t be easy. He’d never used dream ki before. To do it, he’d need to meditate on the nature of the ki until he somehow managed to get a feel for it. Even with the technique helping him and having the dream ki available in the orb, that could take a while. It was frustratingly imprecise, relying more on intuition and luck than skill.

After making sure he’d memorized the breathing and ki movement necessary to gather dream ki, Verus sat down on the mat in the middle of the room. Closing his eyes, he began performing the technique and tried to reach out to feel for the dream ki in the orb. He didn’t have any immediate luck, so he sighed and settled down for a long, frustrating training session.

Verus didn’t get any sleep that night. Instead, he stubbornly worked on testing his attunements until the break of dawn. Dream ki turned out to be very difficult to grasp, and despite his hopes, it didn’t become easier the more tired he got.

The sun had already started rising before he managed to sense the elusive energy. Nonetheless, there was a smile on his face when he pulled out the small attunement crystal he’d gotten at the library and activated the channeling technique again. The smile swiftly disappeared though, when the orb failed to glow at all. He had no talent with dream ki. The realization was almost physically painful, leaving him feeling hollow. On some level, he’d been expecting to succeed on his first try and easily acquire a rare and powerful ability.

Verus felt the channeling crystal’s power fade away and the dream ki it was holding disperse. The orb was dead now and would need to be recharged. As a wave of despair washed over him, Verus realized that the librarian had been right. This was going to be a very slow and very expensive process. Worse, everyone else would be pulling ahead of him while he struggled with this.

By then, it was almost time to get breakfast. Feeling terrible and exhausted emotionally as well as physically,

Verus sat alone on his floor. He didn’t want to get up…

“The unbound soul seeks balance. A true cultivator grows stronger through struggle and overcomes despair,” Verus chanted quietly as reluctantly stopped his training and got up to go to the cafeteria. He wasn’t going to give up. “Enlightenment awaits.”

There was a board out in the hallway with all the class schedules on it. Verus had seen it last night after returning from the library and briefly looked it over, but now he examined it more closely. The first lesson on cultivation theory was today, and it would be foolish to go to it without both food and sleep.

It seemed that every disciple would be attending five classes: cultivation theory, theology, math, literature, and history. The three-hour classes would happen once a week on different days at the start of the week. The final two days were a free day and the holy day of Surkisti.

The outer disciples had also been split into four groups of around thirty people for classes, so that all of them wouldn’t be shoved in a single room. Unfortunately, Warin had been put into another group, but that probably wouldn’t be a big deal. There was nothing preventing them from meeting up the rest of the time. The only other activity mentioned on the board was daily physical training, and that wasn’t mandatory.

Thankfully, the cafeteria served some rather strong tea that helped Verus deal with the fatigue from skipping sleep. So, after a quick breakfast that included some delicious fruit, he headed over to class while feeling only slightly tired.

The lesson was taking place in a huge hall in a building near the dormitory. Inside, several raised rows of seating formed a half circle that was wrapped around a podium. There was more than enough room for thirty disciples, which was good, because they all soon filtered into the room and sat down. Unsure of what was supposed to happen next, Verus looked for an open seat. However, when he moved toward the first empty seat, the male disciple in the next seat over swung his feet over to block his way. He was well-dressed, had long brown hair, and a symbol of a hawk in flight had been emblazoned on his robe. It was undoubtedly a family crest although Verus didn’t recognize it.

“That seat is taken. Go somewhere else, peasant,” the disciple explained with a sneer.

Versus doubted anyone else was going to show up and take the seat, but he didn’t want to cause a scene. Punching the rude fool in the face would cause too much trouble, and there were other places he could sit. Yes, controlling his emotions and being the better person would only help him grow stronger. Giving in to temptation was giving in to self-destruction.

However, as he approached his second choice, the nearest group of disciples all turned to give him nasty looks, so he promptly stopped and headed toward another empty seat. There, the other disciples sitting nearby ignored him completely. Fighting to keep a calm expression, Verus fumed inside. It appeared that everyone in his classes were arrogant asses. He wished he could deal with them like he’d dealt with Lee, but this was a very different situation, and they were much more intimidating than Lee had been.

A few minutes later, an elder strode through a door at the back of the room and went over to the podium. She was a younger woman with short black hair and an average looking face that Verus had never seen before. He guessed that all the teaching duties had been dumped on the younger and less powerful elders, although that didn’t mean they lacked the presence that all higher Realm cultivators had. Even though she made no noise, every eye in the room was drawn to the woman as her powerful commanding aura washed over them.

As the disciples all fell silent, the woman briefly studied them and then began speaking. “I am Elder Ling and I will be giving lectures on basic cultivation theory and the natural philosophy of ki. These lectures will happen once a week for the first six months of your time here. Then, you will be expected to branch out and choose your own areas of research. Please pay attention as I speak and attend every lecture. I will not be going over the same material twice.”

The elder looked over the students, as if looking for any signs of disagreement, but everyone was silent, so she moved on. “The first thing we will discuss is the basics of cultivation techniques and how to use them. This topic requires jumping ahead a little, but that’s necessary because you have all gained access to cultivation techniques and need to know more about them before proceeding. We will get back to the basics of ki and enlightenment after introducing this topic.”

At his seat, Verus perked up, shedding some of his fatigue from lack of sleep. This lecture seemed like it might be interesting and touch on his problems. He needed all the help he could get.

“Cultivation techniques are usually referred to as Ways, such as the Way of the Gathering Storm. This is because every cultivation technique sets you on a unique path toward enlightenment. Choosing your cultivation technique is one of the most important decisions you will make, so I advise you all not to rush into it. I know that you are all under pressure to compete but rushing this decision could hold you back for your entire journey as a cultivator. Consider multiple options. Practicing a cultivation technique slowly changes the essence within your core, building it up and creating unique patterns so that you grow in strength. This mean you can only use one, and changing techniques is very difficult.”

This was very basic stuff so far. Everyone knew that ki cores were made from essence, which was in turn created from compressed and transformed ki.

Still, everyone in the class listened patiently for the lecturer to get to something new. The part about not rushing to pick a cultivation technique made Verus feel better about himself though. Now, if only he actually had a choice…

“For instance, practicing the Way of Gathering Storms gathers up wind ki and refines it into wind essence within your core. This essence is then used to alter the flow of ki within your core to create a powerful spinning vortex of wind ki that can also hold water ki and lightning ki. Further cultivation enhances and condenses that essence, increasing the amount of ki and essence your core can hold until you begin advancing to a higher Realm.”

The information on the Way of Gathering Storms was new to Verus. He’d never learned much about real cultivation methods before. The incredibly basic one he’d been taught at the Origin Realm used human essence to create a simple orb to store and circulate ki with. Having a permanent vortex of wind ki in his core sounded a lot more exciting.

“Many cultivation techniques also have special effects. One of the reasons the Way of Gathering Storms is considered to be so powerful is that its internal vortex can be used to create an external one as well, and this movement of air allows the user to absorb more wind ki, speeding their cultivation. The Way of Imperial Might also uses delicate formations of human ki to produce the resonance effect with other users that it is so famous for.”

The lecture lasted for a while longer before the elder dismissed her students. After discussing cultivation techniques some more, she spent the rest of the first lesson talking about the format of her lectures and what her students could expect.

As he left the classroom, Verus mostly ignored his classmates. He was focused on what he’d learned during the lesson and if he could use any of this new knowledge to help find his attunements. Despite thinking it over, nothing sprang to mind though.

Physical training came after theory classes, so Verus went over to the training ground to join in. However, it turned out that the physical training wasn’t even taught by an elder. Instead, a senior disciple from the inner sect led them through a warmup and then some exercises designed to push the body of a cultivator to its limit. Verus was sweating and sore by the time he was dismissed but had already decided to skip the next physical training session. Finding an attunement and getting a proper cultivation technique was simply far more important to him.

The training grounds were next to the challenge arenas, so as he was walking back, Verus heard an unexpected boom followed by some scattered applause. Intrigued, he went over to the challenge ground to see what was going on. There, he saw a dozen disciples and an elder standing around a ring, in which two disciples were fighting. The elder was obviously the referee, and judging by the crowd size, this had to be a challenge match with a medallion at stake.