How long had it been? An hour?

Mei was bored out of her mind. And of course, she suddenly had the urge to go to the bathroom. Perfect timing. And maybe she was a bit hungry and thirsty.

She would really like to just run off and come back later, but now that she had committed herself to this farce, she forced herself to stick with it.

After all, she was trying to mimic the 'persistent' and 'determined' attitude of the main characters in the books she read! If she just left, that would ruin the impression she was trying to give.

A part of her felt like she was being really, really stupid right now.

From the distance she saw a few disciples approaching, making her put on a poker face immediately. A 'brilliant' idea came to mind.

If she cultivated while sitting here, not only would it be less boring and easier to distract herself from the bathroom problem, maybe the students that were heading in for class would take notice of her 'diligence' and share that with Qiao Shun!

So she started to cultivate for the first time, based on what she was taught in the lecture earlier.

It would make her the last of all the new disciples to start cultivating for the first time.

As this was near an elder's residence, the plentiful qi was made it a lot easier.

Mei started the process of trying to open all her meridians. According to the sect leader, this was a very important first step to cultivation.

With the help of the pill Li Jie forcefully fed to them, some of their meridians had already been forcefully opened. For her case, the ones that had been opened were mostly on her back and abdomen. What she needed to do was to circulate qi within herself and attempt to open the other closed ones.

She slowly absorbed and circulated the energy, feeling very comfortable at first. But she realised that letting the qi flow in certain spots hurt or itched really badly. It was enough to make her wince.

She decided to take a break after a while, finally realising a young boy was drawing a circle around her. She had closed her eyes to focus earlier.

"Um, what are you doing?" she asked.

"Your grunts are very noisy. Master told me to draw a silencing formation around you," he said.

The formation started glowing as he embedded spirit stones in the ground.

Mei felt very embarrassed. She didn't even realise she was making painful sounds.

But at the same she also felt Qiao Shun was the one at fault. If he didn't like noise, why didn't he soundproof the building? If a little boy could make a soundproofing formation, shouldn't he be able to soundproof the entire building himself?

Qiao Shun had in fact only sound-proofed the building to not let sound out, as he didn't want anyone to leech off his lessons. But he set it up in a way so that noise from outside could still be heard, in case anything happened outside.

"Is that all he said about me?" she asked.

The boy put a hand to his left ear.

"Sorry, can't hear you! The formation is already active." he grinned. "Have fun!"

Mei really wanted to smack him.

She thought of going back to cultivating, but she didn't really feel like it anymore.

Eventually, she couldn't take it any longer and hobbled to the nearest bathroom. She drank some water from a nearby drinking fountain of sorts while she was at it. The water was very cool and refreshing, making her feel a lot better.

She returned to sit outside the building again, dejected.

Soon, lessons were dismissed. The students headed out orderly.

"Oh, you came back! I thought you gave up." the same boy said.

His friends laughed.

Mei's urge to smack him grew.

As the disciples disappeared into the distance, finally, Qiao Shun himself came out. He looked at her and sighed.

"You're just wasting your time doing this. Come on, I'll show you how talentless you are at formations."

"Talentless! Talentless!" Xiao Huo repeated enthusiastically.

Ignoring the annoying spirit, Mei was filled with elation. Her (stupid) plan actually worked!

"Thank you, master!" she said.

Granted, it was out of pity rather than him being impressed by her 'determination' as she intended, but results were results.

"I wouldn't have bothered, but since you cultivated a bit, it should now be possible to test your elemental affinities," he said.

He gestured for her to follow.

She was led into a dark room with several orbs embedded in the walls. In the middle, there was a formation that glowed gently, barely enough to grant visibility.

"Focus your qi into each of them. I will give you an energy pill if you run out," he said, handing her a white pill.

She ate the pill and tried her best to insert her qi into each of them. Most of them barely lit up, giving off dim colours, but a blue one and green one lit up brightly.

Qiao Shun nodded.

"Almost no affinity with any element but water and wood. Grade 5 talent in wood, grade 3 in water."

"Water is scary!" Xiao Huo shuddered.

"No big surprise, considering how your meridians were corroded by plants." he continued. "Realistically, you will only be able to make formations for plant growth."

Mei was horrified. Just when she thought she could become a cultivator, the 'curse of farming' had to get her!

For some reason, she imagined an old lady in peasant garbs whispering to her: "Once a peasant, always a peasant.". She imagined swatting the old lady away.

"Oh..." she said.

"It's not that bad." Qiao Shun consoled. "Spirit herb farming is very profitable. Plus, grade 5 elemental affinity is decent. Even if it is wood."

"I don't want to go back to farming... it sucks," she mumbled.

"Up to you. By the way, the pill from earlier isn't free. You owe me 2 jade now. That's the currency our sect uses, by the way."

"Ehh?! But..."

"I don't like to give away things for free. You can return the money to me later when you've earned some."

Stingy bastard, Mei cursed to herself, figuring he probably had enough money to buy millions of those.

She grumpily bid him farewell and left.