Mei decided to walk down the stairs a bit, just in case the doors opened outwards. With how big they were, she would be squished like a bug if that happened.

A brief wait later, she saw a distortion in the door, which the sect master walked out of.

This reminded her of the door back in the city... why even have doors so big if they weren't even going to be opened?

From her crouched position, she got up awkwardly.

"Um. Greetings, sect master!" she bowed.

The old man nodded.

"No need for formalities. Though..." a faint grin came over his visage. "This is the first time I've seen you so polite. Did something happen?"

Eh...

It was a lot easier to treat him "normally" when she was surrounded by other disciples... and not before a huge, imposing palace.

"Not much," she said.

"I see. Come in."

The old man walked back into the distortion. Mei followed him, slightly uneasy.

As it turned out, the space distortion only bridged the outside of the door to the inside. It almost seemed wasteful.

The insides of the palace were no less gigantic, with even a massive oriental chandelier 5 metres wide on the ceiling. In the middle, a massive round table towered over her. It was almost like the room was made for a giant.

At the side of the mostly empty room, stairs with black railings led up to human-sized doors.

"Sometimes I get rather large guests." the sect master briefly explained, trying to break the silence. "Brewing tea for them can get expensive. Haha."

Not catching onto it, Mei simply nodded without saying a word.

She stared at the huge table, imagining a huge dragon coiled around it and slurping up a pond's worth of tea from a cup.

They headed up the stairs and into one of the doorways, into a long hallway where they walked in awkward silence. Mei wondered why he didn't just teleport them to the room in question.

Finally, they entered a garden split by stone paths, without a roof above them, exposing them to the howling winds and snow. Oddly enough, most of the plants were curled white ferns that pulsed with cold air. There wasn't much of other plant life but stiff and short white grass. Not very varied for a garden.

In the middle, a tall stele stood, partly covered in strange engravings, a round table surrounded by several stone stools next to it.

"So, I presume you've come to get guidance early?" he sat, gesturing for her to sit as well.

"Yeah."

"Honestly, when I said I would give guidance personally, I was thinking more of after the Foundational breakthrough, after the assembly next week."

"Oh... should I head back then?"

"Don't worry, I have some time to kill, so feel free to ask away."

"Thanks. Well..."

Mei took out the notebook the sect master gave her, "Mei Xiu" written on the cover. He received it from her with a thoughtful look, stroking his beard.

"I've been a bit worried recently, after hearing about how you were going into seclusion. Since I'm not sure how to continue once I reach Foundational."

Hearing that, the sect master laughed.

"I see, I see."

"What's so funny?"

"Nothing," he said. "Don't worry, even after I'm gone- ahem, into seclusion, you'll be just fine. You can always just ask the elders for help. And if nothing, you can still use the notes here as a guideline for cultivation."

"I know... I just thought you would come up with the best method."

"Well, that I can't deny." the sect master nodded proudly. "But to properly tailor one, we should wait until after your breakthrough."

"Um, what if we start now?" she asked.

"Impatient, I see." he laughed. "Let's wait patiently until the assembly, shall we? Why not use this time to further your body cultivation? I'm sure your Foundation will turn out better that way."

Fair.

"So... should I be going now?"

"So soon? No other questions?"

"No. Thanks again..."

As she slowly walked off, she stared at the ferns. Influenced by her time at Qiulan, she couldn't help but wonder how much they were worth.

The sect master stood up and went to the stele, bringing out a chisel and carving new marks into it. After heading out of the garden, Mei briefly considered exploring the palace more to get her "money's worth" from the teleport charge. But then again, it was really cold here.

Mei decided to return to the dorms.

4 days later.

Mei felt like she was feeling sick of reading, something she didn't expect to think, ever.

Day after day, she would just be holed in the refining chamber, reading and reading... Even as an avid reader, she was a little tired. Because of that, she didn't really spend as much time as she should have in the chamber, only reaching the 9th level of body cultivation.

As for what she did to burn time outside of the chambers? For the most part, it was lying on the ground and staring at the ceiling, wondering what she was even doing. Or just walking around the sect aimlessly. Or going to the canteen to slowly nibble on snacks despite not even being all that hungry.

It was several minutes past 8 in the morning, and she sat, eating breakfast with her friends. Thinking about the assembly later, she couldn't help but feel excited at the prospect of finally breaking through!

"Mei, I think you've put on some weight recently," Xiuying said. "Have you been stress eating?"

"No."

It was more of bored eating.

"Really? You can confide in us if anything is wrong." Xiuying continued.

"Just don't become like our friend here, haha!" Yingyi nudged Liu Qiang, laughing.

The chubby boy nudged him back, before grabbing both steamed buns from Yingyi's plate.

"Hey!"

"Yeah, you don't want to become like me. Here, I'll help you not overeat."

As Yingyi tried to snatch back the buns, Wang Wei for some reason decided that now was the best time to interject.

"So, what's everyone's progress in body cultivation? I've reached the 10th stage, hehe."

Xiuying stared at him, making him shrink away.

"Just saying..." he mumbled. "Not bragging..."

Xiuying sighed.