“I heard from your brother you went to yesterday’s exhibition match.” Mingwei’s father said. They were having dinner together, the entire family. It’s a rare occasion to have his parents at home, so dinner was something they did together. Well, only the 4 of them, at least. Eldest brother and 4th brother are in West Tigerriver City, and the 2nd sister is in Northstar City.

Mingwei’s father was a busy merchant, and so he and mother were frequently not in town. Mingwei’s mother was a cultivator of the 4th star, and so she frequently accompanied her husband, acting also as his bodyguard and treasurer.

“Yes father. I heard from a peddler, so I thought I should go see what it is about.”

Mingwei’s mother smiled and looked at him. “Well, what did you think?”

“It’s interesting.”

“Would you like to try your hand at cultivating?”

“Yes.” Mingwei answered as he munched on small fried beans.

“Oh. Last time you said no. Was it the Northern Star Sect core disciple’s beauty that changed your mind?” Mingwei’s mother teased.

Mingwei frowned instinctively, and that was the answer they all needed.

“Oh, it’s not. Then what made you change your mind?”

“Uh... alchemy?” Mingwei answered reluctantly, but it was the truth. His past lives had the memories and wills of all these master craftsmen, alchemists, forgers and smiths.

His two parents and Mingjian exchanged glances, then his father looked at him. “Strange. Why alchemy?”

“I like alchemy, I guess.” Mingwei answered. His past lives memories flashed, and there’s a lot of emotions in those memories, but they were not... his.

“But I guess every sect needs a few alchemists.” His father said but Mingwei’s mother didn’t look that happy about it. Mingjian was clever enough not to make an opinion.

“Once you try it, you’ll know better.” Mother said. “It’s too early to decide your specialisation when you have not even formed a core.” Mingwei nodded. That was a very reasonable statement to make to anyone who doesn’t have any past experience.

“Okay. Mother, could you...” A part of his past self didn’t know how to say it, but Mingwei was a child for 10 years, and he knew. “Could you explain cultivation to me? Maybe after dinner?”

“Sure!” His mother smiled, and both his dad and brother smiled too. In fact, immediately after both of them finished dinner, his mother quickly walked him to his bedroom. “So, let’s get started.”

“Uh, can you start from the beginning?” Mingwei asked, even though his past lives knew cultivation quite well, but this world clearly had different habits and ways, and he had to know.

“Alright, alright.” Mother quickly calmed herself, but she really looked happy about it. “So, so, let’s start with what is cultivation. Let’s see... alright, the normal understanding is that no one knows where or when cultivation started, but some say it came from the ancient dragons, some say it’s from the ancient beast immortals. No matter, the gist of the history of cultivation is nobody knows for sure.”

Mingwei nodded. This part was similar in his past lives too.

“So, skip that part, and we go to what’s actually cultivation. There’s this thing called Qi, that exists in everything and everywhere, and when we cultivate, it’s really about gathering, forming and storing the Qi in our body so that we can use the Qi.”

Mingwei nodded too. This part is still the same.

“So, you want to know about how to gather Qi, or just an overview of the star-system first, or maybe touch on the types of cultivation?”

“Uh... the star-system and cultivation types first?”

“Ah okay. Well, star system. So, one-star is like if you have a core, and every star above that is one additional layer around the core.”

Mingwei nodded. Still the same.

“So, the first step to building the core is the process of condensing the Qi you gathered into a dense material known as the soul-Qi, and the Soul-Qi the blocks used to create your first core. It’s influenced by elemental Qi gathered, and also the type of cultivation technique, which determines the shape of the blocks, and how well those blocks interact with your cultivation techniques.”

Mingwei nodded. Terminology was different, but in principle still identical.

“So, after you built a core, the next step is to build a layer. So like building a house, what we do is we build pillars from our core, and then we start to connect the pillars into another circle. It’s like a wheel, only, well, it’s a sphere instead of a circle.”

Mingwei froze. This part was entirely different. A wheel concept? That was when he accidentally blurted out. “What about the subshell spaces and Qi-weapons? Doesn’t the core need to spin?”

Mother smiled and tapped Mingwei on the head. “Wow, have you been secretly studying? Good questions, son. When you build the pillars, you can create pockets in the pillars, kind of like how castle towers have holes in them, for archers to shoot out of them. Same for the pillars. After the 2nd layer is completed, we will create the tower-holes to create the subshell space for your Qi-weapons and those other stuff.”

Mingwei’s mind had so many questions. In his old world, they used a bubble concept, and the 1st layer was entirely independent of the core. Essentially, like onions, there are no ‘pillars’ which connect one layer to the next. For the subshell spaces, they floated in the space between the layers, they made floating ‘boats’ for them, and because there is no contact, the core and layer could spin independently. “What about the spin?”

“Like a wheel, we align the core and layer’s spin, and so the pillars have little joints in them to allow for some flexibility. It’s important to align the spin because it improves our Qi output.”

Mingwei’s jaw was wide open. For him, this was a revelation. His past lives worldwide and understanding of cultivation was instantly shattered. Surely his world’s way of things cannot be so wrong? “What if it’s not aligned?”

“Then you can’t progress, but it’s quite easy to align it.”

“Wouldn’t damage be received by the entire structure if attacked?” Mingwei asked, it really was something random he thought of. If all the layers are connected, then any damage received by the outer layer is transferred to the core!

“Yes, which is why cultivators must be careful in combat. Some cultivators and sects have special techniques which create insulating layers, or special pillar types which absorb damage a lot better than others.”

“Do these Qi pillars go all the way up?”

“Mostly. At least for the core up till the 4th layer, which means 5 star rank, it is still entirely pillar-connected layers. It’s important to constantly reinforce and strengthen your earlier pillars when cultivating, because the next layer is built on your previous layers.”

“What happens at the 5th layer?”

Mother shrugged. “I don’t know yet, I’ve not reached that level. But my elder once told me that the 5th layer is where we must create a gap between the two layers, because that’s the point where the first inner 4 layers and core must be made to spin at extremely high speed, and yet the outer layers must move at a different pace.”

Mingwei understood those words.

But their concept of wheels and spokes was... very different. In his world, every layer was not connected. Perhaps because their founding philosophy has been the onion, or the water drop on a still lake, that each ring is independent. It has never quite occurred to them to go for the wheel-and-spoke concept.

“Ah, never mind Mother. It’s still too far away.” Mingwei nodded. “How about cultivation techniques? And you mentioned elemental Qi?”

“Cultivation techniques are Qi-gathering techniques. There’s a lot of variations on whether you gather it through your meridians, which meridians are better, all of them, or concentrating them at one, each sect has different ideas of these cultivation techniques, and if I am to be nice, no one is actually ‘wrong’, though some are better than the others.”

Mingwei nodded, relieved that this part is familiar.

“Some cultivation techniques are also more expensive, because they involve using more cultivation materials, pills and stuff, like the Eastlake Demonic Sect’s method uses the blood-heart of mystic beasts to cultivate.”

He nodded at his mother’s explanation, and though he had never seen this in his past world, because cultivation mystic beasts were really rare. But, he could at least understand the principles of using materials to amplify cultivation.

“Some cultivation techniques also fit each other better, because your meridians may have an elemental bias. This elemental bias in your meridians are commonly known as ‘elemental roots’. Your 5 main meridians are mind, heart, core, arm and legs. As an example, if your mind-meridian is strongly sensitive to wood Qi, it’s referred to as Wood-mind roots.”

He nodded. Slight differences in the name of things, but it is still familiar territory.

“So, you may want to find a sect that has Wood-mind roots-focused cultivation techniques, to exploit your natural sensitivity to wood Qi. Each sect’s cultivation techniques may have different focus, and targets different meridians. For example, your brother, Mingjian’s Green Insect Blade Sect’s Basic Cultivation Technique is Elementally Neutral, but has a stronger focus on the Core-meridian.”

Mingwei nodded and he understood this part too. “Yes mother. I think that’s enough for me for today. I can’t absorb anymore.” He lied. What he wanted to do is think about what he just heard. This world clearly cultivated differently, and he wanted to understand what that meant before progressing, or even starting to cultivate.