It wasn’t until mid-morning the next day that Kai Lan woke up, the activation of the formation around the house roused him. He looked out of his window to see it and was amazed by how flawless and elegant it looked. Of course, no one but someone who was either trained to see formations, or who was like Kai Lan and was blessed with the sight to see the Spiritual Plain, would actually be able to view a Formation that had no manifestation properties.

Kai Lan headed down to breakfast, surprised by the time. He found his mother in the shop, showing Xia Fei the different herb storages and the processes that she used to dry and package the herbs.

“Kai Lan, good morning,” Ning Wei smiled, “Are you feeling better?”

Kai Lan nodded, “What is the pretty symbol outside for?”

Xia Fei tilted her head, “You can see the formation?”

Kai Lan tilted his head in return, “It’s a formation?”

Xia Fei nodded, “Hei Hei will be able to explain it better, but your father approved him putting it in place to better conceal your aura”.

Kai Lan nodded, “Okay. Ma, I’m hungry”.

Ning Wei smiled, picking up her son, “I have just the thing, come on”.

After a quick meal and getting dressed, Kai Lan stepped out back towards the Cultivation Garden. He found Hei Hei and Xia Fei there with his father.

“Good Morning, Ba,” Kai Lan smiled, “Morning Hei Hei-Ge, your formation is really pretty”.

Hei Hei looked surprised for a moment before he nodded with a smile, “Thank you”.

“Can you teach me?” asked Kai Lan.

“Of course, but for now I think it best if you focus on your cultivation,” Hei Hei replied.

“Yes, you really worried your mother and I last night, making those elemental pledges with just your base cultivation was dangerous,” said Wu Lan.

“Sorry, Ba,” said Kai Lan, who had the sense to look guilty under his father’s scolding.

“Your Ba was just telling us about what he has taught you about Cultivation, have you decided how you are going to proceed?” asked Xia Fei.

He had.

“I will do it one element at a time,” said Kai Lan.

Xia Fei nodded, “Very well”.

“You won’t advise me otherwise?”

“I have no doubt that you have thought over this meticulously,” said Xia Fei, “Besides, with this method you can more easily hide what elements you have, it may lead to some misunderstandings about you, but you would have considered this, yes?”

Kai Lan nodded.

“Very well, did your father teach you about the Laws of Cultivation?” asked Xia Fei.

Meanwhile, Wu Lan and Hei Hei moved away while Xia Fei escorted Kai Lan to the centre of the Cultivation Garden. They sat opposite each other with their legs crossed as Kai Lan answered.

“No?”

Xia Fei nodded, “There are three Laws of Cultivation. The First is that for those who have more the one element, the elements must be cultivated in their natural order; earth, wood, light, water, air, shadow, metal, fire and finally spirit”.

“Oh, I know that one,” said Kai Lan.

Xia Fei nodded in approval, “The Second Law, is that Cultivation consists of 3 steps that must be done in order. The Accumulation of the appropriate element, the Purification of that element, and then the Integration of that element”.

Xia Fei then took a deep breath, moving her hands in a circle to summon her golden core and manifest it before her. Her eyes fluttered closed as she spoke, “We must first accumulate the element we wish to cultivate from the spiritual plain of our world”.

Several wisps of red fire element were pulled from the heat of the air and drawn to the space between Xia Fei’s hands as she breathed evenly, “Second, we must draw the element into our golden core and allow our golden core to purify and subdue the raw elemental power”.

Kai Lan watched as the red wisps seemed to pass through the surface of Xia Fei’s Golden Core slowly but delicately, as if they were resistant, but also allowing certain parts of themselves to be shed as they entered.

“Finally, we must integrate the energy produced by the element to either replenish our lost energy, or to increase the capacity of our stored energy”.

Xia Fei released a breath and moved her hands once more, her eyes fluttering open as she banished her Golden Core back to her body.

“From what you are saying…the Golden Core does not store our cultivation energy?” asked Kai Lan, confused.

Xia Fei shook her head, “The Golden Core is not a storage device, it is the manifestation of our own will integrated with the will of the worlds. The bridge that connects the two. It is the meridians in our body that store the energy, and these meridians can be gaseous, liquid or solid depending on how much power is stored within them”.

Kai Lan nodded slowly, “How many meridians are there? And what happens when all meridians are solid? Can you make new ones?”

Xia Fei smiled at the barrage of questions, “There are 7 Extraordinary Meridians, each connected in a straight channel from the crown of the head to the bottom of your feet, these are part of the spiritual body and are only connected to us through our golden core. These are the largest of our Meridians, and those that could very well help us to develop extraordinary abilities the higher we advance in our cultivation, such as flight, perception, thought acceleration and much more. There are then 12 Primary meridians in our bodies from birth, which govern 361 Secondary meridians. In all, a total of 380 meridians”.

“That’s a lot,” Kai Lan remarked.

“It may seem that way, but the longer you cultivate, the more you realise that it is not enough, which is why Cultivators strive to expand the capacity of their meridians,” said Xia Fei, “Have you ever tried to fill a bucket with sand, Kai Lan?”

Kai Lan nodded, “To make sand castles?”

Xia Fei nodded, “Yes. Tell me, what happens to the castle when you don’t fill the bucket with enough sand?”

Kai Lan frowned, “It loses it’s shape”.

Xia Fei nodded, “Precisely. So, what do you usually do to make sure there is enough sand in it?”

“Push the sand down nice and tight,” smiled Kai Lan.

Xia Fei nodded, “Exactly! We can make a good castle out of that, can’t we?”

Kai Lan nodded with a grin

“But what happens when we push too much sand in there?”

Kai Lan frowned, “It gets stuck”.

Xia Fei nodded, “So tell me, how can we get the sand castle out without taking sand out, and without ruining the shape of the castle by pounding on it to come out?”

Kai Lan thought a moment, “Break the bucket?”

Xia Fei nodded, “Meridians are much the same. We fill them with energy, and keep filling them and pressing the energy together until they turn from gas to liquid, then from liquid to solid. Just like the steam from your shower turns to liquid on the mirror, or water from the tap turns to ice in the freezer, though energy can do this without changing its temperature. Instead, energy changes when it is pushed too tightly together. When all of our meridians are solid, so much so that we cannot add any more energy, that is when we must add enough to break the outer shell of our meridians and let them expand to a more comfortable size. This is what happens when we go from one step of cultivation to the next”.

“That sounds painful,” said Kai Lan.

Xia Fei nodded, “It can be. Certainly. That is why we must be careful. Our meridians are very difficult to heal, and if they shatter unsafely, or before they are ready, then it is entirely possible for them to lose their use entirely”.

Kai Lan thought for a long moment before he spoke, “What is the third Law of Cultivation Xia Fei Jie?”