Teacher draws me from meditation, where all my classmates have disappeared. “Class is over, young master Yun.” He holds his out to me. “Our first meeting has started rather sour, so let’s begin anew. I am Tie Liyi, Tie Lijie’s uncle from his mother’s side. It is nice to meet you.”

Not the words I expected him to say, but alright, I will bite. “I am Ying Yun. How can I help you?”

Tie Liyi takes out a necklace from his pocket. “I am a bit confused just what about my class bothers you. If you care to explain, I will give this necklace a bonafide rank five item. It helps clear our mind, reduces chances of cultivation deviation and increases cultivation speed a bit.”

I want to say stop calling my ideas garbage would be a strong start, but I doubt that alone will net me the necklace. So I sit there until I remember why I began weaving my meridians in the first place: the theory of instinctual qi usage. I consider giving a snarky answer, but choose against it. Perhaps answering honestly will stop such problems from occurring in the future. “It makes no sense. The qi within my meridians belongs to my mother, hence I need to remove it.”

Tie Liyi nods at my words, listening for a moment before holding his hand out. “Hold my hand.”

I grab his hand, unsure what he plans to do, then a trickle of his qi flows into my hand. I get Ascetic Yang flashbacks, but she did remove the qi before any true harm was done. Unlike her qi, his comes in a gaseous form. A small amount, so I feel confident in assimilating it through brute force. I give it a try. Yet, without much effort, the qi melts into my own, disappearing in an instant.

“Well done.” Tie Liyi says, holding out his hand once more. “Now let’s try it again, with solid qi this time.”

His qi comes once more, but I have yet overcome the solid qi hurdle and it stays there immovable. Small yet defiant. The solid turns into liquid qi, by Tie Liyi’s will, before it disappears into my qi.

“Was this example clear?” Tie Liyi asks.

I think I understand the bit how the different states of qi might be the point of contention between the qi in my meridian and my own. “How does this disprove my idea?” I ask.

“It removes the need for distinction. Who the qi belong to does not matter. Only that it’s inert and free for the taking – you can absorb it as easily as breathing once you can make solid qi.” Tie Liyi says. “Wasting any time to clear your meridians instead of spending your time compressing your qi puts the cart before the house. Your meridians will clear by itself in due time, without any effort on your part. Why divert countless hours to clearing them, when compressing your qi achieves that goal and more?”

I want to retort with ‘so I can repair my meridians’ but that line of reasoning does not make much sense to me anymore. While failure to remove the foreign qi will continue to damage my meridians, its timescale is far too large for one or two years to matter – by then I will have already compressed my qi into a solid state. It truly seems odd why I was even recommended to do so.

“Fine. I get the point. I will stop opening anymore.”

҉҉҉

By the time I reach the arena, the rest of my class and forty some children run around the arena like an indoor mile test due to bad weather outside. Lap by lap they go – there is clear difference in speed, with the girls being the faster overall, with their longer legs and higher physical cultivation. It seems I have missed a first section, since some of the children have begun walking and panting while others continue. Endurance differences does not seem too apparent between the two groups, except for the five girls in my class, who seem a few steps ahead of the curve.

As I run into the lap, attempting to join Tie Lijie and Fang Wangyong, I am stopped by the buffest elderly body builder I have ever seen. A bright sheen instead of hair, the woman towers over me. Her tense muscles dare me to fight them, but I’m no fool.

“Running is for first realm cultivators only, young master Yun.” The teacher says, dragging me to the middle of the arena, where I am alone with her. She tosses me a scroll. “Ascetic Yang has sent me your desired cultivation scroll, Body Like Fire, and you will sit here until you obtain a basic grasp over it.”

“Alright,” I say, opening the scroll which is stopped halfway by the woman.

“Before you start, let’s review some class rules. Starting tomorrow, lateness will not be permitted. You will run until you drop, like everyone else here, then you will run some more. You will refer to me as Teacher. Nothing more, nothing else. Are these rules clear?”

“Crystal.” I say, with as much enthusiasm I can muster, which is not much. Have not run much since high school. Was not particularly good then, going to be even worse now. She releases the scroll and I get back to reading.

The scroll contains very little – nothing more than the few steps required to reach the second rank: sense qi, open navel/qi dantian, condense liquid qi and permeate qi through body. Clear meridians for ease of access, but not necessary. Overly simplistic, given Spirit Like Water gave a much more comprehensive set of information. Perhaps that part has been left out for brevity.

When I open my eyes, pandemonium has struck. Children on the ground balling their eyes out – the few children that reach their part of the lap see the situation, then immediately copy them. The only teacher in the arena tries running damage control, but no amount of cultivation can appease fifty children who would rather do anything else but run.

I try to find Chen Yingyue, since she is normally so put together. I finally find her at the center of the fiasco, completely inconsolable and unapproachable. I leave her to the Teacher, she must know what to do right? Probably not, since as five minutes pass, I want popcorn and there’s no end in sight.

Tie Lijie cries because other people are crying while Fang Wangyong does not want to run anymore. And as interesting as watching fifty children crying with no tools to stop it – it really isn’t. So I walk back to the center of the arena and begin trying to permeate my qi. Also, I should remember to ask Ascetic Yang why this dumpster fire of a physical training has happened – someone should have predicted this to happen, right?

Permeating qi is easier than expected – I already have done a reduced version when I ran with father. Doing so while sitting down is much easier than running, since I can concentrate on that. And much like strengthening my spiritual threshold, it seems that I only need to strengthen my body a bit with qi to set the groundwork, before I reach the second rank.

҉҉҉

Once I open my eyes again, the arena is empty save for the teacher and me.

“Where did everyone else go?” I ask.

“They finished their practice. If you finished reading, it’s time to get running.” The Teacher says.

Have I ever mentioned how much I hate running indoors or on a track? It’s the same scenery over and over again. I don’t even feel like I make any progress, since I end up at the same spot again and again. Oh well. My body bursts with energy as I have pumped nearly all my qi into strengthening, so perhaps a short run will calm it down.

One lap, two laps, three laps and more. Four laps, five laps, six laps galore. Ten laps, twenty laps, my feet are now sore. Why am I still running? Stitches form on my back and sides, and I am ready to quit, but Teacher glares at me like she wants to end me if I do. So yeah, fun times. Running is great when someone watches me like a hawk. Not.

Leisure meditation while running was possible earlier on in the run, but now that I am exhausted, it gets much harder. I permeate what little qi I have gathered to my back and sides, hoping to resolve my stitches, but it does little to help the situation, as a few more laps bring back the pain.

When I finally collapse on the ground in exhaustion, Teacher gives me a “good work” then throws me over her shoulder as she brings me to the northwest building, between the two girl dorms, something I know only because the two girl dorms are completely black while the boy dorms are blue. A bathhouse of sorts apparently, despite the fact that I already have one in my room. Even besides the customary division between boys and girls baths, the boys bath does not have one giant bathtub like in some Japanese anime but many, many barrels.

Some guy in white robes, like a masseur, concocts some horrendous smelling powder as I relax in the barrel. Not a fan of hot water usually, especially when I am thrown in without being able to ease myself in, but the water does not scald me this time. Lucky, I suppose. Body Like Fire should not have kicked in this early, after all.

I hold onto a few orange spirit stones, absorbing what little qi to replenish my qi reserves, which always feel nearly depleted lately. Between my body and soul, there’s so little qi to go around. The horrendous smelling powder does little to restore my qi – it seems that he has switched to some formula that more targets my body with herbs rather than with qi. Must be Ascetic Yang’s doing.

Teacher has left and I hope the alchemist does too – as much as I like being watched when I bath, I don’t. If I am, I much rather a beautiful woman does it. Alas, the alchemist cannot read my mind and follow my wishes.

My aches and pains disappear soon after the powder sets in, which makes absorbing qi that much easier. And eventually I am taken out, splashed with water before being dragged back to my room. Ascetic Yang and four other guardians are there – for Chen Yingyue, Tie Lijie, and Fang Wangyong, who are listening to Ascetic Yang’s lesson. There’s a fourth child here as well – a chubby girl with red hair as long as she is and perhaps the one most focused on learning the lesson.

Tie Lijie is the most easily distracted by my entrance, sliding over to me and whispering, “the new girl is Nan Yenay, the girl with the highest score in our cohort. She came over with Chen Yingyue and they stay like they own the place. Hurry up and tell the girls to leave – this is the boy’s dorms.”

Before I can even respond, Tie Lijie is smacked on the head and dragged to an isolated spot in the room to redouble his studies. Fang Wangyong wobbles over to me as well, trying to avoid the guardian’s notice, which is impossible since they are all seventh rank cultivators and above with nothing else to do but look at us.

“You’re so late.” He whispers. “You missed the games and toys we played after practice. Where you go?”

“Running.” I say, a bit sour. “Then took a bath.”

Fang Wangyong shakes his head. “We just played a few hours. Now we are here.”

“Where? How?” I ask. If that was the option why was I even running or why did Asectic Yang stress training so much?

“That building to the east of us.” Fang Wangyong says.

I sigh. Just another thing to add to the list of things I need to ask Ascetic Yang later. For now, I turn to the lesson, which is some modified vocab lesson. Some of the words I already know, some I don’t.