No victory goes unpunished. Some clan elder recorded my fight with the golem through a formation, then distributed the fight to the entire campus. However, they took the time to add a lovely subtitle before they did: ‘if Ying Yun can beat these golems, you can too’.

The fight does look comedic when I am not in the moment fighting the golem and running for my life – some dude running with strings of qi without a weapon or movement technique yet still managing to paralyze the golem indefinitely.

I don’t know how I feel about how my fight is being sold though. While I do lack fighting skills, I have a fifteen-month head start compared to most in spiritual cultivation, my qi purity is higher than the clan elders, and my physical cultivation has nearly reached the second rank. Nowhere near unrivaled, but I want to believe I am a step above cannon fodder.

At the same time, if this motivates my extended family to work harder and become better versions of themselves, I’m all for it. The fall of the Colorful Peaks, and the Orange Peak by extension, is a mere ten years away. The stronger my extended family is, the better chances we have of making it out alive. As I already lost one set of family and friends when I reincarnated into this world, I am not too keen on losing another so quickly. Not in mass anyways.

The video transforms the campus into the battle academy that it was always meant to be. All in a mere three days. No more calligraphy lessons, extended reading, math or history lessons. No more glass classrooms for four-hour class sessions.

None of that – mainly because no one has the attention span and it was so wildly unsuccessful. Instead, vocabulary lessons are weaved into story telling and narrative building lessons – something that all children are required to take to obtain their first daily ticket to fight the golems. After all, with a newfound goal and motivation, the golems are now the hottest topic on the campus.

Victory is impossible, of course. No more nerfs or energy exhaustion removes any chance of me winning. While everyone else might learn to use a bit more strategy, the golems have been revamped accordingly. After all, victory teaches little, but with failure, the elders can convince the children to learn another movement strategy or get them to cultivate physically and spiritually much more readily and easily compared to before.

҉҉҉

The clan elders seemed to have finally let some oxygen into their brains. The golem revamp is only the beginning of the changes they have started to make school life more interesting. It has a new type of energy on campus, one that is hopeful for the future rather than the dreary, forced atmosphere that each adult was sporting last month.

They have added more ranking lists for fighting the golems: how many hits a person can last, how many times a person can hit a golem, how long a person can last against the golem and more. Rankings are not only for glory, however, but for Sect Points as well, which can be traded for toys and cultivation resources. Sounds like massive perks, until one takes a moment to realize we already had all of those, but now we have to work for them.

And on the Sect Points gathering front, I am not doing too hot. I am only allowed on one list: defeated a golem listing. It gives me no Sect Points directly, but I still need Sect Points to cultivate. I get them through the same way as everyone else, but my rank is not posted in any of the other lists. My rank is a touchy subject – if I do too well, it discredits the luckiness of my victory. If I do too poorly, it suggests that the golems are unbeatable.

The arena has been repurposed for ‘fight’ demonstrations between two guardians or teachers. Two a day, ever single day, the two adults attack each other with ostentatious, long range, qi attacks. Sword qi. Fire qi. Wind qi. Anything under the sky, they attack each other. The children eat this up. By the fourth day since these ‘fight’ demonstrations begin, a whole storyline has been created. I tend to skip these demonstrations, for while the amount of qi these guardians and teachers possess astounds me, it’s hard to feel it when the arena never breaks and the combatants never clash physically.

The greatest change I like is how the clan elders, on the eighth day of the month, decided to give everyone a Three Souls Nurturing Pill and Five Elements Harmonious Pill. The first strengthens the soul – mine increased from ‘1072’ to ‘1361’. Other children gained one or two hundred points as well – though their starting points ranged from two to four hundred.

The Five Elements Harmonious Pill strengthens my body somehow, but not quite sure how. I get enough physical medicines daily already.

҉҉҉

I plop onto the floor, beaten by the golem once again. I no longer need twenty minute preparation to set up – externalizing qi is getting easier. However, the golems I fight now have all the energy they need and can punch through my qi. Trapping them with qi nets now seem impossible with my level of skill and cultivation.

Confetti falls upon me moments later, thrown by Aunt Meng of all people. “Little Yun, long time no see.” She holds a giant bamboo basket where she pinches a few more confetti bits to throw over me. Then after I lay there gawking for a few moments, she dumps the entire basket onto me. “Is that how you treat your oh-so-lovely aunt after not seeing her for two months?”

I hack up some confetti as I get to my feet. “Ascetic Yang told me I would not see you for another four months.”

“Yes, if she stayed here to overlook your education.” Aunt Meng saying, pulling my arm and spinning me around. “But she went on vacation. Something about you frustrating her?”

I frown, asking, “how?”

“Sleeping through her classes, threatening her, taking her spirit stones, ignoring her advice, failing last month’s exams on purpose, failing to spiritually cultivate and more.” Aunt Meng says, hugging me. Given the height difference, which has decreased, she leans so she can whisper into my ear. “I’m just a delicate little aunt, be gentle, okay?”

I want to deflect the sexual undertones, but Aunt Meng is right there smirking as if waiting for me to retort. I sigh. “I only threatened her because she confided me to worthless tasks in my room. Everything else is false.”

“Not worthless per say, but I’ll keep that in mind,” Aunt Meng says, throwing me a cloth bag. “I brought gifts.”

Inside the cloth bag is a scroll. Body Like Fire, but a complete scroll this time with the first five stages recorded within. Besides that are two small pill bottles, one labeled ‘spirit’ and the other ‘body’.

“Don’t underestimate the pills, even though there are only two. They are both four star pills, requiring more than a bit of Ying Contribution Points and a favor from your father’s parents.”

҉҉҉

Aunt Meng brings me back to my room, which has transformed considerably since my absence this morning. Stuffed animals on my bed, new blankets of warmer colors. New bookshelves filled with books of all varieties – formations, to picture books, alchemy and painting. No calligraphy, thankfully. A new bed now rests in the corner of the room, with its own cauldron nearby and a fenced off area with a sign ‘do not enter’. Still, my room is so big, that Aunt Meng could comfortably double her living space with no issue.

Such a stark contrast with Ascetic Yang who has yet to leave a single mark of where she lived here over the past month. Some books remain on the table, but I have yet to quite forgiven her. I leave the books untouched as I go to bed and open the Body Like Fire scroll.

The official version is much more detailed than the thing I got from the physical cultivation Teacher. The first realm, and two ranks, strengthened my body. Compress my qi to solid state so I can clear and repair my meridians, because if I do not, I might very well burn myself to death starting from the second realm. Strengthen the rest of my body, because I will slowly be converting them into fire. The three other ranks are locked until I reach a sufficient cultivation realm, which is no surprise.

I put away the scroll then begin repairing my soul. With the Three Souls Nurturing Pill, a two-star spiritual pill, my soul has grown a bit larger and quite a bit of the small damages I needed to repair have been fixed. Just a few more days, then I can begin compressing my liquid qi into solid qi as I make a breakthrough to the third spiritual rank.

҉҉҉

The next few days are quiet. Fewer and fewer children show up to fight the golems, watch the daily fights or even attend the classes. I find it out until Aunt Meng points out more and more children have entered closed door meditation to make a breakthrough. Even my four fellow high-rankers all have done the same – while they have yet to receive four star pills to help them, their respective branches have given them three star pills as support.

It feels odd that the children work so hard, but they have found their passion and the Ying Clan’s culture incentivizes it. I should not let myself falter either, so I stop all other activities besides physical cultivation and repairing my soul. Or at least, I try to.

Aunt Meng is adamant drawing me into conversation at least twice a day, which is fine, since I can restore my qi while we talk. The topics range randomly, but it does seem she has inherited Ascetic Ying’s attempts to improve my vocabulary, grammar and critical thinking, even if the topics she chooses are much more amicable.

She eventually touches upon the difference between ancient and modern cultivation techniques, so we spend quite a few days upon that subject. My Body Like Fire and Spirit Like Water are both ancient techniques, something that is noted because I require a different technique for each cultivation aspect. My friends need not find a movement or spiritual technique since they already have one part of their main cultivation technique.

At the same time, the goals of each techniques are different. Ancient techniques tend to dig deep into each aspect that they specialize in. Modern techniques acknowledge the necessity to cultivating each aspect to its highest degree, but does not agree that it needs to be immediate nor is the cost of such specialization worth its costs.

My situation is a perfect example of the strengths and flaws of the ancient techniques. Despite having one of the highest soul strength among my cohort, my battle strength ranks in the lower half. I will have to take a significant detour to get a movement technique and another one to learn a weapon. At the same time, my qi reserves are the greatest among my cohort and I am addressing some of the most tedious parts of cultivation: repairing body, meridians and soul.

Since a modern technique already condenses all the necessary techniques into one, they can train in every aspect with confidence, since they already know how all their techniques are connected. Meridian opening and repairs are pushed off until the third realm, causing them to have smaller qi reserves, but they will have much more time focusing on their battle strength and comprehending the essence of their skills. Plus, such things such as qi compression and meridian opening are simple to do later on and take less resources. Not to mention the fact that since most modern technique practitioners are noble children, the simplicity of the modern technique allows them to cultivate years in advance.

It’s through these conversations that I am beginning to realize just how much having the Ying Clan support me is not only helpful but necessary in order for me to cultivate Spirit Like Water. I doubt any mother with a low cultivation rank would have survived me stealing so much of her qi. Then, the medicinal baths and the black liquid I was force-fed for my first five months alive amount to a few green spirit stones in value. That would beggar any normal merchant family with the normal usage, while I seem to increase that price tag multifold in my quest to get stronger.

Not to mention the tens of yellow spirit stones Aunt Meng has given me now to help me condense my liquid qi to solid. The solid qi in the stones have serve as a valuable reference, just like the spiritual lake I was dumped into that helped me condense liquid qi.

The last two weeks of the month pass quickly. But contrary to my expectations, I manage to break through to the second rank in my body first.