Horse 12, Year 8693 Of The Grand Wulin Era, Avarius Goldscale

I watched the awed silence turn into chatter, closing my eyes and shutting off my ears, sitting in the chair behind the desk I'd been standing in front of. I extended out my Divine Sense, waiting for the chatter to end. When it did, I opened my eyes, and used my Divine Sense to ask them all a question. This was pretty much the classic cultivator ability of voice transmission, and all voice transmission devices really did was focus at specific targets and allow for greater range with Divine Sense communication. They all simultaneously heard my voice in their heads, as if I was speaking directly into their brains.

"So, what's next? What would you like to learn? By The way, this speaking in your head is Voice Transmission,an ability all Cultivators with sufficient Spirit Energy to develop Divine Sense have."

The kids discussed again, and I hear various subjects flung around, from the alphabet to golemancy to cooking.After a while, they quieted down and stared at me. They seemed to have decided Lucia should be the one representing the class as a group, as she asked.

"Can you teach us to cultivate, Mr Goldscale? We want to get started young , because we've heard its something you put a long time into to get anywhere, and we want our parents to get started too."

":Well first, you reach out with your Spiritual Energy, which is a form of energy generated by the souls of living beings and does important things like help keep the nervous system running, being the basis for the Divine Sense, which is a form of sensory perception able to perceive aspects of things other senses struggle to or are unable to, and numerous other functions. It’s essentially the blood, flesh, of the soul, in a sense. Spiritual Energy can travel through your nervous system,the circulatory system, the organs, out into the world, and even into the meridian system that transfers mana through the body. Do any of you know how to control your Spiritual Energy?" I asked.

Felix Septimus, who was in the class, spoke up. "Uh, my big bro taught me how. Cultivators have strong enough minds and souls to do it all the time, but mortals like us have to meditate to do it. We gotta sit down, clear our heads, and focus really hard on reaching out with our minds, kinda like when you strain your eyes to see or sniff harder to catch a smell!" he seemed excited to know something that important, which made sense to me.

"Very good, Felix. I'd like all of you, parents included, to sit down, meditate,and try to feel your spiritual energy. Your parents will have an easier time sensing and controlling it, since the mind and soul naturally strengthen as you age and experience things."

They sat down and meditated, focusing their minds, and one by one, I could feel their Spiritual Energy stir. It's very similar to consciously breathing, everyone naturally uses their Spiritual Energy in an undirected, unconscious way to feel out their environment, it's where the idea of the "sixth sense" comes from. Spirit Energy is also the part of people that forms the soul, like...Neurons for the soul I guess? Due to that, the soul stores memories in case of loss of body or reincarnation, and is essentially the "self" that exists regardless of body. Brain damage can prevent accessing the memories stored in the soul, as the soul is centered there and the physical versions of memory are stored in the brain anyways.

I guess souls were first created as a sort of brain backup/ the part of a person that gets reincarnated, and developed more from there. No one's really sure, as souls are present in pretty much every sentient or sapient being across the multiverse, and even things like weapons and places can develop souls of their own. When you learn to control and direct Spiritual Energy, that controlled energy becomes a weird combination of another appendage and a sensory perception, and that is the true nature of Divine Sense.

I could feel them pushing their Divine Senses around, looking at their own bodies, sensing the weird semi-physical, semi-spiritual nature of the meridians, some of them getting lost in the rhythms of their hearts or the many weird and interesting processes their organs carried out. I needed to distract them, because if you got lost in the miracles of your own body and didn't learn how to pull out, bad things could happen. What should I do? Wait, I'd seen this situation before, I knew what to do!

I spoke, and as I did, I infused my words with mana and a little bit of Illusion Dao again. "That's good! Now, push it outside of your body, into the air around you. Do you feel the air around you? The many little living things and bits of dust floating in it? Do you feel something else, a warm, gentle misty thing, sometimes without color, sometimes with different colors and feelings attached?" They complied, and I could feel their own Divine Senses stretching out, exploring and grasping, feeling their way around a whole new sensory interface for the first time in their lives.

"Yeah! This one feels cold and that one feels warm and that one feels heavy! The golden one feels sharp and the green one feels like that forest we walked through to get here!" Felix babbled, excited.

"That's Mana, Felix. See, Once you reach out with your Divine Sense through your spiritual energy, you feel Mana, the lifeblood energy of the universe itself. It’s kinda hard to describe what mana overall feels like, as the elemental nature or other aspects of the mana can change the feeling, but pure, raw mana feels like a warm, gentle current of energy, but it takes the form of that strange misty substance. Can anyone else feel it?"

They all nodded one by one, with awe and childish wonder on their faces, even the adults grinning goofily.

"Well then, once you feel the mana in the air, you grab onto it with your spiritual energy and drag it over to your body,where your own mana sucks it into your pores." *I explained.

"We have mana?" Lucia asked

"Yes, Lucia! Everyone is born with Mana, but it doesn't really get stronger naturally unless you cultivate. Well, it does a bit as you grow up, and for normal animals,Demonic Beasts, and non-thinking Magic Beasts, but outside of that, or eating very mana-rich foods or medicines, you have to cultivate if you want to strengthen your mana. Now, onto what's next. That captured mana travels through the meridian system into the lower dantian, which is right above the waist and back a couple inches."

"What's a Dantian?" Another girl piped up. She was short and chubby, with black hair and dark eyes.

"Well, It’s a sea of energy that contains a cultivator’s mana.There are two others, but they don't become relevant until Shard Forming. You might think with its location, that could mess with some organs, by pushing them around or something, but the dantian is interesting in that while it technically physically exists and can be damaged by physical things, it takes up very little actual physical space, merging seamlessly into the flesh surrounding it."

"So what happens next?" The short girl asked, as I watched the mana flow through my student's bodies into their Dantians.

"When mana enters the dantian, any unwanted impurities in the mana (mana of elements you don’t want, bits of other people’s spiritual energy, strange bits of random filth, and so on) are sent out through the meridians, escaping through the pores. The purified mana is imprinted with your spiritual energy signature, making it yours until you use it up. It goes on a trip through the meridian system, into the flesh and blood, nourishing them and clearing out toxins and other unwanted substances of physical, spiritual, and energy types. Is everyone getting this?Are you feeling it happen!" I could tell they were, as dark, smelly stuff, which was dead cells, toxins, and other impurities started to ooze from their pores. A lot more was coming from the adults, which made sense, as they had higher natural mana levels and much bigger bodies.The class nodded silently as one, nobody wanting to miss a second of what I was saying.

"Feels nice, right? It always does, that's part of why cultivating never gets boring.The mana then goes to the soul, where it nourishes the spiritual energy and cleanses and strengthens the soul somewhat. It then heads back to the dantian, where it again has the impurities purged and settles into the sea of mist in the dantian. When the dantian is full and the cultivator tries to absorb more mana, the cultivator must force the mana mist to condense, which refines it further, making it purer and of higher quality. None of you are at that step yet, it takes a while to fill the dantian with even the thinnest mana mist. "

"So that's how cultivating works?" A man in his twenties who resembled the short, chubby child , stopped cultivating and asked.

"Yep! There are lots of methods, and a lot of different types of cultivation, but they all revolve on a basic level around mana and purification. Condensing mana into purer, higher quality mana, over time, creates a dense mist of mana which will be useful for far more than just strengthening body and soul.The first stage of cultivation, where the mana is still in a misty state and has yet to condense into liquid, is called the Mist Sea stage. It's divided into 9 layers, based on the purity and density of the mana mist. A few more days to a few weeks of cultivation,and you all should reach the first layer of the Mist Sea stage.. "

"Other uses? Like the weird spells and magic weapons cultivators use?" The man asked.

"Yeah, the mana mist has a lot of uses! It can be infused into physical attacks, projectile attacks, the muscles, used for defensive purposes,shaped into various forms, or combined with the spirit energy in different patterns to essentially force the world to produce a specific effect, called a spell. The first path is the path of the Warrior, and the second the path of the Mage. There's another path, the Warmage, that combines the two. These uses are very important to later cultivation, and all users of mana have their own specialties. For example, i'm a Mage. I specialize in attack and support spells, as well as golem creation."I waved my hands, and vines grew out of the floor rapidly, grew beautiful, glowing flowers,and then burst into flame and vanished.

"Whoa, how strong are you, Mr Goldscale? " Lucia asked, tilting her head.

"Well,Lucia, I'm a 9th layer Mist Sea stage cultivator, about to break through to Mana Sea by liquefying my mana. Your Mom's boss, Regulus, did that a couple weeks back during the big fight that got you all brought here, and your Mom is as strong as me in terms of Cultivation level, though I could likely beat her in a fight." Marcia Potitia, watching from a corner of the room, shrugged. She'd seen me fight, and as much as it would wound her pride to admit, she only had about a 50/50 chance of beating me 1v1.

"Wow, will we get that strong if we keep cultivating?" Felix asked.

"Yes,almost certainly. Maybe one day, you might even become an immortal, or a god, like the ones that built our world, if you keep at it and get lucky." I said, smiling.