[How many meridians??? Twelve?!!?]

[Is this sect trying to sabotage your cultivation? This is f.u.c.king ridiculous!]

Jet sobered.

Van really didn't think that a prestigious and honest sect like the Cedar Sect would bother circulating false cultivation manuals to its servants. After all, they had all signed a contract, and who didn't want better students and servants?

[Don't tell me… they really think there are only twelve meridians?]

The ring tsked.

[...I suppose with the low concentration of power in the air… it would be hard sense the other meridians, let alone activate them.]

[Listen, brat. In the human body, there are a total of ninety-nine meridians. The first, primary twelve are the easiest to sense – they are the largest and contain the least resistance. However, your cultivation will be extremely slow if you only have twelve channels to use! The remaining eighty-seven meridians are smaller and harder to sense. Opening all of the minor meridians will increase your cultivation speed by to three times faster than someone who has only opened the twelve major ones.]

[Once you have opened your minor meridians, you can also widen them slightly. Doing so will allow you to reach a cultivation speed of four times the normal. You should know that people with brittle meridians find it extremely hard to expand the other eighty-seven meridians. Some will only damage their meridians attempting this. Others are only able to expand a few.]

[Seeing as you have very elastic meridians, you will not have this problem. I have high hopes for you, boy. You must open at least sixty of them when your meridians recover!]

It was Van's turn to snort.

"You think too little of me."

Next to the banyan tree, the young man sitting cross-legged was smiling. His dark eyes glittered.

"I will open all ninety-nine!"

Jet was silenced.

Finally, a thin feeling of approval emanated from his small body.

[You better not disappoint me then, brat.]

_______________

The next morning, Van was woken by a h.e.l.lishly loud noise. As he stretched his muscles, he felt supremely comfortable and relaxed.

Last night, he had begun the process of healing his meridians. They had already begun to recover over the month he'd spent travelling to Dragon City. The remnant energy from the pine nuts had helped with that. If they hadn't healed at all, Van's performance in the spiritual potential test would have been even lower than 'low'!

Jet taught Van a breathing technique known as the Cicada's Breath. It was a well-known but lowly breathing technique in ancient times, chosen due to its simplicity and similarity to the Cedar Sect's own Cedar Respiration technique. While the sect's technique encouraged a gentle qi to locate someone's meridians from the outside, the other technique sank tiny amounts of qi through the skin to find the meridians from within. This was only possible due to the extremely gentle and nurturing nature of the qi, which was unable to cause harm.

Once on the other side of the skin, this qi could be manipulated to both heal and open the meridians – of course, the knowledge to do this was exclusive to Jet.

Instructed by the ring in a detailed manner, Van had been able to heal his first meridian. Locating it had been simple – after all, Van had forcibly channelled power before and knew what it felt like.

Healing one meridian had taken a whole night, but Van was optimistic. He was confident that once he became used to the process, healing 5-10 meridians per night would be easily achievable. Once they were all healed, he would then begin the process of opening and tempering the meridians.

You might be wondering why did Jet not give Van some sublime, heavenly breathing technique?

The answer was simple.

Despite Jet's wealth of knowledge, none of the ancient, higher calibre breathing techniques were suitable for Van.

Intrinsically, the bodies of ancient cultivators and the bodies of modern cultivators were as different as Heaven and Earth. Many ancient cultivators were able to cultivate at birth and by the time they wished to practice breathing techniques, they only desired techniques that strongly gathered and absorbed spiritual power. A gentle method such as the Cicada's Breath would have been disregarded.

But just because it is basic, doesn't mean it should be overlooked. The Cicadas' Breath technique could improve cultivating potential and was compatible with almost all other breathing techniques. If Van practised it now, nothing would prevent him from taking up a higher level technique when his cultivation improved.

As Van sat up, a grin stretched across his face.

He was now closer to entering the ranks of cultivators!

When his bleariness finally wore off, he saw a tiny, wizened woman, holding a gong at least twice her height, banging on it with great force.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Other servants sleeping next to him rolled in their blankets, unwilling to rise. Most of them were sitting up, however, with pale faces and deep eyebags. Everyone inspected each other, realising that they had all had the same bright idea last night.

The tiny old lady continued to bang the gong.

Eventually, everybody was a.s.sembled in a straight line in front of her.

It was 4 am.

In a paper-thin voice, she sternly addressed them.

"For all you newcomers…" she took a breath, "I expect that this is the last time I will see…" another breath, "…such a disgrace."

All the servants waited in silence for her next words. She breathed in deeply once more, trying to bolster her thin voice with added volume.

"From now on, every morning, regardless of what you were doing the night before…"

"You will be a.s.sembled before me like this, within five minutes of the gong…"

"With your bedrolls tidied up and put away… do you understand me?"

The new servants glanced at each other. It had taken over ten minutes for each of them to drag themselves out of bed, and of course, their bedrolls were still untidily scattered across the wooden floorboards. They ducked their heads.

The older servants all replied sharply, "Yes, Head Servant Jinyi!"

The wrinkled Head Servant Jinyi nodded slowly.

"Hm…very good. Breakfast will be in the servant's victuals hall. The donkey-carts will leave at 5 am sharp. If you are late… you will be penalised…" she warned them.

Van and the rest of the servants gave a half-bow as she left.

Kindly, the older servants demonstrated how to properly put away a bed roll. This itself took some time. Van watched carefully as he had never used a bedroll before, but being a fast learner, he ended up being neither slow nor fast.

Some fifteen minutes later, they rushed to the victual's hall. A large bowl of fragrant porridge and a hard-boiled egg greeted them. Many servants had never seen such a delicious-looking meal in their lives. As they salivated, they thought in their heart that they had made the right decision to join a sect!

After wolfing down their food in record speed, they ran to the sect's back gate. A couple of hundred servants were waiting to be taken either to the forest, plantation, farm, or stable.

The donkey carts arrived. Van goggled.

What donkey?

A ma.s.sive beast with a shoulder span at least six-person wide stood in front of each cart. Steam jetted out of its ma.s.sive nostrils. It had the head of a bison, with the big hairy paws of a bear. Each of the carts were ma.s.sive and could fit dozens of servants.

In no time, several hundred servants were loaded onto the carts. Van saw Ryan sitting upon a cart meant for the herb plantation and waved. Ryan, who looked extremely tired, gave him a slow wave back.

The forty-minute journey took Van through Dragon City's main gate and to the nearby forest.