With the competition between the Disciples over, I returned to my courtyard with Liang and Mo, my newest recruit. I gave Mo the same rundown about severing ties with the Su Clan that I had given Liang, and he readily agreed to accept me as his new patriarch. After that, I took both boys on a tour of the house and showed them the new rooms I had prepared for them.
First, I took them to a room that contained nothing but six granite discs. Three of these discs were lined up against the left wall, and three were lined up against the right wall. These discs were roughly five centimeters thick and had a diameter of one meter. Each disc had a single word carved into the center of its face.
I looked at the boys and gestured to the discs.
“These are formation plates that will allow you to raise your affinities.” I pointed to the one with the character for lightning engraved into it. “All you need to do is sit down on that disc, and your lightning affinity will slowly increase over time.”
I had decided not to recheck their affinities. Instead, I wanted them to choose whichever element they felt suited them best without worrying about what element they should cultivate based on their initial affinities.
However, I also didn’t want them to raise their affinities too quickly. I wanted to try and force them to improve their talent for cultivation by making them struggle at every step. So, these Essence Gathering Formations were only Rank 1, and they would only be actively gathering essence while one of the boys was sitting on them. This would allow them to steadily improve a nine-star affinity, but it wouldn’t let them immediately jump to an eight-star affinity or higher.
Still, any formation that could allow them to raise their affinities was like magic to the boys. They were both more than eager to sit on their respective plates, but I had up a hand to stop them.
“You are not allowed to use this place freely. You must earn the right to come here.” I gave the boys a slightly evil grin. “Once both of you have reached Martial Disciple 2, you may both come here for one hour. After you both reach Martial Disciple 3, you will be allowed another hour. The same will be true for Martial Disciple 4 and so on.”
I looked at Mo who was already nearing the threshold of Martial Disciple 2.
“If you wish to raise your affinities as soon as possible, you will need to assist Liang in learning to cultivate. He has fallen a bit behind.”
Liang had pretty much completely given up on learning to cultivate, and I could only hope that the prospect of raising his affinities would be the incentive he needed to take it seriously once more. If not, I might have to step in personally, and that would make what I was trying to accomplish here much more difficult.
After introducing them to the ‘Affinity Hall,’ I took them to the room I had dubbed my ‘Technique Hall’ which contained only a single bookcase that held 36 different scrolls.
“This bookcase contains Rank 1 cultivation techniques for each of the nine elements. It has a Low-, Mid-, High-, and Peak-Yellow technique for each element.” I gestured to Mo. “You have already started cultivating, but you haven’t yet broken through to Martial Disciple 2. You can still expel all the energy you have gathered and switch techniques if you wish to do so. You may select a new Low-Yellow technique of any element you desire.”
Again, he was shocked by the offer and stared at the scrolls with his mouth agape.
“But... my affinity...”
I waved that away.
“As you have seen, your starting affinities are unimportant. As long as both you and Liang can reach Martial Disciple 2, you will be able to improve any affinity you wish.” I gestured to the different levels of techniques available. “However, you must start with a Low-Yellow cultivation technique. After you reach Peak Disciple, I will give you a pill to abolish your cultivation base. Then, you may choose the Mid-Yellow technique of that same element or the Low-Yellow technique of a different element. With each technique you master, you will gain more time in the Affinity Room.”
Realizing a slight error in what I said, I motioned to the techniques on the bottom rows of the bookcase.
“These are for dark, light, and wind qi. I do not currently possess a formation to help you with these affinities, but you may still find practicing them worthwhile. I would encourage you to experiment with them, but you will likely find your future with these elements quite limited.”
I wanted them to experience a range of different cultivation techniques, and this setup was intended to incentivize them to do that without me having to guide them at each step along the way. There were still a few features I wanted to add, such as making the system fully automated and assigning them variable time in the Affinity Hall based on the quality of their breakthroughs, but the current setup was good enough for a trial run.
Next, I took the boys to the last of the new rooms I had prepared for them.
“This is a basic workout room. Do not use qi to reinforce your muscles while you are in here.” I pointed to a small bookshelf. “Those are guides to basic physical conditioning. Use them to improve your body as much as you can without qi.”
I gestured to a formation plate that I had attached to a wall. “Punch that plate, and it will register the power of your strike. As your strength improves, you will earn various rewards that will allow you to grow even stronger.”
A stream of information traveled from the orb and entered my soul, forming a small ball of knowledge much like when I had purchased information on talisman artistry from the System. However, when I tapped into this new ball of knowledge, all I got was a jumbled mess of random emotions.
I used a soul technique to destroy this bundle of knowledge and tried absorbing the memories again, thinking that I might have done something wrong the first time, but the result was the same. Then, after sitting down and thinking for a bit, I realized the problem.
Memory orbs couldn’t store information obtained from other memory orbs. While my memories of past lives weren’t exactly the same as memory orbs, they were more alike than they were different. I couldn’t store my knowledge of the Earth Heart Mantra in a memory orb because that knowledge was all from a past life.
Following that train of thought, what I needed to do was abolish my cultivation base and start over from scratch using whatever technique I wanted to record. After cultivating from Disciple 1 to Peak Disciple with the best foundation I could manage, I would then be able to create a memory orb containing everything a cultivator needed to know about the technique I was using.
This might be what I needed to do, but there was no way I was going to do that while I was living under the Su Clan’s roof. It would leave me far too vulnerable.
Instead, I took out the copy of the Earth Heart Mantra from my mental library and carefully read through it. While I couldn’t actually cultivate it, create qi filters in my body, or open acupoints, I could simulate such things.
As I read, I practiced each step of cultivating the technique. Then, I repeated this process two more times, actively thinking about all the nuances involved, such as filter positioning and vortex angles.
The moment I completed my third read-through of the technique, I pulled out a memory orb and focused on recording my thoughts about the technique.
I felt a gentle tug on my mind as memories were pulled from my head and entered the orb. As soon as that tug ended, I cut the connection.
When I absorbed the memories from this orb, I received knowledge about how to cultivate the Earth Heart Mantra. However, it was... blurry. As Yan had once told me, memories from an orb lacked the sharpness of written words. Even having practiced the technique three times and recording my thoughts immediately afterward, some of the information was still lost in the process.
This orb should work. Liang and Mo should be able to use it to improve their cultivation skills, but that didn’t mean it was ideal. I wanted to try one more time to achieve the sharpness that my System-purchased memories of talisman artistry possessed.
I abolished the memories from my soul and then took out the technique manual once more.
However, this time, I took out a memory orb and connected to it before I started reading the manual. As I studied the technique and went through the motions of practicing it, I sent my thoughts directly into the orb as I had them. After reading through the manual only a single time, I cut my connection to the orb.
When I absorbed the memories this time, I found that they were incredibly sharp and clear. There were a few random distracting thoughts added into the mix, and I would need to work on eliminating them, but that could wait for the future.
Orb in hand, I went and found Liang and Mo.
Mo had no problem using his qi to absorb the memories, and since the Earth Heart Mantra was the technique he had already been using, he was grateful for the extra assistance.
Liang was a different story.
First, he had no qi to absorb the memories with. I had to push my own qi into his energy body like YuanFei had done during the blessing ceremony. Then, I had to manually control it, pull it out through an acupoint on Liang’s hand, and push it into the orb.
This took a bit of trial and error, but I was eventually able to get the orb to transmit the memories to Liang’s soul.
The second problem was that Liang had no desire to cultivate earth qi. He had become fixated on the idea of learning to control lightning and wanted me to make an orb with a lightning technique.
I was able to convince him to start with this earth technique and use it to learn basic cultivation, but I sensed that a seed of resentment had been planted.
To be fair, I could understand where he was coming from. I had dangled the idea of lightning cultivation in front of him, done nothing to teach him, blocked him from increasing his lightning affinity, and then forced him to learn earth cultivation. From his perspective, I could see how he might have started thinking that I was toying with him. I could understand why he would be upset, but that didn’t mean I appreciated it.
Having the first member of my new clan unhappy with me after less than two months was less than ideal, but it was fine. This was all a learning experience after all, both for him and for me.