Arriving at the plaza, Ye Mo placed himself beside the large fountain. While waiting, he glanced at the water and noticed various small fish of multiple colors swam inside. However, his knowledge was lacking and he could not recognize what kind of fish they were.
As he observed, a hand suddenly tapped on Ye Mo's shoulder.
"Still daydreaming in clear daylight?" Wang Fei stood there appealing Ye Mo to follow him.
"I couldn't sense him at all when he was this close? He's dangerous, I should avoid him as much as I can after we're done with this." Ye Mo didn't react and followed Wang Fei but internally he was on guard.
Usually, even if he didn't directly gaze at the person, he could feel when someone was close. His senses were well developed and he was very sensitive to his environment. Once something approached, he would hear its movements, smell an unnatural odor or sense the wind shift, making sure to never get caught off guard.
But this time, he didn't catch anything, as if this instructor was a ghost. It made Ye Mo uneasy and apprehensive of his presence.
They walked some time until they reached a small temple. Wang Fei went inside followed by Ye Mo. The pair walked one after the other on the wooden floor as only the creaking sound of their footsteps could be heard in the silent structure.
Ye Mo looked around as he followed, analyzing his surroundings.
A faint, wavering light fills the interior, cast by rows of candles set in simple metal holders. Their flames tremble in the still air, painting the wooden walls in soft, shifting gold. The scent of aged wood and faint incense lingers, dry and calming. Smooth wooden beams rise overhead, darkened by time, their surfaces worn to a muted sheen.
The candlelight never quite reaches the ceiling, leaving the upper space in a dim haze.
Wang Fei slid open a door and entered a room with Ye Mo. It had no window or any connection to the exterior, only the flames of candles on the walls lighted the room.
"Take this. It's a basic breathing technique we use to measure the talent of disciples that weren't tested yet." Wang Fei raised a plank from the floor and retrieved a small, slim white book.
From the look of it, this manual didn't seem to hold a profound or comprehensive technique.
"Before we start you have to understand something fundamental. Qi is the natural energy of heaven and earth. It's everywhere, all around us, it follows the laws of the universe, and from it is born all life. Cultivation is the act of shedding your birth afflictions and elevating yourself into a greater being capable of unnatural prowess, from lifespan to sheer power."
However, cultivation goes against heaven's will as you distance yourself from a creation of the heavens towards a more unique existence unaffected by the natural course of things. As such, the further you go, the more difficult it becomes to advance. We cultivators have to face all kinds of hurdles to reach new heights."
After this introduction, Wang Fei went to the matter at hand without wasting a second. "Now if you're ready, sit down and use the breathing technique I handed to you to draw the qi in the surroundings inside your body."
Ye Mo listened to every word with rapt attention, then sat with his legs crossed in front of Wang Fei and opened the book.
In less than a minute he was done reading. Like Wang Fei told him, it was the most basic of techniques. You just had to breathe in a certain rhythm and gather the qi in your meridians.
At the same time, Ye Mo felt something on his back. He turned and found Wang Fei seated behind him, his hands pressed against his back.
"I will assist you and watch the process at the same time, you can start."
Ye Mo nodded, then turned around. He began breathing according to the manual's instructions, sometimes fast and other times slow, at times he would take a deep breath, then followed by multiple light breaths.
Soon you could see light blue, turbid air escaping from his mouth with each exhalation.
Qi was slowly entering his body and flowing in his meridians.
"Good, now lead the qi through all your meridians, making one full circulation as it goes through your whole body."
Ye Mo listened and executed himself, trying to control the flow of qi. However, he quickly realized he could only slightly affect its direction as it made one round circulation from high up in his body to down and up again.
Once the flow of qi made one full circulation, returning to its starting point, it disappeared. At the same time, three inches under Ye Mo's navel, a wisp of qi appeared in his dantian. It was light grey in color and looked like smoke, completely different from the qi of heaven and earth. The wisp of Qi looked faint, almost transparent.
"I stopped using the breathing technique to focus on the circulation of the qi I gathered in my body, but if I had multitasked, breathing and leading the qi through my meridians at the same time, I would have been able to gather enough qi to replace the amount that disappeared during the circulation, enabling me to keep cultivating until exhaustion." Ye Mo had many insights during his first round at qi cultivation, but soon he started to pay attention to the wisp of qi in his dantian.
He realized it was much easier to move around compared to the flow of qi from the surroundings.
"Only rank 2?!" Ye Mo suddenly heard Wang Fei mumble behind him, which prompted him to turn around once again and look at him. His instructor's face expressed genuine surprise before it turned into unconcealed disappointment, he even noticed a flash of disdain in his eyes.
Ye Mo didn't mention it as he asked directly, "What do you mean by rank 2?"
"Of course, this is the rank of your talent in cultivation." Wang Fei stated like it was evident, but for Ye Mo who lived his life as an ordinary mortal, it was not something he could have understood.
"Humans are separated into five levels of talent, from one being the lowest to five. You must have understood by now, the wisp of qi you have in your dantian is much easier to control than the one you absorbed through the exterior. This is because it's different from the qi of heaven and earth. This wisp is your own, a creation of your body, it follows your will and its manipulation only depends on your talent and mental fortitude."
"You see, a rank 3 talent would have been able to create a wisp of Qi in half the time you needed, a rank 4 in a quarter of the time, and a rank 5 even less. The speed at which you produce these wisps of qi is primordial. Only when your dantian is full of them to the point where you can't make one anymore can you attempt the condensation of your qi and breakthrough the next layer." Wang Fei talked with confidence and composure.
It was rudimentary education to him, he felt like explaining to a toddler that one plus one makes two.
"But didn't you say that what I used is only a basic breathing technique? Wouldn't people be able to fake their talent by testing themselves with a real cultivation technique?" Ye Mo asked as a rough understanding of cultivation took shape in his mind.
"Hahah, the first thing you think about is to cheat?" Wang Fei chuckled. "To answer your question, no. Everyone, even outside the institute uses the same kind of techniques with a similar efficacity to test themselves. Obviously there have been some foolish people in the past who lied about their talent by using the speed of a real cultivation art for the test, but once their peers would start their cultivation journey, these imbeciles would lag behind and their real level would be exposed. By then they would mostly leave the city out of shame or get ridiculed for life without talking of the punishment if they were part of a clan or an institute."
"In addition, there isn't only one method to check your talent. In sects and powerful organizations, they have formations and pentagrams that immediately reveal your potential once you stand upon them, but they're out of reach for us. In those places, you can't even attempt to fake it, and who would refuse to be part of them given the opportunity?"
"Well, I would like to answer more of your questions, but I have a report to make. You generated a wisp of qi so right now you are a first layer Qi Gathering Realm cultivator." After his clarification, Wang Fei acted like he was suddenly busy and had better things to do. Although they were here only for a short time, he made it look like he wasted too much of his time on Ye Mo.
"Since you became a member of our institute you will have the occasion to learn much more about it, but before everything, you should start by using the tokens you received as rewards and increase your strength." Wang Fei advised Ye Mo before he left the room, leaving him contemplating the grey wisp of Qi floating in his dantian.
This was hope towards infinite power!
Quickly, Ye Mo stood up and left the temple. The red tint of the sky indicated the arrival of the night.
Ye Mo woke up in the afternoon, and after following Wang Fei and discovering his talent, the sun was already setting. He returned to his stone house and cultivated with the same breathing technique he used previously.
He managed to produce two more wisps of Qi before falling asleep.
"At this pace, I would need thousands of them before I could fill my dantian." Ye Mo calculated as he drifted to sleep.
The next day, early in the morning, Ye Mo didn't go retrieve a cultivation technique nor did he go pick a battle skill like other members on their first day or as Wang Fei suggested. Instead, he rushed to a very large square building.
Above was a huge golden dome that served as a roof, overall the edifice was very imposing and people would feel like an ant standing beside it.
It was the library of the Tiger Martial Institute.
"What I lack the most currently is knowledge. Going to choose a martial art in this state... I could end up making the wrong choices, wasting a lot of time and slowing down my cultivation." Ye Mo knew perfectly what he had to do as he planned every step of his stay in the institute before being a part of it.
With resolution, Ye Mo walked inside the structure.