Looking on, Lucas also wanted to run up and hug his big sister, but seeing her being completely smothered by her crying parents, the young boy decided that he could wait a bit.
Turning his attention to his new Master, Lucas saw a bright smile on Celestina's face, one filled with both appreciation and curiosity, as if she had just discovered a rare treasure and was eager to unravel its secrets.
In truth, Lucas was also quite stunned by what had just transpired.
Although he had long ago confirmed that the Unarmed Foundations Art was capable of increasing the efficiency of various Cultivation Techniques, he had no idea that it could still work without even going through the requisite movements!
What's more, the speed at which Eris had circulated the Flowing Flame Art, and the rate at which she drew in World Qi, was completely incomparable to anything his big sister had achieved previously.
After months of observation, Lucas had basically determined that using the new combined cultivation method, his big sister could improve her efficiency by about 40%. However, just now, the young boy estimated that Eris had reached an astonishing 15-fold increase in World Qi absorption and refinement at her peak!
Thinking back on all the data he had collected from past experiments and comparing it to today, Lucas began forming a theory, Perhaps the critical component is how much pressure one is under when cultivating!
As for why this was the case, Lucas was completely in the dark, having not the slightest idea why his new method of cultivation was so much more efficient than it should be.
It couldn't be just pressure, as something that simple would have certainly been discovered long ago.
Billions of people over thousands of years on the Blue Sky Continent had been looking for better and more efficient ways of cultivating, so if simply putting stress on the body was enough to improve their rate of World Qi absorption, many people would have discovered and benefitted from this method already.
Lucas figured that the Unarmed Foundation Art still played some critical role in all of this, but exactly how and why that was, he would have to investigate in the future.
Fortunately, it seemed he now had an extremely capable and eager partner when it came to this endeavour as Lucas could practically feel his Master's anticipation.
Shifting his gaze away from the various expressions of the people he cared about, Lucas couldn't help glancing down at the shattered crystal fragments on the ground.
Moment's ago, just as the World Qi in the air seemed to be growing too thin to support Eris' breakthrough, Celestina had unhesitantly opened the pouch tied on her belt and grabbed a fist-full of Spirit Crystals before rapidly channeling her Spirit Qi into them and crushing them all.
Judging by the remains, Lucas estimated that in that instant, his Master had smashed some 50 Low-Grade Spirit Crystals!
Had it not been for all the astonishing events of the day, someone deliberately destroying nearly 50 Low-Grade Spirit Crystals would surely have drawn at least some gasps of shock.
Even now, the ambient World Qi in the infirmary remained far denser than normal, bringing a slight blush to the cheeks of everyone inside and even promoting the healing of some of the injured.
During the days when he was trying to pair Forms of the Unarmed Foundation Art with the Flowing Flame Art, Lucas received a few lessons from Sasha about cultivation, during which she had also explained the various properties and uses of Spirit Crystals.
For those in the Four Mortal Realms, Spirit Crystals only had two real functions, as currency and as power sources for Spirit Tools.
Spirit Crystals could also be used to boost one's cultivation, but not only was this terribly expensive, it was also, apparently, very inefficient.
Once one reached the Spirit Initiate Realm, however, extracting the condensed World Qi stored in Spirit Crystals to cultivate became much more useful. In fact, a Low-Grade Spirit Crystal was defined as a Spirit Crystal that contained enough World Qi for an average, newly promoted Low-Rank Spirit Initiate to cultivate with for a full hour.
As for why Spirit Initiates could cultivate using Spirit Crystals, while Mortals couldn't, Sasha didn't know why, and when Lucas asked Farah, she only told him that it had something to do with better control of ambient World Qi, the exact mechanism unknown even to her.
Lucas found it strange that such a basic function of cultivation was so poorly understood, but after thinking about it for a while, he found it to be quite reasonable.
It was like how the people of this world knew how to eat, and why eating was important, but they didn't understand how essential nutrients were extracted from food and then processed by the body into energy and new cells.
In any case, the point was that Spirit Crystals were valuable for many reasons.
Once a Spirit Crystal was drained of some or all of its World Qi, as long as it was left alone for long enough, it would slowly replenish itself. In a place like Redwood Town, with a low density of World Qi in the air, this process would take about 5 years for a completely empty Low-Grade Spirit Crystal, but in places like the Royal Capital, it took less than half that time.
This process could apparently be sped up by placing Spirit Crystals in richer World Qi environments, but creating such an environment typically involved using Spirit Crystals, resulting in diminishing returns. As such, leaving depleted Spirit Crystals in large vaults was the typical way of recharging them.
Lucas was full of curiosity and basically asked any question that came to his mind, and one such question had been what happened when a Spirit Crystal was destroyed. The young boy still remembered the strange look his Aunt Sasha had given him when he asked that, as if wondering just what went on inside of his head.
In the end, though, Sasha still answered him.
The explanation was quite long and detail filled, but the gist of it was that if one simply broke a Spirit Crystal in half, a small amount of World Qi would leak out, but if one smashed it to dust, all the remaining World Qi inside would burst forth and rapidly dissipate into the surrounding environment.
During that particular lesson, Sasha had brought out a Spirit Crystal for Lucas to fiddle with, so when the boy heard that shattering it would essentially cause it to be lost forever, he couldn't help carefully setting it down and not daring to touch it again.
Seeing this, Sasha actually laughed at him and swiftly informed him that there was no need to be so cautious.
To prove her point, she even brought out a hammer from somewhere and smashed it down on the thumbnail sized crystal. The result was the table below being slightly dented, while not a scratch appeared on the Spirit Crystal.
Returning to the current moment, Lucas couldn't help feeling a little awe at the strength, wealth, and decisiveness of his Master.
50 Low-Grade Spirit Crystals was equivalent to about 60 years worth of wages for an ordinary labourer in Redwood Town. Another way of putting it was that 50 Spirit Crystals was roughly what Lucas made in profit each month from selling soap, a business that made the young boy one of the richest people in Redwood Town!
Yet, to help Eris make a simple breakthrough to the Seventh Step Body Tempering Realm, Celestina had decisively shattered them. That was a normal person's lifetime earnings essentially being thrown into the ocean, never to be seen again!
Just thinking back to when his Master said he would need to grow stronger, wealthier, and more influential than her in order to restore his big sister's arm, Lucas gulped hard realizing the true enormity of the challenge he was facing.
Although many thoughts had crossed Lucas' mind, not much time had actually passed since Eris completed her breakthrough. Still, it was enough for Sasha and Charles to regain their composure as they hurriedly sat their daughter back down on her cot while also calling for a doctor to re-bandage her arm.
An old man in white robes soon strode over, his eyes moving back and forth between Eris and Celestina, a slight furrow on his brow.
Naturally, Walter Thompson hadn't missed what just transpired between the Balfour Matriarch and her great granddaughter.
As a healer, he couldn't approve of such behaviour.
Of course, there was no way he would openly criticize Celestina in public, but that didn't mean he could not show some disapproval of her conduct.
For Celestina's part, she also felt like she had acted a bit recklessly just now and averted her eyes slightly, but she made no attempt to apologize as even though she didn't like putting on airs, she had to maintain at least some semblance of authority in public.
Although Old Thompson looked like a kindly grandpa, while Celestina looked like a young woman, the truth was she was 3 times his age, making her not just his Lord, but also his Elder by several generations.
Shaking his head with a sigh, Old Thompson swiftly treated Eris' freshly opened wounds before promptly moving on to the other patients in the room, clearly not wanting to get caught up in whatever nonsense came next.
With her arm bandaged once more and her parents calmed down, Eris finally asked the question which had been bothering her all along, "Mom, Dad, who is this strange lady? Is she… my Aunty?"