"Right, but we already accepted that it was going to be difficult," Lilly said as she prepared to teach the recruits the breathing technique once again. "We are all pursuing the elite route, so why should our cultivation techniques be easy to learn?" She looked toward Karl for confirmation before continuing. "As long as the technique is difficult because it is powerful and not because someone deliberately made it complicated for no reason, then this arrangement is perfectly fine, right?"
Karl nodded in agreement. "You are right, and it is a fine technique." There was no reason to complain about the difficulty when the benefits were taken into account, especially once they considered what absorbing nature mana could do to the human body. Increased vitality was only one of the advantages, and the numerous other benefits that came from cultivating with nature mana made the technique far more valuable than an ordinary breathing method.
"The biggest advantage, however, is not even the increase in vitality," Karl continued. "The real benefit is that we are becoming closer to nature than we have ever been before, and that is going to make hiding considerably easier." For the Sonnenbergs, whose entire existence depended on remaining hidden from the wider world, that advantage was arguably more valuable than any improvement to their physical bodies.
"That is great, but now I am curious whether the recruits can actually use the breathing technique," Lilly said. "We modeled it using Arin's body as the foundation, while the recruits are nowhere near as advanced in cultivation as we are." That difference could not simply be ignored, because a technique designed around the body of an unusually talented cultivator might be significantly harder for ordinary practitioners to control.
The recruits were already behind the rest of the family in several areas, although their biggest weakness was their professions. Almost every recruit possessed the necessary profession through the System, but possessing the profession and having practiced it for ten years were two very different things. The System could place an enormous amount of theoretical knowledge into someone's mind, but it could not completely replace the experience gained from actually performing the work.
At the same skill rarity, the difference in theoretical knowledge was often surprisingly small. A recruit could receive almost the same information through a skill that a veteran professional had learned through years of study. The difference was that one person possessed mostly theoretical knowledge, while the other had spent years putting that knowledge into practice and had developed the instincts necessary to perform the work naturally.
That meant the recruits were not necessarily ignorant. Instead, they were behind in progression because their practical experience had not caught up with their knowledge. The same problem appeared whenever someone received a new profession through the System and suddenly possessed information that would normally take years to acquire. Knowing how something should be done was not the same as having performed it thousands of times.
"Are there copies of the breathing technique, Grandpa, or do we have to make them ourselves?" Arin asked, his eyes immediately lighting up with interest. He had clearly been waiting for the opportunity to study the technique properly rather than relying on the explanations everyone had been giving him. For someone as obsessed with improving his cultivation as Arin, being handed a new cultivation method was almost like being given a treasure.
"The System gave me ten books," Karl replied as he reached for one of the copies. "But we should probably make more once we have confirmed that everything works properly." He handed one of the books to Arin before looking at his grandson with a serious expression. "Speaking of which, are you finally planning to break through and become Stage 1?"
"No, not yet," Arin answered immediately. "I am not ready." There was no hesitation in his response because Arin had been monitoring his body closely and knew exactly how much pressure it was currently under. "I can still feel that my body has room to hold more mana, so I want to continue refining it before I make the breakthrough."
Karl frowned at that answer. Arin's body was already under enormous strain from the concentration of mana accumulated inside it, and the pressure was becoming increasingly difficult to ignore. In some places, the mana was practically trying to tear his body apart from the inside, but the nature mana constantly repaired the damage and used the opportunity to refine his physique further.
"I understand why you want to continue," Karl said, his expression remaining stern. "But do it soon." He looked directly at Arin before adding, "Your body cannot continue holding that much mana forever, and eventually the pressure will become more dangerous than beneficial." There was no point in destroying the foundation they had spent so much effort building simply because Arin wanted to squeeze out one more improvement.
"I will, Grandpa," Arin promised. He tucked the breathing technique carefully under his arm and smiled. "Thanks for the book. See you later." Before anyone could say anything else, he turned around and hurried out of the dining room toward his bedroom.
Not long after Arin left, the rest of the breakfast room gradually emptied as well. The family had eaten a hearty breakfast consisting largely of vegetables and wheat grown by farmers who worked for the Sonnenbergs. None of the family members had enough time to maintain the fields themselves, because their responsibilities had become far too extensive for them to spend their days farming.
Because of that, the Sonnenbergs had revived an old practice from their family's history. They established a small farming village outside the forest whose primary responsibility was producing enough food to keep the family supplied. It was a simple arrangement, but it solved one of the most basic problems created by their growing population.
The enormous city near the river was approximately two hundred kilometers away, but that settlement could not serve the same purpose. It was an important trading hub rather than a farming community, and transporting every piece of food from there would be unnecessarily expensive and inefficient. The Sonnenbergs needed their own agricultural settlement much closer to their ancestral forest.
They therefore invited the families of their recruits to settle near the forest and take up farming. Other farmers also came voluntarily because the Sonnenbergs could provide resources that were otherwise extremely difficult to obtain. In exchange for those resources, the farmers produced food for the family and their growing community.
It was an arrangement that benefited everyone involved. The Sonnenbergs received a stable supply of food without diverting their own manpower away from more important responsibilities. The farmers received access to materials and resources that ordinary people could barely dream of obtaining, which made working for the family an extremely attractive proposition.
Once the breakfast room had nearly emptied, Karl turned toward Bennie. "You were with those two elders last. How much longer until they can break through?" he asked. His tone carried genuine interest because the condition of the two oldest members of the family had been a concern for years.
"Not much longer," Bennie replied. "The mana has done wonders for them." He paused before adding that their bodies had required extensive repairs before they could even consider attempting a breakthrough. "They are finally getting back into excellent condition."
The two elders possessed some of the best cultivation environments available within the Sonnenberg family. Their situation was particularly fortunate because, without the arrival of mana, neither of them would probably have survived much longer. Their bodies had accumulated enormous amounts of hidden damage and old injuries throughout their long lives.
Even after mana began revitalizing them, those injuries did not simply disappear. Damage that had remained hidden for decades had to be slowly repaired, and the process took considerably longer than simply restoring a fresh wound. Their cultivation had therefore progressed more slowly than their natural talent and available resources would have suggested.
Some people might have considered the amount of resources the Sonnenbergs had spent keeping the two elders alive to be wasteful. The family had poured enormous quantities of valuable materials into their recovery, and those resources could have been distributed among younger cultivators who would have had much more time to benefit from them.
Karl did not see it that way.
The two elders were among the most important members of the family, and their knowledge represented centuries of accumulated experience. Allowing them to die simply because their bodies had become damaged with age would have been foolish, especially when mana had finally provided them with a chance to recover.
"The good news is that all that time spent repairing their bodies has nearly paid off," Bennie said. "They are almost ready." Their recovery had finally reached the point where attempting a breakthrough was becoming realistic rather than merely hopeful.
"That is good," Karl replied. "Arin has been waiting for them." He gave Bennie a knowing look before continuing. "It would be rather impolite for him to break through and immediately overshadow his elders during an occasion like this."