First Day of Training

The rest of the night, Hong Zhao continued cultivating. Trying various tests, he reached with the flame with his qi to see what would happen. For the most part, it all was uneventful. It seemed that the elemental qi was next to useless without prior instruction. With an hour of having no success, he decided to leave the experimentation for the next day when he was meant to meet with Lang Xinyue for his first day of training with spiritual smithing. Instead, he focused all his remaining time on increasing the amount of energy his qi spiral could hold.

Since he needed to sacrifice ninety percent of his qi every day, he had vowed to use as much time as allowed to train his body to its fullness of qi during the night. If he got at least two hours of sleep, he would be able to use the rest of the time to cultivate. After he was finished, he felt the wall of his dantian growing ever closer to his qi spiral. When he dropped into unconsciousness, he did so with a smile on his face. Even if the qi spiral only grew a fraction of an inch, it was that fraction closer to his next breakthrough.

As the sun began to rise, he opened his eyes and welcomed the day. Stretching, he looked over to where Ren Cai slept and noticed that she was cultivating. Instead of bothering her, he got dressed and went downstairs to get his morning meal.

It seemed Lang Xinyue always had breakfast laid out buffet style. Hong Zhao breathed in the warm fragrant air as he went to the tables and grabbed a mound of eggs and sausage. Even though his appetite had changed when he reached the disciple rank and he was able to go a few days without eating before getting hungry, he still had breakfast to maintain the appropriate ninth star student rank appearance.

He sat down and ate his meal quickly. With the sun almost fully up, the time he had promised to be at Lang Xinyue's home was quickly approaching. If he wanted to get done with his studies with enough time to do some physical training, he needed to get an early start.

Shoveling down the remainder of his eggs, he left his plate and went out into the village. As he had surmised when first entering the village, Naje really wasn't very large. At most what he saw was the village inn which he had just left, a weapons shop, a herbs shop and a food market.

He had noticed the weapons shop when he had gone to Lang Xinyue's home. It was owned by the innkeeper, but Lang Yi was the one who ran it. He hadn't noticed the herbs shop before. As he looked at the shop, he realized he didn't know much about the plants within this world yet. He had worked with many of the curative and poisonous plants back on earth. He had to identify the odors of harmful substances in order to avoid being poisoned. He made a mental note to visit the shop when he had some time to himself. Until then, he set his gaze on the weapons shop.

When he arrived, he knocked three times on the door and didn't have to wait long before the old man opened it and looked down at him with a grin. "I'm glad to see you didn't sleep in on your first day."

Hong Zhao raised an eyebrow sarcastically. With the mental fortitude he had gained over the years, he probably required less sleep than an average cultivator of his rank, yet he didn't let the old man know that. Instead, he smiled. "It wouldn't be respectful to my new master to show up late, would it?"

Lang Xinyue chuckled as he shut the door behind Hong Zhao. "If only everyone had the same thoughts so early in the morning."

Hong Zhao was led into the room he had seen the old man come out of when he had retrieved the sapphire hammer. When they entered, he realized that it was the smithy for the weapons shop. "I didn't know that you were a blacksmith as well." He whistled as he took in the shop.

"Well, I'm not at the same level that Lang Feng was, but I do alright." He chuckled as he went to the back. "This will be our training room." He waved Hong Zhao into an open space in the back. For a smithy, the old man was missing key items that he would have seen in his world. He saw a hammer, as well as an anvil. He didn't see a furnace, nor tongs to take a blade from said furnace to bring to the nonexistent cooling station. He looked around feeling somewhat underwhelmed. He raised an eyebrow as the old man sat cross legged in front of him. "Not what you were expecting?"

"I always thought there would be more to it." He said simply. He wouldn't bring up items that he had known were needed on earth, or he might end up confusing the man, or get laughed at for being foolish.

"The art of blacksmithing is more the use of elemental qi than mortal tools."

"Then I will be patient for your explanation." Hong Zhao bowed as he sat cross legged opposite Lang Xinyue.

The man smiled at first as he stared into Hong Zhao's eyes for an uncomfortable amount of time. Hong Zhao shifted as he looked at Lang Xinyue, yet after some time, the smile faded and the man frowned at him slightly. "I can't see your full potential."

Hong Zhao realized a moment too late that Lang Xinyue wasn't truly looking at him, as much as he was trying to look through him. "You are only the eighth star student rank, right?"

"Well yes, but I've seen other nine star student ranked cultivators and seen through their cultivation." Lang Xinyue furrowed his brow as he tried harder. "I have to see within your dantian in order to direct you to the crack within that holds your elemental qi. If you don't know where it is, this training will be useless."

"About that, is it just an indentation in the wall? I believe I found it last night while cultivating. When I slammed my qi against the wall, a small spark seemed to leap from the wall to the dantian floor."

"It seems quite lucky that you found it on your own." Lang Xinyue's eyes narrowed as he stared into his new apprentice's eyes. "You are no normal child, you know that?"

Hong Zhao chuckled at that. "So I have been told. So, where do we begin?"