A Warning

Zhou You found the school life that followed fulfilling.

Liu Suxin's theory classes were not held very often, and they did not even make up a large portion of the curriculum. Only two or three class periods a week were devoted specifically to meditation.

These classes were mainly for answering students' questions. Meditation was similar to the seated cultivation of Qi practiced by Otherworldly Beings: a person had to maintain a calm, tranquil state of mind throughout the process. That was somewhat difficult for active children in their early teens.

Yan in particular could never sit still. He would rather spend his time fighting a few more matches against others in the Arena than settle down and cultivate through meditation. The latter was torture to him.

Fortunately, his talent was exceptional. Even though he put little effort into meditation and cultivation, he still accumulated Soul Power much faster than others. Compared with Xie Yue, however, he fell short.

The two were actually not far apart in talent in this respect, and they were close in age, but Xie Yue was better able to calm his mind than Yan, so his Soul Power grew a little faster.

Besides answering questions, Liu Suxin also taught academic subjects. That was only natural. Even after becoming a Soul Master, one still had to learn to read and write; it was not a skill people were born with.

Normally, children on the Douluo Continent did not begin learning to read and write until after their Martial Soul Awakening ceremony. Some families, however, had high hopes for their children and began teaching them before the age of six to make studying easier once they entered Spirit Hall Academy.

Never mind whether they could get in; it never hurt to prepare in advance.

That was the case for Zhou You.

He had shown intelligence far beyond that of his peers from an early age, so his parents had always been convinced that he would achieve extraordinary things in the future. They had therefore taken particular care with his education.

Although theirs was only an artisan family, they had a modest amount of money, and hiring a tutor to teach him to read was no problem.

As a result, he had already mastered reading and writing at the age of five and could read books without difficulty.

The writing on the Douluo Continent was not Chinese, but it was also an ideographic script. Its characters looked more like cuneiform, and it also had some phonetic symbols.

Of course, he had mastered this world's writing so quickly because he had been mentally prepared, had a good enough brain, and had found the right way to learn. Other children, however, did not necessarily have the same awareness.

In the eyes of most children, studying was an extremely painful business.

"Boss, how do you read this character?" Yan came over with a scroll, scratching his head and ears as he pointed at an obscure character on it.

"That character is read 'xuan.' It means Sun Qi," Zhou You answered casually after a glance.

"Sun Qi?" Yan scratched his head. "What's that?"

Zhou You put down the quill in his hand and sighed. "Give it to me."

Yan hurriedly handed him the scroll, then looked at him with an eager expression.

Now, when he called Zhou You "boss," he was finally no longer doing it because he had no choice, but out of genuine respect.

A person who could beat you in a fight, was smarter than you, and, most importantly, could give you guidance when you ran into something you did not understand in your cultivation—never mind calling him boss, he would even call him Dad!

Zhou You took the scroll and read it carefully. It was a Meditation Method suited to cultivation by Soul Masters with fire-attribute Martial Souls.

Although Soul Masters cultivated by absorbing Heaven and Earth Vital Energy, "Heaven and Earth Vital Energy" did not refer to any one specific kind of energy. It was a concept similar to "air," a mixture of natural energies with many different attributes.

The four most common were "fire," "water," "earth," and "wind." Their concentrations in the atmosphere varied with the environment.

For example, by the sea or in regions with abundant water and rain, water-attribute natural energy was more concentrated, so there would be more water elements in the Heaven and Earth Vital Energy. Such places were therefore better suited to cultivation by water-attribute Soul Masters.

Likewise, at a volcanic crater or in a high-temperature region where the annual average temperature was much higher than elsewhere, the Heaven and Earth Vital Energy would tend more toward the properties of "fire," making it suitable for fire-attribute Soul Masters.

If a Soul Master could find an environment compatible with their own attributes, their cultivation would often yield twice the results with half the effort.

The problem, however, was that most Soul Masters found it difficult to do so.

Many suitable environments were far from human habitation, and places rich in Heaven and Earth Vital Energy were usually also places where Soul Beasts gathered.

If a Soul Master cultivated alone in such an environment, setting aside how he would manage the needs of daily life, he might be more likely to end up in a Soul Beast's belly than to succeed.

Meditation Methods were created to solve this problem.

They were created to help Soul Masters precisely extract the attribute energies they needed from Heaven and Earth Vital Energy, reducing their dependence on the environment.

Meditation Methods also varied in quality, which determined how efficiently they refined vital energy.

Advanced Meditation Methods generally placed certain demands on the precision with which a Soul Master controlled Mental Power, as well as on the Soul Master's own comprehension. They were not something one could master at a glance.

Yan's Martial Soul had the dual attributes of "fire" and "earth." "Earth" was easy enough to deal with: as long as his feet were on the ground, he would never lack it. "Fire," however, was more troublesome, since it was not particularly abundant in ordinary environments.

The Meditation Method on the scroll offered a fairly good solution: obtain it from the sun's energy, or, to be precise, absorb Sun Qi from sunlight.

However, the sun's energy was immensely explosive, and sunlight varied in intensity at different times of day. It was fiercest at noon, most active in the morning, and mildest at dusk.

Given Yan's current physical condition, the best Sun Qi for him to absorb was that of the first two hours after sunrise and the two hours before sunset. Absorbing it at other times could easily harm his body.

However, sunlight baked the earth, causing the ground to accumulate heat. At other times of day, Yan could simply absorb Earth Qi to obtain both "fire" and "earth" attribute vital energy at once, so it would not hold up his cultivation.

Zhou You explained his understanding of the Meditation Method to Yan point by point, but soon found something strange.

"That's not right. At the speed this Meditation Method refines Soul Power, yours should have broken through to rank twenty long ago, shouldn't it? How come you're still stuck at rank nineteen?"

When Yan heard this, his expression turned somewhat sheepish, like a primary school student caught by his teacher without having done his homework.

"Uh, well, haha, boss, you know, I'm really busy too, and, uh, it's just, haha..." He laughed awkwardly for a long time without managing to explain himself.

Zhou You merely gave him a sidelong glance and tossed the scroll back to him.

These days, he and Yan ate and slept together almost all the time. Although he had not deliberately paid attention, he was not blind, and naturally noticed some of what Yan got up to.

The boy ran over to Hu Liena and Xie Yue every day. What was on his mind was as plain as lice on a monk's bald head.

Real people were not the stock characters in books, and Soul Masters did not spend all day cultivating.

Besides cultivating, they had lives of their own. They had to eat, sleep, and use the toilet. They also had social and emotional needs, as well as all sorts of desires.

Cultivation was not the entirety of these young Soul Masters' pursuits in life. Even if this place was as dull as a monastery, with little fun to be had apart from studying and cultivating, they would find ways to amuse themselves.

Zhou You had not wanted to bother, but Yan had been fairly diligent since accepting him as boss, and he was not the kind of fool who squandered his talent recklessly. So Zhou You was willing to give him a hand.

So he said mildly, "Yan, have you ever thought about how, if you keep dawdling like this, Hu Liena's Soul Power Level might surpass yours in a few months?"

"Your cultivation is a little higher than hers right now, yet she still runs you around in circles with her ability. Once her cultivation overtakes yours, you can expect it to become even harder for you to resist her 'Charm.'"

"Knowing her as you do, tell me, will she still be willing to spare you a second glance then?"