Knowledge Comes From Practice

Looking at the Thick Earth Lingzhi Grass, which had instantly curled up and whose Spiritual Light had dimmed, Su Miao's little head was filled with huge question marks—and a tiny bit of guilt.

"Radar... scan... isn't it supposed to work like this?"

She scratched her still slightly curly hair, unable to make heads or tails of it.

"Could my signal have been too strong? Did I scare the grass?"

She crouched down and carefully poked one of its curled leaves with a finger, softly apologizing:

"Sorry, little grass, I didn't mean to... I just wanted to see what you looked like inside..."

The Thick Earth Lingzhi Grass trembled slightly, but gave no other response.

Su Miao pursed her lips and decided to temporarily give up on the advanced technique of "Divine Sense scanning."

Apparently, this radar was hard to control and could easily turn into an attack wave.

She turned her attention to the faint yet undeniably real "cultivation power" within her body.

"Cultivation Methods... <Five Years Gaokao, Three Years Mock Exams (Prehistoric World Edition)>..."

She muttered to herself, trying hard to recall the incomparably complex Spiritual Qi circulation routes from her Inherited Memories.

"Seems like I need to first focus my mind on the Dantian... then guide the Spiritual Qi through... through which vessels again? I think they're called... the Conception and Governor Vessels?"

She sat down cross-legged again, her little face solemn as she did her best to "focus her mind on the Dantian."

Though she wasn't quite sure where exactly the Dantian was. Somewhere around her belly, probably?

Then, she tried to guide a thread of faint Spiritual Qi along the vague route in her memories.

The result was easy enough to imagine.

"Ow!"

The Spiritual Qi had barely traveled any distance before it suddenly veered off, like a child who had taken the wrong road, charging wildly through her meridians. It didn't cause any damage, at least.

But it made her belly feel as though it had been lightly twisted, sore and bloated.

"No, no... I don't think it's this route..."

Rubbing her little belly, she looked utterly miserable.

She switched to another route that looked simpler and tried again.

"Pfft..."

This time, the Spiritual Qi suddenly went out of control when it reached her arm. A tiny cluster of faint yet exceptionally brilliant purifying white light shot from her Fingertips, whizzing into a rock some distance away.

Before her eyes, the rock's surface became smooth as a mirror, as though it had been polished countless times by super sandpaper. Every trace of moss, dust, and even the marks left by time upon it had been purified completely clean...

Su Miao: "..."

Rock: "..."

What did I ever do to deserve this?

"This cultivation power... why is it like a skyrocketing firework, running all over the place..."

She looked at the fingertip that seemed to have special effects added to it and was still giving off faint white smoke, on the verge of tears.

A bad start to her apprenticeship!

Su Miao pursed her lips and decided to practice something else.

"Mm... Divine Sense won't work, so I'll try controlling Spiritual Qi!"

She recalled the descriptions of "drawing in qi" and "controlling objects" from her Inherited Memories.

She aimed at a small pebble on the ground, held her breath, and concentrated again. She did her best to mobilize the vast Mystic Immortal cultivation power within her, imagining that she had a pair of invisible hands reaching out to seize that pebble.

The result—BOOM!

A powerful blast of air erupted from her palm. Not only did it instantly blow the target pebble out of sight, it also blasted a small crater into the ground before her, splattering her all over with mud.

Su Miao: "!!!"

How was this "drawing in qi and controlling objects"? This was clearly a "humanoid high-pressure air gun"!

She wiped the mud from her little face, unwilling to accept defeat, and tried several more times. Either the force was too great and blew things away, or it was too weak to produce any reaction. On the rare occasion that the force was just right, the direction was absurdly crooked, tearing off more than half the branches and leaves of a Spiritual shrub beside her that bore red fruit.

Looking at the wreckage around her, Su Miao finally felt a little discouraged and plopped down on the ground.

"Why is this so hard..." She pouted, feeling stupid beyond belief. The Inherited Memories had made it sound so simple—"intent follows the heart, qi follows intent." It sounded as natural as breathing, so why was actually doing it this absurd?

She even began to wonder whether the Inherited Memories bestowed upon her by the Heavenly Dao were pirated. Or had she really damaged her brain through cultivation and become a "brain-dead" cultivator?

After moping for a while, her unyielding spirit surged back up.

"No! I can't keep going like this! If Master comes later and sees that I can't even lift a stone, he'll definitely think I'm an idiot and won't want me anymore! Then won't my 'room and board included' plan go down the drain?"

The thought that her "perfect client" might return her because she was too useless instantly filled Su Miao with motivation!

She pulled herself together. This time, she was no longer so impatient or took things for granted. First, she closed her eyes and carefully sorted through the vast and jumbled Inherited Memories in her mind once more. Rather than pursuing speed, she tried to truly understand what those basic concepts meant.

[Divine Sense]: It is not a radar, but an extension of one's own intent, the feelers of perception. It must be controlled with precise thought, as readily as an arm or finger—not through crude scanning...
[Spiritual Power]: It is not brute force, but a current of energy. It must be guided by Spiritual Sense, traveling through the meridians, gentle and soft; intent matters more than form...
[Control]: It begins with the smallest details. First sense its form, then guide its qi. Proceed gradually, rather than seeking to achieve it in a single stroke...

The Chaos Bead floated silently within her Sea of Consciousness, continuously emanating its cool, tranquil Dao aura. It helped calm her restless heart, allowing her to grasp and understand the true meaning behind that profound knowledge more clearly.

Gradually, she seemed to have found the threshold.

She set her sights once more on another, slightly smaller pebble on the ground.

This time, she did not rush to exert force. Instead, she first painstakingly and cautiously separated out an infinitesimal thread of Spiritual Sense, like extending an invisible finger, and "touched" the pebble with the utmost gentleness, sensing its shape, texture, and weight.

Only then did she attempt to mobilize thread after thread of magical power, following the "path" traced by that Spiritual Sense, slowly wrapping around the pebble like a trickling stream.

Her thoughts focused:

"Rise..."

This time, there was no gale and no explosion.

The little pebble merely trembled slightly, then slowly, shakily—

...rose about an inch off the ground!

Though it only lasted less than three seconds before falling back down with a "plop," Su Miao's eyes instantly lit up!

"Success! I did it!"

She was so delighted she nearly jumped up, her little face overflowing with an immense sense of accomplishment!

It was only an inch off the ground, but this was a tremendous breakthrough from zero to one!

It proved her train of thought had been right!

With the experience of that success, Su Miao's confidence swelled.

She began practicing with tireless enthusiasm.

She used her Spiritual Sense to gently touch the dew on flower petals, feeling their round, crystal-clear forms;

She guided faint currents of Spiritual Qi, sending a fallen leaf spinning through the air;

The process was still full of stumbles.

Sometimes, she used too much Spiritual Sense and shattered the dew;

Sometimes, the flow of Spiritual Qi abruptly broke off, and the leaf slapped her right in the face;

But she could feel that her control over these powers was improving at a rate visible to the naked eye!

That mysterious, ineffable feeling of her will moving as her heart wished also became increasingly clear.

Carried away by the fun, she even began trying more advanced applications.

For instance, she tried condensing moisture in the air, wanting to make herself a little water ball to play with.

But her magical power was improperly controlled. The water ball she condensed grew big and small by turns before bursting with a pop, drenching her to the bone again.

She then tried gathering the Wood Spirits' Qi around her, hoping to make the spirit shrub beside her—the one she had plucked bald—grow new leaves faster.

But she gathered too much Spiritual Qi. The shrub went wild as if it had been pumped full of hormones, crazily shooting up stems and leaves. In an instant, it became lush with branches and foliage, even blooming several enormous Red Flowers she had never seen before, burying her whole body beneath its branches and leaves...

Su Miao: "..."

Had she... used too much force?

She struggled out of the tangle of branches and leaves, red flowers and green leaves crowning her head. Looking at the shrub that had become exceptionally luxuriant, she did not know whether to laugh or cry.

Though the process was full of absurd mishaps and the results often took unexpected turns, through these repeated failures and attempts, she truly was becoming familiar with her own power at a lightning-fast pace—at least by Prehistoric World standards.

She also gained a more genuine and profound understanding of the common knowledge of the Prehistoric World, no longer limited to superficial explanations of names and terms.

As the sun set, it stretched her shadow long behind her.

At last, Su Miao felt a trace of mental exhaustion. It was not bodily fatigue, but the weariness that came after maintaining intense concentration.

Looking at the small patch of grass she had transformed beyond recognition, then at her damp little bellyband covered in traces of flowers and grass, she did not feel discouraged in the least. Instead, she planted her little hands on her hips and laughed twice.

"I'm pretty amazing too!"

Having mastered a new skill, she could not help wanting to show it off and put it to use.

Her gaze involuntarily turned toward the two new Treasures quietly floating in her Sea of Consciousness.

—The Twenty-Four Sea Calming Beads and the Profound Origin Water Control Banner.