Lili seemed not to have expected the conversation to turn to him.
Faced with the question, he let out a cold sneer deep in his heart.
He said calmly, "I didn't begin my studies until I was sixteen..."
There was no need to say the rest.
Unfortunately, Shen Tang was an oddity and didn't understand what was wrong with that age. In her view, starting one's studies at sixteen was quite late, but with Lili's natural gifts, surely he could still cross the threshold to Martial Spirit? At most, he wouldn't achieve as much as someone who had laid a foundation from childhood.
"Sixteen? Six years too late. What a pity..." Qi Shan saw from her expression that she didn't understand, and explained, "The prerequisites for forming a Literary Heart or Martial Spirit are sensing Heaven and Earth Qi, attracting Qi into the body, and opening the Dantian. The younger you are, the easier it is to sense that 'Qi.' As you get older, it becomes harder. People generally believe that once you're past ten, you can no longer sense it..."
Shen Tang thought there was a serious flaw in that argument.
She said, "That can't be right. When the Calamity Star descended, most of the first people to form Literary Hearts and Martial Spirits were between twenty and fifty. How did they manage it? It makes no sense that people back then could do it, but people now can't."
Qi Shan's gaze grew complicated. "It has to do with the National Seal."
Shen Tang was baffled. "The National Seal again?"
"Mm."
Shen Tang pressed him. "What's the explanation this time?"
She didn't know what Qi Shan had been eating lately, but he answered almost everything she asked and rarely kept her guessing.
"That isn't a widely accepted explanation. I