Spirit Stones

"Wei Kuang, your conduct is noble and upright. I truly admire you. I was disrespectful in the past; I hope you will not take offense."

Wei Kuang had been exceptionally forthright today, and Wei Xu found him much more pleasing to the eye. Coupled with Wei Kuang's earlier decision not to use the Heart Strengthening Pill, Wei Xu's opinion of him had completely changed, and he felt inclined to befriend him.

Wei Kuang said, "Brother Wei, you flatter me. I merely dared not take what was not mine to take."

"What are you two spouting such flowery, sour nonsense for? We should hurry up and invite our Senior Apprentice to deliver his instructions."

Wang Xiaohu and Feng Yuan egged them on from the side.

Ever since Wei Kuang had yielded to Zhou Qing, the tensions between the Native Faction and the Outsider Faction among this cohort of disciples had vanished.

Both of them were sharp-witted and fond of mischief. They had already been secretly associating with each other often; now they had become even more familiar, to the point that they were nearly inseparable every day.

Hearing this, the other disciples also joined in the clamor, urging Zhou Qing to give them his instructions as their Senior Apprentice.

The Senior Apprentice system was universal throughout the Cultivation World.

Every sect's Senior Apprentice was the leader of that cohort's disciples and possessed tremendous authority.

Moreover, Zhou Qing shared a half-master's bond with his junior brothers and sisters. Compared with other Senior Apprentices, his authority was even more exalted, to the point that his word was virtually law.

Zhou Qing did not decline. He stepped before the disciples and said with a smile, "I have no instructions, only three things to tell you."

All his junior brothers and sisters fell silent, listening attentively to what he had to say.

Zhou Qing said, "Those three things are cultivation, cultivation, and fucking cultivation!"

The disciples could not help bursting into laughter at the amusing way he put it.

Only after the laughter gradually died down did Zhou Qing continue. "Heaven and earth are like a sea of suffering; all living beings are like floating duckweed, adrift and unsettled, unable to command their own fate. It is a rare affinity for us to have gathered together."

"We are all Cultivators. If fortune favors us, we may share bonds for a hundred years, perhaps even a thousand. Every person here, and indeed everyone in the Azure Cloud Sect, will one day be a support for one another as we gain a foothold in the Cultivation World."

"So I hope that all of you will temper yourselves and press onward. Do not let anyone fall behind."

They were all youths in their teens, and after living together day and night for three months, they had already formed many ties. Now, hearing Zhou Qing suddenly stretch the scale of time to centuries and millennia, their hearts swelled with emotion. Looking at their fellow disciples beside them, each of them felt a newfound closeness.

Zhou Qing smiled. "I am finished speaking. Now for today's second important matter: let us invite Uncle Chen to distribute our monthly Spirit Stones."

The crowd erupted into another wave of laughing cheers.

With a smile, Chen Qingxuan took a brocade pouch from his robes and tipped it onto the open ground before the disciples.

A mountain of brocade boxes immediately appeared on the ground.

Chen Qingxuan said, "Come forward one at a time to collect yours."

Guessing that the brocade boxes contained the Spirit Stones they had been eagerly awaiting, everyone's eyes lit up.

Needless to say, disciples from mortal backgrounds had never seen Spirit Stones, but even among the Native Faction disciples, not everyone had had the opportunity to do so.

Still, everyone had heard of Spirit Stones and knew they were among the most vital resources for a cultivator's training.

With the aid of Spirit Stones, a cultivator's cultivation speed could increase severalfold.

To fight over a single High-Grade Spirit Stone, many Rogue Cultivators might stake their lives.

Even great sects paid grievous prices every year to defend ownership of their Spirit Stone Mines or vie for new ones.

Thus, everyone had long been looking forward to receiving Spirit Stones.

When Chen Qingxuan told them to collect their shares in order, everyone turned their gaze to Zhou Qing, prepared to swarm forward as soon as their Senior Apprentice had taken his.

Zhou Qing smiled and intended to casually pick one from the pile of brocade boxes.

Chen Qingxuan stopped him with a smile. "Yours is here."

As he spoke, he took a brocade box from his robes and handed it to Zhou Qing.

Zhou Qing was briefly startled, then recalled that Wang Xiaohu seemed to have mentioned that a Senior Apprentice received twice the resources of other disciples.

Zhou Qing accepted the brocade box from Chen Qingxuan. The other disciples immediately let out a chorus of strange cries and rushed forward to snatch up all the Spirit Stones.

Wang Xiaohu impatiently opened his brocade box.

Zhou Qing glanced over and saw a small cloth pouch inside, along with two stones the size of goose eggs, smooth and lustrous as jade, supple as cream.

The stones were milky white overall, but crisscrossed within by many multicolored streaks.

Zhou Qing opened his own brocade box as well and found that its contents matched Wang Xiaohu's, except that the multicolored streaks on the Spirit Stones' surfaces were far fewer, making them more translucent overall.

He guessed it was because the two kinds of Spirit Stones differed in grade.

Aside from the Spirit Stones, the small cloth pouch held medicinal herbs, though Zhou Qing did not know their purpose.

The disciples all looked eagerly at Chen Qingxuan, waiting for him to teach them how to use the Spirit Stones.

Chen Qingxuan said, "Spirit Stones form alongside spirit veins. The spirit veins' highly concentrated spiritual energy continuously erodes the stones around them, altering their nature and turning them into a concentrated spiritual-energy condensate."

"When cultivators use Spirit Stones, the most important thing is to draw the spiritual energy out of this condensate."

"After a long period of exploration, Cultivators finally discovered the present Stone Boiling Method."

"Each of your residences should have a cauldron furnace. When you return, place the Stone Boiling Powder from the cloth pouch and the Spirit Stones together inside the cauldron, then steam them over a fierce fire."

"Stimulated by the medicinal potency of the Stone Boiling Powder, the Spirit Stones will release their spiritual energy and alter the concentration of spiritual energy around them."

"One Low-Grade Spirit Stone can be boiled for ten hours. If a Cultivator trains beside it, their cultivation speed will be twice what it normally is."

"One Mid-Grade Spirit Stone can be boiled for twenty hours, and the cultivation speed will be three times the usual rate."

Zhou Qing thought that his Spirit Stones were probably Mid-Grade Spirit Stones. According to Uncle Chen, the spiritual energy contained within a Mid-Grade Spirit Stone was roughly three times that of a Low-Grade Spirit Stone.

It seemed a Senior Apprentice's benefits were more than merely twice those of other disciples.

Wang Xiaohu said regretfully, "Once the spiritual energy in the Spirit Stones is drawn out, much of it disperses instead of being absorbed by us. Isn't that an enormous waste?"

Feng Yuan mocked him. "Spiritual energy belongs to heaven and earth. It comes from heaven and earth, then returns to heaven and earth. We are already fortunate enough to scoop up a little and make it our own private property. You are far too greedy."

Wang Xiaohu protested, "We Cultivators steal heaven and earth's vital essence without returning it; we are thieves by nature. Since we are already thieves, naturally we should be great thieves rather than petty ones. What is strange about that?"

Though the exchange between the two was playful banter, on reflection, it did contain a measure of truth. Everyone found themselves viewing these two younger disciples, who usually loved to crack jokes and clown around, in a new light.

They all joined the discussion, teasing one another for a few more lines, then bid Chen Qingxuan farewell together and returned to their residences to cultivate.

The Instruction Platform, bustling for two months, returned to its former desolation.

By the time Zhou Qing returned to his residence, it was already noon. This was the first time in two months that he had returned to his small courtyard at midday. Usually, he spent the daytime with his junior brothers and sisters, and he suddenly found himself unaccustomed to the quiet loneliness of being alone.

Zhou Qing shook his head with a self-mocking smile. Cultivators were meant for solitude; that was the underlying tone of their lives. Once his realm rose higher, a single closed-door cultivation session might last many years. When he emerged, he might find that many people he knew had already passed away. This was nothing at all.