Wei Xu said, "Allow me to think it over a little longer."
Zhou Qing said, "All right. Once you've thought it through, tell me your decision."
The two of them went down the mountain together and returned to their respective residences.
By the time Zhou Qing returned to his residence, it was nearly evening.
Zhou Qing first sat in meditation with his eyes closed for a while.
He had never missed a single day of this heart-clearing meditation practice.
Through this meditative practice, his Dao heart had been cultivated and grown ever more robust. If, at the very beginning, his Dao heart had been like soft iron wire, easily swayed by all manner of external forces and fluctuations in his state of mind, then now his Dao heart was like an iron bar, not easily bent.
There were still many distracting thoughts in his mind, but they were no longer enough to affect his Dao heart.
This steadfast clarity of his Dao heart brought him many benefits.
First was the stability of his state of mind, which allowed him to assimilate spiritual energy more quickly. He only needed to guide the spiritual energy through a single Heavenly Cycle before it became entirely his own.
Other disciples cultivating the Azure Cloud Sect's techniques, however, needed to circulate it through fifty-four Heavenly Cycles. The time this difference saved him was his greatest reliance in surpassing others in cultivation speed.
Furthermore, the steadfastness of his Dao heart made his thoughts clearer. No matter what he learned, he could maintain an excellent state of mind.
Lastly, he seemed to be gradually touching upon a state akin to "freedom from doubt." In other words, he would not have his convictions shaken by words that sounded plausible but were false. This ensured that no matter what