Chen Xiuyuan set down his bowl.
"Yes."
His answer came so quickly that Elder Shi gave him a look.
Chen Xiuyuan did not change his answer. When that fang wolf had lunged at him in the wilderness, he had come within a hair of dying. Even with a knife, even remembering how to bring the blade down, he would never have made it off that rocky slope without Elder Shi.
He still had to find Qin Chuan and find a way back.
He could not wait for someone to save him at every step from now on.
Elder Shi pushed the bowls farther back on the table and took a rolled beast hide from the wooden chest in the corner.
The edges of the hide were blackened, and some spots had been rubbed shiny by handling. When he spread it out, its curled corners still turned upward.
A human figure was drawn on it, with many fine lines connecting its limbs. Beside it stood a giant elephant with its head raised, its back broad and thick, both feet pressing down as though it held the entire hide beneath them.
"The Savage Elephant Great Strength Art."
Elder Shi flattened a curled corner with his fingernail.
"Most children here start with this. Shi Lei practiced it too."
Chen Xiuyuan leaned closer to study the fine lines on the human figure.
"What are these?"
"Heavenly Meridians. The human body has a hundred and eight Heavenly Meridians. You have to open them little by little with Qi and blood. Only after opening the first do you count as having entered the Meridian Opening Realm."
Elder Shi did not let him keep staring at those lines. He turned the hide halfway around and first pointed to the simplest standing diagram beside them.
"Tonight, I'm only teaching you to recognize it. Your leg hasn't healed yet. The standing posture can wait a couple of days. Sit up straight first. Don't slump at the waist."
Chen Xiuyuan straightened as instructed.
Elder Shi gave his back a gentle nudge.
"Don't stiffen into a plank either."
Just getting his sitting posture right took Chen Xiuyuan several attempts. A little too far forward, and his chest felt tight; too upright, and his lower back ached. Only when the old man told him to lower his shoulders did he vaguely find a steadiness that required no forced effort.
Next, he listened as Elder Shi explained the rhythm of breathing.
The words were not difficult to understand on the surface, but when he actually tried it himself, there was always something he neglected. When he focused on his shoulders and back, his breathing fell out of rhythm; when he remembered his breathing, his waist thrust forward again.
Once his posture and breathing barely came together, writing appeared before his eyes.
[Savage Elephant Great Strength Art: not yet initiated, 18%]
Chen Xiuyuan stared at the line. The practice section, empty for several days, finally held a cultivation art.
He looked over the parts of the hide he had just learned, one after another. Eighteen. He still had some way to go before initiation, but he could already see how far he had learned.
Elder Shi put the hide away.
"That's enough for today."
Chen Xiuyuan glanced outside. It was not completely dark yet.
"One more try."
"Being able to practice is a skill. Knowing when to rest is a skill too. You can't even close your hands today, and you want to remake your whole body in one breath?"
Chen Xiuyuan lowered his head. He had indeed switched hands twice while holding his bowl earlier.
He leaned back against the wall, but slowly reviewed the key points the old man had taught him in his mind.
When he woke the next day, his arms still ached, but the sitting posture he had learned had not grown unfamiliar.
His progress was still eighteen.
As soon as he sat down, he found that little bit of steadiness he had practiced the night before. His shoulders and back settled into position, and his breathing eased along with them. Elder Shi saw him while bringing in firewood and paused, then told him to eat as usual and work only half a day at the meat shed.
Over the next few days, Chen Xiuyuan helped cut meat and tidy the herb shed during the day, and spent some time learning from Elder Shi each morning and evening.
Little by little, his Savage Elephant Great Strength Art reached sixty-seven. For the remaining parts that required standing movements, he first listened to Elder Shi explain them clearly, waiting until his leg healed to try them.
Only after the wound on his calf had scabbed over and walking no longer tugged at it painfully did Elder Shi lead him to the open ground behind the house.
A few half-burned sticks still lay on the ground. Chen Xiuyuan picked them up one by one, revealing a patch of packed yellow earth.
Shi Lei was there too. He had come to deliver beast meat. Hearing that Chen Xiuyuan had begun learning, he simply set his bundle beside the wall and demonstrated the complete standing posture for Elder Shi, whose legs made moving difficult.
As his feet landed and his shoulders and back sank, his whole body seemed to grow much heavier all at once.
Chen Xiuyuan studied the posture, then stood in imitation.
Shi Lei merely touched the crook of his elbow.
Chen Xiuyuan swayed and nearly stepped on his own foot.
"You're bracing your shoulders." Shi Lei held back a laugh. "I was the same on my first day. I kept thinking that looking fiercer would make me stronger."
Seated at the foot of the wall, Elder Shi tapped the yellow earth with his wooden staff.
"Find it from your feet."
Chen Xiuyuan took his stance again, first planting his soles firmly. As he turned his waist and hips, the outer edge of his right foot lifted a little again, so he withdrew that slight excess of force. Only when Elder Shi moved his staff away from the edge of his shoe did he continue adjusting his upper body.
Once he grasped that little knack underfoot, his next attempt was steady. The attention he had always needed to spare for those parts was freed up, and he could finally listen clearly to the old man explaining the length of each breath.
His thighs soon ached, and sweat dripped from the tip of his nose.
He did not force himself to hold on. When Elder Shi told him to stop, he sat down. After drinking some water and waiting for the ache in his legs to ease, he returned to the same spot.
Shi Lei had been squatting nearby, threading a grass stem through a split in his shoe. When he saw Chen Xiuyuan settle into his stance again, the stem in his hand stopped halfway.
"Weren't you still leaning right all the time just now?"
"My foot wasn't planted properly. I've corrected it."
Chen Xiuyuan looked at the two shallow marks beside his feet.
"And once you corrected it, you stopped leaning?"
"Yes."
Shi Lei stood and circled him. He did not reach out to push him again, only turned to look at Elder Shi.
The old man still held his wooden staff.
"Let him practice."
When the slanting sunset reached across the courtyard wall, Chen Xiuyuan finally linked the separate movements together.
The change came after a breath.
A wisp of warmth rose in his chest and abdomen. At first, it was only in one small spot, then slowly spread with his breathing, different from the sun's heat on his skin.
[Savage Elephant Great Strength Art: not yet initiated, 100%] [Initiated, current progress: 0%]
Chen Xiuyuan's heart gave a leap. Instinctively, he tried to chase that warmth, but this disrupted his breathing, and his chest and abdomen cooled again.
"I had it just now." He raised his head.
After asking exactly where the warmth had appeared, Elder Shi grew serious.
"Don't chase it. Do what you've learned."
Chen Xiuyuan briefly closed his eyes, pressed down his eagerness, and steadied his stance again.
The sun shone on his back, and someone outside was calling children home. Listening to those sounds, he brought his attention back to his body and slowly linked together each familiar step.
A moment later, that wisp of warmth rose again.
The line reading "Initiated" remained. He maintained his breathing, letting the warmth slowly spread along the route he had just worked out.
His hands and feet gradually warmed as well. But he still could not tell where those hundred and eight fine lines on the hide lay within his own body.
Only when Elder Shi spoke did he leave his stance.
"Remember that feeling. That's all for today."
Chen Xiuyuan took the water and drank half the bowl in one go, suddenly ravenous.
"Does this mean I've opened a meridian?"
"You've only just learned to mobilize your own Qi and blood. You're far from it. Don't think you've become a warrior just because you feel some warmth."
Elder Shi's tone was even, but the corners of his mouth were a little more relaxed than usual.
Shi Lei had already put his shoes on. He looked down at their uppers, then at Chen Xiuyuan.
"It took me quite a few days back then."
Chen Xiuyuan was still thinking about that wisp of warmth.
His right foot, which had still wobbled that morning, could now support him steadily on the ground. Looking at the shallow marks worn by his repeated steps, he suddenly looked forward to standing here again tomorrow morning.
After Shi Lei left, Chen Xiuyuan spread out the hide again and carefully reviewed the parts he had just learned. The giant elephant was not drawn in fine detail, but its back had been rendered especially thick and heavy.
"Once you've mastered it completely, can you keep practicing further?" he asked.
Elder Shi rubbed a faded patch of ink on the hide with his fingertip.
"Learning everything your master left behind is already hard enough. If you want to go farther, you have to understand why those before you practiced this way, and where it can be changed. This diagram we use has a few more strokes than the one I learned from as a child."
Chen Xiuyuan gazed at those fine lines and remembered the words "Limit Breaking" he had seen in the hunting shed. He summoned his progress and focused beneath the entry. The small text that had been folded away gradually expanded.
[Limit Breaking: not yet unlocked.] [After this art reaches great perfection, continue accumulating new understanding beyond the original art to achieve Limit Breaking.] [Each version can undergo Limit Breaking only once. To advance again, you must substantially expand the original art, create a new art, and cultivate it to great perfection anew.]
There was another explanatory line beneath: proven achievements endured, but using them still required one's own body and implements to bear the strain.
Chen Xiuyuan looked at the strokes added to the hide later. So after practicing what had been passed down to its end, he could continue onward himself. But he had to make real changes, then master the new art. Changing its name did not count.
He had just started to rise when his calf weakened with soreness, forcing him to brace himself against the wall. Knowing how to stand and how long he could stand really were two different things.
Even great perfection was far away right now. He dismissed the writing and rolled up the hide.
"Practice as usual tomorrow morning?"
"Let me look at your leg first," Elder Shi said.
Elder Shi took the hide, checked his scabbed wound, and told him to sit and recover for a while before bringing him dinner.
Chen Xiuyuan ate faster and more than he had over the past few days. Even after his bowl was empty, his stomach still felt somewhat hollow. Only then did he understand that the warmth he had produced during practice had not come from nothing.
Besides the cultivation art entry, the panel now had a record of his cultivation.
[Cultivation: not yet in Meridian Opening.] [First Heavenly Meridian accumulation: 3%]
He had accumulated only this little toward his first Heavenly Meridian. Chen Xiuyuan lifted his bowl and drank the remaining soup too. He still had to practice tomorrow morning, and he could not give up his work at the meat shed either.
Elder Shi gave him another ladleful of soup.
"Come help me sort herbs at the herb shed tomorrow. Eating only this won't replenish your body. We need to get all the restorative medicinal food ready first. Only then will you be able to keep practicing."
At this point, the old man frowned slightly.
"Are we still short of herbs?" Chen Xiuyuan asked.
"Scarlet whisker root. What's left is only enough for a few people in the shed."
Elder Shi tapped the wooden ladle against the rim of the bowl to knock off the broth.
"The place where it usually grows is over on the far side of Broken Stream."