14. Going home

"Give us everything that Fang Yue had inside his storage bag," Li Wei said, and Dong Fey started laughing. In an instant, he teleported before Li Wei and placed his hand on his head. He immediately started healing him and tried to read his memories. At this moment, he felt that some extremely powerful spell was cast on Li Wei. After a few seconds, he put his hand down.

"Why can't I read your mind? Who cast such a powerful spell on you?"

After he finished the sentence, he felt like something started watching him with eight eyes. These eyes penetrated his soul and read his memories. He felt helpless against this but said nothing and waited until the search would be complete. He let the eyes search as they wanted because if he tried to resist, his soul would be damaged or destroyed, and he would probably not be able to hide anything. After a few seconds, the eyes disappeared.

He looked at Li Wei and turned around. Then he squads down near Fang Yue and picks up some blood from the ground. After a while, he turned around and was sad. "If you want to enter the Green Jade sect you will need to complete tasks as everybody. After you will be in the inner sect of me my name is Dong Fey. I am Supreme Elder of Green Jade sect." After saying that he teleported near Fang Yue's bag picked something from it and threw the storage bag back on the ground. He also throws a green cultivation book with it. Then he teleported back to the sky a disappeared.

After he left, Li Wei went near the storage bag, picked it up, and returned to the fire. He repaired the tent so they could sleep inside, placed Mei Lin inside, added more wood to the fire, and went to the tent to sleep. Immediately after lying down under the blanket, he fell asleep.

*****

Two days later early in the morning, Mei Lin woke up Li Wei. She tried to read a cultivation book but with no success. Also, she tried to open the space bag but mortal without a cultivation state can't open it. "What happened when you were fighting Fang Yue? Someone from the Jade Green sect arrived and killed him. Before he left he gave us a cultivation book and left here a storage bag." Before opening the storage bag Li Wei placed a blanket on the ground and tried to open it.

Unfortunately, he didn't know how. After half a day of studying the cultivation book, he discovered that he needed to use his spirit sense. The next day, Li Wei discovered how to use his spirit sense. His spirit sense was very weak, but after a few attempts, he still couldn't open the storage bag. After a few attempts, he deduced that his spiritual sense needed to be a little bit stronger, probably at the 3rd stage, to manage to open this storage bag.

Basic knowledge about spirit stones, pills, and cultivation is written in the cultivation book that they received from Dong Fey. After Li Wei read Mei Lin about everything in the cultivation realm inside the book, Mei Lin went to the tent and started cultivating. Their goal is to wait for Mei Lin to break through to the cultivation realm and then go back to the village. In the next few days, they traveled every two days to some new place in the forest so Mei Lin would have a better place near the pond for cultivating, and Li Wei could find more herbs.

Mei Lin sits in a lotus position, first trying to feel the natural energy constantly generated in the forest. Then she needs to absorb this energy into the dantian and have this energy converted to her own by her dantian. This process is very hard for her because her cultivation talent is very bad.

Cultivation talent influences cultivators in their understanding of natural energy, the absorption of natural energy, and the conversion of natural energy to their own. If someone has high cultivation talent, they can feel, absorb, and convert more natural energy. Additionally, one's cultivation talent determines how smoothly one progresses through cultivation realms. However, progressing to higher realms often requires a rare opportunity that help break through one's bottleneck.

*****

After ten days, Mei Lin successfully achieved a breakthrough and became a cultivator. It took her more than twenty days to reach this stage, which is very slow for cultivators. However, considering the lack of prior knowledge and guidance, it was a commendable achievement. The day before Mei Lin's breakthrough, Li Wei also successfully advanced to the first stage. His strength skyrocketed up one more. His talent is extremely high and because of that, his cultivation is very easy. If someone starts cultivation inside a sect they will have better conditions. Natural energy will be much better there and with the help of spirit herbs, none can compete against them.

Two days later, after Mei Lin successfully consolidated her new powers, they packed up their belongings and began their journey back to the village. Although they were approximately fifty kilometers away, Mei Lin's improved health allowed them to cover the distance in two or three days. Rather than rushing directly back, they took a small detour to explore beautiful places, gather more herbs, and continue their cultivation.

From the book, they discovered that to reach the 3rd stage of Body Tempering, they only needed to cultivate natural energy and create three wisps of natural energy inside their lower dantian, located in the abdomen.

Dantian is an imaginary place created inside the body after achieving a cultivation realm. Dantian helps cultivators absorb natural energy inside their bodies. Every cultivator starts with three Dantians.

Lower Dantian is located in your abdomen, the Middle Dantian is located in your chest, and the Upper Dantian is located in your head. If someone destroys one of your Dantians, your cultivation will be reduced, and you will be severely injured. If all your Dantians are destroyed, you will probably die; in rare cases, you will lose your cultivation and will never be able to cultivate again.

Both Mei Lin and Li Wei created their first wisp of natural energy inside their Lower Dantian. They decided that before returning to the village, Mei Lin would first break through to the first stage, or Li Wei would advance to the second stage.

Probably forty kilometers from the village, they find a small cage with a very small entrance three meters above the ground. Li Wei went to the cave to explore the interior. Not long after he went back. "The place is not very big it's only two meters with merely a two-meter high roof. Before we place all our things inside we need to prepare wood for fire and prepare some wood at least for a few. With the food that we have we can be here for a week, so we can stay here for a few days and then go back to the village."