Hou spent the day testing out the expressions of his sun will he had in the spirit stone. He tried switching from one expression to another seamlessly.
However, he tried and while he did become faster, he still had to take a second to change his expression. Other than that, he did not train his martial arts.
This was because he was weary of Nine Clouds Purple Miasma watching him, if he saw him and somehow recognised the martial art... he might start suspecting Hou.
Hou needed to act as if he had only become as strong as he did with talent and luck. He could not show off too much skill.
Hou practiced for an hour, until he started to feel his mental energy drain. When his body was transformed into a rock and back it affected his whole.
If he was at peak performance then he could've gone on for hours but now he had weakened. Hou stopped and relaxed by the hearth, maintaining his attention on his mental energy.
He could feel it slowly growing, taking about two or three hours to refill to the point beforehand.
'If this is how long it takes to regain mental energy, I really need to grow my reserves somehow. I'll have to ask Nine Clouds Purple Miasma tomorrow. And I should learn about alchemy seeing as there's an alchemical furnace here.'
Hou decided to end the day there, walking into his room and laying onto his bed. As he layed down, the sky darkened like night.
With that peaceful atmosphere Hou fell soundly asleep. The next morning, Hou woke up and waited for Nine Clouds Purple Miasma. He had questions today and couldn't wait to ask them.
Nine Clouds appeared from the side of the clouds as he did before, in a flash of light. He walked forward across the fresh morning grass.
He greeted Hou and begun his lesson,
"So how was yesterday, did you figure anything out?" Nine Clouds Purple Miasma was inwardly extremely happy but did not show any of it.
"Well, I figured out..something. you called the abilities, expressions. And with that, I thought about what the spirits are. The spirits are laws. And laws are how and why something happens. And I understood. There are different expressions of a single law, and a spirit is made of many laws."
"I see, you understand good disciple. Show me, show me a different expression of the laws of the sun. Naturally I saw heat, what else?"
Hou thought for a minute and released heat. Then he stopped and after another minute, his body started to glow.
"Yes the light. The sun is hot yes, but it is very bright. Those are the two main and surface concepts of the sun. Good. And so fast! Only a minute to switch between expressions!"
'Was I took fast, is he suspicious? I thought a minute was quite long myself and so didn't hide it!'
"Thank you, but I have a few questions before lesson. I felt my mental energy drain, how can I up my reserves? And also I saw some kind of pot in my house, what is it?" Hou pretended not to know what the alchemy furnace was and called it a pot.
"Let me..leave those until after class. There's a good reason for that. Let's begin. Today's lesson will be on what to do with your soul. As you know, in the traditional cultivation method the soul is moved around and expanded into an inner world. This approach has been largely abandoned. In some special techniques it is still used, but for what I know, it must change."
"What do you mean?"
"In modern cultivation, the soul is united with the body. This is like it is before using traditional cultivation, everybody is born with a united soul and body. However, due to many circumstances your body and soul do not match. We need to reverse this before you can start to grow."
"Before I grow, can I not get stronger without doing it?"
"You can but not easily. Let me tell you how cultivation growth is done. It's done by using that spirit stone as a catalyst and transforming the soul into one large spirit stone. The soul can then carry many laws you gather. This is how cultivators grow, by having more wills in the soul. And to answer your question on mental energy, it is also linked. Can you think why?"
"Hmmm. Why would the soul and cultivation change my mental energy? Mental energy is from the consciousness...no. I don't have any idea..."
"Don't fret, I didn't expect you to. Let me teach you. As you stated mental energy comes from the consciousness. The consciousness Is a part of you and as you grow physically and soul-wise, your consciousness strengthens."
"I see, I guess there's a limit to physical growth so I need my soul to grow stronger. And if it's not connected with the body and consciousness with full connection, it won't strengthen my consciousness."
"That's it, don't worry though. It'll be a simple procedure by me. We'll start once you build a strong body cultivation foundation. Then your body should be able to hold your soul."
"I see and what about that pot in my room? It's quite ornate."
"Ahh that yes. I left that to last. That is an alchemy furnace. Those food pills you eat and made form those. It's a tool to process material into pills to do various effects. If you're interested I can add it to your curriculum."
"It sounds quite interesting, could I learn it too?"
"Yes of course, most cultivator's are at least proficient in alchemy, the process of changing materials to others. I'll get everything ready and tomorrow we'll start. I'll also change this house to be more suiting for alchemy. A library and storage room."
"Thank you master!" Hou did appreciate Nine Clouds Purple Miasma's teaching and have him a genuine thanks.
"It is nothing for my true disciple. Grow strong and never stop working hard!"