Hou woke up the next day, after getting dressed he stepped into his main room. What greeted him was not the usual room but instead a corridor!
In his sleep the house had changed form and been renovated.
'This must be what Nine Clouds Purple Miasma meant yesterday. Today's a packed today. Learning about cultivation, training cultivation, learning alchemy, and maybe training it too.'
Hou didn't think hard about which way to turn and choose one randomly. He turned left and opened the door at the end of the corridor.
On the other side, it was a large room with rows of shelves. Half of the shelves were filled with books and manuals. The other half was thicker and filled with draws.
On each drawer was a small inscription, like before Hou could read it's meaning. They were different herb and materials names!
Hou moved towards the bookshelf and took one out randomly. It was on martial arts, a technique about redirecting energy.
He looked past and picked up another book far away, it was a book on herbs. How to identify them, their uses and detailed diagrams.
"This is...amazing" Hou couldn't help talking out loud as he looked at the packed room.
"This is nothing, only a fraction of a fraction of the full thing" Nine Clouds Purple Miasma appeared behind Hou walking in-between the shelves.
"Master!" Hou jumped and turned around.
"The one and only. As you've seen, this is your new storage room and library. It's mostly for your alchemy ingredients but I thought to add some books to ease your boredom"
"Thank you, this is too much. All this for me, it really is...too much"
"As if! My disciple deserves more, I don't want to overwhelm you though. Follow me outside we'll start to cultivation lesson, real practical stuff today."
Nine Clouds Purple Miasma started walking through the house, out the storage room and straight into the main room and outside. He walked a fair amount outside and turned around to face Hou.
"Sit down"
Hou caught up to Nine Clouds Purple Miasma with a slight jog and sat down.
"Good boy. Now as I explained yesterday, without your soul and body unified you cannot grow easily. But that doesn't mean your stuck, with more spirit stones it does not matter."
Nine Clouds Purple Miasma reached into he sky and from space he pulled out a spirit stone. It was a long almost translucent crystal about palm sized.
"Take out another spirit will and do as you have done before. This will be the next laws you have in your body cultivation."
Hou started to think of what spirit will be should place in. He sat still for a few minutes not sure what to choose.
'I didn't notice this but I'm missing a few spirit wills. They must've been lost when I transformed into a rock. I have the sword spirit, atmosphere spirit, liquid spirit, gateway spirit, growth spirit and healing spirit. I've lost more than six spirits!'
"Do take your time to choose." Nine Clouds Purple Miasma didn't want to overtly say to hurry so he simply reminded Hou.
Hou jolted a little then thought for a final decision, ignoring his losses right now. Finally, he choose a spirit will and it flew into the spirit stone.
The spirit stone started to shake. It started to vibrate then it disappeared and flickered back. Nine Clouds Purple Miasma saw it's unstable from and quickly gave it to Hou.
Hou took it and absorbed it into his body. The spirit stone went onto Hou's body then flashed and disappeared. It became invisible but Hou could still feel it's presence.
"Did it succeed?" Nine Clouds Purple Miasma asked out of politeness, with his skill he could tell it had worked.
"Yes it did, I used a spirit will that allowed me to make a portal."
"That must be the cause of it's unstable form, try it out now. See what the standard expression does."
Hou stimulated the spirit stone and disappeared. Even to Nine Clouds Purple Miasma he could not detect him!
Hou felt his mental energy drain rapidly and for a split second he was in a black void. When he came back he fell into he grass, holding his head. He felt extreme pain and could barely think.
However, while Hou's consciousness was rattled, Yue awoke. Mental energy was different to wills. While Hou could not use mental energy, wills were still generated. This allowed Yue with his seperate consciousness to use his own mental energy and think using wills.
Yue stood up and faced Nine Clouds Purple Miasma until Hou felt he had enough energy to be okay. He took back over and spoke,
"That used almost all my mental energy just to stimulate it for a second!"
"Yes some laws are harder to use. Using the water gourd metaphor it's like it being heavier, you use a lot more energy to shake it."
"It makes sense but it was very intense. I'm fine now, mostly"
"Well just relax and listen to me. Next I'll teach you about meditation. Mediation is the most important part of cultivation, it what allows you to recover and grow stronger. While meditating you circulate laws around the body, while absorbing laws from the world. To you it'll be easier to absorb sun and space laws due to the laws you have right now. Wait here"
Nine Clouds Purple Miasma left Hou outside while he walked inside, going into the storage room. He looked through the drawers, and opening one of them.
It was labeled "Sun Crystal Orchid".
He brought it back to Hou, placing it into the ground in front of Hou.
"This is a Sun Crystal Orchid. An orchid which has become infused with sun laws. I'm going to move your energy and show you how to absorb these laws passively through meditation. Just relax and let me do it for you"
Nine Clouds Purple Miasma walked behind Hou and placed his hands on his back. He showed Hou how to meditate by doing it for him, the sun laws were being drawn out from the Sun Crystal Orchid.
It was originally glowing a light orange but now it was slowly dimming!