Wei Zian snorted. Actually, he wasn't looking at Rao Ni at all, but at the girl she was talking to. Not that he was going to correct Zhao Hong about that. Or anything, really, Wei Zian had mixed feelings about Zhao Hong. On one hand the black-haired boy was charming, confident, handsome, and popular, and thus reminded him uncomfortably of his brothers, but on the other hand he was never mean or inconsiderate to Wei Zian, and would often chat with him when everyone else was content to ignore him. As a result, Wei Zian was never quite sure how to act around him.
Besides, Wei Zian never discussed his taste in women with other disciples. The sect rumor mill constantly circulated stories about who admired whom, and Wei Zian knew all too well how even relatively innocent rumors could make your life miserable for years to come.
"From your wistful tone, I'm guessing she's still immune to your charm," Wei Zian said, trying to shift the focus of the conversation away from himself.
"She's challenging," Zhao Hong agreed. "But I've got all the time in the world."
Wei Zian raised an eyebrow at that, not sure what the other boy was implying. All the time in the world?
Thankfully, he was saved from further conversation when the door opened loudly and the instructor entered the hall. Wei Zian was honestly surprised to see Senior Sister Yun Xia walk into the training hall with the huge green jade slip that all instructors carried, though he really shouldn't have been, he already knew Yun Xia was an inner disciple at the sect, so there was nothing unusual about her teaching this session. She gave him a smile before setting the jade slip down on her desk and clapping her hands together to silence those disciples who were too engrossed in their conversations to notice her arrival.
"Settle down everyone, the session has begun," Yun Xia said, accepting the attendance record from Ao Jiao, who remained standing beside Yun Xia at attention, like a soldier in front of a general.
"Welcome, disciples, to your first session of the new cultivation season. I am Senior Sister Yun Xia, and I will be your instructor for this class. You are third-tier disciples now, meaning you have completed your breakthrough to the ninth level of Qi Condensation and joined us in our...esteemed cultivation community. You have proven yourselves to be intelligent, determined, and capable of channeling qi, the lifeblood of cultivation, to your will. But your journey is just beginning. As all of you have noticed, and many of you have complained about, you have only been taught a handful of techniques so far, and all of them are mere basic techniques. You'll be pleased to know this injustice ends now."
A cheer erupted from the disciples, and Yun Xia allowed them to go wild for a moment before gesturing them to be silent again. She certainly had a flair for theatrics.
Much like the disciples, really, that cheer certainly wasn't because they were honestly unable to contain their excitement.
"But what exactly are cultivation techniques?" she asked. "Can anyone tell me?"
"Oh great," Wei Zian mumbled. "A review session."
Hesitant mumbling erupted in the training hall until Yun Xia pointed to one particular girl, who repeated her answer of 'structured qi arts'.
"Indeed, techniques are structured qi arts. To perform a technique is to invoke a particular spiritual construct. A construct that is, by its very nature, limited in what it can do. This is why structured techniques are also called 'bounded techniques'. The qi control exercises you have been doing for the past two years, the ones that you all think are a useless chore, are unstructured qi manipulation. In theory, unstructured manipulation can do anything. Cultivation techniques are simply a tool to make your life easier. A crutch, some would say. To perform a bounded technique is to sacrifice flexibility and force qi into a rigid construct that can only be modified in minor ways. So why does everyone prefer techniques?"
She waited for a few moments before continuing. "In an ideal world, you would learn how to perform all your cultivation arts in an unstructured manner, bending qi to your will as you please. But this is not an ideal world. Unstructured manipulation is slow and hard to learn, and time is precious. And besides, techniques are good enough for most purposes. They can do amazing things. Many of the things you can accomplish with techniques have never been reproduced using unstructured manipulation. Others..."
She took out a jade talisman from her sleeve and placed it on the table before performing what Wei Zian recognized as a simple 'spirit light' technique. The talisman began to emit a soft light that illuminated the hall. Well, at least now he knew why the curtains were closed in the training hall, it was hard to effectively demonstrate light techniques in bright daylight. The technique was nothing new to Wei Zian, though, since they were taught how to perform it last year.
"The 'spirit light' technique is one of the simplest arts, and one that you should already know by now. It is comparable to the light-emitting qi control exercise that you should also know by now."
Yun Xia then launched into an explanation about the relative advantages and disadvantages of the 'spirit light' technique compared to the qi control exercise, and how it related to structured versus unstructured manipulation in general. For the most part, it was nothing that Wei Zian hadn't learned from jade slips and lectures already, and Wei Zian amused himself by drawing various spirit beasts in the margins of his notebook while she talked. From the corner of his eye, he could see Ao Jiao and a number of other disciples furiously writing everything down, even though this was just a review session and they almost certainly had all of this already written in their last year's notes. He didn't know whether to be impressed with their dedication or disgusted by their rigid thinking. He did notice, however, that some disciples had animated their writing brushes to copy down the entire lecture while they listened. Wei Zian personally preferred to write notes himself, but he could see how such a technique would be useful, so he quickly jotted down a reminder to find the technique they used to do that.