Jack did not make a pebble move in twenty days.
No matter how many times old Long demonstrated with various objects and explained the process, he couldn't make the damned thing even wobble.
On his way towards the Haechi hunting grounds, Jack held the pebble in his hand and threw it in the air every few steps while his spirit energy roiled around it in an attempt to catch it.
"Still can't do it? And you were so sure that you could." mocked Tong Huakun while suppressed laughter threatened to burst out of her gut.
Jack clicked his tongue, threw the pebble again, and ignored her. He asked her if her Tribe had any special ways of hastening the learning process of the skill once he didn't make any progress in ten days.
After she asked her grandmother, they found out that only Pan Xinfa had the ability to move things with his spirit energy during the sixth grade.
No one else in the recent history of the Haechi Tribe could do it.
When Jack went to ask the Chief for any advice, he told him almost the same thing old Long did and added more frustration.
'How am I supposed to feel the threshold to grade seven when I don't even know what it is?' He though and caught the falling pebble once again.
Old Long instructed him that he had to find the place in his mind that gave him the power to move things and run his spirit energy through it before he could do anything with it.
Only when he broke through to grade seven would he not need to do this. Something in the breaking through process made it a part of the cultivator and his spirit energy.
Most people just looked for it by running spirit energy through numerous meridians until they found it. This had its risks too. If they pushed spirit energy into a meridian they didn't know or understand they could kill themselves.
Back in the Immortals' Lament's camp, he thought of a way to find out what he needed to know, but he didn't want to do it with so many people observing him.
He looked at his hunting companion from the corner of his eye and asked "Any news on the two brothers?"
Tong Huakun's smiling face turned serious before she answered "I haven't learned anything, yet. The White River family members either don't know or won't tell me."
Jack grunted and thought for a while. No one in the Tribe had seen the two brothers ever since the arrival of the White River family's group. After the first day, they just vanished from the town.
He had ordered Tong Huakun to get friendly with her neighbors to try and find out more information on their disappearance, and on to get a better look at the White River family hierarchy in general.
So far she found out that both the brothers and Wu Angrui's maid came to the White River Outpost as children when their families got permission to enter and serve in the city.
In fact, most of the people that represented the White River family on this side came as children of the wretches who waited outside of the Outpost.
The true family members sailed the ships that carried the people over the River, and only came to this side when they had to.
Jack had also instructed Ma Ruiman to gather information from the White River family members, but so far he had little success due to their animosity.
When he came to a conclusion, he sighed and said "You will have to get closer to either Bei Kangping or Wu Dianrong. We need that information."
The other leader of the White River family's group was named Wu Dianrong. When Jack asked Wu Angrui if they had any relations, she explained that he is a distant cousin.
Most of the people from the White River Outpost had one of five different last names that made one extended family. According to legend, they all came from the founding members of the Outpost.
Tong Huakun's brows furrowed at the implied meaning and she snapped "I did not join your company to throw myself on men of your choosing, Jack Song!"
He acted like he didn't care and continued tossing his pebble while he asked "Do you think it would help or hurt your Tribe to know where two strong cultivators disappeared?"
When he caught it, he looked at her and continued "I'm not telling you to take them to your leathers. Just get close to them and find out what you can."
A second later, he motioned towards her body while saying "Use your womanly charms." After thinking about it, he added "Or beat them in arm wrestling. I don't care how you do it, just do it."
He turned back on their path and threw the pebble again.
Instead of his spirit catching it, Tong Huakun jumped high to grab it and threw it to the other side of the mountain.
After a minute of silent running, she grumbled "Fine." and they left it at that.
Three days later, Jack chewed his cold dinner and glared at the stones on the ground like they mocked him with their obedience to gravity while the sound of rain echoed all around him.
It started raining an hour ago so they took shelter in a cave and decided to make an early stop and wait it out.
Tong Huakun studied him with a smirk on her face while she ate. Watching him try and fail so many times gave her great pleasure and she didn't mind informing him about it.
When he finished eating, Jack stood up and said "I can't go on like this. If I stick to the old man's methods I might not get this right until next year."
He gave her an encouraging smile and added "Please don't spread this around or else all of us might get destroyed."
Tong Huakun's brows furrowed and she asked "What do you plan to do?"
He locked gazes with her and answered "I will have to examine other people's meridian structure in order to figure out where I'm supposed to circulate my spirit energy."
She stood up too and looked confused when she asked "What does that mean."
Jack sighed and placed a hand on his Star Bag while he said "I didn't want to show you this yet, but I have to do it."
With that, he took out the head of the man he killed in the duel in Tribal Assembly. The smell of blood filled the cave in seconds.
Tong Huakun's face darkened and she asked "You don't mean to look at the meridians of a dead man, do you?"
Jack took off his coat and robe and stored them in his Star Bag before he took out a knife and said "Don't look at it as mutilating a corpse. Look at it as gaining knowledge that will aid you with your cultivation and survival."
She shook her head and stormed out of the cave. Her voice drifted back into the cave to say "I will not look at it at all. Call for me when you're done."
Jack watched her go and considered the merits of going after her. 'No, I have to learn this. The old man said it takes time to extend the range in which you can move things. If I drag this on for too long I might endanger the entire company.'
He sighed, knelt down, and started removing the head's scalp.
When he broke through to grade four, before he passed out, he felt the place that opened in his head somewhere in his frontal lobe. His breakthrough to grade six also touched a place close to it so he knew where to look.
After he took out the brain, he examined it completely but couldn't find anything on its surface.
He thought it over and removed another body form his Star Bag, a grade four Lolin Tribe warrior's corpse.
Half an hour later, he had a pair of brains from grades four, five, and six in front of him.
They all had the thin lines of meridians stained with an unnatural white running all over them. From what Jack could see of the first layer, they all looked the same.
He considered them for a while and then removed the cortex from all of them as best as he could.
When he did, he saw some of the meridians that ran through the frontal lobe starting to focus towards the place where the two sides of the brain met.
In the past, he didn't think too much about this since he worked on lower grade cultivators or normal people, but now it caught his attention.
As he removed more layers, the meridians got a lot more concentrated. Until finally, he found a clump of meridians in the shape of a small ball, no larger than half of his nail, right at the spot where the two sides of the brain met.
The clump was located about a centimeter from the front side of the brain and a centimeter from the top. All of the brains that he took out had it.
Jack sent a strand of spirit energy to the same spot in his brain and found the clump too. It felt like the meridians fused into one large entity. He could send a lot more spirit energy through it, but he didn't feel anything different.
'It really doesn't matter after you break through.' He thought and started studying the other brains again.
When he looked closer, he saw that some of the other meridians in the grade five and six brains started converging on a spot behind the clump, while the other meridians of the grade four brains just spread around like in other brains he saw before.
With an excited expression, he started removing additional layers from the brains while he followed the direction in which the meridians gathered.
In the grade five brains, after going for another centimeter deeper from the front, the meridians neared the place where the two halves of the brain touched, but they stayed on their own side.
When he studied the grade six brains, he saw even more meridians gathered around the same spot. Some had already started merging in the two halves, but they needed something to push them to touch and finish combining.
Jack tried to sear the location of the converging meridians in his retinas and then sent a strand of spirit energy towards it.
The strand found resistance at first, but then it entered a much larger meridian than usual for a moment. When it exited, it somehow felt more 'real'.
He focused all of his effort on feeling the difference in the new strand of spirit energy, so he didn't hear anything before a voice called out "Jack, are you done yet?"
The strand of spirit energy slipped his mind as he blinked and really saw the mess he made for the first time.
He picked up a carved out brain and wanted to store it in his Star Bag, but before he could, he heard a sharp intake of breath from his back.
When he turned around, he saw the horrified face of Tong Huakun scanning his bloody body and the gruesome scene of carved out brains and blood in the cave.
In a dark corner of his mind, Jack thought 'Good thing that I stored the bodies to make more room.'
A second later, the wet Tong Huakun turned around and ran back out into the rain.
Jack dropped the brain and ran after her.
When he exited the cave, he saw her sprinting in the direction of the Haechi Tribe. He started operating the Moon Step and gave chase.
It took him less than a minute to catch up and run in front of her.
"Get out of my way, you monster!" Tong Huakun growled as she grasped her spear and pointed it at his face.
Blood and brains started washing away from Jack's raised hands while he said "Wait, I can explain what…"
"There is nothing you can say that will stop me from telling everything to my people!" Tong Huakun hissed and jabbed her spear at his face.
Jack jumped back and avoided the stab while his hand darted down to his Star Bag.
Tong Huakun's face hardened and she kept pursuing him with stabs. She knew that if she gave him the time he would use his projectile weapon to kill her.
Jack's hand exited the Star Bag and, instead of his cylinder, he held a metal ball in his hand.
He used Moon Step to increase the distance between them and shouted "Look!"
In the next moment, a strand of spirit energy enveloped the metal ball and made it float in a bobbing motion a few centimeters above his palm.
Tong Huakun stopped and stared at the bobbing ball with disbelief in her eyes.
Jack took it as a good sign and made it float over to his other hand before he said "Do you see now? I can learn how to do things much faster due to my research and understanding. The older members of the company can too. I can teach you and your people how to do it."
Tong Huakun tore her gaze away from the floating ball and looked into the teen's eyes. She only saw sincerity and hope in them. If blood and worse things weren't sliding down his body she might have agreed then and there.
"You mutilated the bodies of those warriors to get that knowledge. How can anything gained through something that evil be that easy?" She asked and focused all of her attention on the teen's every movement.
If he told her anything that seemed false she would run towards her people immediately, or die trying.
Jack stopped floating the metal ball and placed it back in his Star Bag.
He saw the look that Tong Huakun gave him and dropped all pretenses before he said "I use corpses in the same way you use Haechi beasts. They aren't anything else than shells of souls that have long departed. If you don't want to accept that, I can't help you."
A second later, he turned in the direction of the cave and continued "You have a simple choice to make. Either follow me and see how far I can take you with my methods, or go back and let your people die out in a few generations."
With that, he started walking back towards the cave.