"Don't worry, mother. This must probably be some kind of a misunderstanding on her part."
Davis continued comfortingly, "Remember mother, even though she can process complex thoughts like an adult, she is still a child, both in body and soul, unlike me. It would take some time for her to understand her own feelings."
He paused before grinning.
"If she can't, then I will just have to make her realize like a good brother."
Claire became heartened and quickly embraced him, "I knew I could count on you, Davis. You're the best."
A dutiful son is indeed a reliable son.
"Hehe!"
======
After spending some time with his mother, Davis returned to the Study. He had nothing to do except cultivating, so he thought that he could use this chance to teach Ellia about cultivation.
"Ellia, I said before that I would teach you cultivation." Davis walked up to her as he struck up a conversation.
"Hmm...." Ellia nodded her head.
It would be a lie if she said she wasn't interested in it.
Davis wanted to know her current knowledge, "Before that, what do you know about cultivation so far?"
"Erm... I only know about Meridian Refinement Stage. I haven't been taught any more than that." Ellia shyly pursed her lips, feeling inferior again.
"Then try explaining that to me..." Davis said.
Ellia looked taken aback, but her eyes narrowed, and she gathered her thoughts before explaining, "Meridian Refinement Stage is where we refine our meridians by absorbing heaven and earth energy from the surrounding atmosphere. It is almost impossible to absorb without practicing an Essence Gathering Cultivation Manual, which teaches us how to circulate the heaven and earth energy into the body and refine it in our dantian..."
"The heaven and earth energy in the air is also impure making it difficult for us to cultivate with that method. Hence, we have no choice but to rely on refined pills to quickly make it through this stage; otherwise, we can only advance slowly by absorbing this impure heaven and earth energy. Later, we refine all the meridians in our body, opening almost all the meridian points and pathways until we can begin storing energy in our meridians for the next stage."
"Right, you have a good grasp of the Meridian Refinement Stage."
Davis nodded his head in approval as if he were an expert himself.
"Hehe..." Ellia smiled innocently, genuinely delighted at being complimented by him.
Davis then took over, "Let me explain to you about the next stage, Energy Condensation Stage. As the name implies, we start gathering energy from the surrounding atmosphere and store it in our meridians as we circulate the energy before finally storing it in our dantian. This causes our meridians to undergo a qualitative change depending on the element or attribute of energy we absorb."
"In my case, it's the lightning energy. With my parents' help, I've refined my meridians to be more inclined towards the lightning attribute; hence, it can be said that I'm suited more for cultivating lightning attributed essence energy."
"Other than that, the pureness of the energy we refine and store in our meridian points and dantian depends on the Essence Gathering Cultivation Manual we cultivate. The purer the essence energy is, the more powerful we will be even adding on the fact that our meridian points become more powerful, capable of storing more energy when we break through the next level in that Cultivation System."
"Mhm!" Ellia seriously nodded her head.
She could understand his simple explanation. She thought it was way easier to understand Davis's explanation than reading through books, which really liked to make cultivation mysterious enough that she couldn't understand one bit of it.
After this, he explained its concepts to her for some time before moving on to the Body Cultivation System.
"Let's move on to the Body Cultivation System. It isn't anything difficult to understand and doesn't require much comprehension, but requires more resources than the other two Cultivation Systems. We just have to absorb the energy from those certain resources and circulate it into our body, meridians, bones, tendons, inner muscles, outer muscles, and organs, making our entire body stronger in the process."
"The names of the Body Cultivation System in the early stages are organized by the aura we emit after cultivating it. After we keep cultivating and strengthen our entire body continuously, the aura we emit changes in color, indicating that we have broken through the next stage."
"In the Copper Stage, we emit a reddish-brown aura that envelops our body when we use the Body Cultivation Technique. In this stage, only our flesh strengthens."
"In the Bronze Stage, we emit a refined brownish aura, and so on and so forth for the next stages. In this stage, the flesh and the meridians are strengthened."
"Also, it is rumored that the more you train your body, the more energy you can store in your meridians. However, since I haven't made much progress in Essence Gathering Cultivation when compared to my Body Tempering Cultivation, I fail to see the comparison."
Ellia kept nodding her head as he explained.
After that, he emphasized how to efficiently circulate the energies from the absorbed resources into the body. He also explained about the dangers of cultivating in Body Tempering Cultivation System.
"One wrong move and the worst that could happen to you is you end up crippled or even dead!"
Ellia gulped but also felt like she could now confidently cultivate with his help.
"Leaving at that, I guess I could explain Soul Forging Cultivation to you later. However, it is obvious that you are not ready for that."
"Okay." Ellia obediently and adorably echoed.
She was taking in all that information into her mind he said previously, so any more knowledge will become useless since she will undoubtedly get confused.
'Oh, man! How do I explain Soul Forging Cultivation to her? It has the most mysterious and involves a lot of complex intricacies out of the three Cultivation Systems.' Davis felt a headache.
More than explanation, Soul Forging Cultivation concentrated more on the feeling, experiencing the resonance with heaven and earth energy.
He knew that he was no teacher material, and he couldn't teach her what he didn't understand perfectly.
======
In the Cauldon Family Manor at the Royal Capital.
"What? The Little Prince said that he would cancel the marriage between him and my daughter?"
Evan Cauldon, who was in his room, seated on a chair, suddenly went wide-eyed at the news as he stood up. His face looked as if it were about to explode!
"No, It's not like that, Family Head," A slightly fat man tried to explain.
He was none other than George Cauldon, the Cauldon Emporium's Manager, who came to report about the earlier event.
"Then what?"
"The Prince only told that Young Mistress Evelynn has her choice to make and that he won't force her to become his concubine. If she doesn't want to marry him, then he stated that he would cancel the marriage with the help of his Imperial Father, the Emperor." George Cauldon tried to articulate his choice of words.
Evan Cauldon coldly snorted, "Hmph, the Loret family won't go back on their word. We aided them to cross two disasters; the rebellion and also the war. The marriage will occur as promised."
"Even if they don't go back on their word, what if Young Mistress Evelynn refuses? The Prince will stop the marriage from happening with having a good reason on his part."
Evan Cauldon possessed a stern expression on his face before he heaved a sigh. He couldn't help but lower his voice.
"This… did my daughter say anything?"
"Young Mistress didn't say anything and also didn't back out from the marriage."
"Mhm?" Evan Cauldon couldn't believe his ears.
He knew his daughter best, but he had no choice but to sacrifice her for the Cauldon Family's prosperity. But he didn't think he was sacrificing his daughter because he didn't know a more trustworthy family to marry his daughter other than the Loret Family.
Marrying her to the Loret Family was the best proposition he could think of at the moment, as forming ties with the Imperial Family was also important. Otherwise, their Noble Family might meet with their end sooner than they should in the passage of time.
"It looked like Young Mistress was hesitating for some reason. This is also a piece of good news." George Cauldon widened his greasy lips as he smiled like a toad.
"Mhm? Has she taken an interest in that little brat? No way! She was adamant about revoking this marriage arrangement when she was a child and remained like that even yesterday! What had happened?"
"Even if you ask me…" George Cauldon had a wry smile on his face.