A window was opened. The gentle breeze from outside could be felt as it relaxed the nerves and cleared one's mind.
In a relatively spacious room, Ash was sitting butt naked and cross legged on the floor, cultivating with closed eyes.
In contrast to his calmness, the room was a total mess.
It has been 6 hours already and the 4th meridian in his body just opened.
Vroom, Bam, Bam!
Objects started moving around and bumping into eachother as Nature essense was being sucked in like a tornado.
It was already the 3rd time today.
The isolation array formation was activated and no noise could be heard from inside the room, while Ash cultivated.
After the last time that this happened, Bai Ling taught Ash how to use the array formations in his room, so that he wouldn't disturb her with his loud cultivation.
Usualy cultivation was quiet, but at the beginning while the meridians were being opened, due to the lack of Nature essense in them, a small suction force would appear.
This suction force could vary for every cultivator. If the meridians were smaller, due to incorrect cultivation, the Nature essense flowing in them wouldn't be absorbed as fast and there wouldn't be any significant changes in it's movement.
Likewise if the meridians were larger, the suction force would be stronger.
Geniuses could make strong flows of Nature essense while prodigies could make small tornadoes while opening their meridians.
This was an important step for human cultivators as their future progress would depend on it.
Usualy after opening their meridians and reaching the Transcendence realm, humans would often take a large amount of time in trying to expand them.
This was called 'Solidifying One's realm' and it was different for every realm. It was a must for most cultivators!
Trying to elevate one's realm, without first solidifying it, would often times lead to extreme pain and disabilities, if not death.
That being said, Ash didn't have to go trough the trouble of stabilising his meridians as they were as opened as humanly possible.
On the other hand Bai Ling didnt need to do that too for her meridians, as she was born as a transcendant and her meridians were also fully opened.
Today Ash managed to opened 3 more meridians and fell on the floor in utter exhaustion.
...
The next day.
"Ugh... This smell again." Ash woke up from a nose raping smell.
Going to the bathroom to wash himself, he left black traces all over the room.
Although he felt quite energetic, due to his newly opened meridians, Ash was feeling gloomy and uncomfortable due to obvious reasons.
This time he was covered with a thinner layer of the black substance, but no matter how thin it was, it was enough to make his nose bleed from agony.
After multiple showers, Ash cleaned his room, dressed up for school and went to have breakfast with Bai Ling and Bai Juan.
This morning Bai Cheng wasn't here and when Ash tried to ask Bai Juan about it, she just gave him a misterious smile, saying it was a secret.
....
Already at school, Ash took a random subject from his full backpack and started reading page by page.
Being in the last roll, the teacher couldn't see what he was doing, only knowing Ash was busying himself with something.
"Atleast he isn't sleeping like yesterday..." She didnt have a high opinion of Ash and Bai Ling since they didn't pay attention in class at all and were absent for the first day.
The second day, Ash was sleeping all the time and Bai Ling was watching trough the windows or staring at him sleep with a bored face.
"Who would have thought that the two students with the highest entrance scores would be so... disappointing?" it was truly hard to accept this reality, but also she knew that as a teacher, she couldn't do much to make them study.
Usualy students with good grades were proud and wouldn't change their attitude just because the teacher said so. And lets not talk about excellent ones... They had an attitude as if the teacher could teach them nothing more than the textbooks.
Sigh... She turned her head to someone else and gave a question...
In the meanwhile Bai Ling glanced at Ash with surprise. Remembering what Ash said to her the other day in the car, she smiled and started studying along with him.
The whole day went by just like that. Classes and breaks passed by as time flew, but both Ash and Ling didn't move an inch and ignored their classmates.
Looking at the duo 'nerds', the ignored classmates started having thoughts of their own and in the end, they just left Ash and Bai Ling alone.
Being in their own little world, Ash and Ling didn't care about the opinions of others.
After finishing with a whole subject, the final bell rang. It was time to go home.
....
At dinner...
"I've gotten you a little surprise, Ash." Bai Cheng was already home from the trip.
"Hope you will like it." he smiled.
"A surprise?" Ash looked at Bai Cheng curiously.
Bai Juan nodded with a smile.
When she saw the so called surprise her husband prepared for Ash, she was surprised nontheless.
Bai Ling was curious as well and wanted to see what her father will give Ash.
After dinner, Bai Cheng gave Ash an ordinary looking book and two shields.
On the book was written 'Abyssal Counter techniques' and the writing looked ancient and beautiful.
On the other hand, the shields... They were small... maybe a little too small. Looking at them, Ash noticed that both shields fitted on one of his palms.
Confused, Ash turned to face the smiling Bai Cheng. He was wondering if this was some kind of joke.
"Hehe, you know how to absorb Nature essense, but when you open all of your meridians and learn how to controll and output it into objects, you'll see that these 'Abyssal' shields are more powerfull than you can imagine. Untill then you can use the ones you picked up yesterday." Bai Cheng remarked.
"Pfff, these shields have better quality than my 'White Star' sword!" Bai Ling said as her eyes widened in shock.
With her current strenght, she couldn't use even one 1000th of her sword's power. Why was her father giving such treasures to Ash, when he couldn't even use them?
" Better than Ling's sword? " Ash didn't know what Ling was saying, however he understood one thing. This one thing was written all over Bai Ling's face: The shields are f*cking precious!
Seeing his examining eyes on her, Bai Ling stared back at him in confusion for a second, before noticing her strange facial expression.
This made her blush from embarrasment "I think i'll go and cultivate." she turned around with this excuse and walked fast toward her room.
Seeing her go, Ash thought for a second and said to Bai Cheng "I'll go and train with mr Lee now, uncle." after which, he thanked Bai Cheng for the deadly weapons and went to his room to put the 'Abyssal' shields before changing into simple clothes.
...
"Train him like a soldier...." uncle Lee remembered Bai Cheng's words as he waved his hand to Ash, signaling him to follow him.
Going past the small forest, uncle Lee stopped near the lake, where there was a path that followed it's edges.
Near their location there was something like an opened gym. It was very spacious and looked clean, but also made to look so as to compliment the beautiful scenery.
The lake was on one side of the gym, while on the other side was the forest.
"We will train here from now on, no matter if the weather is too hot, or if it's raining..." uncle Lee looked at Ash as if he was looking a soldier " I'll be teaching you the basic stances and moves for now, and when you become a transcended, we will start with the advanced techniques and proper way of releasing Nature essense for more efficient controll over your body..." he continued.
After explaining to Ash the training routine he would need to follow, uncle Lee showed him a bunch of stances and the moves that followed each stance.
Thanks to his monstrous memory and observation abilities, Ash was able to execute everything that uncle Lee showed him in just 5 repetitions.
Uncle Lee was shocked by this and suddenly remembered the past, and how his instructor would scold him nonstop for making the same mistakes over and over again.
Training was training nevertheless, so to reward Ash with his great performance, he made him run around the small lake untill Ash could no longer hold on.
It was getting dark and Ash's leggs were like jelly while returning to get a shower. He complained in his mind about being forced to run for a whole 40 minutes. Worst part of it was him getting his butt kicked by uncle Lee if he tried to slow down even a little.
For a 14 y.o. boy this training was too much for Ash's growing body to handle, suddenly uncle Lee thought and said "We will train every second day so you can have time for cultivation."
If he didn't give Ash time for his body to relax, especialy when the kid just started cultivating, and was busy with school and training, Ash wouldn't have the time to cultivate at all and there would be no progress.