Time seemed to slow down for Eric, as his mind raced to find a suitable answer.
He couldn't say the truth, not fully, at least. The consequences of doing so were, as of yet, impossible to estimate. No, he had to play with his cards firmly on his chest.
Any more information given than necessary would not help him in any way.
"All I remember is being exhausted, falling in a river and waking up in a room I didn't recognize."
'Not a complete lie...'
The chief raised his eyebrow. "And your name?" A hint of amusement in his voice.
"The same as being able to speak this language. I know it, but how I know it is a mystery to me "
The chief sat back in thought. "I see... I can see that you have never cultivated before, yet you seem to be fine in this density of primal energy", he glanced at Ying Yue, "not to mention the fact that you're able to stand near her. This leads me to believe you at least have some talent."
Eric was slightly surprised.
'Standing near her is a sign of talent?'
"Be that as it may, you are currently not qualified to officially join this clan, even if you so wish. We value strength over all and as such, without cultivation, you are simply not worthy of Mount Qixuan as a whole, let alone the twelfth tier."
Ying Yue seemed slightly panicked, "M-my lord, if you wil-"
Zhufu Feng raised his hand to silence her. "I have an ultimatum for you, Eric. It is a simple one." He pulled out a scroll from within is robes and flicked it towards Eric, nodding when he saw that it was caught with ease. "This is a copy of our clan's basic body cultivation technique, 'Thunder Emperor's Body'. I will give you one month to reach large success of the Strength Training realm. failing to do so wil result in to being sent to live in the land of the commoners at the base of the mountain. That is, of course, if you wish to stay."
Eric looked down at the scroll in his hand, his heartbeat quickening in excitement. He was a fighter to his core and the opportunity to better himself was beyond exciting. Strength, speed, skill, technique... it all melded together in combat. Every bit of knowledge and experience its own unique aspect presented in one's fighting style.
"Just to be clear, we are no longer a clan of warriors." Eric felt as if a bucket of ice water was poured on his head. "Our role beneath the Lightning Sect is one of labour. We provide ironwood, and minerals as our main export and offer our food supplies as tax. That technique is simply a method to absorb primal essence into your body in order to strengthen in it. Doing so is the base-level requirement to participate in cutting down an ironwood tree, let alone mining for ore."
Eric clutched the scroll in his hand. Determination in his eyes, he made eye contact with Zhufu Feng.
"I wish to join."
A gleam seemed to flash across the chief's eyes as he said in delight. "Very well then! I shall arrange for you stay with our new recruits, it would not bode well for you to continue to stay at a young woman's home now that you've regained consciousness..."
Ying Yue puffed her cheeks in frustration at his teasing. "It's not as if I can be any more resented..." she muttered.
Chief Zhugu Feng pointedly ignored her mumbling and continued, "I look forward to seeing you progress, young man. Who knows? If you display enough talent, you may be able to join my personal guard." He smiled warmly. "Now return to Yue'er's home and I shall send for an escort once the preparations have been completed."
Ying Yue saluted in the way of the clan and ushered Eric out.
...
Sitting alone at the table in Ying Yue's home, Eric looked over the Thunder Emperor's Body cultivation scroll. The characters used resembled Chinese somewhat, but seemed more ancient and complex. He could read it, somehow, but that didn't mean it was something he had read before.
'Why is that, I wonder.'
It was then that Ying Yue returned from the communal kitchens. This time with enough food for two.
He had offered to go with her, but she had insisted on going herself, "Too much intrigue is never a good thing", being her final arguement.
Eric held the door for her as before, scroll still in hand. She glanced at it as she passed the threshold, "Hard at work, I see. Were you able to understand it?"
Eric pulled the door closed behind her.
"I can understand the words, comprehending their meaning isn't as easy."
Ying Yue set the table as before while Eric brought the tea from the small stove. "That's the wall between mortals and those with talent for cultivation. I've heard stories of mortals that have gone so far as to die in closed door cultivation, just for the chance at comprehension."
Eric chuckled.
"That's not exactly encouraging"
Ying Yue glared at him playfully as she finished pouring the tea. "I have the sinking suspicion that you are not exactly in the need of encouragement." She made a show of sitting in an overly formal and elegant manner. "Besides, chief Feng's time limit is pretty reasonable. If you can not achieve any results in that amount of time, you will essentially be doomed to fail."
Eric began eating, the positive mood making him confident in his new path. If he couldn't achieve this much, what was his purpose of reincarnating?
...
'... Seriously. Why the hell did I even reincarnate?!'
Eric opened his eyes in frustration. It was already his sixth day in the cultivation dorm for new recruits and he had yet to even be able to feel primal essence, let alone absorb it.
One couldn't even say his failure was due to a lack of effort either. Aside from eating and using the restroom, he had cultivated without sleep, a feat he attributed to being newly reborn and having been in a coma for 7 days afterward. Although the theory could be easily debunked by basic knowledge of how sleep works for people, but that was not as pressing of a matter for him in this instance.
'There I go again...'
Eric wearily opened his eyes to the second noon's sun coming through the window and glared at the rotund fellow across from him. The lazy bastard was happily snoring away and grinning in his sleep.
This guy was quite the eyesore. Not because of his weight, but because he had gained comprehension two days before with seemily little effort. This put him on track to reach the first of the nine stages that made up Strength training within the next couple days.
'Which would already be quite the headache.'
Eric was already tired of this fellow's gloating and superiority complex. He was weary of the constant attempts to recruit him as his "little brother". His philosophy of strength being the precedent for hierarchy aligned with this clan's principles somewhat, but Eric found this interpretation to be grating at best.
Seemingly sensing the hostility directed at him, the sleeping boar slowly opened his eyes, rolled to sit up, raised his arms in an exaggerated stretch and yawned with his abnormally large mouth wide open; an act that ended with him tasting his own shoe.