Senior Teng looked at Qing Shan as if he was crazy.
"You-you did not even hear what I had to say. How do you know I wasn't going to say "I am not sure if you would survive…" Are you crazy? Sigh, there is no reasoning with you."
Qing Shan looked on at Senior Teng, eagerly awaiting the old man's knowledge.
"However, you must first become my disciple before I pass this knowledge to you."
Qing Shan's face soured.
"I already have a Master."
Without missing a beat, Senior Teng began talking once more.
"As for your master, just tell me where he is and I will beat him 'till he relinquishes you from being his disciple."
Seeing how Senior Teng was absolutely strait-faced, and did not seem to be joking, Qing Shan was unsure whether to laugh or cry.
'My master is a god you know…'
Seeing that Qing Shan would absolutely not accept him as his master, Senior Teng scrapped this idea.
"Fine, forget about me being your master. Just call me Teacher instead. This should be satisfactory, yes."
Naturally, Qing Shan had no problem with this.
'…This old geezer just wants to give himself a title.'
"Teacher, please tell me how to raise my cultivation quickly."
Qing Shan did not hesitate to call this old man Teacher for the sake of knowledge…
"Oh that is easy. All you have to do is follow the Runic Forging training method."
Black lines ran down Qing Shan's face. Senior Teng only wanted him as a disciple after all.
"How would training in Runic forging help me raise my cultivation base?"
"Oh that is simple. As you could probably tell, one has to be a Formation Soul cultivator in order to truly be a Runic Forgemaster. However, those who become Runic Forgemasters need to train their souls and minds in a different way. While normal cultivators focus on cultivation of the body and soul, we focus primarily on the soul, followed by the mind. This is because one does not need to have a strong body in order to be a Runic Forgemaster."
Qing Shan kind of understood what this Senior Teng was saying, but he was still not quite sure what kind of training would raise his cultivation level.
"What kind of training would raise my cultivation level?"
Senior Teng smirked, as if this was the question that he had been waiting for.
"Before I answer that question, let me ask you another. How does a cultivator raise their cultivation level?"
Qing Shan immediately answered.
"in order to break through, a cultivator has to fill their Dantian with Qi that is the same as their attribute. Only then will they break through."
Hearing Qing Shan, Senior Teng burst into laughter. His face then grew serious, and he uttered one word.
"Wrong."
He then continued.
"If you think that that is all that is required to raise your cultivation level, then it is no mystery why you have not broken through. The body has three major vessels, and the Dantian is only one of them. As you know, the Dantian houses the soul. What makes you think that cultivation is only the cultivation of the soul? The soul is only one third of your being. You cannot forget about your body and mind. In order to truly break through a level of cultivation and gain more strength than most other cultivators' half assed breakthroughs, you need to cultivate your mind, body, and soul. While cultivating the soul is the most straightforward on the surface, it, like the mind and body, can be cultivated in multiple ways.
"While the soul can be cultivated by filling the Dantian, this is actually only the minimum requirement for a breakthrough. A more powerful breakthrough involving only the soul can happen after facing struggles that push you to the limits. To be more specific, prevailing through events that push your willpower to the limit. For an even more powerful breakthrough, both the mind and body must also be cultivated. You must enhance your body to its peak form at your level and you must also learn more to cultivate your mind. Only at this point, will you be able to truly breakthrough with your mind, body, and soul. Once you have cultivated your mind and body, you will be able to use your Life Core and Third Eye much like your Dantian. My bet is that if you tried absorbing Qi at this moment and moved it into one of those two vessels, it would continue right on like a Meridian. Once each of these Major Vessels is full of Qi, only then will you be able to have a seamless breakthrough.
"Of course, I am not talking about bottlenecks. The truth is, there is no set way to break through bottlenecks. That must be figured out by yourself."
Once Senior Teng finally finished speaking, Qing Shan was filled with questions once more.
"What is the difference between a full breakthrough and one involving only the soul? Also, what do you mean by a seamless breakthrough? And–"
Senior Teng cut off Qing Shan before he could dump all of questions out at once.
"Well, the difference between a complete breakthrough and a soul breakthrough is very distinct. While a cultivator will still gain the same purity of Qi and rise in Qi capacity no matter the breakthrough, a soul breakthrough will be limited to these two functions. However, a complete breakthrough will increase you body's potential for growth and you mental capacity.
"As for seamless breakthrough, that means that you will have no bottlenecks other than the gap between realms until you reach a much higher cultivation level."
Qing Shan nodded. As he opened his mouth to ask one final question, senior Teng began to answer the question.
"As for how training in Runic Forging will increase your cultivation, that is because of what the training entails. The become a Runic Forgemaster, one must maintain a certain balance between at least the mind and soul. While this training will not cultivate your soul, it will train your mind and body to a large degree. Unfortunately, you will have to absorb Qi on your own time. While there are Circulation methods primarily for Runic Forgemasters, I would advise that you do not use one of those. While cultivation methods can be changed if they are alike, The Forgemaster-specific methods are so different that they cannot be changed into say, a normal cultivation method."
"So when would I be able to obtain a cultivation method?"
"Oh, the best time for that would be if you manage to join a sect if you are able to descend to the third level."
Qing Shan tried asking more questions, but senior Teng just told him that he was not the best person to answer the questions. To be exact, he said something like this.
"Boy, I am a Runic Forgemaster, not a cultivation master! Your questions also have nothing to do with Forging. What do you think I am, a sack of knowledge?"
It could be seen from these responses that Senior Teng was getting tired of answering these questions, so Qing Shan finally stopped.
In just a few more hours, Qing Shan was going to start his training as a Runic Forgemaster.
After leaving the forge to grab a mid-day meal, Qing Shan returned to the old man's shop.
"Let's get started."
Hearing Qing Shan come in, Senior Teng immediately began Qing Shan's instruction.
"The first thing that you are going to do, is learn base of Runic Forging. This base is split into two large parts. Learning about runes, and learning about forging. Right now, I am going to teach you the basics of forging. To do this, we naturally need to see where you are at."
With that, Senior Teng told Qing Shan to make an iron longsword without the use of any molds. Thinking that this would not be that hard, Qing Shan immediately began to heat the iron. After that, he brought the red-hot metal over to the anvil and started pounding down on the sides to make a sharp double-edge. That done, Qing Shan reheated the metal and went to work on the point. He started to cool the iron in water once he figured that the iron had been shaped into enough of a blade.
"I am done."
Qing Shan held out a two meter long piece of iron that had its sides and one end sharpened.
"That is trash. First of all, you did not even make a handle for your blade. What are you going to do, cut your hand every time you pick it up? Second, have you ever seen a blade that is as thick as a block of wood? And don't even get me started on…"
Qing Shan just stared as Senior Teng began to rant on and on about the low quality of his iron lump. After a quarter hour's amount of time had passed, Senior Teng finally stopped. However this was because he had realized that he was ranting, and not because he was done criticizing the weapon.
For his second try, Qing Shan first changed the shape of the two meter long, quarter meter wide, and quarter meter thick iron plank into a thin square pole that was still two meters long, yet had half the width and thickness. He had managed to put all of the excess metal in the handle. From there, Qing Shan carefully tapered one half of the iron lump into a long sharp side, then did the same on the other side. He then sharpened the tip and smoothed the edges.
After giving the weapon to Senior Teng, he was given a noticeably shorter lecture.
"Trash. However, this looks much more like a blade than the other. This may even qualify as a cheap fire poker. You made a handle this time, but you made it weigh more than twice the blade. You managed to make each of the edges sturdier, but you could not cut bread with them because they are so dull. This iron poker is so unbalanced it would fall out of even the strongest person's hands if held at the handle…"
Hours later, Qing Shan walked out of the old man's shop mentally and physically exhausted. However, he was glad that he had managed to upgrade his skills from 'iron lump' to 'blade worth one Barren Shard'. Qing Shan was confused. This was most likely the first time in his life that he had ever been mentally exhausted. He had not slowed his third eye, and he had noticed that his speed of thought had not really influenced his forging. In fact, all his speed of thought had done was make him feel like he was spending even more time struggling, which tired him even more. The physical exhaustion was also something different than he had ever felt. It was not like the good feel after a long exercise, but instead like he had finally managed to put a stopper on the robotic motions of his arm. After all, he had spent the whole afternoon hammering away.
When he got back to the Dusty Heights, he only drank a little, not enough to get drunk, and retreated to his room, much to the dismay of Yuan Long and Su Yuesha.
When he got to his room, Qing Shan immediately through down all of his belongings and entered the Primal pocket dimension. Once he was there, he quickly took a dip in the Primal Water to heal his body.
Even after bathing in the Primal Water, he was still exhausted. Not in and that he wanted to sleep, or was physically tired, but more in and that he had a large headache from his day. However, this tiring day had blown oil onto the spark that was Qing Shan's desire to get stronger. And now, he finally knew how he could get stronger. He estimated that he had most likely trained his mind enough to allow it to hold Qi, and his body had without question met the same requirements. To breakthrough on his own for the first time ever, Qing Shan finally had the proper means.
Qing Shan had not absorbed outside Qi into his body ever since he had obtained his Lightning QI. While his Master had wanted him to focus on other things while he was training Qing Shan, Qing Shan had been free to do this ever since he had left his Master's cave. He had just not thought of doing this until he had gained a cultivation method because he had not known any better.
However, Qing Shan had this amazing means of absorbing Qi which his master had given him. Why would he hesitate to take advantage of it?
After sorting through his thoughts, Qing Shan dove into absorbing fire and air Qi. Immediately, Qing Shan learned something knew about his lightning Qi. When absorbing fire on his left and wind on his right, as it was originally inside his body, pure fire attribute would mix into the lightning Qi on his left side, while the same would happen on the right with air attribute QI. However, circulating his Qi would quickly transform everything into lightning Qi. But Qing Shan found that it was easier turning so that the Qi entered the opposing sides of his body and immediately became lightning Qi.
As he began his Circulation, Qing Shan found that Senior Teng had been correct. All three of his Major Vessels began to gather Qi inside of them, instead of the Qi just passing through. This meant that he had successfully cultivated his mind and body to the peak of the 1st level of Formation Soul. Actually Qing Shan was amazed seeing the speed that the Qi was entering his body. If he had opened his eyes, he would see that there was literally a whirlpool of energy radiating out of his body. In only a few hours, his three Major Vessels had all been filled to the brim with Qi.
Suddenly, Qing Shan felt a sudden 'pop' come from all of his Major Vessels. Observing the inside of his Energy Channels*, Qing Shan noticed that his Major Vessels and Minor Meridians had all become fractionally larger. Also, he noticed that the Qi flowing through his Energy Channels had become noticeably thicker and purer. He also noticed that his Major Vessels only had a very small amount of Qi inside of them, enough to keep him alive and functioning, and that the Major Vessels had almost twice the amount of space inside of them. However, the Qi still revolved at the same speed inside of his Vessels. The last thing Qing Shan noticed was that his muscles had been compressed once more, to the point that each muscle was like a compressed spring, holding devastating power. Even his thoughts felt much clearer than before.
"Haha! I did it~ Oh yeah~"
Qing Shan broke through to the 2nd Level of Formation Soul!