Even though she knew that the growth of an individual with three celestial names would grow and learn about cultivation at a terrifying rate, Bell still found Arc's processing and growth to be frightening. Without ever having cultivated before he had the comprehension and ability of some of their most memorable candidates at roughly a year of training after only five days. While she recognized that most of them were unable to be touched due to fears of contamination it did not explain how fast he had picked up on the rather complex concept of Xan concentration.
She now knew why he had been chosen for that monolith. She also knew that he was going to have a hell of a lot of trouble and suffering breaking through not one or two worlds, as most candidates are limited to, but ninety-nine of them.
She was also aware of how compromised and vulnerable he is going to be if he garners any form of hostility. His mission to reach them means that there will be extremely few people capable of following him through the realms as they will be unable to break the barriers between worlds. She was aware of at least one person down there who would be able keep up with him, and she knew that there had to be at least two others.
This didn't mean that they would be on his level though. They may also be in the lower nine of course, but they could also be in the upper nine or the middle realms. Until they made contact with him she would have no way of knowing where they are. Not even Pherel would be able to tell. But Pherel did know that one person born with one of their stellar names being Terrae was born quite close. How close was what Pherel was unsure of, but Pherel was positive they were born in the same world.
As much as she wanted to continue letting him circulate, she felt he had progressed far enough at this point to move on to the next stage. He would be able to practice circulation as much as he wanted once he returned, but for now Bell found herself in a bit of a rush to teach him this last bit as Pherel informed her that Arc's guardians would be arriving about half a day earlier than predicted. Pherel's inability to predict the future regarding Arc was looking to be a massive problem in the future.
Bell clapped in front of Arc's sleeping face, infusing the slightest trace of Xan into the sound, in order to wake him. She hated doing this even though she knew it was the most effective way, she viewed sleep as sacred to life after all. Of course she knew he really wasn't asleep, he just looked like it.
"I hope you will forgive me for breaking your concentration. I have been informed that we will not have as much time together as I had initially thought. I had to grab your attention so that I may teach you the most important part of this whole trip, how to gather Xan into your body."
Arc's originally confused and agitated countenance changed to curiosity upon her justification and explanation. Her request to begin was answered with another nod of the head and she began to disperse her Xan throughout the 'air' of the astral field. She wasn't able to replicate world energy, which was an amalgamation of a ton of different energies both basic and elemental and was far easier to absorb than pure Xan, so she made it exceptionally dense to the point it could be seen as a white fog.
She then went over the process of absorbing that Xan into the body in order to use.
"First breath some of it in and try to condense it similar to how you did it before."
This didn't have anything to do with the technique but it would serve of an important lesson.
As if on queue, Arc began coughing and wheezing, spitting up a white liquid that dispersed into that fog on contact with the ground.
'Wow, he condensed a lot more than I thought he would.' That was a frankly astonishing amount for him to condense in such a short amount of time. Of course it was nothing to her, but for a newbie it was incredible.
"As you can see that doesn't work. There is a special way to absorb it so that it does not get caught in you lungs. I had you do that to show you the danger of trying to absorb Xan through that brute force method." Normally she wouldn't call it a brute force method as it was how most general cultivators gathered Xan with a lack of a more refined technique. However the performance Arc just displayed made her change her wording from inefficient to outright dangerous. Should there be any form of toxin in the world energy he was condensing, even a minor one, he would rapidly find himself poisoned. She was lucky in that sense that she didn't try to create a mockery of world energy. Elemental imbalances that she would have been responsible for would make it so that he would have been knocked out.
She would have been able to help him but that experience might have been enough to scar him.
"Instead I will teach you a technique that will help you absorb Xan. It will be much slower than pretty much every cultivation technique you find down there, but the quality and purity of Xan you absorb will be much higher. Remember, our goal is not to speed you along, but to make your cultivation perfect in every way possible. All you have to do is remember what we tell you and do as your told. You will find success even if you are the slowest out there."
Arc showed just for an instant clear disdain for this restriction of his freedom, but he recognized that this was to make him strong so he didn't make a fuss.
'What a strange child to be so rebellious yet follow orders and instructions to the letter. Not to mention how little he talks. I remember those comebacks of his as well.' While she was instructing him earlier she had been watching him closely and examining him, taking notes of his actions and expressions and trying to figure out what he was thinking. 'I will have to ask the situation surrounding his death at some point. For once I find myself very curious about a candidate's past.'
At some point she reached the end of her basic description of the technique and asked if he had any questions.
"Is there a name for this technique? You said earlier that others have many different techniques so I must imagine that this one has something other than process to distinguish itself." It was a simple question, but one she had not expected him to ask, none of the previous candidates had ever bothered to as far as she knew.
"Interestingly, you should know that almost all other techniques are derived from this one. Usually they trade off some of the overall quality of Xan to increase the overall speed of condensation. Others manipulate it so that it is focused around a certain element. It doesn't really have a name as it is literally the most basic yet efficient one that exists, we just call it our cultivation technique. Though I suppose due to this nature that should you be asked about it in the future a good name for it would be the Origin Technique."
'I wonder if the Master had a name for this technique...'