After ten minutes, members of group number six were sitting on the ground around a sect's inner disciple, waiting earnestly until he started talking. This group was sitting inside the study hut located outside the spiritual garden. The garden was surrounded by a granite wall, hiding it from the view of the gathering.
This inner disciple was a tall young man who looked the same age as Xie Ra. He had a dark skin tone and curly hair, which silently screamed about his foreign ethnicity.
At first, his appearance seemed to be an interesting topic for the new batch of outer disciples. However, as soon as he started to talk with his magnetic, deep voice, he attracted everyone's attention to his speech.
"Greetings, Juniors. I am your group's trainer Ai Qing. Before we start today's session, I would like to explain spiritual gardening. Behind this granite wall, many spiritual plants grow under the great care of sect disciples.
Probably many of you heard about a few of these plants but, most plants won't be familiar to you. Some of them used to form magical pills like cultivation pills and beast pills. Some of the-
Yeah, do you have to ask something, junior brother?"
His dark eyes were focused on the disciple, who raised his hand a few seconds ago. Xie Ra wondered how someone could have a doubt already. Senior Qing didn't even say anything important yet.
"Senior brother, what are these beast and cultivation pills?"
Right, Xie Ra forgot that the others are still mortals. Well, he was a mortal himself right now but, he was a cultivator before.
"I was about to explain that. Good question, junior. When you cultivate using qi(energy), which won't be soon, you will face something called a breakthrough. That means you use your maximum inner energy(qi) to reach the next realm of your cultivation.
As you know, this won't be a small amount of energy. It disturbs normal energy flow in the environment. So you will get attacked by this disturbed outer energy. We call them heavenly tribulations.
These tribulations won't be that strong if you are in a lower realm, as your inner qi is low. But, as your realm grows, your inner qi will get stronger. So tribulations will be stronger as well. So the chance of your death rises as well."
Many students' faces became pale as they heard this. Xie Ra had first-hand experiences with tribulations in his past life. Raging storms, destructive lightning, Deafening thunders.
He couldn't imagine the brutal death he might face if he wasn't strong enough to face them. He wasn't scared like these newbies. However, that doesn't mean he wasn't scared at all.
Every single cultivator who was trying to breakthrough had this fear of death hanging over their heads. That was the price they had to pay for the magnificent power they own after a breakthrough.
All this thought inhabited Xie Ra's mind within a few seconds. His attention diverted to Ai Qing as the next sentence escaped from the inner disciple's mouth.
"That's why we need cultivation pills. They reduce the rate of breakthrough failure by strengthening the cultivator's body. They stabilize his inner qi flow so the effect on the outer energy will get lower.
On the other hand, beast pills stabilize the spiritual beast's inner qi flow helping them to reach high realms as well."
Wei Jingsheng's eyes got wider. He murmured to Xie Ra, "Do spiritual beasts cultivate as well?"
Ai Qing, who already was a cultivator, overheard this question across the room. There was nothing queer about this. Naturally, when you advance in your cultivation, your five senses will become more and more sensitive.
Ai Qing answered Wei Jingsheng's question before Xie Ra opened his mouth.
"Yes and no, junior. Not only the spiritual beasts we raise but also the spiritual monsters we have to fight one day can advance in their cultivation. They can gather qi circulates in the outer environment. So they don't cultivate like us. Their strength depends on the energy in their surroundings and their age.
Nevertheless, we give them realms according to the qi they have compared to human cultivators.
Sadly, there is a disadvantage for our pet spiritual beasts. They live in an environment where everyone absorbs qi. So, they have to absorb the leftover energy, unlike the monsters who live amidst abundant qi supply.
Fortunately, with beast pills, we can strengthen our beasts to higher realms.
Hm, We took too much time. However, I think now all of you understand the importance of pills.
We need spiritual herbs and a few other things to forge these pills. You will learn them in the future.
So let's go inside the garden." Ai Qing stood up and led the way for his students.
They walked towards the garden entrance, which was secured by, group of sect inner disciples. Wei Jingsheng leaned towards Xie Ra and asked, "Why are these sect disciples guarding here? Why won't just security guards do it."
"They are in charge of duties today. If someone wants to rob these plants, that definitely will be another cultivator. So peak nascent and above realm disciples had to attend guarding duties at such important places. They can easily take down low or same realm cultivators."
"What if higher realm one comes?"
"Each of them has a warning signal and communication thread connects them with each other. If they use the warning signal, the sect emblem will glow in the sky so elders can reach there fast. The communication thread within them informs the others if one of their colleagues got attacked.
However, usually higher realm cultivators enter into a sect, elders will know as a protection array around the sect inform about the intrusion."
"Don't these disciples steal themselves?"
"If they do, everyone will know that it's them, as they did the guarding duty."
Wei Jingsheng looked impressed. "Wow. This is impressive. Jeez, I'm so excited. Brother Xie Ra surely knows a lot."
Oh, shit. He talked too much again. He had one option to cover up his mistake. Lie.
"No. There was a senior brother I knew from Mystic pavilion. He told me."
"Oh, that's why. But, it's great that you know a lot. I can ask you anytime."
"Em, I will explain if I know them."
"Haha, we'll see brother Xie Ra."
As soon as their chat was over, they reached the garden entrance. Ai Qing took a wooden box and distributed a small token among everyone. It was read as the 'outer disciple-beginner token.'
After each of them got a token for themselves, Ai Qing started talking.
"Don't ever lose your token or give it to another person. If you do either of them, you will be banned from the spiritual garden. You cannot enter without my permission letter either.
You can enter one by one as a line now. I will imprint this with your name before you enter so nobody can steal it from you.
And remember, you have to return this token if you want to leave the sect. Follow these rules or consequences won't be easy for you..."
With this note first disciple on their line entered into the spiritual garden.