Kao looked on perplexed as the number of mist strands kept rising on the remaining three kids.
46, 47, 48 the strands kept rising little by little bringing the spectators a pleasant surprise.
Having cleansed his body multiple times Kao knew that to have clean meridians in this world required special circumstances but he couldn't understand just how they had done it.
'It's not that they can't achieve such a thing, the Gisoo empire has talents across the empire who could easily achieve such a thing. It's just that this world isn't the same'
Earth in general was dying, Spiritually dying.
This was not because people weren't as religious anymore, religion had no say in the world of cultivation.
Spirituality in cultivation was tangible, you could see results when you gather spiritual energy, you don't have to visualize some image of an all powerful being, you could become that all powerful being.
Spiritual energy was simply the term applied to the power source of spiritual cultivation, It did not mean it was the holy spirit itself.
The soul was an actual thing in cultivation as well after all and it was not the same as spiritual energy.
Curiously, spirits can only appear after death in the form of ghosts, specters, revenants' and other spectral forms because of spiritual energy.
These spirits are the manifestation of the soul after death, but it can only appear if one had spiritual energy inside of them at some point in time.
A normal human cannot turn into a ghost of any form.
Without some sort of energy source to manifest, how could they ever appear to people as spirits or ghosts? Wouldn't they go straight to the afterlife?
This is where spiritual energy came in, named after the fact that spirits are the creatures most naturally observed using it, it could bend the laws of reality to the users own will.
Spiritual energy had no real source, it tended to gather in one area like gravity brought matter together.
It was both solid and ethereal all at once, it could move faster then light while at the same time limiting the speed of light, it could allow one to fly in the sky with no wings and sit in the sun without burning a hair on one's body.
This all reaching energy source if fully accessed could do anything one can dream off, from time travel, to the creation of materials not in existence.
As to what exactly spiritual energy is? No one really knew.
Now this special energy was vanishing from the world.
No, not just the world.
The entire Universe's spiritual energy had dissipated leaving only small areas like this planet named Gaia or earth left.
Kao did not know all of this, he only knew that this place... this planet was very far away from what he formally knew and not of the same make.
Just like those invaders that came from the void to invade his empire, this place was also a location beyond the void.
He didn't know planets like this could exist in the void, had his empire not tried to achieve such things on their own before? Of course they had tried to traverse the void.
Just because someone successfully traversed the void it did not mean others could as well.
For now Kao did not question his circumstances much, he could not do anything about them after all.
He acted on what he could do, anything beyond that point would have to wait until he could achieve results with what he had.
'How did they cleanse their meridians to such an extent... I have been collecting spiritual plants since I could at the age of three and even then I could only just keep myself in shape, I did not improve my meridians until just recently' Kao felt he knew the answer but couldn't quite put his finger on it.
'The place the sect is located is a natural heaven on earth filled with spiritual energy yet this wouldn't improve ones meridians only sustain them, are they from a special bloodline then? Or maybe they have a special treasure with them'
54, 55, 56 one of the children finally stopped gaining strands of energy.
"Wonderful, we may just gain a new nascent soul elite in the future"
"Well this makes up for all the rests lack in quality, I guess the numbers made up for it a little"
"Is that the child of Nico and Obin? They must have invested a lot into him"
Kao managed to hear this being said 'That makes sense, if they've had someone providing them with spiritual goods since birth they could have gotten to this point today, what the other two"
61, 62, 63 the numbers kept rising not stopping for either of them.
One was a young girl with brown hair and hazel eyes the other a boy with white hair and red eyes.
Both had reached ninety grains of sand with ease and stood firm even now.
"Will they have enough sand to reach their maximum potential?"
"No, they have already consumed most the sand they had accumulated, at best they can gain three more strands before all the sand is consumed"
"The teacher stopped the first test too soon"
Aakriti heard this and felt wronged.
How could she have known some pair of prodigies would appear today? This was her first time teaching, this was her first time seeing anyone even pass sixty in her lifetime.
Prodigies are not something you find around every corner in life, they are those one in a million people that just appear sometimes.
Just because we are human does that mean we are all 'Albert Einstein?
Many people also confuse children in musical fields to be geniuses because of how hard they get pushed, while in fact they got to where they got because of how much hard work they put into it.
Does this mean they aren't geniuses? No.
But to say that anyone can be a prodigy is simply wrong.
A prodigy is inherently different then those who gain talent through effort.
Parents can push their children all they want it won't amount to a prodigy.
The only ways to overcome a prodigy is if that prodigy never was a prodigy or if one had more experience then them in a given field, otherwise they simply don't care to use their own talent.
A waste one might think but just because they have a gift from another's perspective does not make it so for the person themselves.
Aakriti thought up of a solution real quick "Seniors, as you can see here for yourselves, the children will not have enough energy of their own to fully test their limits. I would like to ask of you to assist me out of your own good will, please provide the children with energy of your own to make up for what they lack as I am not good enough!"
The spectators quieted down, assisting another to cultivate?
Not so simple.
One can guide the energy in ones body with relative ease but to do it for another was difficult.
Like mentioned before many cultivation techniques can conflict with one another.
Just because the energy flows one way does not mean it will flow the other way.
Even if the technique the children cultivated was the most simple type this did not mean that they can simply take whatever energy they wanted.
What would happen if the energy given to the child had a rather fiery nature? They could go up in flames.
Aakriti herself suffered from energy instability on many occasions, her master could only alleviate the symptoms not fix the problem for her.
"Oh? Is no one confidant enough to lend their aid? Since when has our sect fallen so!" A voice came from the sky, it was elder Qez who watched as everything unfolded from above.
"Elder Qez!"
"Elder!"
"Greeting Elder Qez"
The spectating group greeted in bows or simple acknowledgements.
"E-elder Qez, I am grateful. If only I had been better" Aakriti greeted the elder with a bit of shock, she had not seen or felt his energy whatsoever he had come from the shadows from her perspective.
"If only. I will take the blame should anything go wrong this time, lets see just how much these two can take" Elder Qez lifted his arm forming a gray ball of mist around his hand that shot out twenty strands of Qi toward each child.
The spectators watching flinched.
'He's not holding back at all, one would expect around five strands to be added at best in one go... but a full twenty'
'If that had been me receiving that amount of energy at that age I would have exploded there and then'
'Maybe I should have stepped up instead'
No one tried to stop him or even tried to mention their inner monologue out loud, if an elder said they will take the blame then so be it.