Matias Holcrum is a wiry youth with the paltry constitution awarded by long years of malnutrition and the loving touch of an abusive drunk of a father. He often goes by the nickname Matt and frequently tries to forget he bears the surname of Holcrum. Laughingstocks of the town, which itself is so far backwater so as not to even be deigned a disgusted glance by the nobles, the Holcrums are a prideful bunch with no substance to back up their hubris.
Legend has it that many centuries ago there was a cultivator who brought accolades aplenty upon the family, a man who surpassed the C-ranks and single handedly built a name for the family. If that rumor bears a seed of truth, that seed is long dead and buried so deep it will never come to light. The Holcrums of this era are a diminutive bunch with no demonstrable skill in cultivating, or other skills for that matter. They toil the land in hopes of bringing in a harvest large enough to feed the family and to pay off the tithes to the landowner.
This combination of pride and poverty breeds a simmering rage in the hearts of those old enough to know the meaning of the derisive sneers sent their way, with ears sharp enough to pick up the laughs at their expense. Matias' father is such a man, and with only a single meridian open he has no chance of advancing into a position that would grant the recognition and praise he so desires. He has no outlet for the rage he is suppressing, except for the comforting embrace of the strongest of spirits, and his discipline to try to make his son into a great warrior.
Anyone not lost in the throes of despair would see that the son will be no great warrior, just as his daughter would be no great beauty. They lack the resources necessary to grow to fruition. The discipline provided by the father tends to be mere beatings with a stick, and helpful advice telling him that he should have dodged. Being nothing but a farmer himself, he lacks martial prowess to pass to the boy, but that only adds the intensity of his so called lessons. Matias bears the brunt of this abuse, in order to shield his little sister, the one light in his life.
The only escape for Matt is in the morning lessons on the basics of cultivation at the chapel in town. The chapel is looked after by a D-ranked celestial cultivator, who makes it his mission to find promising cultivators and bring them into the church. To do so he provides basic lessons on cultivation until a child is 15, and then they undergo a test to see if they are worthy to continue their training. Matt hangs on every word out of father Gustov's mouth, not for the religious takes on essence and the meaning of cultivation, but for the concrete tips on how to progress and become stronger. If there is one thing in the world that Matt really longed for day in and day out it is strength. The strength to pull himself out of his cesspool of a life, to never again feel the pain of his father's discipline, to leave the town and find himself a life of adventure somewhere where he would not be constantly looked down on.
The information offered by father Gustov was not all that extensive and could have fit onto a single piece of paper, but the hope it offered to Matt was invaluable. It boiled down to the following:
- Meditate and feel the flows of essence in the world around you
- Feel within yourself to find that energy within you, this is your cultivation base that will grow as you absorb and process essence
- Imagine pulling some of the outside energy into you
- Progressing through the F and E ranks is only a matter or acquiring essence, which can be pulled from the ambient energy around you
- Progressing into the D ranks requires compressing that energy into a core, and increasing that core in size and density.
- D-ranks cannot be progressed through using only ambient essence, you will need to use expensive beast cores or find areas that have exceedingly dense essence
- To open a meridian you must first have acquired a large amount of energy, generally you should have 3 ranks for each additional meridian opened, so an F-0 can open the first, an F-3 the second, F-6 the third, and so on
- The most meridians a person can have is 13, but most people outside the nobility have less than 10 with an average of only 4
They would not find out how many meridians they possessed until they are tested for their potential at age 15.