The only way to become a cultivator is to break through the limits of the mortal body. Also, you need to use special techniques for gathering Natural energy. Once you absorb the first wisp of natural energy and successfully condense it, you are officially the first stage of Body Tempering. Both of them broke through their mortal limits when they fought the wolves. Li Wei even unlocked his inner power, while Mei Lin didn't notice that she broke through her human potential because she didn't unlock any special power, and she was never taught about cultivation.
Fang Yin gave them a cultivation book named "Basic Cultivation Techniques of the Green Jade Sect." 'Everyone who enters the Green Jade sect gets one. This book can teach you the basics of cultivation up to the third stage of Body Tempering. After that, you'll need a new cultivation book, which will help you enter the fourth stage of Body Tempering. I'll give you this book after you break through the third stage.' With that, he stood up and started walking to the pond. He stepped on the water and began walking to the waterfall, waved his hand, and a passage opened. Before he entered the waterfall he looked at them. "From now on you will call me master." Then he entered, and the passage closed.
Li Wei's jaw dropped to the ground as he saw the shady old man disappear. "Maybe we will become cultivators. If we can enter a sect, then we can start living an easy normal life." He started carefully looking at the cultivation book. After a while, he carefully placed it in the tent near the picture book, took a bath, prepared more hot rocks, and went to sleep. The next morning, he was woken up by Mei Lin.
"Li Wei, we need to run, someone is here, he looks very scary and is probably very dangerous." Mei started panicking, putting their things into the basket, and preparing to run away.
"We don't need to run. That old man is a Green Star you saw a month ago. He gave us a cultivation technique, so we can become cultivators," Li Wei said, smiling at Mei Lin with a happy smile.
After that, Mei Lin started carefully looking at the cultivation book. She went near the fire pit and opened it. To her surprise, she discovered that the book was without pictures, and she didn't understand anything inside. She closed the book and said, "Li Wei, do you understand these symbols inside? I don't understand any of them, and there are no pictures inside." Then she put the book in the picture book and started looking around to see where the mysterious old man was.
After Li Wei got up, he placed all the rocks from under the bed around the fire pit and started preparing a small piece of wood to start the fire. When he set up the fire, they put water inside a wok and brewed tea. They had some stocks of medicinal herbs, so they put some inside. After drinking the tea, they started studying the book together.
They carefully looked at each page of the book. The book was not very long, only fifteen pages. Every five pages represented one stage of Body Tempering. Mei Lin quickly lost interest because she didn't understand what was written there, so this study was meaningless. Not long after, they stopped.
"What will we do about it? I don't know. I don't understand what is inside. We need to ask that old man about it. Yes, when he comes back, we will ask Master." After that, Mei Lin carefully put the book down and started preparing for a new day.
*****
Seven days later, in the morning, as usual, they started looking inside the cultivation book. After probably ten minutes of hard looking inside, Mei Lin stopped.
"Why are we still looking inside? Both of us don't understand what each symbol means. Even if we look at it every day, it doesn't make sense."
Only for Mei Lin after all. Li Wei understands what was written inside and thanks to the mysterious core he learned, that this technique is not good for cultivation. A lot of things written inside are tampered with, probably for some purpose that was hidden before him. Every day he went to the forest, he secretly tried some basic techniques for gathering natural energy. It took him three days to figure out how to feel the first wisp. Before fully sensing it, he always stopped because he feared that after he did it, the old man would do something to him.
He is very smart and knows that nothing is for free, and the old man wanted nothing, so something is not right. Why did he want to protect him even if they became cultivators? The one who did something to him is much stronger than all of them together, and they will have no chance to fight someone like that. They nearly died fighting wolves without coordination and limited intelligence. Their only hope is to heal and run away.
At noon the same day, the old cultivator came back to them. His injuries didn't heal and were still the same. Before Li Wei came back, he started chatting with Mei Lin about a book. Not long after, hearing flattery about how generous he is, he discovered that neither of them even started attempting to break through to become cultivators. After hearing that they didn't know how to read, his heart sank to the bottom.
He started teaching Mei Lin how to read but in vain. When he asked her about their book, he discovered that she didn't know the names of the herbs they picked, only names that other villagers taught them. His anger was so high that he wanted to kill them on the spot, but after calming down, he pushed himself to start teaching them so they could become cultivators as fast as they could before the Green Jade sect found them.
He first showed Mei Lin how to sit right and what she needed to do to gather natural energy. After nearly two hours, he finally explained everything about gathering natural energy. Mei Lin listened very carefully, but everything that he said was new to her, so she didn't understand at all. In the evening, Li Wei arrived back with mushrooms and a few small bird's eggs.
He greeted the old man and Mei Lin. Then he showed them what he found. At dinner, they had fried mushrooms with eggs. Both children were very happy with such good food. The old man was pissed about them but kept his calm. Then he started explaining how to cultivate once again.
His missing hand was quite inconvenient to explain, but they didn't mind. He left after drinking tea. He forcefully drank tea made in the work, even if the tea was extremely disgusting for him, but said nothing. In all his life, for more than two hundred years, he never drank something so disgusting. After all, he is from a cultivation family, not some villager.