Before long, I was putting the book about speels down and looking around the room to see if anyone had shown up yet. This cursory glance told me that I was alone and that none had entered since Silica left. Getting up, I started to walk to the door when it opened, revealing Mrs. Xia, Followed by Silica. Seeing me standing in the middle of the room, Mrs. Xia said, "Sorry for the delay, but something came up, and they will need another moment."
"That is fine. I was just wondering where Raina is as I still haven't been told what my punishment is yet," I explained to her.
"You don't need to worry about your punishment, dear. It is not anything particularly bad; in fact, I would not even consider this a punishment for you at all." She said this in an attempt to calm me down, not realizing that I was not worrying about that in the first place.
"I was not even worrying about that as it would do me no good worrying about something that is going to happen anyway. I was more concerned about what was taking so long as I would rather get this done and over with." I clarified to her, watching her face change expressions while considering my words.
She eventually settled on a neutral expression as she said, "Thats fine then. I already know what your punishment is, but I will let your mother tell you that, though the room still needs to be properly arranged." When she finished speaking, Silica moved over to the sides of the room and grabbed a few chairs before moving them to the center of the room. Mrs. Xia joined in, and soon, there were six chairs facing the back of the room where I was sitting previously. The only chair in the room that was not moved was mine; in fact, even the short book selves were also moved off to the side, clearing up some of the space. Somehow, Silica and Mrs. Xia did that without disturbing the research books that were stacked on top.
When they finished, Cynthea walked in carrying a blackboard and some chalk, followed by a few more maids with chairs in hand. Cynthea placed the blackboard at the back of the room next to the table. I set down the spell creation book I was reading earlier. The maids that followed her placed the chairs behind the original six, creating three rows of seating. From where I was standing, the library was looking more like a classroom or improto lecturer hall, and I did not like what that was implying.
I was finally given my answer, though, when Raina finally walked in, followed by Lou Xia and her father. The boy that Lou Xia had taken away into the house, which I assumed was her brother based off of what he was saying earlier, was not with them. When Lou Xia walked in I could see her face drain of color and look at me with pity. I was certain at this point what my punishment was as Raina walked up to me and said, "To make up for what you did earlier. You will need to teach all of us how to create or improve the first three realms of cultivation techniques."
When she started speaking, I was starting to shy away, but after hearing what she said, I became confused. I was almost certain that the sect would have wanted me to teach people that anyway, and even if they did not ask, I would have done so regardless. This knowledge was very helpful to almost everyone and was practically necessary on the path of cultivation.
My confusion did not go unnoticed by Raina, who said, "Most people in this world would never share this information, and those who do would not live long to tell people about it, as everyone would rather hoard this knowledge to themselves than let someone else have it and potentially undermine them. Make sure to keep this in mind with anything that you are about to share."
This confused me, so I said, "Why would I not share information like this? It would allow more people to rise in cultivation quicker with fewer resources, causing the bass level of power to rise. This, in turn, would make some people feel indebted to me. It would also show that I could potentially find and create better techniques, which would allow people to rise in cultivation even faster, thus making me an asset that they would want to protect. I would also be the person making the techniques; thus, I would know the most about them and be able to use them first, meaning that my level of power would rise far quicker a potential be higher than theirs by the time they would see me as a threat. I would also never give out information that I am not certain about thus meaning that I have already tested it myself. And lastly, if this information becomes common knowledge, then it would no longer be considered special, and it would no longer be considered a crime for having it. Because of all of this, a smart person would rather keep me alive than kill me, as it would be far more beneficial in the long run."
When I finished talking, Raina and everyone else looked at me for a few minutes in stunned silence. This was just some common sense, so I did not know why it was so impactful to leave everyone like this, but eventually, Raina came back to her senses and simply said okay before moving to one of the seats in the front row. Seeing this, everyone else followed her lead, and I was now standing in front of eighteen people that I was supposed to teach. If I remember right, teachers are usually given some time to prepare a lesson plan before class, but it looked like this was part of the punishment so I would have to improvise.
If I was going to teach them how to make good cultivation techniques of the first realm, I would need to teach them of the foundations first. With my starting point selected I decided to ask a question to everyone first. "What is the most important mistake that every person makes when writing a Body-tempering Technique? Lou Xia and Raina are not allowed to answer this question."
Instead of answering the question, Mrs. Xia spoke up, asking, "Why did you refer to your mother as Raina?"
Knowing this question would come up sooner or later and not seeing a reason not to answer it right now, I said, "While Leagaly she is my mother, I have still not decided on whether to treat her as such because of some personal reasons. However, if things keep going as they are, that might change. But for now, I will not be referring to her as my mother. Now, do you want to answer my initial question?"
It seemed she was not expecting my answer and subsequent question. After a moment's pause, she said, "Oh, all right then. I hope that you get the sorted out soon. To answer your question, would it be the path the Qi takes? I did notice that it changes with every technique."
Choosing not to respond to the first part of her statement, I answered, "While the Qi path is an important mistake that gets made, it is not the most important. Does anyone else want to try?"
Some of the maids tried to answer, but they all got it wrong, though I did notice Mr. Xia start to raise his hand to answer when Lou Xia grabbed it and whispered something into his ear. From what I could make out, she said that it was a trick question and the answer was so obvious even he would not get it right. He raised his eyebrows at that, and I could tell that it made him want to give an answer even more, but he held himself back. When no one was left trying to give an answer, I grabbed a piece of chalk and started to write on the blackboard.
Steeping away, I let everyone see what I wrote, and everyone besides Raina and Lou Xia gained a dumbfounded look that I found so funny I had to hold myself back from laughing. The answer that I wrote on the board was 'The Order of Tempering Stages'. Before continuing, I asked if everyone had some sort of way to take notes so that they would be able to reference them later, as there was far more to come. With my reminder, they all pulled out notebooks and pencils that I saw available in the sect contribution hall. Even Raina pulled out a notebook to write some things down.
With everything ready, I started my improvised lecture about the principles behind body tempering techniques, starting from the few core ones and moving on to the secondary principles. Watching some of the people listening gain a look of understanding, I started to understand why some people like teaching.
I could get used to this.