"Please do explain, teacher."
"In many Ascension Paths, there are easy methods and hard ones. Not many cultivators take the hard roads, but I know of a handful of accounts from people with talent in different aspects—being from the Academy, you know them as the Nine Measurements—whose talents benefitted after they successfully took the hard road. I know of many more accounts of talents that decreased, both in the Measurements and overall, when cultivators took an easy road on their Ascension Path. A strong talent like yours doesn't often decrease just by breaking through to Spirit Rank, even in such accounts, but…
Well. You can't follow the hard path perfectly, but I'd rather like to see if killing 8 of the 9 Ascended Beasts on your own has any effect. If you're unlucky, your talents will be unchanged, but maybe there's a chance we can even improve them.
