Chapter 10: First Lesson
*GONG*
Another morning and another gong.
"Hey Shen Lin, had some good rest?" Han Lingyun greeted his friend with a fist bump.
"Ugh brother Lingyun, it's never enough. I can't wait to be at a level of cultivation where I don't need to sleep anymore!" Shen Lin grumbled.
"Same brother. I heard that at the qi condensation realm, you can shave off a lot of sleeping time by meditating." Han Lingyun tried to sound positive.
"That doesn't sound much better brother Lingyun. I tell you; I won't be satisfied by my cultivation realm until I can keep staying awake and pumping for months on end." Shen Lin vowed with a newfound fervor.
"At least you've got something to look towards then." Han Lingyun laughed.
"Hehe everyone has their own goals."
…
The 800 1st years made their way to another peak, where they were freely seated in semicircles on a structure resembling the Greek theatres of Han Lingyun's memories.
Another old man Han Lingyun hadn't seen before came to the stage, followed by dozens of older disciples, who looked at him with profound respect and… adoration?
"Good morning 1st years, I am teacher Xian. I have the heavy responsibility of introducing you lot to the cultivation world. In my lessons, we will talk cultivation, mindset and in general I will provide the best advice my years of experience taught me. You won't be forced to attend my next lessons but I would still recommend you do. This is not because of vanity, my dao heart could easily tolerate a bunch of brats not showing up to my classes. It is in my interest and in the interest of the school that you grow and won't be led astray by the attraction of short-term gains that would harm your foundation.
Today, as you see, I will be joined by many assistants who will later help you as everyone starts to cultivate.
But first, I would like to illustrate two core concepts of the cultivation world: quality trumps quantity, higher cultivation crushes anything lower. Nothing beats a little demonstration."
The 1st years had eyes gleaming with excitement as they anticipated the prospect of seeing the true power of cultivators.
Teacher Xian beckoned one of his assistants. "Disciple Rong, come here. You will be demonstrating as I explain. One of the assistants took a step forward with a wide grin. He was quite excited to be able to demonstrate the different levels of strength to the newbies, it felt so satisfying to watch their faces. It made him think back to 4 years ago when he was in these steps listening to teacher Xian. How much he has changed since then!
A regular mortal has a strength of 50 kg."
Rong picked a rock previously placed on the stage then threw it 2m away in the direction opposite to the audience.
Han Lingyun understood what 50 kg of strength meant with his actions.
'It doesn't appear as though they have a concept of Force as I know it with a unit in kg.m.s-2 or Newtons (N) as it was called in my memories. 50kg of force should be the force used to pick up a 50kg object, which is 50*g the acceleration due to the gravity of the planet. According to my experiments, the gravity here is roughly the same as the one on earth. If I take g=10 m.s-2 as an approximation, then 50 kg of strength corresponds to 500 N.'
Meanwhile, teacher Xian continued. "A 1st stage body cultivator can exert a lot more strength, around 250 kg." Rong then picked up a boulder and threw it to a greater distance.
"A 2nd stage cultivator has 500kg of strength and can throw boulders for hours." Disciple Rong lifted up the same boulder and threw it 20m away to illustrate.
These feats were getting more and more impressive. Some of the 1st years started to cheer.
"Now you start to get it, let's skip to a 5th stage body cultivator."
Another wave of excitement spread through the crowd.
Rong took his time to increase for dramatic effect as he slowly walked towards another boulder that was positioned on the stage beforehand. He picked the boulder up. Then he threw it so far that the boulder crashed heavily into the nearby mountain. Boom. Rong approached another bigger boulder and took a pause to let the 1st years guess what he was now going to do. With an amused smile, he jumped on top of it and gently punched down.
CRACK. The boulder shattered in pieces of different sizes.
The 1st years eyes were bulging, it was one thing to hear about the prowess of martial artists, but seeing it with their own eyes was a whole other thing. At this point, many were cheering after each new demonstration.
Rong then walked out of the stage, as did teacher Xian and the other assistants. The 1st years wondered if the demonstration was over, they wanted to see more!
To be fair, Rong didn't disappoint. He picked up the whole stage and held it atop of his head with perfect stability.
Han Lingyun made a rapid calculation. '1 m^3 of stone has a mass of around 1500 kg. The stone stage is around 0.5 meter thick, 10 meters wide and 3 meters long so its 15m^3, a mass of around 22 tons! Holy crap and he plays with it like it's nothing.'
"All right disciple Rong, you can place the stage back, it might break if you throw it around. As I was saying, at stage 3 body strengthening, your strength increases by a factor of 10, reaching 5000 kg or 5 tonnes. At stage 4, it generally increases by another factor of 3 and you reach 15 tonnes. At stage 5, it doubles again to 30 tonnes. Of course, all these numbers vary from an individual to the other. However, all this strength, speed, and overall improvement is useless if you fight a qi cultivator, because the qi cultivator has many more means to attack you from a distance. Not to mention, a qi cultivator can always fly away if he faces a crisis, and as a body strengthening cultivator in that case there is nothing you can do. Don't believe that qi cultivators don't also grow in strength. By imbuing qi into your limbs, they will always crush a body strengthening expert in a pure exchange of strength. Not to mention heightened senses, faster reaction time… Most likely a body strengthening expert still would not have registered that a qi cultivator moved before having a sword cut his neck.
As for foundation establishment cultivators? It's a bit far away but the density of their qi has reached a whole other level. They can move freely in the air without treasures. And core formation? Hehe. See this peak behind me?"
Han Lingyun and the other 1st years glanced at the peak with a boulder freshly embedded at its base. Teacher Xian lightly punched the air.
BOOM! The wall of sound was broken. ROOAARR. A huge ferocious tiger apparition shimmered in the sky. The image of a white fist grew exponentially as it reached the peak in a fraction of a second. CRASH!
And just like this the peak that occupied part of the first year's vision was no more.
Absolute silence.
PA-BOOOOOOM. Sadly, the 1st years were not ready for the massive shockwave that soon reached them as the clouds parted around the previous mountain to reveal a blue sky. Many were thrown out of their seats or just lost hearing.
"Ahem sorry about that. Assistants, please heal those with bleeding ears.
Okay, let's build this peak back for next year's demonstration." Teacher Xian hurriedly added.
The teacher closed his eyes and raised his hands. The rocks scattered around began to levitate. The huge chunks of the peak that exploded or were launched away by the punch gradually took back their initial place. Teacher Xian was in fact reinforcing with qi the broken fragments to meld them back together. By the end of the process, the towering peak was back in place. Admittedly the little amount of vegetation wasn't in the best of shapes. Also, a faint ferocious pressure still lingered around the peak. It would take weeks for this pressure to die down. In the meantime, mortals would find it difficult to breathe if they tried to climb the mountain. This pressure would also negatively affect their lifespan if they endured it for too long. That was the power of a casual punch from a core formation realm cultivator.
Teacher Xian waited a bit for the 1st years to be healed and find back their bearings after their massive shock. If he wanted their attention, he overdid it a bit, but undeniably, they were hooked. Some gusts of wind were still washing on their disbelieving faces. Now that they were calming down, he took over again:
"And this is why you should never anger your teacher hahaha!"
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