Chapter 7: Training

Lei woke up to see the king and Xiang looking at him, concerned. Lei slowly sat up and felt a sharp pain in his head. "What happened?" He asked, while clutching his head. Xiang started to speak but her father interrupted her, "I had to tackle you before you sent a wave of arcana into my guests. This is a side effect of being an arcane cultivator. When you are angry you get angrier and angrier which causes you to manifest your arcana and as you get angrier this arcana will eventually reach a critical point which will cause it to explode. What's more impressive is that most of these party guests were at the authoritarian stage and even they felt danger from you. Like I said before, you can threaten cultivators up to two realms higher than you. I can't really consider you an inner control cultivator because you haven't learnt a cultivation technique yet. That means you set a group of cultivators three realms higher than you running." The king suddenly dissolved into a fit of laughter. Lei and Xiang just glanced at each other and shrugged. When he was done laughing he began to speak again, "This incident upsets my plans a little. I had planned to train you and help you reach a respectable cultivation base before I revealed you to the world. Anyway, it's just a minor problem. Your training will start tomorrow. Be ready and waiting at the door to your room at 5am. Chu will pick you up there and guide you to the training grounds." Then he strode away. Xiang helped Lei to his feet and he realised how weary he felt after his little… display. Lei then made his way to the main entrance where he hoped Chu would be waiting, hopefully he hadn't been scared off like the rest of the guests. When he reached the door he was grateful to see Chu waiting just outside the doors. Lei reached Chu who said, "Master Kun, would you like me to lead you back to your quarters." Lei, too tired to speak, just nodded. Once Lei reached his room he looked for an alarm clock and he eventually found one in one of the numerous cupboards surrounding his room. He set the clock for 4am and then fell asleep. 

At 4am the alarm clock roused Lei from his sleep. He quickly took a bath and then got changed into a fairly old set of robes that could be destroyed if necessary. Lei checked the time as he stepped outside to wait for Chu. It was 4:55am. He was just on time. Chu arrived a few minutes later and once again led Lei through the winding maze of stairways and corridors. Chu and Lei finally reached a metal door set into the stone. Chu swung the door open and they stepped into a gloomy room. The king was already there busy stretching. Once he noticed Lei and Chu had entered he walked towards them. Chu and Lei both bowed. The king beckoned for them to rise and then said, "Welcome Lei, to your first day as a cultivator." He then turned to Chu and said, "Chu, you may leave. Thank you for your assistance in bringing Lei here." Chu bowed and responded with, "It was an honour to serve you, my king." He then left the room and closed the door behind him. The king turned to Lei and said, "Today I plan to unlock your dantian and meridians. This is usually a process where you would spend a few weeks meditating on arcana and then in time you would be able to unlock your dantian and meridians but like I said I am dying and I need you to grow strong so instead we will be using another method. Instead of letting your body slowly adapt to arcana we are going to force it to adapt extremely quickly. To do this I will pump your body full of arcana. Don't worry it will be completely painless… for me." The king looked at Lei with a glint of excitement in his eyes. "Are you ready?" He asked. He didn't give Lei a chance to answer before grabbing Lei's arm and began to pump arcana into it. 

It was the most pain Lei had ever felt in his entire life. It felt like his body was ripping apart. Lei felt himself become aware of his meridians one by one and then finally he became aware of his dantian. Suddenly he felt energy within his own body start to push back against the king's energy. Suddenly the king's energy was pushed out of Lei and once again he found himself hovering in the air with purple lighting and flames surrounding him. What he didn't know however was that his eyes were now a deep shade of purple. Lei slowly lowered back onto the ground and once he felt the cool touch of the stone floor and promptly fell into unconsciousness. 

Lei came to, to the king splashing cold water onto his face and he realised how sick of passing out he was. He slowly pushed himself to his feet and looked at the king who said, "You are now an inner control phase cultivator. Just barely. Rest time is over. Let's teach you a cultivation technique." Lei followed the king and marvelled at how much stronger he felt. He had always heard that the bodies of cultivators would be augmented with every realm. He was suddenly struck with a thought that if he felt this strong as an inner body cultivator, how strong was the king's body. He pondered these thoughts as he followed the king down a passage and to yet another room. 

The new room was opulently decorated with soft, expensive rugs on the floor but no other furniture. The king turned to Lei and said, "This is my cultivation room and this is where you will learn to cultivate. This room is filled with arcana. Try and sense it if you can." Lei didn't know what the king meant by sense but he trusted his gut and squinted on instinct. Suddenly he could see that the whole room was covered in purple "mist" with a few other colours of "mist". "I can see it." Lei whispered. The king nodded and said, "As you can see there are other energies present here but none as plentiful as arcana." Lei nodded but suddenly he was struck by a burning question, "Sir, Princess Xiang informed me that arcana is generated through conflict. If that is the case then why is there arcana here when there is no conflict. The king answered with, "Two thousand years ago there was a duel between two cultivators at the peak of the soul forging stage at this very location. Their battle left behind so much arcana that it has yet to dissipate. It has, however, slowly lost power so it means that this arcana is only beneficial for inner body and manifestation stage cultivators. After that you will need to seek duels with cultivators above or at your level. If you fight above your level the arcana will obviously be much more potent than if you challenged someone at your own level."