Shi Jiu was almost 25 years old this year, while the Disciples who joined with him were generally between 10-15 years old. Due to the significant age gap, Shi Jiu truly couldn't integrate with them.
Even Su Wen, the senior Disciple who had just led them to the Cultivation Method Hall to choose their Cultivation Technique, was probably around Shi Jiu's age.
This made Shi Jiu sigh with emotion; he had indeed started Cultivating quite late. However, even with a late start, Shi Jiu was confident that with his learning ability and perseverance, he could catch up and gradually close the gap.
Therefore, Shi Jiu did not stay with other familiar children or those he had met in the past two days. Instead, he found a small house in a high-lying area to live alone. The surroundings were very quiet, making it easier for him to calm his mind and Cultivate.
The small house Shi Jiu found had a somewhat isolated feel in the back mountain. A small bamboo grove, planted by an unknown person, grew luxuriantly around the house, giving the entire exterior a secluded ambiance.
Standing outside the house, one could clearly see most of the back mountain's hollow, offering a rather pleasant view.
After tidying up the house, Shi Jiu rested for a while. Seeing that the sky was still bright, he stood outside and watched the children playing carefree in the back mountain hollow.
As he watched, Shi Jiu seemed to understand why this house, which appeared so perfect, had not been chosen by many.
One reason was that this location was the furthest from both the dining hall and the Cultivation Method Hall, requiring a long walk to reach either place every time.
Secondly, while this place was a lush bamboo grove, dark and quiet, in his eyes, for immature teenagers, in the dead of night, they might recall stories their mothers told about demons and ghosts carrying them away.
Therefore, few people chose to live here.
After a while, Shi Jiu felt a bit hungry, so he closed the door and headed towards the dining hall.
He remembered that Feng Ming was initially assigned to the dining hall. If he saw him later, he would check how the little guy was doing. Shi Jiu was also curious, as a Disciple, what could the Disciples of the dining hall be assessed on, similar to the Spirit Herb Hall.
Before long, Shi Jiu arrived at the dining hall, looked around, and found Feng Ming.
Feng Ming was quite happy to see Shi Jiu, running towards him excitedly. After a detailed chat, Shi Jiu finally understood why the dining hall also needed new Disciples.
Although daily meal preparation was handled by Mortals, the cutting and processing of many spiritual ingredients required spiritual tools, which Mortals could not use. Thus, Cultivators were needed to handle them.
The Helian Family was a large and prosperous clan with numerous Disciples, and the amount of spiritual ingredients to be processed daily was astronomical. Therefore, Feng Ming and his peers had rather complex daily tasks, far inferior to a Spirit Plant Master like himself.
After finishing his meal and comforting and encouraging Feng Ming, Shi Jiu returned to his small house, lit a bright lamp, and began studying the Formula of Azure Wood and the Formula of Guiding the Stars by its light.
The Formula of Azure Wood would likely be guided by an Elder of the Spirit Herb Hall tomorrow or during other classes. He had roughly skimmed through some of its content, and aside from some unclear routes for sensing the flow of True Qi, he could generally understand the rest.
However, the Formula of Guiding the Stars was quite obscure and profound for him, as he didn't know the meaning of many terms and often had to ponder for a long time to figure out what was being said.
So, after some thought, Shi Jiu decided not to rush into Cultivating it. He would at least gain some basic knowledge of Cultivation in the Cultivation world before exploring it further.
The night passed without incident, and soon it was the next day. Shi Jiu arrived early at the Spirit Herb Hall's lecture hall, found a seat near the front and side, and quietly waited for the class to begin.
At this time, the other children also arrived at the lecture hall in twos and threes. Having not attended class for so long, Shi Jiu felt a sense of nostalgia.
But the other children were not like Shi Jiu; they clearly had bitter expressions. Many children of this age had not even read much.
Forcing them to learn these difficult Qi Refining incantations and methods of planting Spiritual Plants was indeed very obscure and hard for them to understand. Many children even fought fiercely for the last few rows of seats.
It wasn't until an Elder of the Helian Family came to the front and heavily slapped a piece of wood on the table that the lecture hall suddenly quieted down.
As the Elder slowly explained, whether the other children were listening or not, Shi Jiu was completely immersed in the content the Elder was teaching, and a grand door concerning the wondrous methods of Cultivation and planting gradually opened for Shi Jiu.
When the Elder finished his last sentence, Shi Jiu felt a profound sense of discomfort, as if he had been suddenly awakened from a deep trance. He had been quite diligent in his studies before his Transmigration, but he had never been so immersed as he was now. Perhaps this was the charm of Cultivating Immortality.
Shi Jiu looked around and saw that not many children shared his feeling, but a few young men and women in the front rows also showed signs of wanting more. Shi Jiu silently noted their appearances, bowed to the Elder, and quietly hurried to the dining hall.
Three months later.
Shi Jiu's time quietly passed in diligent study and self-comprehension of the Cultivation Technique.
In the third month, Shi Jiu and the others were eligible to manage a small plot of low-level spiritual land and began planting some commonly used Spiritual Plants of the Helian Family. Knowledge could finally be put into practice.
Shi Jiu was quite pleased. His previous learning was all theoretical; no matter how firmly he remembered it, it was not as solid as hands-on practice.
Moreover, during these three months, Shi Jiu also gradually began to Cultivate the Formula of Azure Wood and soon sensed the presence of True Qi within his Dantian. That faint, almost imperceptible feeling made him feel as if it was all unreal.
However, one thing made Shi Jiu very helpless: his Five Spiritual Roots were indeed at the bottom of the Aptitude ranking. The speed at which Shi Jiu absorbed Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi during meditation and Qi Refining was shockingly slow.
It took him a long time to Cultivate even a trace of True Qi, and Shi Jiu even wondered if it was an illusion caused by his intense desire to Cultivate True Qi.
At first, Shi Jiu even wanted to practice a bit of the wood-elemental Spell that came with the Formula of Azure Wood, but he had to give up due to insufficient True Qi support.
When Shi Jiu was in the lecture hall, he heard the Elder say that he had seen some Dual Spiritual Root Disciples whose speed of absorbing Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi during Cultivation was ten times that of himself and others.
Perhaps when he and others just entered Cultivation Level of Qi Refining stage 1, they were already at Qi Refining stage 2, not to mention those never-before-seen Single Spiritual Root Geniuses, who were said to be able to achieve Foundation Establishment without a Foundation Establishment Pill, and their Foundation would be even more solid.
After envying them, Shi Jiu was not discouraged by the extremely slow speed of absorbing Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi.
He still persisted in meditating and Cultivating every day, seizing every moment besides tending to Spiritual Plants in the spiritual field. Hard work pays off, and Shi Jiu finally successfully entered Cultivation Level of Qi Refining stage 1 in the fourth month.
The sign of entering Cultivation Level of Qi Refining stage 1 was that Shi Jiu could now use the faint trace of True Qi within his body to sense his internal organs.
Just as Shi Jiu was filled with a sense of accomplishment and was getting up early to attend class as usual, a major event that would affect his entire life occurred!
On this day, just as the Elder in the lecture hall was eloquently explaining some Cultivation methods.
Suddenly, silently.
Whether it was Shi Jiu, or the Elder, or the Cultivators and Mortals in the lecture hall and various parts of the Helian Family, or even all the people and objects in the entire Cultivation world, even the secretly lurking Demon Race and Ghost Race, even a leaf, a wisp of breeze, all suddenly became still.
Whether it was the True Qi within the body, or every inch of everyone's skin, everything entered a terrifying slow motion. It seemed that blinking an eye would take ten thousand years, and even everyone's thoughts had slowed down, making it impossible to think.
At this moment, a vast, desolate, and emotionless voice suddenly appeared in everyone's ears:
Light! Dark! Rule! Great! Burial!
Then, everyone's eyes were suddenly filled with white light, as if all colors in the world had disappeared, leaving only an endless expanse of white.
Then, from the distant white light, a point of black light suddenly appeared, and then the black light quickly filled the entire field of vision until black occupied everything.
At this point, black and white seemed to fuse into a faint gray tiny Vortex, which then inexplicably disappeared from everyone's sight. Only then did everyone's thoughts and actions suddenly resume.
After the Elder and the others regained their ability to move and think, they couldn't help but kneel on the ground, gasping for breath, as if even the opportunity to breathe had just been stripped away by that voice and scene.
Everyone looked at each other with terrified expressions. Everyone had witnessed the scene just now, but no one understood what that grand voice and the alternating black and white images represented. They couldn't even describe the scene.
In fact, this scene did not only occur in Shi Jiu's world, but also in many other worlds unknown and never before encountered by Shi Jiu, such as the Upper Realm, the Demon Realm, and the Ghost Realm.
They appeared and disappeared simultaneously, regardless of Cultivation level or location, and everyone's ability to think and act was restricted.
After a long while, the Elder and the other Disciples seemed to have recovered a little strength.
Everyone could finally open their mouths and ask each other what had just happened, but even the Elder, whom many Disciples considered extremely knowledgeable, simply did not understand why such a scene occurred or what it meant.
So the Elder hastily said, "Class dismissed," and left the lecture hall impatiently, presumably to find other high-level Cultivators in the Helian Family to inquire about the strange phenomenon that had just occurred.
While everyone was discussing non-stop, Shi Jiu, in a corner of the lecture hall, still had a terrified expression.
Because he suddenly felt that when the faint gray Vortex formed by the intertwining black and white light disappeared, it had appeared in an indescribable way in his Dantian!