Spirit Cultivation

For the next few hours, Xuefeng was listening to the ladies as they explained the other two elements that he was lacking, earth and water. Yiren was a much better teacher if they were talking about calm elements like water or air and the Queen was definitely an expert in the other elements like fire and lightning.

Listening to her explaining various cool spells and arts you can create was not only enlightening for him, but also for Ling who thought her previous master was already the master of the lightning element.

Both ladies were adding stuff to each other's teachings making it more complete. Xuefeng noticed it earlier but now confirmed it, that the Queen was actually the clumsy one, forgetting the important details and often had to be reminded of them by her collected daughter.

Their routine was always beginning with first teaching Xuefeng how to absorb the elemental essence of the current element, but that wasn't a problem for him as he had the help of Ling. The second move was filling his dantian to the brim with Qi, before starting to slowly test it out with multiple spells.

Xuefeng didn't have problems with the first and the second step, as for those moments, if he wasn't clear on everything, he could always ask again or count on Ling's help. What was troubling him was the third step, when he had to be the one to fully control the spells all the time.

Xuefeng was much better with straightforward elements like fire, lightning or air, which didn't require much mastery and allowed the user to unleash its powers pretty easily. He struggled with others that required a lot of control and the ladies had to repeatedly display them for him to get it right.

Fortunately, they were very patient with him and did not complain much. They understood how much Xuefeng wanted to be useful to them, instead of just acting like support.

The most difficulties Xuefeng had, was with the earth element, as he had to control his Earth Qi outside of his body. It worked very differently compared to other elements as he had to use already existing earth or other natural sources as materials in his spells. Inside the palace, there was not much typical earth he could use, but there was another material like wood which also worked just fine.

"Gosh, it takes so much time to control my Qi inside objects. It is much more difficult than in the air. If I was fighting right now I would already be killed ten times over… Why is this Qi moving so slow..." Xuefeng commented frustrated as he tried to move his Qi around inside the floor. He wasn't even on the step of manipulating the wood into different shapes like a spike or a wall, and he was already having troubles.

"Just take it easy. You are starting from the highest difficulty,so it's obvious that you will have troubles. The same technique you use while channelling your Qi within air doesn't apply here. This wood has a much higher density than a normal one, which means it's much harder and has less space to transport your QI inside of it." Yiren explained as she was the one teaching Xuefeng about Earth Element.

"Then how should I do it?" Xuefeng asked as he recalled all Earth Qi inside his body once again. The maximum speed he achieved was about one meter per second which was way too slow for him to accept. In most battles, this one second is what decides the winner.

"First you need to change your mindset and think outside of the box. If you can't transfer your Qi through the tiny gaps in the wood, what else can you use? Try to not complicate things too much and use the simplest method as a solution." Yiren smiled and asked, hoping he would be the one to answer his own question.

"Hmm, let me think… What else is inside the wood I can use... I'm dumb." Xuefeng thought for a moment, sending his Earth Qi inside the floor and slapped his head right after when he finally realised how stupid he was.

"Who would have thought it would take you so long…?" The Queen commented from the side with a playful smile but that didn't demotivate Xuefeng. He was not a person who can't accept critique.

Of course, it doesn't mean that he will allow the Queen to tease him without consequences. He can always get revenge on her later. Instead of replying her, Xuefeng released his Earth Qi and spread it all around in the room without any problems.

In his defence, when he first channelled his Qi into the floor, he was met with resistance when he tried to enter the wood, and his Qi was pushed into the empty pores inside the wood. He thought that it was the right way and continued doing it that way. After all, everyone learns after their mistakes, and Xuefeng wasn't perfect.

Following the notice of his error, Xuefeng tried pushing his Qi into the wood with enough strength and succeeded.

"Great Xuefeng! Now try to merge your Earth Qi with the Wood, and you will be able to form and shape it as you wish. Don't just transfer the Qi around, control the wood." Yiren called out happily feeling Xuefeng's Qi flowing around the floor, and continued her teachings.

"Look, I will show you." Yiren gained his attention before she demonstrated how it should look like. After her Earth Qi entered the floor, it instantly started its wonders. The floor behind her shifted and small block of wood grew upwards, acting as a chair for her.

"Hmm, interesting. Let me try." Xuefeng called out as he focused on one point in the floor, gathering all of his Qi at one place and started merging with the wood. It quickly started to shake and something began to rise. The floors in the palace were quite thick as it was carved with Earth Qi inside the Parent Tree so there was no need to worry about destroying anything.

Suddenly instead of repeating what Yiren did, a small ball began to rise and something underneath it exploded, sending a ball of wood straight towards the Queen. It was almost as big as a cannonball and swiftly cut the air reaching the target immediately.

"Bam!" The ball was stopped in the air with a loud bang by the Queen's reached out hand. The ball was still spinning for a while before it stopped, staying still in the air as if it was glued to Queen's hand.

"Hah, interesting. You added Air Qi blast to create a bullet even before you mastered the elements completely." The Queen gave him an impressed glance as she laughed.

"Do you still think your man is that bad?" Xuefeng asked with a cheeky smile.

"Well, maybe he isn't that half bad, but he needs to remember that he can only tease me back only if he is stronger than me. Catch!" The Queen answered and shot the ball back towards Xuefeng without even moving her hand. Unfortunately for him, the ball was going much faster than he would have ever expected and he was hit in the stomach, throwing him to the ground.

"Ugh… Cough, cough." Xuefeng coughed a few times before he sat up as he massaged his stomach and asked in pain, "You could be a little bit gentler, okay? Do you want to kill me?"

"Hehe, you asked for it. Let's continue with our training. Our Holy Land doesn't have the best spots for training Earth Element so we can move to the last one, Water Element. You are going to train in the Wisdom Tree space later on anyway, right? You can train it there." The Queen giggled before she helped him up. Yiren knew that Xuefeng was alright as her mother wouldn't hurt him and because she didn't feel any impact with her link to Xuefeng,

"Yes, that was my plan from the beginning. I need to practice fighting with those elements as well. Will we be going outside the palace? Water is everywhere." Xuefeng nodded, without hiding the truth and asked as he started fixing up the hole in the floor.

"No. I have a better place for us." The Queen shook her head and smiled mysteriously.