Mo Shin Yun looked at the small mostly white pill a little confused. He didn't know what this pill was supposed to do. Looking around he realized everyone looked just as puzzled as him. "Once everyone has their pill you will take those and then proceed to meditate once everyone finished the core building, we will continue with the evocation of fire. A little warning this one might hurt a bit." Han Shu Yan smiled at them as he finished handing out the pills and motioned for them to take those.

What followed was more than a little bit painful. Mo Shin Yun was one of the last to take the small pill and as he swallowed it the first students started growing in pain rolling on the floor as they clutched their chest. With a thundering voice, Han Shu Yan called for order. "If you can't even deal with this bit of pain, you better leave the sect. I told you to meditate not roll around on the floor."

Soon after Mo Shin Yun felt the same pain his body was burning up as if he had a fever and something deep inside him felt as if it was breaking apart. The pain was worse than breaking every bone in your body. Tightening his hands into fists his nails digging into his palms he did his best to breathe through the pain without rolling on the floor. Everyone else was doing the same since they just got scolded, they all did what they could to suppress the pain and tried to meditate.

The biggest problem right now was, Mo Shin Yun never meditated before in his life and even if he had, meditating in this world probably was something different than in his previous world. With a deep breath, he closed his eyes trying to remember what little he had heard about meditation before. Somewhere deep inside his brain he vaguely remembered to focus on his body and his breathing. He wasn't sure if that was right but since his body was in pain and he couldn't think about anything other than that anyways so he followed that thought.

Taking deep controlled breaths, he slowly started to assess his body following to pain as he tried to figure out what was hurting. As he did so something changed it felt as if something was moving through his body some energy sending back exact data from every part of his body. Taking it as one of the many weird things of this world Mo Shin Yun just worked with it carefully taking a look at every muscle, bone and blood vessel in his body trying to see where the pain was coming from. But to his confusion, he couldn't find any damage.

Even more confused he started to try and go deeper push even more of that energy into his body until suddenly he felt like he was floating. His mind was no longer aware of his surrounding he had completely entered his own sea of conscious. Looking around Mo Shin Yun tried to understand what happened around him were thousands of small lights all scattered around everywhere. Examining them with his newfound mental scanner he found out that this was what broke and caused him pain. These were his energy meridians normally they were like the blood vessels in his body a circulating system transporting spiritual energy through his body but because of that pill they were completely destroyed and leaking energy.

Mo Shin Yun let out de deep breath as he focused his mind trying to pull those meridians towards him. He wanted to get a closer look and see if he could put them back together in hope that the pain would stop. Feeling them moving Mo Shin Yun smiled in victory. This must be it. If he just managed to put them back together, he would be fine. With this feeling of excitement, he started to pull more wanting to get them close as soon as possible. But then everything went wrong.

The meridians started to move faster towards him colliding with each other and every time they collided with each other they would break apart into small light particles. Scared Mo Shin Yun wanted to stop but he couldn't. With each time one of those light tubes broke the pain increased and he was feeling his body temperature rising even higher. But he still couldn't stop those meridians from rushing towards him. Panic was rising inside Mo Shin Yun's heart he was about to wake himself up from meditation in hope that he could at least stop himself from taking even more damage.

'If you force yourself out of meditation before you are ready you will face qi deprivation and die.' He heard the echo of Han Shu Yan's voice in his mind warning them during his explanations before. Taking a deep breath and letting it out really slowly Mo Shin Yun braced himself for the worst and just continued watching the particles of light gathering in front of him. After what felt like forever every last meridian was broken down and gathered as a ball of light particles in front of him.

Not sure what to do next Mo Shin Yun just stared at the ball wondering if he would be able to build up his whole meridian system from this. Carefully he used his scanning energy again to examine the ball further. As he had expected there was no way for him to rebuild anything with this. All he could do was throw it away and give up. He would never be able to cultivate with his meridians destroyed completely. In frustration he mentally grabbed the ball scrunching it together pushing it in on itself to form a tight little ball wanting to throw it somewhere in the darkest corner of his mind.

But instead, as he pushed the light together it started condensing more and more until he held a maybe golf ball-sized light ball in his hands pulsating with intense light. Still unhappy about all this Mo Shin Yun took the ball tossing it up and down to test the weight. As he did so for some reason his scanning energy engulfed the ball sending him back data. Something was really weird. It felt like something was trying to grow from this ball. Now Mo Shin Yun was really giving up. After all this, did he end up with some egg?

Letting out a mental sigh he tried to push the egg a little to see if he could force it to grow quicker. Nothing happened. What now? He thought about it for a long time constantly starring at that egg. Maybe this was it? This was what was supposed to happen. Maybe the whole pill thing was about laying a mental egg. Mo Shin Yun chuckled about his own joke. If this really was it then he was ready to wake up. But if it wasn't something bad would happen if he woke up. Worried and confused he started tossing the egg in his hand again.

Maybe he had missed some of those light things since he wasn't able to look behind himself. With a deep breath, he started pulling in again this time he just randomly pulled at anything surrounding him. At first, nothing happened and Mo Shin Yun was about to laugh at himself when suddenly the egg started pulsating faster and more light particles from who knows were started getting pulled towards the egg.

Soon after that whatever the egg was trying to grow started growing. Light tubes started forming around the egg. As the light particles came quicker and quicker the light tubes grew quicker and quicker and as they grew the pain disappeared and it was as if a fresh spring breath was moving through his body. After a few more minutes finally, the tubes stopped growing and as he took a closer look Mo Shin Yun realized that he just grew a new meridian system.

Letting out a sigh of relief Mo Shin Yun poked the egg once more deciding that this was probably the core they talked about before. Right now, it was glowing in a beautiful Magenta. Mo Shin Yun had managed to reach the first soul level. After that, he finally opened his eyes naturally returning to his outer consciousness. Looking around he realized he was probably one of the last to come back.

A few minutes later everyone was back and Han Shu Yan started talking. "Welcome back I see you all managed to build your core." Mo Shin Yun couldn't help but chuckle so that egg was his new core. "I will give you a few minutes to calm down and before we start the fire evocation." Hearing those words there was a sigh of relief let out by many of the students. Soon the room was filled with chatter and everyone was talking to each other about what happened.

"I thought I messed up at first because my dad always told me that taking damage to your meridian system is really never a good thing." One of the guys sitting around Mo Shin Yun said scratching the back of his head in embarrassment. "Same. Both my parents are powerful martial arts cultivator and since I was young, I learned that damaging your qi system could cripple you for life." Someone else agreed with a laugh making some of the others nod along. Letting out a soft breath Mo Shin Yun felt some relief since he wasn't the only one who had worried about doing things wrong.

"I'm really curious which element I have an affinity towards. I wish I get wood." Someone else said with a dreamy expression on their face. "Wood? I wish I got metal." The guy who replied looked at the other with a softly disagreeing look. "I just hope I don't get earth." One of the girls in the groups next to them injected herself into the conversation quickly making the two groups join together as they discussed different elements.

Mo Shin Yun mostly listened since he wasn't familiar with the elements or what it meant to have or not have one element or another. "Mo Shin Yun what do you think?" The guy next to him finally asked the other's opinion. Shrugging he carefully thought of a reply. "To be honest I'm not really sure yet. The branches you can choose from all depending on your element but since I never had the time to look at all the branches, I think I don't really mind trying any of those. But still, water would be nice maybe." Mo Shin Yun replied while trying to stay neutral.

"Water? Really?" One of the girls gave him a weird look making Mo Shin Yun defend himself in confusion. "It is a calm and steady element always moving forward. Water is essential in a lot of recipes." The others nodded slowly as they listened to his words. "Well, I can't deny that water is a calm and steady element and it does have a lot of possibilities but still those with a water element are mostly girls or drunk snails." The girl answered him with a shrug. "Drunk snails?" Mo Shin Yun couldn't help but laugh at that expression.

"Yeah, you know those old men who followed the path of sommelier and ended up drinking more of their supply than selling." Someone explained seeing that most of the disciples who had come for smaller villages didn't understand the term. "I just think having a steady element would be nice. I heard that even though you make slower progress with a water element the progress is more consistent. While for example, fire elements make rapid progress due to their element before stagnating for a long time, they can go either way." One of the girls added making some of the others nod in agreement.

"I see you are already discussing the differences between the elements." A voice suddenly sounded close to them making everyone lookup. "Since you all seem curious let me give you a short overview before the invocation." They all turned to face Han Shu Yan who was now standing on the right wall of the room. Everyone turned around to face him. "Well as you all know there are five elements and I'm sure you all have different opinions on which is the best or the most fitting for you. But remember all elements are balanced how good or bad the element develops within you all depends on how hard you work." With a flick of his arm, Han Shu Yan made a big scroll appear in his hand. Unrolling it, it showed the power balance of the five elements.

"First we have fire. This is a strong but unsteady element. Fire can develop quick and help you jump levels fast but if you aren't careful it can lead you to have an unsteady cultivation base in the worst case this can lead to qi deprivation. At the same time if you develop too fast it can be that your soul can't keep up and you will reach a point of stagnation and you will have to fight for advancement."

"Second we have earth. This is a stable and nurturing element but it is weak to change and is most useful in combination with other elements. Those of earth element most times chose a partner amongst those with one of the other elements to support that person and to grow together. The earth element can develop steadily and there are some leading ShuCha with the earth element but to unfold the earth elements full potential you need another element to push."

"Third is the metal element. This element has a strong foundation but can lead to stagnation if not properly cultivated. ShuCha practitioners with the metal element have better control over their soul force so they can extract the spiritual energy from ingredients faster. But because of this even though the metal element provides a strong foundation it will lead to over-cultivation and stagnation and even qi deprivation if the practitioner advances too quickly."

"The fourth element is water. This is a steady moving and elegant element. It is adaptable and provides a calm cultivation. But it also takes a lot of attention and time to cultivate. Though advancing to the next level takes more time than the other elements it helps developing a sturdy foundation making it easier to advance and reducing the chance of getting stuck at one level. Water is also very versatile.

"And the last element is wood. This is a very flexible element. It can develop fast or slow depending on how it is cultivated. With a wood element, there are a lot of paths one can take. But the wood element can also be tricky and fast-changing. To cultivate the wood element, you always have to pay close attention and be ready to adapt because one slip can lead to damage in your foundation or to getting stuck at one level."

Finishing his explanation Han Shu Yan made the scroll disappear again. "Any questions?" He asked as he looked around but after that thorough explanation and without them having their own element yet there were no questions. Seeing that no one was asking any questions Han Shu Yan returned to the front of the room. "Then let's start the fire evocation." He took out a small piece of charcoal and placed it in front of himself. "I will now explain how the fire evocation works then you all have an hour to try and see if you have an affinity to fire those of you who have will gather by the door so we can start classes right after the rest stays here to wait for the next teacher."

After that, he took his time explaining each step of the invocation carefully making sure everyone understood before handing out pieces of charcoal to the students. "Then please begin. You have an hour."