Chapter 49: Cultivation

After the new semester began, Su Chunfeng sensed an unusual tension spreading throughout his grade.

The students seemed to finally understand clearly the importance of the High School Entrance Examination for them and felt the urgency of its approach. Therefore, most classmates gave up their previous lazy and casual study habits, becoming silent, serious, and focused. Classroom discipline was much better than before.

It was as if they had all grown up overnight.

At the same time, the homeroom teacher and teachers of various subjects also felt the pressure.

The teaching pace noticeably quickened. All teachers aimed to finish teaching all required subjects before the Midterm Exam. The remaining time was for helping students review the entire junior high curriculum and for having them continuously work on sets of mock exam papers for the High School Entrance Examination.

At the instruction of the homeroom teacher Li Jichun, three students were responsible for creating a themed blackboard newsletter to cheer on the whole class for the exam sprint: Class Monitor Ren Zhiping, Chinese class representative Wang Rui, and Su Chunfeng.

After many discussions and revisions outside of class, Li Jichun finally approved the final version.

On the top left corner of the teaching chalkboard on the podium, a simple but eye-catching yellow circle was drawn with an Arabic number in the middle, representing the countdown days to the High School Entrance Examination. The blackboard at the back of the classroom featured the newsletter, written by Su Chunfeng. He wrote two simple inspirational stories and two clear lines of text with sketched, colorful borders, extremely striking: “The determined who endure hardship are never failed by Heaven; those with ambition who toil with perseverance will accomplish their goals!”

The newsletter’s title was: “High School Entrance Examination, Here We Come!”

The calligraphy was grand and powerful, full of dynamism!

Coupled with the impactful meaning represented by the concise words and phrases, it would make anyone who looked at it feel a surge of passionate excitement!

The homeroom teacher and other subject teachers were quite satisfied with this newsletter and its calligraphy, praising it repeatedly.

Later, even the principal Fu Changzheng personally visited Class 14 to look at the blackboard newsletter made by the students. He greatly praised it and, during the weekly school work meeting, named Class 14 as a model class. All other classes, especially the fellow third-year class facing the High School Entrance Examination, Class 15, were told to learn from Class 14.

Soon after, Class 15 immediately imitated and drew inspiration from Class 14’s newsletter, creating their own High School Entrance Examination-themed blackboard newsletter… However, the quality was indeed several levels lower.

Because of this, Su Chunfeng’s status in the eyes of the girls in his class rose significantly again. Many girls specifically brought their notebooks or textbooks to Su Chunfeng, asking him to help write those two beautiful, inspiring lines on the covers: “The determined who endure hardship are never failed by Heaven; those with ambition who toil with perseverance will accomplish their goals!”

Su Chunfeng, of course, never refused anyone. It was a small matter.

However, Zhang Lifei would always pout her full lips very high whenever Su Chunfeng helped other girls with the writing. As soon as the girl asking for the writing left, she would immediately glare at Su Chunfeng with her pretty eyes and warn him angrily: “You help anyone who asks! You’re such a playboy!”

Wang Haifei would smile quietly, covering her mouth with her hand.

Su Chunfeng always just smiled and shook his head at this, having nothing to say in response. He couldn’t exactly argue with this pretty little girl who was randomly getting jealous over it, could he?

Because the High School Entrance Examination was approaching and the class atmosphere for studying had become intense, Su Chunfeng didn’t spend his free time as before, writing notes and jokes to communicate his feelings with Wang Haifei, touching each other’s hearts—he didn’t want to affect Wang Haifei’s academic performance.

As for himself, he was busier than any other student in the entire grade.

Every early morning, when the music from the school broadcast played and the boarding and day students gathered on the playground for morning exercise, they would notice Su Chunfeng from third-year Class 14 already quietly doing radio calisthenics in a corner of the playground. Seeing his classmates arrive, he would smile and join the boys’ line of Class 14, following the group for the morning run and exercises, then return to the classroom for morning self-study.

In fact, aside from his daily diligent studies, Su Chunfeng would get up at four o’clock every dawn. Taking advantage of the deserted time, he would go to the playground to practice martial arts to exercise his body, and incidentally, cultivate his Esoteric Technique.

As mentioned before, the cultivation of Esoteric Technique has nine realms:

Mind Awakening, Heart Cultivation, Talisman Offering, Body Purification, Qi Stabilization, Qi Refining, Awakening Spirit Realm, Return to Simplicity, Return to Truth.

Here is a brief explanation:

The first realm, Mind Awakening—is to understand and master belief and mental intent, making oneself absolutely believe in the power of transcendent existence and the laws of the great nature of Heaven’s Way.

Please don’t think this realm is simple.

In fact, the vast majority who wish to cultivate Esoteric Technique are blocked outside this hurdle.

Because, without absolute belief and mental intent, you simply cannot sense the Heaven and Earth Spiritual Energy, nor can you align your mind and intent with Heaven and Earth, let alone proceed to the next step of cultivation.

The difficulty of this realm lies in the fact that almost all who want to cultivate and have the chance to learn Esoteric Technique inevitably harbor a semi-believing, semi-doubting attitude towards it during the early stages of cultivation. Consequently, they cannot sense the wondrous existence of the Yin-Yang Five Elements Spiritual Energy in the surrounding air. And the more this happens, the less confidence they have; the more they doubt, the harder it is to cross this step. Even if they have personally witnessed many unexplainable strange events, marvelous events, or even mysterious and bizarre Esoteric Techniques, it’s hard to avoid having slight doubts in their hearts. With such doubts, they cannot resonate with Heaven and Earth, and then their belief grows weaker, confidence drops, making success even harder.

The second realm, Heart Cultivation—is, after achieving Mind Awakening, gradually calming one’s mental state to sit in meditation for cultivation.

Similarly, this realm is also not as simple as it sounds.

Only by achieving absolute peace and calmness of mind can one, while sensing the Heaven and Earth Spiritual Energy, align one’s spirit with Heaven and Earth and touch upon the profound, marvelous aspects of the Yin-Yang Five Elements in the natural air, though without clearly understanding or peering into their secrets. In such a state, it’s inevitable to become restless and impatient from wanting to touch and understand these mysteries but being unable to do so more precisely, causing that marvelous sense of connection to immediately vanish.

If one cannot sustain the connection, progress in this realm stalls.

If one can sit in meditation for at least twelve hours—a full day—and resonate with Heaven and Earth without a single distracting thought in mind, then this realm is basically passed.

After passing, a master usually doesn’t allow the disciple to proceed to the next cultivation realm. Instead, they require consolidation, ensuring the time for sitting meditation and sensing can be extended, until one can immediately enter a meditative state anytime, anywhere, achieving a natural proficiency. Then one can attempt cultivation of the next realm.

Simultaneously, Heart Cultivation can make a person’s heart as calm as still water, composed and steady, greatly benefiting the cultivator’s physical and mental health.

The third realm is Talisman Offering—Talisman Offering involves setting up an altar and drawing talismans.

On specific dates, specific times, even specific solar terms, after bathing and purifying the body, then setting up the altar (Note: setting up the altar here is not the same as the altar-opening for spell-casting scenes in movies/TV dramas), preparing all necessary tools, one recites incantations, makes Hand Seals, and uses Mind Cultivation Technique to align the mind with Heaven and Earth, then concentrates on drawing talismans for use. Naturally, talismans also have grades. An occultist/mage at the Talisman Offering level can only draw ordinary talismans with limited effectiveness. However, they can already handle ordinary Yin Evil Energy and ordinary malevolent entities that have taken form, and can also be used for exorcism, protecting homes, or countering some simple minor techniques. Of course, they are still far from being able to participate in a real Magical Duel.

Talisman Offering requires cultivation until one can draw a talisman with a stroke of the brush, without the slightest error, with a 100% success rate. Only when one can draw a perfect talisman even when tools are incomplete or preparations are insufficient, can one be considered as having passed the Talisman Offering realm.

The fourth realm is Body Purification—Only after cultivating to the Body Purification realm does one truly step into the threshold of Esoteric Technique cultivation.

Using talismans, incantations, Hand Seals, and Mind Cultivation Technique, along with some physical training techniques passed down through generations in various schools—commonly known as martial arts—one absorbs Heaven and Earth Spiritual Energy into the body during the process of strengthening the body, washing away the turbid energy existing inside.

This process is extremely long and requires great perseverance to persist.

…

As for the higher realms of Qi Stabilization, Qi Refining, Awakening Spirit Realm, Return to Simplicity, and Return to Truth, they won’t be detailed here one by one; they will be explained slowly later.

Now, among these first four realms, Mind Awakening, Heart Cultivation, and Talisman Offering were unnecessary for Su Chunfeng to cultivate.

When he was reborn and his soul returned to his body, his mental state was already among the ranks of masters at the “Awakening Spirit Realm.” Therefore, the two extremely difficult hurdles for ordinary people—Mind Awakening and Heart Cultivation—he didn’t need to cultivate at all.

As for Talisman Offering, that was even simpler; wasn’t it just choosing a good date and time, preparing all the tools, and drawing talismans?

Child’s play!

With Su Chunfeng’s current powerful mental state cultivation, he was now directly starting cultivation from the fourth realm, Body Purification.

Moreover, he didn’t need to use troublesome things like talismans for support. Directly using his powerful mental state cultivation, he forcibly recited Spell Incantations combined with Mind Cultivation Technique to sense the secrets of the nearby Yin-Yang Qi of Five Elements, aligning his mind with Heaven and Earth, then guiding and absorbing spiritual energy into his body to wash away internal impurities.

Additionally, if he needed to draw a talisman under special, urgent circumstances now, anytime and anywhere, unrestricted by favorable timing or conditions, he could use his own blood to draw higher-level talismans.

Of course, the Backlash to bear would be great. He really didn’t want to repeatedly provoke the majesty of nature.

His body was too weak!

However, even under such advantageous conditions equivalent to having cheats or a golden finger, wanting to rapidly break through the fourth realm, Body Purification, in a short time was impossible for Su Chunfeng. Because the physical body is the foundation, and washing, purifying, and transforming this foundation absolutely has no shortcuts. One also cannot be overly ambitious and force progress, which would severely damage this delicate, weak little body.

So, he could only proceed step by step!

The season of the spring cold passed, and the weather grew warmer day by day.

It happened to be the weekend at noon, close to mealtime. Su Chunfeng was doing homework at home when he heard two car horn sounds from outside, then heard his uncle Chen Shunhe’s loud voice shouting: “Xiulan, Chengzi, Third Uncle has come to see you! Come out quickly!”

Chen Xian had come?

Su Chunfeng frowned and stood up to walk outside—he was a junior; if his grandfather came and he didn’t hurry out, it would seem very disrespectful.

Chen Xiulan, who was cooking in the western room kitchen, was also pleasantly surprised and quickly wiped her hands on her apron before coming out.

She saw that Chen Shunhe had already reached the steps at the entrance to the main room, while Chen Xian, wearing a Western suit, stood in the yard, calmly surveying this not large, but also not rundown, ordinary rural courtyard. The yard was swept clean, and with tree branches extending, budding, and turning green, although it lacked luxurious grandeur, it appeared even more elegant and simple, making people feel comfortable standing in such a yard.

“Third Uncle, please come inside…” Chen Xiulan said excitedly, inviting Chen Xian and Chen Shunhe to enter the house, adding: “Xiaofeng’s father has gone to the fields, he’ll be back in a little while.”