Life Giver

Roughly 40% of the new students on the Qi studies course hadn't begun cultivation yet, this was because of a fundamental part of becoming a cultivator.

Apart from a few special races, most people needed to expose their bodies to a source of high grade Qi energy, generally grade 6. Exposure to such a powerful source of Qi energy would allow them to sense Qi energy and draw it into their bodies, also known as Qi drawing.

They could then replicate this experience to cultivate normally with lower grades of Qi energy which were more abundant.

As the Instructors leapt from the roof of the pavilion, Instructor Redfire began to call out to the students.

"ALL GRADE 1.1 AND ABOVE CULTIVATORS MOVE INTO THE PAVILION! ALL CULTIVATOR'S WHO HAVE SUCCEFULLY ACHIEVED QI DRAWING, MOVE TO MY LEFT SIDE! EVERYONE ELSE PLEASE MOVE TO MY RIGHT!"

The students quickly began to move, they didn't dare take their time worried that Instructor Redfire would shout directly at them like he did before.

After the students separated, Instructor Featherfall went into the pavilion and began to speak to the more experienced students.

Similarly Instructor Do'Shan walked over to the cultivators who had already achieved Qi drawing and began to instruct them.

Instructor Redfire and Brail walked over the newly formed group of students, who had not cultivated before, and spoke seriously.

"As you all know, today you will hopefully become cultivators. I know that for the most of you this is day you have long waited for but I must warn you, roughly 1 in ten people are unable to cultivate and another 2 out of ten people are unable to sense Qi energy from the grade of Qi energy we can provide."

As all of the students heard this, they became anxious. The more intelligent and cautious students had prepared themselves with back up courses or jobs they could fall back on, other more arrogant or poorer students had not.

Instructor Redfire watched the students reactions, as he did so he began to separate the students into different groups.

"All students who belong to the beast races gather here. All those who belong to the floral and races gather..." Redfire explained as he pointed at area's around him.

Upon hearing this Casmir walked over to the beast race gathering area, human's were thought to be descendants of primate's similar to how Ling from the Lion race's was a descendant of Lion's.

Eventually all the students were separated into four groups depending on how they cultivate, this could be broadly defined as the beast path, the Floral path, the energy path and unique paths.

Most of the students belonged to the Elemental race of the energy path, the beast and floral path only had a few hundred students between them and the unique path barely had a few dozen.

Instructor Redfire told the people of the beast path to follow him leaving Instructor Brail to speak to the remaining students.

People from the beast path would be attempting Qi drawing first.

Redfire brought them to a small building, he separated the hundred or so students into three groups and then brought the first group into the building.

Casmir was in the first group, as he entered the building he noticed multiple armoured personnel with strong aura's, no less then Redfire's, who stood around and inside the building.

The students were even told to leave all of their items and be checked before they were allowed in.

As they entered the main room of the building them discovered a round room, which they were instructed to sit inside, with a round metal ball at it's centre.

Beside they ball was an old man who seemed to be human, he nodded to Redfire allowing him to leave before he introduced himself and explained what the students should do.

His voice was old but kind, he looked at this students in gentle melancholy.

"Welcome, I am Elder Jing-Sheng. This orb beside me contains a grade 7 Qi crystal, in a moment i will open it's container and you will be exposed to it for ten minutes. During this period you must close your eyes and attempt to feel out the Qi energy, it will start as a numbing sensation at the back of your skull."

"You must attempt to open yourself up to this sensation, focus on it and embrace it. If you are successful in drawing in the Qi energy then you will feel this numbing sensation flow down your spine and into your body. It will flow into different parts of your body depending on your race but you will know you have succeeding when you feel a popping sensation, after this the path you felt the Qi energy flow down will correct itself."

The old man's eyes glanced over the students as he paused for a moment.

"This process will take some time, do not feel rushed. You have 2 minutes to calm yourselves, do not disturb your fellow students."

Casmir and the other students all breathed in deeply attempted to calm themselves, some of them closed their eyes, others look around attempting to copy other students actions.

Soon enough all the students were peacefully waiting for the Elder to open the metal object.

The Elder smiled as he silently waved his hand over the metal object, it seemed to melt away as it gradually revealed an open space inside of it containing a bright blue crystal.

"You may begin." The old man said before he tapped the blue crystal.

His action brought life to the crystal as it began shining a gentle blue light that shined on the students.

As Casmir felt this light appear on him, he felt slightly warm. Almost immediately he felt a numb sensation at the back of his skull, in seconds it travelled down his spine arriving at his navel, the location for the human Dantian.

Casmir felt a pop at the base of his spine, a pleasant sensation similar to one he felt as he used the Life Body Cycle filled his body. He felt it strange that this had happened so quickly but he too absorbed in the pleasant sensation to care about it.

Unknown to Casmir he the first person to achieve Qi drawing, in fact the next person around him to do so took a whole 4 minutes.

Elder Jing-Sheng did not fail to notice this, he nodded to himself and out of curiosity, his eyes flashed revealing to him an unseen world.

He could see a light mist surrounding him, this represented the Qi energy in the air. Small whirlpools surrounded the students as they drew the qi energy into their body but as the Elder looked at Casmir, he wore an excited face.

The whirlpool around Casmir was exceedingly small, however also very stable.

The elder understood it's meaning, Casmir had a naturally high sensitivity to Qi energy. The Elder was quite frankly shocked that Casmir wasn't already a cultivator, generally people with high sensitivities can awaken as cultivator's from very low grade Qi sources.

Never the less he didn't think much about it, such a high Qi sensitivity wasn't very useful in the early stages of cultivation but he intended on keeping an eye on this boy.

Time ticked by and soon enough, 10 minutes had passed. Eight out of the 40 or so students didn't succeed in Qi drawing, they all appeared devastated and distraught, one of them even walked up to the Elder in an attempt to beg him for another chance.

All the Elder could do was shake his head and explain, having examined the student with a special technique, he understood that this particular student couldn't cultivate what so ever.

Redfire soon returned in order to bring these students away, he told those students who were successful to wait outside as he sent in the next group and escorted the students who had failed elsewhere.

Casmir couldn't help but feel sorry for them.

=========

After half an hours time, the successful students returned with Instructor Redfire to the pavilion.

The students who had already began cultivation were separated into a dozen or so groups, these groups were decided by their cultivation system and progress towards the goal of 10% Qi flow.

Instructor Redfire brought the students over to the rest of the beast path students, he organised them all into three groups.

The new cultivators who still had yet to achieve grade 1.0, the inexperienced cultivators who were already grade 1 or above and the small group of experienced cultivators who had already achieved 10% Qi flow.

Instructor Redfire took the opportunity to explain to the students exactly what 10% Qi flow meant.

He explained that cultivators must be able to control the qi energy in their body, when they first begin all they can do is release Qi energy all at the same time or not at all.

They need to be able to control the flow of Qi energy as the most basic requirement for it's use, this stage of Qi control was called Qi flow, a cultivator must master Qi flow to a degree of 0.1% of their maximum output to be able to use some of the most basic Qi energy technique's and attain a Class.

A Qi flow of 10% means they need to be able to let out a flow of Qi energy continuously that doesn't vary by more than 10 percent, for example a cultivator should be able to maintain an output of 50% without this output dropping below 45% or above 55%.

After explaining this Redfire smiled at the students.

"Don't worry yourselves, very few students are unable to achieve this in a couple of weeks. After all you have some of best teachers in the region teaching you! Haha come on, I'll be guiding all the beast path students for the next two weeks." He said loudly and confidently.

Instructor Redfire looked at the most experienced students saying.

"You've all done well already, for now you can cultivate here, visit the training hall over there or take a break. You need to reconvene here in 2 hours time."

As the experienced cultivators dispersed Redfire began to instruct the inexperienced cultivator's.

"Very good, I assume one of the other instructors has taught you the basic movements? If you have any questions about it you should ask now." He called out.

Redfire spent the next 15 minutes or so answering a few questions for these students before he demonstrated the 'basic movements' once again.

The basic movements were a set of light exercises that focused on stretching and bending different parts of the body. These movements would help the natural flow of Qi energy through the body allow a cultivator to better understand how Qi energy flows.

"Good, you should all practise these movements thoroughly, I will check up on you in half an hours time."

Finally Instructor Redfire turned his attention to the new cultivators.

"Right, each of you has achieved Qi drawing now so you should be able to cultivate. You're first step along this path will be to create a grade 1 core."

A core was the general name for the object that beast race's create in their bodies for storing Qi energy, for human's it was the Dantian.

One must remember that there is a variety of people from different races here, many of them look humanoid with animalistic traits but others look more like animal's. The Humanoid form was a common trait in the beast race's but it was definitely not the only form.

"In order to do so you must begin Qi drawing to build up a mass of qi energy so that it naturally condenses together, it will only take you a short time to form a grade 1.0 core. You will know when it is complete because your core will only condense a certain amount of grade 1.0 Qi energy, once your core no longer takes in grade 1.0 Qi energy you have finished building your core."

Having finished talking Redfire instructed the students to sit down and begin Qi drawing as they did earlier, it would take them roughly half an hour to condense a core, varying slightly per race.

"You're all cultivators now..." he mumbled to himself as he watched them.