Chapter 121: Star Cultivation (1)

Encrid had hoped to continue the lessons without ever needing to demonstrate cultivation himself.

That hope lasted less than two weeks.

The problem was not that his explanations were poor. If anything, Encrid had spent more time preparing them than he had spent preparing most of the matters he brought before the Council, going through everything he knew about cultivation and breaking it down into principles that someone who had never felt a Star before could understand.

He explained how to quiet the body without making it completely passive, how to search for the faint sensation of a Star beneath the ordinary noise of one’s own body, and how to distinguish between a normal sensation and something that felt deeper, more persistent, and strangely familiar.

He explained that every person possessed seven Stars, but that those Stars did not necessarily feel the same to everyone, nor would every person find the same Star easiest to reach.

"You are not choosing a Star," Encrid told them. "You are finding one suitable for you."

A few of them looked confused.

"If you sit down and decide that you want the Vermilion Star because it makes you stronger, that does not mean the Vermilion Star will suddenly become the easiest one for you to reach. You may feel warmth there. You may feel nothing at all. You may instead notice pressure behind your brow, a strange heaviness around your navel, or some other sensation that you cannot explain."

He tapped his chest.

"When you find something that feels different, do not immediately assume you are imagining it. Pay attention to it. Return to it. See whether it responds when you concentrate on it."

He had repeated the same principle several times because beginners had a tendency to make cultivation more complicated than it needed to be.

They wanted rules.

They wanted certainty.

They wanted Encrid to tell them exactly what to do, how long to do it, and what they would feel when they succeeded.

But cultivation did not work that way.

"There are seven Stars within every one of you," Encrid said. "You are not creating them. They are already there. Your first task is simply to find the one that answers you."

One might feel warm.

Another might feel heavy.

Another might feel distant but strangely familiar, as though some part of the body had always known it was there.

Once they found one that responded more readily to their attention, Encrid instructed them to follow that sensation and concentrate on it repeatedly. Cultivation was not a matter of deciding which Star they wanted and ordering it to awaken. It was a matter of discovering what was already inside them and learning how to reach it.

The theory was simple enough.

The practice was not.

The students would listen to Encrid explain something for an hour, nod along as though every word made perfect sense, and then spend the next hour sitting with their eyes closed before opening them again and staring at him as if waiting for the part where he finally showed them how.

That was when Encrid discovered an inconvenient truth about teaching.

People trusted what they could see far more readily than what they were merely told.

He could explain the movement of Star energy through the body in precise detail, describe the channels it travelled through, and explain that those channels were narrow and obstructed by impurities that had accumulated over a lifetime of never being used. He could tell them that awakening a Star did not suddenly give them complete access to its power, but merely gave them the beginning of a path that had to be cleared little by little through repeated cultivation.

He could explain all of it.

But when someone eventually raised a hand and asked him to demonstrate the path, and Encrid had to remind them that he could not, something in the room changed.

It was not distrust exactly.

It was uncertainty.

They understood that Encrid knew what he was talking about, but understanding and believing were not always the same thing, particularly when the people sitting in front of him had spent their entire lives learning by watching someone else do something first.

Encrid could see the problem.

If he wanted them to understand what he was teaching, he needed someone who could show them.

Fortunately, he already knew someone.

"Gus."

The boy looked up.

"Come here."

Gus stared at him for a moment.

Then he pointed at himself.

"Me?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because you can demonstrate the Vermilion Star."

"Me, young master? I don’t think I am that capable - maybe someone else would like to do it."

Gus looked around the room as though hoping someone else would volunteer.

Nobody did.

"Just shut up and come up here."

A few students laughed.

Gus reluctantly stood and walked toward the front of the bathhouse.

He was sixteen now, old enough to understand exactly how embarrassing it was to have thirty-eight people watching him cultivate, and still young enough that he had not learned how to hide his embarrassment properly.

He had also grown nearly four inches in six months, something he seemed to regard as a personal betrayal by his own body.

Encrid had noticed that Gus had begun hunching slightly whenever people looked at him, as though becoming taller had somehow made him more conspicuous rather than less.

"Sit down," Encrid said.

Gus sat.

"Close your eyes."

Gus did.

"Open the Vermilion Star."

Gus sighed.

"That part I know."

"Then demonstrate it."

The room became quiet.

Encrid turned toward the class.

"Watch carefully. I am going to explain what you are seeing while he does it."

Gus placed one hand against the floor and began to concentrate.

A few seconds passed.

Then the first sign appeared.

Heat.

It started low in his body, around the base of his spine, and slowly spread outward.

Several students leaned forward.

"This is the Vermilion Star," Encrid said. "The Star itself is not the heat. The heat is one of the ways its power expresses itself through the body."

The warmth increased.

"You should also notice that it does not simply appear in his shoulder because he wants it there."

Gus’s breathing became slower.

"The energy has to travel."

A faint red glow appeared beneath the skin at the base of his spine.

Encrid pointed.

"That is the beginning of the channel."

The energy moved upward.

"It follows a pathway through the body. Think of these channels as roads. When you first awaken a Star, those roads are not clear."

He drew several lines on the board.

"They have impurities. Some are narrow. Some are almost completely blocked. The Star may be awake, but that does not mean you can immediately draw all of its power through your body."

Gus pushed the energy farther.

Steam began to rise from his forearms.

"That resistance you feel is the channel."

Gus’s expression tightened.

"And that discomfort is normal."

One of the students raised a hand.

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