Upon realising the difficulties of cultivation, the 100 new disciples found themselves full of vigour. Despite the challenges they were going to face, who didn't want to become stronger?
Elder Shang had stopped talking to give time for the new disciples to ingest what they learnt. A couple of minutes later a sweet calming voice echoed inside the Hall of missions.
"Elder Shang I have few questions" whilst having her arm raised.
Elder Shang eyes looked towards the sweet voice before responding.
"What question do you have young lady?".
The young lady took a deep breath and voiced out her concerns.
"What would happen if the individual who has not yet established a foundation inside their bodies continue to accumulate energy on their bodies?".
"Would they just become stronger, and can we continue to just accumulate energies without ever having to establish our foundation inside our bodies?".
Elder Shang looked at the young lady and was quite surprised at her questioning. This was something that most new disciples did not pay attention to and thought they could keep accumulating their energy until it was too late to regret. Most either became crippled, some died or became damaged and required years of healing.
Elder Shang looked at the young lady with intrigue and asked
"What is your name, age and cultivation young miss?".
The young lady looked at Elder Shang before replying calmly "My name is Du Xia. I am 14 years old and I am rank 5 opening realm".
"Well I have to say miss Du Xia, you are very intelligent for your age"
Elder Shang then paused for a moment before taking a moment to look at the facial expressions of the 100 youths who were paying attention to him.
"Listen carefully" replied Elder Shang joyous voice suddenly changed into seriousness as it echoed in the Hall. This was to ensure everyone was paying attention.
"There is a reason why there are cultivation levels within each rank and are divided into 9 minor levels".
"If you simply think that you can quietly accumulate enough energy until you've reached the energy equivalent to the foundation realm, without actually building your foundation inside your body, think again".
"Your body is a container and there is limited space in which your body can contain". If you continue to accumulate your energy foregoing the foundation building inside your body, you will begin to experience pain".
"Imagine trying to compress and build your foundation when there isn't enough room to build in. You also can't simply throw away those extra materials as they are a part of you. So you're only left with limited options. You either try to squeeze as much as you can or discard the excess".
"In the case of Zhao Chang who has reached foundation realm energy 1 without building his foundation, he will have 1/10 of the strength of a foundation realm cultivator. He will be slightly stronger than that of a peak rank opening realm cultivators solely based on having more spiritual energy to work with"
"Furthermore, Zhao Chang body can handle the stress of having more spiritual energy".
"However, by examining Zhao Chang carefully, he could technically reach rank 2 in foundation realm before he feels the pain brought by accumulating more energy than his body can withstand".
"Now if you are dumb enough to ignore the pain and continue accumulating, 2 things will happen".
Elder Shang paused momentarily looking at new disciples staring at him intently with varied emotions.
"You will be crushed literally or explode. Basically, you will die". Said Elder Shang plainly.
The new disciples looked at Elder Shang with awe and fear. They now understood that not everyone was built to accumulate more energy past the opening realm. It all depended on the individuals body and whether or not it can withstand more energy past the opening realm. Silence ensured amongst the new 100 new disciples as they learnt intricacies of cultivating. It gave them a better Idea why the opening and foundation realms were the most important when it came to cultivating.
A couple of minutes later Du Xia then asked a follow up question to Elder Shang
"Elder, there is something you said that wasn't clarified".
Elder Shang looked at Du Xia curiously before responding.
"What did I miss Young lady?".
Du Xia confidently replied back "You said that when building our foundation in our bodies with extra materials, we can either compress it or remove the excess"
"How do we remove the excess?"
"You are very attentive Du Xia" proudly responded Elder Shang
"There are 2 ways we do it here in the sect. However, you must understand the accumulation of energy is a result of your body natural affinity to energy around us. To discard the excess that has now become a part us we must a simply find a way to stop accumulating the energy and find a way to discard the excess faster than the rate of accumulation".
"The first way we do it is we simply chuck you in prison. Despite how unpleasant that sounds, our prison walls are made with materials that block the natural energies of the world. From there you will need to do extreme exercises and eventually the accumulated energy will naturally dissipate"
"Now as you can imagine, something that is a part of will us naturally take a long time to remove hence there is a second method we use".
Elder Shang took a moment and looked at the youths who were staring at him as if they were statues. A big grin appeared on Elder Shang face before saying.
"The second method we use is quite simple. We literally beat it out of you. You'll probably have to spend 1 to 2 weeks broken, bruised and bleeding before you fully recover. Don't worry you can trust our medical team. No one has died from this method so far"
Contorted faces appeared in the faces of the disciples. Some simple fell on the floor finding how ridiculously that sounded. Yet, when they looked at Elder Shang's face, they knew he was being serious despite the grin.