In the middle of his beating, Junjie had a moment of clarity. He had truly been considering what exactly his Will was. It had been a few days since Xingjuan had mentioned it.
He had asked himself more than once whether or not cultivating was something he wanted to do. He wasn't a particularly fearful or sentimental person, but it was a human's primal instinct to fear death. It was etched into their very being, so not many weren't afraid of death.
So, deep down, did he want to extend his lifespan? There weren't a lot of reasons why he wouldn't, but he didn't yet have the motivation to be so ambitious. He was just a young man of humble origins, so he didn't strive to struggle in the harsh cultivation world.
This is exactly what he had been struggling with. Whenever he would ask Xingjuan for guidance, she would dismiss it or change the topic. But her silence said more than words ever could for him.
'This is something I must figure out on my own. I guess this is the true test of resolve. Looks like awakening my spiritual veins isn't going to be simple.'
He was conflicted. Extending his own life seemed so simple but also looked arduous. He loved a challenge, hence why he even chose the body refinement path to begin with, but he didn't want to bite off more than he could chew. He simply wasn't that kind of daunting individual.
'What a pain in the ass.'
It was then that his brief moment of clarity disappeared and his body began to ache once again.
'What is even the point of these damn beatings!? I can tell she isn't angry at me anymore. Is she angry at someone else then? Go beat them instead!'
How indignant he felt, poor Jia Junjie. However, his guess wasn't so far from the truth; even an uncouth youth like him could be intuitive sometimes too.
After his torture was finished and he returned to his room, he began his inner monologue again. He didn't even bother with the manual at the moment, as it would be of no more help to him until he awakened his spiritual veins.
'Alright, I'm doing it right here, right now. Do I want to truly embark on this path regardless of its trials and tribulations?'
'...'
His face went blank. You would think he would be carefully considering his options at the moment, but he was not. Instead he was staring at the same wooden floor he had been looking at for what felt like forever now, with a blank stare. He had genuinely emptied his head and had no thoughts in his mind now. This was Junjie's one skill, and he was absolutely confident in it.
After a while he spoke aloud.
"That's it, I'm ready to do it. I'm not going to stop until the heavens strike me down, and even then I will continue forward! In this life there is only one direction, and that is straight ahead. Therefore I shall not stop until the very path beneath me disappears, consequences and earthly attachments be damned!"
It seemed that after all that talk and inner thought of resolve, he had finally, earnestly, dedicated himself to this life, which he knew nothing about. Unbeknownst to Junjie, he had finally established his Will. He hadn't awakened his spiritual veins yet, but he was certainly one step closer.
---
Will is the only thing that matters in this world of endless struggle and slaughter. Without the intention to rise to the very top, those that have Will use you as their stepping stone to glory.
There is no contentment until the absolute pinnacle is achieved and all of your enemies have been vanquished. In this treacherous world, those with the strongest Will rise to the top, and those with a weak Will sink to the very bottom.
Junjie's establishment of his Will was the very first step on the journey of cultivation, with an uncountable number of steps and obstacles. However, it was undeniably one of the most important...
---
All Junjie had to do now was will his spiritual veins to awaken, and he would finally be off on his cultivation journey. The only problem was that even though he established a Will, albeit unknowingly, he still couldn't just will something.
From the very few words both Xingjuan and Lihua had spoken to him in the past few days, he had come to understand that he had to desperately want it; he had to be willing to stake his life on it. In other words, sitting in his room and waiting to get beat wasn't going to get him very far.
He just didn't know where to start.
---
And so time went by. The calm spring days came to an end, and the heat of summer set in. It had been about a month and a half since Junjie arrived? visited? Regardless, it had been a month and a half since he first settled into the wooden cabin, and he was still struggling.
'Blasted! This all feels so futile, like no matter how hard I resist her when getting beat, it just doesn't count!' He was quite irritated. He had been asking himself,
Something this difficult is only the first step?
However, not everything was fruitless, and he had managed to gain a boon from the beatings with Lihua. Actually it may be a bit presumptuous, but he had actually started calling them spars. He had finally managed to stand his ground against her and had even pushed her back in a few cases; he wasn't totally hopeless after all.
Obviously in a contest of pure strength Junjie lost miserably, but he still managed to develop a crude self-defence style to let his body sustain fewer injuries and heal further. He wasn't confident he could take her down if he was in optimal condition, but he was certainly confident he could at least keep her at bay and stall for time. It was actually quite impressive that an unawakened could hold back a mid-foundation establishment cultivator, but it wasn't rare either.
After all, even if one had awakened their spiritual veins, they weren't yet out of a human league, and a top athlete could hold their ground against them. Unfortunately, Junjie wasn't even close to a top athlete and was just an unfortunate fifteen-year-old boy. That made his feat a bit more impressive even if his opponent was another child.
After his hour time limit had finished, he even strode outside on his own, prepared to try holding his ground once again. During this spar he had managed to stay upright for a total of three minutes before he got caught off guard and subsequently brutally thrashed for longer than he cared to count. It seemed he was lasting just a little bit longer each time, and Lihua had taken notice of that.