Over the next month, Lucas worked together with the others to combine the Unarmed Foundations Martial Art with a Cultivation Technique. Since Eris had already provided an example of success, the 4 adults and 2 children first focused on the Flowing Flame Art, which Sasha had decided she would openly teach all of them.
While teaching the Flowing Flame Art, the Core Cultivation Technique of a powerful Marquis Family, was a crime typically punished by beheading in the Balfour Family, after much discussion, it was agreed amongst the small group that if their experiment proved successful, in the future they would take the matter directly to Eris' great grandmother, the current Marquess, Celestina Balfour.
Originally, the 4 adults, and even Lucas, felt that it would be better to keep the Unarmed Foundations Art as much a secret between them as possible. Unfortunately, if they still wanted to take advantage of it to strengthen themselves, it was only a matter of time before the Art's existence became known.
As such, Sasha, Charles, Drake, Anna, and Lucas came up with the idea of creating a stripped down, simplified version they could teach to the Town Guard as a way of covering up the true Martial Art should someone ever take notice of it. Of course, the Town Guard gaining some strength was a much-appreciated bonus, but the real reason for distributing the Unarmed Foundation Art wasn't nearly so selfless.
If the Unarmed Foundations Martial Art had only been a set of exercises which could help strengthen the various aspects of one's physique, this plan would have probably been sufficient, but with the new possibilities Eris had inadvertently uncovered, that was no longer the case.
The chances of another person first learning about the Unarmed Foundations Martial Art, then mastering it, then combining it with their own Cultivation Technique successfully, was basically impossible. But, Eris had done just that, so the possibility couldn't be ruled out entirely.
In light of this, the 4 adults and Lucas had no choice but to plan for a worst-case scenario. No one knew where news could leak from, so it was better to be safe rather than sorry, especially with a treasure Kings and Emperors would covet.
As a result of numerous discussions and debates, it was eventually decided that should they successfully combine the Flowing Flame Art and Unarmed Foundations Art together to create a superior Cultivation Technique, they would proactively bring it to Sasha's family.
Not right away, of course.
Sasha, Charles, Anna, and Drake all wanted to take advantage of this newfound knowledge to improve their strength first, but they would definitely follow through in the near future.
Eris had no objections to these plans, as she was mainly just excited about the prospects of getting stronger more quickly and without having to spend hours sitting with her legs crossed, meditating while reciting the tedious Mantras to herself.
From the way the adults and her little brother Lucas talked, Eris knew that this was much more important than just a method to make cultivating less boring for her, but once they began discussing things like noble politics and contingency plans, no matter how much she tried to pay attention and learn, it all just went over her head.
In the end, the only thing she really learned was that other than the practical experiments, right now, she couldn't help her parents, aunt, uncle, or even little brother with this matter in any way.
It was a fact that made Eris feel frustrated and want to grow up faster.
When it came to Lucas, he was actually quite excited about the whole affair.
Unlike Eris, he was aware of how dangerous things could become should this new cultivation method be proven successful and then somehow leaked out to the wrong people, but even that couldn't dull his enthusiasm to create something new and never seen before.
Lucas had always been a curious child, but after his accident where he inherited so many new yet vague pieces of knowledge, his passion to explore the unknown and create new things seemed to have been greatly stimulated; evidence of this was his ongoing quest to make his own Bathing Cream.
The sticky, grimy feeling Lucas felt after exercising or a playing in the hot sun might also have played a role in his enthusiasm.
While this process might have been simpler if they had started with Anna, Drake, or even Charles' Cultivation Techniques, which were all considerably less complex than the Flowing Flame Art, the fact that Eris had given them a sort of template to work with that they knew was effective made the group elect to continue down this path. What's more, if they succeeded with a comparatively more difficult Cultivation Technique, applying the same method to simpler ones should, theoretically, be simpler.
Another point of interest for Lucas was that up until this point in his short life, he had only vaguely learned about cultivation. He knew that there were different Realms which a person had to ascend through in a specific sequence in order to strengthen themself, and that this was done by absorbing World Qi, but other than that, his knowledge was basically blank.
As such, the first 10 days were spent with Charles, Drake, and Anna giving Lucas a crash-course in the basics of cultivation, such as the nature of World Qi, how one would normally absorb it, how it was supposed to be circulated and refined, various aspects of one's physique to pay attention to, and so on and so forth.
10 days was naturally nowhere near enough for Lucas to gain a comprehensive understanding of cultivation, but with impressive determination and shocking comprehension abilities, the young boy was at least able to grasp how one began cultivating and about how one continued to strengthen themselves in the Body Tempering Realm.
After completing this initial step, Sasha, as the one familiar with the Flowing Flame Art, began explaining her Cultivation Technique in detail, breaking down its Mantra line-by-line and describing the various intricacies of its rhythm and breathing sequences.
Sasha didn't know the entire Flowing Flame Art's Circulation Mantra as she had never been taught it. Her strength had been too low, so she was simply not entitled to study the whole Cultivation Technique. Still, Sasha taught them everything she knew without any kind of reservation from what she had learned from her family.
Even if Sasha knew the entire Flowing Flame Art, however, she wouldn't have altered it in any way. The other adults with experience cultivating also didn't even suggest this as they had all been warned by their elders and seniors to never mess with a Cultivation Technique because the consequences of doing so were disastrous more often than not.
It was common knowledge that only true masters with extremely profound strength and understanding of cultivation could alter or create new Cultivation Techniques.
Since the Flowing Flame Art couldn't be altered, the burden fell to Lucas to modify the Forms from the Unarmed Foundations Art to suit the Cultivation Technique instead.
Of the original 8 Forms Eris had been using, Lucas swapped out the 2 he originally suspected needed to be replaced when he first saw his big sister cultivating this way. However, the changes didn't stop there. With his Aunt Sasha's assistance, and suggestions from his Uncle Charles and parents, Lucas made a number of subtle modifications to each of the 8 Forms that would be used for this experiment.
The changes mainly revolved around extending or shortening how long certain Stances and Figures would be held, as well as how swiftly or forcefully certain Motions would be executed.
Lucas also swapped out about a dozen individual exercises from the Forms themselves. All of this was only possible because the Unarmed Foundations Martial Art was incredibly flexible and could be tailored to focus on and train any aspect of the body to begin with.
The work was tiring and even frustrating at times, with disagreements and even arguments occurring in the process, but by the twenty-fifth day, Lucas, his parents, and his aunt and uncle had settled on a set of Forms that they would try out.
Much to Eris' chagrin, she had been forbidden from using her new cultivation method during this time, and her disappointment only increased when she learned that it would be her mother who performed the initial test of these new Forms.
Although she wanted to object, the stern looks from Sasha and Charles, as well as the solemn expressions on Lucas, Anna, and Drake's faces as they stood by and observed, made Eris realize that no amount of complaining would be entertained this time.
To be on the safe side, Sasha took another 10 days to fully master the sequence of movements before the first test began.
On the day of the initial test, Sasha spent slightly more than an hour to complete 8 circulations of the new cultivation method. Coming to a stop and exhaling a long breath, she relaxed her body and furrowed her brow slightly, seemingly sinking into deep contemplation. Disturbing someone immediately before, during, or after they cultivated was a big taboo, so no one else in the training hall spoke.
It was only after another quarter-hour of silence passed that Sasha simply declared, "It works."
Despite confirmation that their new cultivation method was a success, no one celebrated, because Sasha herself seemed to still be puzzling over something important.
Eventually, Eris couldn't take the heavy mood in the air and asked the question everyone wanted to, "Is something wrong, Mom?"
"There's nothing wrong, Eris," Sasha shook her head before continuing, "But the effect isn't as good as we thought it would be."
"What do you mean?" Charles asked on behalf of the group.
Taking some time to gather her thoughts and analyse her condition, Sasha explained, "If I'm not mistaken, I managed to increase the amount of World Qi I refined and absorbed by about 5%. That's no small amount, but it's nowhere near what Eris managed to achieve."
Eris had managed to break through to the Fifth Step Body Tempering Realm almost a month ahead of schedule, and she had only been using her new cultivation method for about a month, so a rough estimate would suggest that her cultivation efficiency had gone up by nearly 25%, which was why it was so shocking and why the 4 adults and Lucas had poured so much effort into this experiment in the first place.
"Could something be wrong with the modifications I made to the Forms?" Lucas immediately felt that it was his fault and suggested as much.
However, Sasha swiftly denied this possibility, "No. It was a little awkward at first, but after getting into the rhythm, I noticed a large increase in the amount of World Qi I was able to draw in. Cultivating has never been as comfortable, but in the end, I wasn't able to refine and absorb much more Qi than normal, causing most of the gains to go to waste."
This was the point which had been so confusing for Sasha. When she first felt how easily she was absorbing World Qi and circulating it through her body and meridians, she had been elated and expected to receive a huge boost in cultivation efficiency. The final result of a mere 5% increase puzzled her greatly.
"Maybe it's because you're in the Vein Opening Realm," Drake suggested.
"That's right," Anna nodded in agreement with her husband, "Cultivation becomes more difficult the higher your Realm, so it may be that because you're a whole Great Realm ahead of Little Eris that this new method of cultivation doesn't work as well for you, Sasha."
"Oh, oh! Let me try!" Eris hurriedly volunteered, both because she wanted to finally contribute something to this experiment and also because she wanted to start using the new cultivation method again as quickly as possible.
"Wai…" Sasha tried to intervene, but it was already too late as her daughter had run out onto the training floor and begun cultivating.
"I suppose that would be the best way to proceed," Charles sighed, feeling more confident now that Sasha had safely managed to use this new cultivation style. "If Eris manages to increase her cultivation efficiency by a larger margin than before, then we can probably conclude that this new method works best for those in the Body Tempering Realm, and then looses effectiveness as one's strength increases."
"If that turns out to be the case, we may not need to be as cautious about it as we anticipated," Drake mused; after all, a method of increasing cultivation efficiency for only Body Tempering Realm cultivators wasn't nearly as valuable as one that increased cultivation efficiency for all Realms.
All of this made sense, but Lucas wasn't convinced it was the entire reason just yet. Clearly his Aunt Sasha had been able to draw in and circulate much more World Qi than before, just as they expected. The problem only occurred when she tried to refine that World Qi into Spirit Qi and absorb it.
Perhaps it has something to do with her Cultivation Technique not being able to refine so much World Qi?
Lucas didn't have enough information or experience to judge, but he instinctually felt there was more to this problem than meets the eye, causing him to wrack his brain trying to come up with other answers.