After Li Kong had dressed properly, they found themselves sitting back on top of the soft bed and White briefed Li Kong once again before Li Kong submerged himself deep within the meditation.
Maybe it was because he had already done it for a few times, he entered the state of deep meditation with ease.
While Li Kong was performing his meditation, White silently watched upon the figure of young boy with an observing eyes.
'His growth surely is shocking.' White mused to himself.
'As if it's already not absurd enough for someone with basically zero knowledge about cultivation to learn how to sense Qi in just one night. But now he is able to enter the meditation state on whim...'
Although White couldn't be sure yet but from the youth he had seen the inkling of what he might be and that was...
'A genius'
A genius. Someone who was outside of the norm of the ordinary, refusing to follow what others perceived as common sense and embarked on a path of their own.
'A genius, huh?' White smiled through his words.
'There's not a single thing lacking about him, aside from his strange spirit root.' At the mention of the spirit root, the cogs inside of White's mind began to spin.
'It's fundamentally impossible for a spirit root to not had an elemental attribute, whether it is a common element or unique, but here it is, the living embodiment of such contradiction.'
Throughout the hundreds of years of life as the great cultivator and as well the long years following being a remnants, there was nothing that even remotely resembled the peculiarity of Li Kong's spirit root which made White very intrigued of what was causing it to happen..
'Was it his constitution?' White gazed at Li Kong's body.
'If it's the Great Absorption constitution then perhaps it's possible that his own constitution absorbed his spirit root's element attribute. No... If that was the case, then I shouldn't even be able to sent my memories to him...
'But if it's not his constitution then what it could be?' White contemplated before ultimately heaving out a deep sigh.
'Sigh... Let's just accept this as a new thing. Afterall this world is vast and even I hadn't explored the world at its fullest yet.'
While White was debating himself, Li Kong on the other hand was struggling desperately to carrying out his teacher's order as countless beads of sweat was rolling down over his forehead and his eyebrows were creased deeply as he continued to keep his rhythmic breath steady.
'How am I supposed to do this?'
He recalled the story White had told before and the solution that was given to him was...
'Just flip it.' A simple statement without any flaw in the making of the statement but the glaring question was how do you supposed to flip it?!
'The boundary is caused by my mind unconsciously working my senses in such way because of my training with uncle Ye...
'Then, perhaps if I tried to sense the area close to my boundary, it'll work?'
The boundary was his the fruit of his labor after the hard training he had with his Ye Cheng and Ye Cheng built it in a way that would benefited a hunter the most but unfortunately, to Ye Cheng's dismay, Li Kong wasn't going to be hunter as the senses his uncle honed proved to be more of an obstacle to him.
After that, Li Kong focused all of his attention on the inner area around his boundary.
'This is... hard...' Li Kong creased his eyebrows even deeper.
Li Kong attempted to forcibly flipped his senses to fill the inner of the boundary but the attempt ended prematurely as Li Kong couldn't bear the mental burden of the action and dropped down to his bed while breathing raggedly.
"Ahh!!! This is too hard!" Li Kong exclaimed while still laying down on the bed, trying to stabilized his ragged breath.
"You've only done it once and you already complained?" White clicked his tongues many times.
Li Kong hadn't had the energy to argue with the bead yet as he looked straight up at the ceiling.
After a moment, his breathing finally stabilized and he propelled his back upwards and took a seat in front of the white bead.
"You'd recovered? Thought you're going to lay down until sunrise." White's teasing voice resounded on Li Kong's ears.
"Time waits for no one." Li Kong replied with solemn expression.
"How come you suddenly become smarter?" White scoffed.
Li Kong chuckled a little at White's response.
"Stop laughing now. Now do you know what your mistake was before?"
Li Kong thought for a moment and replied.
"Is it because I was too forcing?"
"Good. At least you know that." White gave nod to the answer.
"Just like exercising your muscles, forcing your way won't gave you a pretty result. Cultivation is also like that, there will be things that you might be found difficult at first but if you continuously retried, it would become easier.
"There is still many ways to do it without forcing and if you still try to force it anyway... I mean what could go wrong? At worst, you will only ended up crippled for life or loses your life in the process. Not much to consider, right?" The bead sent a sharp gaze to the youth.
Li Kong's throat subconsciously moved downward as he carved the bead's warning deep within his mind so he could never forget about it ever.
After memorizing White's warning, Li Kong performed his breath routine and gradually, his consciousness blended in with the surrounding as his senses became crystal clear.
"Sense the area around your boundary. One step at a time. Don't be greedy and do it steadily and when you feel you have taken a good grasp of the area, continue deeper until you finally reached your body." White instructed with a soothing voice.
Hearing the voice, Li Kong's nervousness dispersed and he nodded in response.
'Slow and steady.' He recited White's words deep within his consciousness.
He then extended his senses outwards from his body and it didn't took too long before he could felt a boundary subconsciously formed, trapping him inside like a bubble.
After that, he focused his attention to his inner boundary. Although he could sense the thing inside of his boundary, the feeling was so hazy that he couldn't made the thing out clearly on his mind.
After he done trying to sensing the thing inside of his inner boundary, he shifted his focus towards the border separating the outside and the inside.
There he could clearly felt the difference with one of the side was much clearer to his mind than the other.
'This is the place.' Li Kong thought silently.
Li Kong recalled White's words once again.
'Slow and steady... Slow and steady...' With an extreme focus. he tried to pull his senses slowly to the inner side of the boundary.
Li Kong couldn't exactly described what the feeling of "pulling" his senses felt like but the closest explanation he got was...
'It's like something was pushing me in from the outwards and I received their pushing?' Li Kong lost his words halfway through and decided to abandon trying to describe the feeling.
As he tried to "pull" his senses, he felt the tension was becoming strong as if the string connecting him and his outside senses would snapped at any given moment.
But Li Kong was adamant about giving up halfway as he recalled White's words and recited it repeatedly in his mind.
'Slow and steady. Remember, Li Kong. Do it slow and steady.'
The tension gradually built up and Li Kong could felt that it wouldn't took a long time before the "string" snapped but he wasn't ready to giving up yet.
'No... Not yet!'
In this moment, Li Kong's body unconsciously tensed as he exerted all of his strength right at this moment.
Sweats started dripping from Li Kong's forehead and his breathing became unclear.
'Almost... Almost! I almost see it! Come on, now..!' Li Kong desperately tried to maintain his focus as he slowly pulled his senses inwards.
But towards the end...
'Ah...' Li Kong inadvertently let out a sound.
As the he sensed the "string" snapped, Li Kong's mind was snapped out from the meditation state and wariness immediately attacked him as his body dropped down once again to the soft embrace of the bed.
"What did I just said about not forcing it, you damned brat! Not even a hour had passed and you already forgot about it? Do you really want to be crippled?" White was beyond pissed now.
White silently waited for Li Kong to got up from the bed but shortly after, he feeling a little bit uneasy as to why the young man didn't show his face after a moment had passed now.
'He must be quite disappointed at the result.' White thought to himself.
White remembered when he was a young cultivator still learning under his master's guidance and there were many times that he would felt so frustrated at himself because he couldn't do what his other senior brother and sister do.
White let out a loud cough.
"It's okay to feel disappointed about it. It was fine to fail sometimes on the contrary failing is good because with each fail it would bring you closer to success so there is nothing to be sad about failing..."
"I did it..." Li Kong murmured.
"Hah?" White didn't quite catch what he was saying.
"I did it! I did it! I did it, White!" Li Kong got out of the bed while snatching the bead in the process and proceed to jump around cheerfully around his room.
"I did it! I did it! Hahaha! I did it!" Each Li Kong's words was more joyful and louder than before.
"Good! Good, Li Kong!" White was infected by Li Kong's enthusiasm as he let himself to be spun around following Li Kong's body motion.
"But didn't you realize that it's late already!"
All of a sudden, Li Kong's head was struck by an invisible force and his movement turned wobbly after the impact had hit him.
He struggled to maintain his balance as he walked back to the bed before slumped down on the bed and clutching his head while grunting.
"You didn't have to hit it that hard." Li Kong was feeling a little resentful.
"If I didn't stop you, you would get another spank tomorrow because your neighbor's complaints to your uncle."
Remembering the beating that he took before, his body was filled with shudders as he ceased any further arguments with White.
"So how is your progress?" White asked.
Hearing White's question immediately brought back Li Kong's smile, he lifted his arms and raised his index and middle finger, making a reversed triangle shape at the bead's direction.
"I successfully pulled it in! Even though it was just a little." Li Kong smiled weakly and scratched the side of his head with embarrassed look on his face.
Looking at Li Kong's figure now, a warm feeling formed inside of White's heart.
"What's there to be embarrassed? Did I ever say that you could do it in one sitting? Rather I'm surprised you can do it."
Hearing the words from White motivated Li Kong for a bit as his posture turned straight again.
"But just because I say that it isn't bad, doesn't mean it is good. Now try it again!"
"Yes!"
...
It was unknown to Li Kong how many time had passed since his first attempt but since the first attempt, he had failed many attempts but with failure came improvement as each times he failed, he only got better and better.
Li Kong could felt that this attempt was nearing its end but he responded calmly. He used all of his knowledge that he had gained by the process of trials and errors he had done before and maintained his focus and breath carefully.
Something was coming...
Li Kong sensed that something else was within his grasp, hovering somewhere between his senses but no matter how hard he tried, that something seemed so out of touch.
'No...'
Would he fail again this time? When the thing he sought was right before him?
'No!'
Li Kong gathered his breath and focus once more and pushed himself through the limit.
'I refuse!' The words resonated through his whole body.
'This time...' The door opened. 'I will not fail!'
And finally...
"Finally... I can see it." Li Kong muttered under his breath before collapsing to the bed.
Li Kong felt like his sense of vision was renewed as he saw many particles dancing aimlessly in the air as if going to somewhere.
"Li Kong!" White sounded worried.
"White..." Li Kong weakly mumbled. "I did it." He let out a small smile and raised his two fingers and sent it to the floating bead on top of him.
"Congratulations, Li Kong. You've done the first step. You're officially a cultivator now." For some unknown reasons, Li Kong was starting to perceived a blurry figure cladded in a white robe looking down on him and on the corner of his lips, a little curve was formed.
As White's words arrived at Li Kong's ears, they heard the crow of a rooster resounded through the whole village to welcomed the rising sun.
"Uh, that's not good." Li Kong blurted out. "I think I'm started to seeing things, White..."
"What do you mean by "things"?" White asked but received no response.
White looked down at the already closed eyes of Li Kong and let out a sound of a little breath coming out from his nose.
A blanket floated up and enveloped Li Kong on its embrace as Li Kong snuggled around the bed.
...
In the mid day, in front of Li Kong's house, Yu Mei was walking in to the house and when she opened the door to his bedroom, she found her suspect laying peacefully on the bed.
"There you are." Yu Mei sat on the corner of the bed and shook Li Kong's body a few times.
"Hey, wake up. The sun's already up for long time, you know?"
But Li Kong remained unfazed at the disturbance and dwelled deeply in the realm of dreams.
Seeing her action was doing nothing to the dead as log Li Kong, Yu Mei ultimately sigh and observed Li Kong's sleeping face.
"Although uncle Zheng told me to wake you up..." Yu Mei looked at Li Kong's nose and pulled out a feather she had specially prepared for the occasion and waved it just a little in front Li Kong's nose.
Even though Li Kong was still not awake yet but his face contorted and his nose flailed around to dodge the ticklish sensation.
After waving it around for a while, Yu Mei finally had her fill and stopped tickling Li Kong's nose as she rested her chin on the top of the palm that was carrying the feather.
'You should deserve about this much.' She thought to herself as she watched Li Kong's free-of-any-worries sleeping face.
"Sleep well, Li Kong." She whispered.
Yu Mei stayed for a little longer before leaving the bedroom altogether while the bead on top of the shelf beside the bed glimmering ever-so-slightly.