In the morning, before he had his first lesson in a group environment, Ren decided to wander around the market, wooden sword strapped to his back. In his eagerness to leave his empty manor, he only took a calabash of the strangely filling water, that he drank when he first met Ai, with him. She told him, that it was also produced by the alchemist division, and he planned on buying a few of them, though Ai cautioned him against substituting a normal meal with it too often, as he was still growing.

And so he left, brown sword to his back and green flask at his belt, to walk the streets. While walking around, looking at various stalls, he thought about what the Novices that he would be training with would be like. Would they like him? Hate him? Maybe even ignore him completely! Though that was unlikely, he thought, as he was sure to be at least four years younger than them, and one stage of cultivation lower.

Thinking about the stages of cultivation, he realized that he did not really even know what that even entailed, being one stage lower. Did he just have less spirit in his body, did they accomplish something to be given the title? He knew that a requirement to becoming an Adept was gaining an Intent. Did that make him an Adept, though certainly one of the weakest ones? Ren did not know.

He resolved to visit the book reserve later in the day, to hopefully fill some of his gaps in education.

As he left the market, to walk through the gardens, on course to the pagoda where the first lesson would be held, some doubts settled back into his stomach, making him feel heavier throughout his walk.

Ren tried to calm himself down by closing his eyes and only trusting in his other senses, and while it did not really work along the way, he did calm down along the entrance of the pagoda.

He navigated the ground floor, searching for his class, and finding them only shortly after.

They were a gaggle of around twenty children, Ren estimated them to be between ten and fourteen years old, most of them talking animatedly with each other, while waiting for their teacher to arrive. Perhaps surprisingly, the numbers of boys and girls were evenly divided, as far as Ren could tell. What really surprised Ren, was that every single one of them wore a robe in some shade of grey, while he had only got black, green and red ones. It seemed like a bit of an oversight, now that he thought about it, he could not remember anyone other than an Adept wearing anything but a grey robe, with the exception being the Master who wore white and himself, but he hadn't really thought about this before, as he spent all of his time with Ai or alone, and it never came up what kind of clothes he should wear.

Maybe it also had a part in people looking at him with an odd look.

When he joined the group, some disciples also looked at him like he was a kid playing or something.

One of the bolder ones even stepped forward, he had one of the darkest robes of the group, while Ren currently wore a bright red one.

"Hey, what do you think you are doing here, short stuff? This part of the first floor is reserved for us, new Novices of the weapon division." When Ren did not immediately move away, the boy made a dismissive gesture and raised his nose at him. "Move along now, or are you lost? Have you lost your mummy? What a drag." He even sighed and looked like he really might search for Ren's mother.

Ren had to fight desperately not to raise his voice or have his face heat up red like a tomato, sinking a little deeper into his cultivation art.

As calm as he could make his voice sound, he responded. "I am Ren, I am joining this class on the instruction of Master Darkhaven, and Adept Xiao told me to be here at this time." While Ren thought that he delivered his thoughts well, his voice still wavered a little.

The other boy looked at him mockingly, while crossing his arms. "Oh really, Master Darkhaven instructed you to join this class? I didn't know the esteemed Master now gave charity to every runt of the streets. Did you know that, Daiyu?" He looked to one of the noble looking girls, for support.

She had intricately braided hair, and her practice sword at her right side, indicating that she was left-handed. Looking on, as if she did not want to have anything to do with the boy, she responded. "Leave me out of this, Zhen Jian, and for it is still, miss Ji."

The so named, Jian, looked none too pleased with her response, but shrugged it off almost immediately. When it was clear, that she was not going to add anything to her statement, Jian readied himself to start again. This was the moment their instructor picked to join them, making the boy shut his mouth and stand at attention.

The man who would be instructing them, an Adept, looked more like he was only lifting heavy weights, instead of fighting with a sword. As he walked to them, with measured steps, Ren noticed that the man made no sound while moving. This was not caused by some spirit art masking him in some way, Ren thought that he would definitely have caught that, but instead pure body control.

When the man came to a stop in front of the odd twenty of them, they had quieted down and most were standing at attention, being intimidated by the presence of the imposing man.

Seeing this, the Adept's stern face morphed into an inviting smile.

Spreading his arms out before him, he introduced himself. "Welcome, new students of the weapon division. My name is Di Niu, but you can just call me either Adept Di or Brother Niu. I will teach all of you how to handle yourself with a sword, and please remember, if someone is not here to learn swordplay, but instead another weapon speak up now."

No one made a sound, though some of the disciples looked around, like they expected someone to tell the Adept that they joined the wrong class.

When noone answered, Di Niu continued smoothly. "All of you will learn how to better control your body and spirit both, under my instruction.

And one more thing before we begin." Here he looked to Ren. "I have been given to understand, that disciple Ren will have no problem catching up with the rest of you, even though he is not yet a Novice and has only undergone minimal instruction thus far. With all that being said, let us begin!"

The Adept then gestured to a cabinet, that stood by one of the pillars of the floor, telling them all to take out one bowl of water each and to then sit down with it placed in front of them.

Apparently the Novices had already done something like this at some point, as some of them made a resigned face. Ren sat down next to Ji Daiyu at the far end of the class. When everyone sat down again Di Niu began to speak again.

"All right everyone, now that each of us has a bowl, we will begin to put our hands on its sides, and try to create different patterns in the water with our spirit." Adept Di said.

One of the students in the back couldn't hold himself back any more and exclaimed. "But, Adept Di we have already done this exercise a thousand times. Most of us could do it in our sleep." There was a bout of nodding and agreeing murmurs going through the group, making Ren feel left out.

The Adept did not lose his composure though, and simply said with a smile. "OK. Demonstrate it then." Before the Novice could start, already eager to prove himself, he added. "But circulate your cultivation art while doing it."

The Novice blanched when this was added, but Ren was only confused with the demand. Why would circulating another art, any art really, make it any harder? But he did not voice this, as he didn't want to appear like he didn't know what he was talking about, and instead kept quiet.

"Now, begin!" Adept Di said in a no nonsense voice.

Just as Ren expected, it was no problem at all cultivating and using a bit of spirit to make the water of the bowl ripple. The hard part was only figuring out how to make the water respond at all. For this, he just observed how the spirit of the others moved, and copied the pattern.

After this was done the task didn't feel all that hard, and so Ren even started experimenting with the water, trying to make it do different things like forming the picture of a tree. That one was a little too complex, and he didn't know what to change for it to conform to his vision of it.

Different shapes, like circles looping around, though, he could do.

He was soon too absorbed with his fun playing around, that he did not notice miss Ji next to him goggling at his bowl, like she had seen something incredible.

"How are you doing this?" She whispered to him, not wanting to distract the other disciples.

Ren just shrugged his shoulders, a little embarrassed by her praise. "I just do it. I mean, you simply move the part of your cultivation pattern touching the bowl into a different pattern, right?"

She continued staring at him, like he had a second head. "What? I mean, yeah sure, but how?" She asked. Ren had no answer to this, as it just came to him, so he shrugged. "Unbelievable. Do you have time later, and show me again, maybe you can better describe it then as well?" She almost demanded of him.

Ren just blinked twice, as if he did not register what just happened, but then just happily chirped. "Sure. We can go to my place."

The rest of their lesson was surprisingly uneventful. The Adept told them to meet at the same time tomorrow, and that they should use all their time to cultivate and improve themselves.