Red frowned at the question. “What do you mean by that?”

Aurelia shook her head. “You only learned about wind, right?”

The youth nodded. “It was the only thing I had time to learn.”

“Then try and do another spell.” She said. “A water Spiritual Art this time.”

The youth wasn’t quite sure what the woman was getting at, but he decided to follow her instructions.

‘An ordinary water Spiritual Art…’

The equivalent of a wind blade for water would be a water barrier. This element in particular was not known for its offensive capabilities, at least not to the general cultivator community, so most widespread techniques involving water were defensive in nature.

Red recalled the circulation of the technique and drew in Spiritual Energy. To use the surrounding energy as fuel was not an efficient way of performing Spiritual Arts, and it was impossible to rely on such a method in combat. Suffice it to say, this was one of the reasons why cultivators who opened their Spiritual Sea would keep a plentiful reserve inside their own body.

The youth, however, was just testing himself, so it didn’t matter where the energy he used came from.

It took almost half a minute of drawing in streams of energy, but once Red felt he had enough, he started to circulate it in his body.

At the beginning, he didn’t notice any difference. However, as the stream of mixed energy started to transform into pure water energy, the youth understood the point Aurelia was trying to make.

He knew using anything other than a wind Spiritual Art would not be as easy, and yet the difference he felt at that moment still surprised him. The water energy felt sluggish in his veins, moving much slower than the wind energy from earlier as the youth felt his innate understanding in the manipulation of one didn’t translate to the other. Red almost had to force the energy through his acupoints, and the final product was a much more brutish and unrefined current.

Still, the youth kept going.

He moved the energy out of his body, visualizing and building the shield as he remembered. What he had in mind, though, turned out much different in reality.

The water shield technique was supposed to form a round water shield that would float in front of its user and protect them. What Red was left with, though, was a jumbled mess, irregular in its shape and half as large as it was supposed to be.

The youth tried to maintain and correct this shield, yet here he noticed another difficulty. It was just as hard to manipulate this water energy outside of his body as it was inside it.

All these added complications cause the water structure to collapse a few seconds later, leaving a bewildered Red staring at the puddle in front of him.

Aurelia snorted. “Do you understand now?”

Red looked at her and nodded. “I didn’t imagine it would be this hard.”

“Of course it is hard! Almost no one can execute a proper Spiritual Art in their first try, even for the most basic ones!”

“Then why-”

“Comprehension.” Aurelia cut him off. “You said you focused on the wind law during your epiphany, so that heightened your comprehension of it to a very high degree. That is one of the factors that can decide how fast and how well you can learn a Spiritual Art.”

“Why did you seem surprised, then?”

The woman hesitated. “… Because you learned far more than I was expecting.”

“How do you mean?” Red asked.

“It varies from people, but most cultivators only heighten their understanding of a law a small during their first epiphany.” She said. “It is still an incredible advantage, and it sets them up well to reach mastery further down their journey. You, however, seem to have made more progress than normal.”

“Are you saying I’m a master of wind now?”

“… If you are not one, then you are close to being one.” Aurelia said through gritted teeth.

Red noticed the bitterness with which the woman uttered those words.

“I assume you did not have such good results in your own epiphany.”

She snorted. “Not everyone can be as lucky as you.”

“Is that what it came down to? Luck?” he asked.

“… Of course not.” The woman shook her head in resignation. “A lot of things can affect comprehension. Talent, experience, and compatibility are chief among them. You don’t have any type of special wind acupoints or roots that I can feel in your body, so that can only mean your upbringing caused you to have a better understandings of the underlying laws of the wind.”

‘It was no wonder, then.’

There were plenty of other laws Red could have focused on, but the law of the wind was the one that called to him the most at that moment. If he chose instead to focus on another law, then the end result would have been nowhere as good.

“So, you claim I have reached mastery over the wind-”

“You might have reached mastery over the wind.” Aurelia cut him off.

Red ignored her and continued. “Yesterday, you also told me Hector was a grandmaster of ice and water. Is grand mastery a level beyond what I reached?”

“That’s correct.” She nodded.

“How hard is it to reach that?”

Aurelia chuckled. “How hard it is? Let me make it clear to you, Red. Most cultivators only reach mastery over a law when they are around the Greater Ring Realm. Reaching grand mastery, however, is something that not even the majority of Spirit Core Realm cultivators are able to do. It is a requirement to advance into the Spiritual Awakening Realm, and your elder reached that level in not only one law, but two of them. Does that tell you how hard it is?”

“… It certainly puts things into perspective.”

A Lesser Ring Realm cultivator able to achieve what people many times stronger than he could not. It was no wonder he was qualified to teach disciples in his sect despite his low cultivation base.

It seemed like every step Red took in his journey would shine a brighter light into how brilliant the elder of his sect was.

“How do you advance in your comprehension?” he asked.

“A lot of training and experience.” Aurelia said. “Some cultivators take dozens of years to reach mastery over a law, and grand mastery eludes them their entire lives.”

“Is there no way to reach that epiphany again?”

The woman frowned, staring at him like he was an idiot. “Are you even aware of what you are asking?”

Red hesitated. He didn’t have much of an idea.

She sighed. “Insight into the law is not something you can work towards. It is a matter of both luck and opportunity. Some people may reach epiphany and master a law while watching the most mundane scene, while others could find an opportunity to meditate in of a holy site and comprehend laws that way. There is no guaranteed way to reach that state, and trust me, people smarter and stronger than me and you have tried for centuries.”

“Then what about opening the Spiritual Sea on your own? Isn’t that a guaranteed method?”

“First of all, it is not guaranteed, and you can only ever go through that state twice.” Aurelia said. “Some cultivators even tried to close and reopen their Spiritual Sea for that reason, but never succeeded in recapturing that state.”

“So there’s no other similar situation while breaking through higher realms?” Red asked, noticing the woman didn’t deny his claim.

Aurelia nodded. “There is.”

“How?”

“When you breakthrough to the Spiritual Awakening Realm.”

Red frowned. “That’s too far.”

“And you’re too greedy!” Aurelia scowled at him. “You have barely broken through and experienced epiphany and you’re already looking to return to that state! If you’re truly this impatient for every topic regarding cultivation, then you are in for a terrible time!”

The youth knew she was right. Cultivation was an art of patience and accumulation, with some matters being calculated in years, even decades at times. However, Red had some reasons to pry into this matter.

For one, he was truly fascinated with that realm of laws. The most important reason, though, was that if he wanted to win his master’s inheritance, he needed to breakthrough to the Spiritual Awakening Realm before he was thirty. This meant he needed to be impatient, as speed in cultivation would be crucial if he wanted to achieve that goal with his middling talent.

Aurelia didn’t know this, however, so Red just nodded.

“You’re right.” He said. “I suppose I was just too taken by that place.”

Aurelia nodded. “It can be a very intoxicating feeling, but it’s better to focus on the here and now. You have barely just opened your Spiritual Sea, and a whole new world is in front of you now. There’s plenty you still need to learn.”

“Such as?”

The woman was about to say something, but her expression changed and she looked in a certain direction. “We have visitors.”

Red felt his heartbeat quicken.

She looked at him and shook her head. “Relax. It’s not the imperials.”

The youth frowned. “Then who?”

“A couple of monsters in the Lesser Ring Realm.” she said. “I assume the original owners of this place we are at.”

Red couldn’t feel their presences with his crimson sense yet, but he believed Aurelia’s assessment. “We should leave quickly, then.”

She laughed. “Leave? Why leave? Don’t you want to test your new powers against them?”

The youth hesitated. “… I just broke through. I don’t have enough Spiritual Energy in my Sea and I can barely use Spiritual Arts.”

Her smiled widened. “Oh, don’t be silly! Now that you broke through, are Spiritual Arts suddenly the only thing you can rely on?”

“You want me to use my sword against them?”

“Of course! Opening your Spiritual Sea also improves your physical capabilities to some degree, so that should even the playing field.”

Red knew the woman was being disingenuous. Monsters in general had much stronger physiques than humans, and this still held true when both were in the Lesser Ring Realm. As such, cultivators would need to rely on Spiritual Arts to match a monster’s natural abilities and powers.

Just like it was when the youth was still a mortal, fighting a monster with only his body was still a big risk. Yet, as the woman said that, Red couldn’t help but also feel curious.

“Fine… I’ll do it.”

He had his own reasons for accepting the challenge too.