Yao Mu Tong thought for many hours that night before he called in to the principal of Nui Dan Junior Cultivation School and made a request for them to hire Xia Fei as the Combat Techniques teacher. She was far more qualified than himself, and without a doubt had the highest cultivation in the local area – even higher than the School Principal’s. Two days after his visit, he returned with the Principal of the School, Ho Tong Ren, and the Cultivation Techniques Coordinator, Qin Lee Dan. They saw Xia Fei as they requested of Ning Wei, and after attempting to formally convince her, resorted to begging. Xia Fei sent them away and told them she’d think about it. After all, her primary job was to teach Kai Lan, not others. Finally, Hei Hei spoke, “It would make it easier to protect Kai Lan and explain his…situation, should things go wrong, if you were employed there”. Seeing this logic, Xia Fei agree to work three days a week with a trial period of two weeks, during which she would review the current students. In her words, “Bad habits can’t always be corrected. I will not bother to teach the students unless they have the resolve to re-learn from scratch. The first years, who have not yet had the muscle memory settled in them, are teachable, the rest will have to elect to take my course based on a percentage score I give them on how likely it is their technique can be corrected before they take the Senior Entrance Exam”. The School Board reluctantly agreed under the condition that she would also teach Yao Mu Tong so that he could improve himself. Xia Fei didn’t hold out hope, but she agreed. Hei Hei was not as good as Xia Fei at teaching, but he could at the very least correct Kai Lan and observe him to make sure he didn’t injure himself on the days that Xia Fei worked. Xia Fei took her new role seriously. If she was to be a teacher, she would be a teacher. While her primary concern was Kai Lan, she would do her best for every student there. She had taught before in the Fang Family, but they had mostly been adults. She observed all the students of the school. There were about 1000 students at Nui Dan Junior Cultivation School, with an average of 100 students in each year level. Junior Schools usually taught children from age 5 to age 14. A full ten years. The Senior School by comparison was from ages 15 to 19, half the time. It was usually from age 17 that students could take on opportunities to enter Sects or Specialised Academies that they would be a part of for their lifetimes, but there were few who were accepted, and most simply finished Senior School and went on to continue cultivating of their own accord. Some pursued further study, but there were few spots for that as well. At Nui Dan Junior School, Xia Fei observed all 1000 students over two weeks and gave all but the first years a percentage mark on how likely they were to succeed in her class based on their current ability, their cultivation, and their work ethic in other classes. The Combat Techniques class from the second year and up was then split into an Advanced Class and the Regular Class. Of course, as the first years moved through, the Advanced class and Regular class would merge once more, but for now the students needed to be split. Surprisingly, most students below the fourth year elected to take the advanced class, most of them having percentages of 80 or above. From the fifth year to the seventh year, the split was more much even, whereas from the eighth year on, most elected to remain in the regular classes. Of course, many would come to regret their decision as the term ‘Devil Xia’ would become widely used in the months and years to come at Nui Dan Junior School. Weeks turned into months, and the seasons changed, Kai Lan growing his cultivation with the earth element steadily. He also was becoming faster. Where before he might be able to manage 18 wisps of earth element energy in a two-hour session, he was now managing nearly double that. Finally, just shy of five months from when he began Cultivating, Kai Lan succeeded in filling all of his Meridians, including the Extraordinary Meridians, to a solid state. “Well done, you are ready to advance to the second step,” said Xia Fei, “Take a day off to rest and prepare yourself, you will need to put more effort in than you ever have before”. Kai Lan did as told. He didn’t question Xia Fei’s reasoning anymore. Confident that she knew what she was talking about. Two days later, he sat in the centre of the Cultivation Garden with Xia Fei observing him. “Remember, you must target all of your meridians at once, and be prepared to stabilise them at the right time”. Kai Lan nodded, then closed his eyes and concentrated, breathing in as he summoned his golden core. He spent several minutes longer than usual sensing the world around him before he took a deep breath in and summoned the earth element to him, as much as he could manage, and purified it to the point where his golden core was nearly bursting, then he took another breath, and pushed a first wave of the purified energy through his meridian channels. He felt each of his meridians shatter in rapid succession and then expand. He focused, taking a shaky breath through the pain to push the remaining energy through his channels and stabilise his newly expanded meridians. After several moments, he felt the last of his meridians stabilise, each filled with a small amount of gaseous energy. Kai Lan breathed out, banishing his golden core and opening his eyes slowly as he rested and adjusted. “You succeeded,” nodded Xia Fei, “Good, now rest again for a day, let it stabilise”. Kai Lan accepted this, still shaken by the new feelings in his body. It was a trauma, stepping up in Cultivation. Each step up a defiance of the intended nature of the body. Two days later, Kai Lan sat down and began to cultivate the wood energy for the first time. He made the mistake at first of treating it the same as the earth element. He failed to purify any energy for some time before he realised what he was doing. He realised he would have to learn the differences in each element and channel them according to their preferences. He managed to give his Primary Lung Meridian a liquid state, but with its increased capacity he didn’t quite manage a solid state.