(An: I'm Sorry. I've been researching this bs for over an hour now, and even using chat GPT, Deepseek, Meta. I don't know how tf to write a scholar teaching Acnologia Chinese. Like wtf man? I thought it wouldn't be too difficult, but I was wrong…. So very wrong. So I'll just skip it to the end of the day and continue on with the story because next chapter is where the fun begins. I'm sorry to any Chinese readers, my brain doenst brain trying to write out teaching Chinese.)
(Floating Cloud City: Xia Clan Library)
(3rd Person Pov)
Acnologia sat before his language instructor Lee Er. An old looking man stroking his long white beard looking like a very cliche elder in the world of Xianxia. His eyes were calm and indifferent as he introduced himself.
"My name is Lee Er. I will be your language instructor for the next year. Before we begin, tell me, how much of the language can you read and write? Knowing this will help me prepare a study plan to help you."
Acnologia nodded his head as he answered.
"Nice to meet you senior. As for how much I can read and write? Unfortunately nothing. I can understand full sentences, but the words and their meanings? My mind draws blank."
Lee Er stroked his beard nodding his head sagely.
"Alright then young man, allow me to teach you the fundamentals of our language."
Thus began the 12 hour lecture on how to read, write, comprehend and understand the local language.
—(Break)—
Night soon fell and the twelve hours of studying had been accomplished for the day. Acnologia stretched his body feeling much better after being allowed to finally leave class.
'Ugh. The trauma of long hours of classes had returned at some point. I felt like I was back in high school all over again. Well, at the very least, I have successfully mastered the basics of reading and writing. But man, Chinese is really astoundingly confusing to comprehend. I'll just go sleep for the night and wonder what I'll do with my free time tomorrow. Hrrm?'
Acnologia noticed Xia Qing Yue, and her master Chu Yueli in the garden.
'It seems she's either being guided in a new technique, being reprimanded or discussing what I told her?'
As Acnologia walked away he was called out by Chu Yueli.
"Lord Acnologia, may I borrow your time for a bit? There's something I'd like to ask you please."
Acnologia shrugged approaching them. Once before the two master and disciple, he titled his head as he questioned.
"What is it?"
Chu Yueli remained indifferent as she questioned.
"My disciple told me something interesting. You told her something about frost accumulating inside of her body? Is that correct?"
Acnologia nodded his head.
"Yes. That technique of yours is either incomplete or not the true technique because whatever it is, it slowly accumulates frost like energy within your body. More accurately your profound veins. It's like putting something in a location with snow. Try as you might, without external heat, you're slowly accumulating frost upon your body. Though this is just my guess, I don't know anything about how cultivation techniques work, or how to improve them. Just know that this accumulation of "frost" will not only slow you down in terms of cultivation, you'll also be shortening your lifespan."
Chu Yueli said nothing for a few seconds before she questioned.
"What makes you think this so called "frost" will slow our cultivation and shorten our lifespans?"
Acnologia chuckled as he answered.
"Think of it like this. You place an apple that never rots in the snow."
Both Chu Yueli and Xia Qing Yue gave him strange looks at his words. And apple that never rots? Still they decided to continue listening since Acnologia looked like he didn't care as he continued.
"If left in the snow long enough not just the outer part of the apple, but even it's insides become frozen yes?"
Both nodded their heads as he continued.
"This is similar to this so called "frost". You are like an apple, and these profound veins are like the inside of the apple. The more cold it becomes, the more frost accumulates. And say the inside of the apple is frozen right? But how this apple keeps itself from rotting is by a steady flow of energy throughout the whole apple that keeps it fresh. Now, what happens to the energy used to keep the apple ripe when the apple becomes frozen?"
Both women pondered before Chu Yueli answered.
"Does the energy become stuck? Because the apple is frozen, the energy cannot move as freely as it once could too keep the apple fresh indefinitely?"
Acnologia nodded his head as he snapped his fingers.
"Bullseye. Now when your profound veins are all clogged by frost, you'll find it much harder to cultivate because your profound veins can't absorb the energy to help you grow. And since this is an internal process, you are basically slowly killing yourselves by the frost potentially reaching your internal organs."
Chu Yueli said nothing for a few seconds before she answered.
"But yet at the end of the day all you said could have just been incorrect right? It's as you said, you are no expert in how cultivation techniques work.
Your hypothesis could be true, but there could be a multitude of other unknown factors that could possibly need to be accounted for to truly understand why this "frost" even accumulates.
The Frozen Cllud Asgard has been using this same technique for over a thousand years and we have risen to become one of the most powerful sects of the Blue Wind Empire.
I appreciate the opportunity to acquire insights from yourself, I'll still talk to the mistress to see if she could help clear out any potential misunderstandings of the technique appears."
Acnologia waved his hand as he left to his room, as both Xia Qing Yue and Chu Yueli watched his cloaked back. Chu Yueli didn't trust a single thing out of Acnologia's mouth.
However, he still was a sovereign profound realm expert. If he wanted to destroy the Frozen Cloud Asgard, just a simple sneeze could do. Had it been anyone else, she wouldn't have hesitated to beat such a person up. But because it's Acnologia she has no choice but to relent. Chu Yueli may to her disciple.
"Alright Xia Qing Yue, back to training. Your already a nascent profound realm expert, and at such a young age, you'll be the future of the Frozen Cloud Asgard understood? Now focus on adapting to your current power, you need to stabilise your energy so that your body properly acclimates to everything so that your whole body doesn't explode from the inability for it's vessel to maintain it leading to self destruction am he"
Xia Qing Yue nodded her head. The two girls stared at where Acnologia had left, each with their own plans for their future.
—(Break)—
Early next morning, Acnologia left his room to go for a walk. This time thankfully, he doesn't meet Xia Qing Yue, so he headed to the forest for a little self reflection and training. His training goal? Energy output.
'I noticed back whenever I had casted a spell, I would waste too much energy on the output. This means my control over my energy is very limited so let's practice my energy control.'
Acnologia pondered on the best way to train his ability. Ultimately deciding on a more popular method being the walking on trees until , keeping a leaf stuck to his forehead, or just creating orbs of a spell and manipulating it's size, shape, potency. Acnologia chose to do all three. He walked to the closest tree, he pressed a single foot against the tree, and focusing a steady stream of his energy onto his foot, he pressed against the tree only for his foot to be pushed off it. But Acnologia was anything but disheartened. He pressed his foot against the tree once more sending a steady stream of energy, as he managed to walk up it's entire length.
'This body is naturally very adaptable. Since Acnologia was a mage, even he had practiced controlling the output of his magical energy or else despite his vast reserves he would have wasted all of it on one attack. So his body already instinctively managed to accomplish what he wanted using it's own five centuries worth of instincts. And so Acnologia managed quite easily to master climbing on trees, sticking leaves all over himself and even walking on water.
'Man. It's always fun to be able to do things once thought impossible.'
Acnologia thought to himself as he sensed the presence of Chu Yueli watching him walk on water. He turned around and stared at Chu Yueli raising an eyebrow.
"What? Never seen someone walk on water before?"
Chu Yueli didn't even bother hiding herself knowing he would obviously sense her presence, and that they are in the forest and it's still quite early so any hunters wouldn't yet have arrived since the hunters of Floating Cloud City always travelled in large groups.
"What exactly are you doing?"
Chu Yueli questioned. And Acnologia simply replied with.
"Simple enough. I'm practicing my control over profound energy, and lowering my energy output through practice."
Chu Yueli nodded her head in understanding. Control over one's profound energy was an essential part of a cultivator's power. Without it, even the most basic of techniques would probably costs them more energy than necessary. However, how does training to walk on water help with it? And Acnologia noticed her confusion as he explained calmly.
"Think of it like this. Due to waters ever changing movement and depth, the energy requirements to stand on water also changes constantly. If you use too little energy, you'll fall in. Too much energy and you get repelled. It might not be too compelling to train considering you can fly, but you never know how useful this skill could become one day."
Chu Yueli said nothing as she gazed down to the river before her. She was confident enough in her mastery of her profound energy to do something like walking on water. So she pressed one foot onto the river, her eyes narrowing as she felt the waters changing movement causing her foot to not stick. Chu Yueli's cold indifferent eyes narrowed slightly as she pressed her foot onto the waters surface and soon her other leg too found itself standing on top of water. It had taken her just a second of feeling the changing movements of the water to understand just how much energy she needed to use.
"An interesting technique indeed. While flying is much more preferable, I can definitely see how such a technique could help me out in the near future."
Chu Yueli raised her head to speak to Acnologia only to freeze seeing the orbs of energy around him. They possessed a unique property she couldn't quite make out what it was, but she knew whatever it's properties were, they were extremely dangerous. She recalled what Chu Yuechan had said.
'The Dragon King Of Apocalypse is what he had called himself. His only goal is to hunt down all dragons and fight the strongest. But his answer doesn't really help determine rather he is a human or a profound beast who gained sentience.'
Chu Yueli questioned.
"And what is that you are doing?"
Acnologia had created a few orbs of his energy surrounding himself. His goal was to move them around himself like a planet moved around a star. He would attempt to change their shape, structure, give the spell mass if he could, and change it's rotation speed.
Doing so would not only improve his energy output, but improve his multitasking skills and mental strength to be able to perform what he's planning. But he still answered Chu Yueli's question.
"I'm practicing my energy output. By creating these orbs out of my energy, I have to manage the output of each orb, moving these orbs around myself, I'll have to expend more energy to sustain their movements, then attempting to change it's shape again needs energy to do so.
You'll also need to maintain your focus for these orbs but overtime you can add more and more orbs, and if you really want to give yourself a challenge, attempt to give these orbs of energy mass while you run on water. If you can do all that, you might one day be able to drop that ice pillar with an energy output at about ninety five percent efficiency to zero energy consumption and output."
Chu Yueli's cold indifferent eyes said nothing of the curiosity and awe she felt in her heart at Acnologia's words. She could understand the logistics of training in such a way. Doing so would likely improve her profound energy expenditure efficiency, and output by leaps and bounds. But there still remains one major hurdle. They cultivate to grow stronger. Even if all she did was practice this specific technique, who knows just how long it would take. Time that would come out from her cultivation. She would have to discuss this training technique with the Grand Mistress, the Mistress and the other Seven Fairies and get their own inputs on the situation. She watched Acnologia continue his training before quietly leaving to go check up on Xia Qing Yue.
—(End)—
{NEXT CHAPTER: THE DRAGON KING'S FESTIVAL}