After laughing to his heart's content, Muni cough into his hands and said, "Let's get back to the matter of cultivation."
"Since we already know what cultivation is, the next matter to deal with is how to cultivate. The answer to that question lies in the energy well and the energy it contains."
"I said earlier that everyone can cultivate. This is because everyone has an empty part of their existence that allows them to change and improve. When we awaken, that empty part becomes the energy well."
"The energy well is a container for our internal energy, and our internal energy comes from us. At least, that's the case now."
"I've heard that, in the past, the energy for cultivation didn't used to come from us but from the environment. This is said to be the case for ancient cultivation. At that point, the talent for cultivation was determined by the quality and size of the connection between cultivators and the energy around them."
"While it is still true that there is energy present in the world around us, it is no longer true that we can use it to cultivate anyway we want. We must instead rely on our vitality and stamina to cultivate."
After saying this, he slapped his lower stomach where his energy well should be and said, "You should know what stamina is, right? If you don't know, I'll tell you."
"Stamina is essentially the capacity to do work before getting tired. The more stamina you have, the more work you can do before you get tired. This is common sense."
"But have you ever asked yourself why your stamina has a limit? Why is it that no matter how much you rest and how much food you eat, your maximum stamina will remain at a certain level?"
Then he chuckled and asked them, "It doesn't matter if you've asked yourself this question or not. What matters right now is if you've noticed that your stamina has increased since you awakened yesterday."
His words caused some people to gasp in surprise while others entered a state of quiet contemplation. Loki was one of the people who began contemplating the relationship between the energy well and maximum stamina.
Fortunately, Muni didn't let them waste their time guessing. He said to them, "Your maximum stamina has increased because your energy well contains energy that can be used to do work. This energy is called life energy. It can be used to move your body and to activate Metacs."
"We will talk about Metacs next week. For now, we will focus on life energy. So we will discuss how life energy is replenished and how its quantity and quality can be increased."
After saying this, he began to pace back and forth in front of the class. This forced everyone to move their heads back and forth so that they could remain focused on him. It was a little bit troublesome to do so, but no one was complaining about it.
Muni carassed the area above his energy well and said, "The life energy within the energy well can be replenished from the energy we gain in food. It is similar to stamina in this way. But unlike stamina, life energy can also be replenished by using energy stones."
As he said this, he took out a small, grey crystalline stone and showed it to them. He moved the crystalline stone around so that everyone could get a good look at it.
Then he said, "This is an energy stone. Some of you might already be familiar with it. If you're not familiar with it, don't worry about that because you will become extremely familiar with it very soon. This is because energy stones are very important for cultivation."
"Cultivation is the process of increasing the quality of the life energy within us. This works by nourishing the energy well with life energy."
"The process of nourishing the energy well with life energy to cultivate will consume our life energy. Because replenishing life energy by resting is slow and will take too much time, cultivators use energy stones to quickly replenish their life energy and speed up their progress of cultivation."
"You can think of the energy well as a muscle. The more you use it, exercise it, and nourish it, the stronger it will become. And the stronger it becomes, the higher the quality of life energy that it produces. This is the process of cultivation."
After he said this, he paused to put away the energy stone. He placed it in the pouch hanging from the belt on his waist. It was only when he was done that he continued the class.
He said, "Cultivation will involve different kinds of things at the various levels of cultivation. But for now, cultivation is the increase in the density of the life energy that you can produce. As for increasing the quantity of life energy that your life energy can contain, that is going to be very difficult, if not impossible, for most of you."
"The size of your energy well is determined by our potential. The size of the energy well, in turn, will determine the maximum capacity of the energy well, the rate of natural energy recovery, and the efficiency of cultivation."
"The larger the energy well, the larger the surface area, the faster it can recover its energy on its own, and the faster it can be nourished by life energy, so the faster the cultivation will be. The size of the energy well is clearly very important. Unfortunately, the size of the energy is the most difficult thing to change."
At this point, he sighed and said, "The only thing more difficult to improve than the size of the energy well is life span. I have managed to increase the size of my energy well by 5 points, but I had to sell everything I owned. I even sold off my Metacs."
Then he smiled and said, "My lack of money is why I have become desperate enough to do the work of handling the initiation program for you guys."