With clenched fists, Aiden replied "Yes. I accept."

There was absolutely nothing that was important to him over here in the first place. He had passed the 12 crucial years of his life doing nothing. It didn't matter to him what happened next as long as he could leave this place for good. In fact the only reason he hadn’t left this place yet was because it was located in the middle of nowhere and his body was infact pretty weak to survive in the wild. The only way to get to the nearest city was the occasional horse carriage that the Jefferson’s used to schedule. The ride took a full 6 hours and it was usually Matilda who’d leave to restock the house with rations, or Fat Jack who’d go for an outing. Mr. Jefferson himself wasn’t generally fond of leaving his home.

After hearing his reply, Denzel's aura slowly receded until everything was completely back to normal. "Great, with that out of the way, why don't you finish your food. After that we shall start of your cultivation immediately"

While Aiden ate, Denzel slowly elaborated on the intricacies of the primary levels of cultivation. 

"The crux to beginning cultivation lies in being able to sense the energy around you.

In the ancient ages, when cultivators had started cultivating from scratch, their mana happened to be attributeless. However mana was always more destructive when used in its elemental form. Thus while actually utilising their mana, they started specialising in specific elements. That increased the affinity towards that element in their genetics and as time passed and their offsprings continued these practices, they found themselves unable to tap into the powers of the other elements. Thus in the current era, there doesn’t happen to be a single elementalless cultivator. Hmm, after you are done eating, we’ll start by sensin………you ate already?”

While Denzel was busy explaining, Aiden had already finished the entire meal and was washing hands with water from a nearby pail while nodding. 

“You……sure do eat fast don’t you?”, Denzel asked.

“Oh yeah. It’s just a habit.”

“Well if you’re finished then let’s start by first finding out what your elemental affinity is.”

“Ok then. How do we go about doing that?”, Aiden asked sitting down again.

“Cross your legs. Put your right hand in the middle of your lap, with your palm facing up. Finally put your left hand on top of the open palm of your right hand”

“Now straighten your back, close your eyes and empty your thoughts. Only concentrate on your breath. Now, slowly try to imagine that there is an extremely tiny pore on your skin in the middle of your forehead. Try to not just breath through your nose, but try to breathe through that pore.

 Slowly imagine that there are infinite such pores throughout your body. As if your entire skin has become a sponge with countless openings.”

As Aiden continued to follow the instructions, his breathing slowed down, his mind became calm and all his senses were intent on following Denzel’s words.

“Now try breathing using your entire body.”

As Aiden did this, he felt his skin relaxing and loosening. His entire body gave him a feeling  as if nostrils that had been blocked due to a cold, were finally opening up after many years.

“Good now take a deep breath using your entire body. And inhale in as much as you can to your limit.”, Denzel said.

Suddenly Aiden felt his body tingling, every cell of his had gone into an excited state and he felt refreshed and rejuvenated like never before.

Meanwhile, unknownst to Aiden, the spiritual energy in his surroundings had formed a raging vortex around him and his body was hungrily absorbing the energy like a bloodthirsty wolf who had just found prey.

"What the……!?", Denzel exclaimed.

Hearing this Aiden's concentration was lost and the spiritual energy diffusing into his body, dissipated into the surroundings again.

"What happened? I was feeling so good? Did I do something wrong?" he asked, feeling a bit irked at having had to stop such a wonderful sensation.

"Well……so about how we were going to find your elemental affinity and attribute……." Denzel's voice sounded sheepish, "Turns out……. You are attributeless."

"Is that a good thing or bad thing?"Aiden asked, scratching his hair.

"Well it's naturally a damn good thing, but being attributeless is not normal. Through years and years of evolution of the human race, you shouldn't normally be able to harness attributless mana. A human's meridians in this era are bound to have an associated attribute due to which, mana would always be converted to their own element when being gathered. But you………your meridians are attributeless and so, you can gather it without changing its property."

"In simple words?", Aiden asked.

"Sigh. It means you are an anomaly. But I'm still not sure about how much this will affect you. But, one thing that's for sure is that your rate of cultivation and your body's innate sensitivity towards ki is extremely high. Let's stop the discussion. With your speed, you should have no problem reaching the foundational realm 1-dan primary stage tonight itself."

"Foundational realm 1 dan? Primary stage?......I'm sorry, could you elaborate." Aiden was confused.

"Well, " Denzel said, "the world of cultivation is divided into many realms. You could say they are akin to rankings that assess your power. The very first realm in cultivation is called the foundational realm. It's further divided into 9 major dans or sub-realms starting from foundational 1-dan to foundational 9-dan. Furthermore, each dan is divided into primary, intermediate and consummation stages.

In the foundational realm, you push your mortal body to its limit. Your body gets accustomed to the spiritual energy and you slowly open your acupoints and widen your meridians for proper flow of energy. Unless one's body is strong enough to properly harness power, then reaching greater realms will only cripple you. Therefore the foundational realm is an extremely important one. To step into the foundational realm 1 dan, commonly referred to as dantian formation or core formation, you'll have to absorb the mana and direct it towards your mana core, or in traditional cultivation terminology, your dantian, through the meridian that is aligned right behind your spine. The core will absorb the energy that you direct towards it in this manner.

Once your core is filled upto 30%, you can be said to have stepped into the primary stage of foundation 1-dan. 60% would be equivalent to the intermediate stage, and 90% would be the mark of having reached consummation. When you fill it upto a 100% you will be said to have broken through to the foundation 2-dan, initiate meridian realm. Well let's save that for later. Now just concentrate on absorbing energy and reaching foundation 1-dan consummation stage."

After gaining a brief understanding of what he was working towards, Aiden didn't hesitate to calm his mind and start concentrating again. He felt his skin tingling and his body joyfully welcomed the incoming spiritual energy. He could feel the ki. He could feel it flowing throw his body, connecting him to everything that was happening. He could feel the energy reacting to his will as he guided it towards his dantian slowly. He could feel that his core was like a small ball at the base of his spine, and as Aiden infused energy into it, he could slowly sense it filling up, but the rate of accumulation was way too slow as to what he had expected.

Despite that, the mana in his core felt like it had finally become his own, much unlike the spiritual energy in the surroundings.

He knew that the energy he stored in his core, wouldn't dissipate into thin air upon stopping his cultivation.

Continuing this, he patiently filled his core with energy and it's volume in the dantian slowly increased. First 5% , then 10%, 15……20………..

The silent night gave way to a beautiful sun but Aiden had not even thought of sleep, cultivating diligently throughout. Finally just as the entire sun finally became visible beyond the horizon, Aiden opened his eyes. 

Foundation 1-dan consummation reached.

"Not bad", Denzel's voice came as he examined Aiden's internal condition, "You've managed to almost fill your entire dantian  on your first night of cultivation."

Aiden closely focused on the changes he felt, although he couldn't discern any difference in his body that stood out, he could feel that his body felt much lighter to him. His mind was clear as glass and he felt as if his senses had become a bit sharper. 

Just then he heard Fat Jack's voice shouting like an annoying morning cock doing its daily job.

"Aiden go and cut the firewood. It was annoyingly cold yesterday night. Don't you dare slack off like you did in the fields yesterday or I'll tell dad."

Looking up, Aiden could see a round face sticking out of the window in the wall like a clown's nose. Along with the threat, a wagging finger flapped around as Jack did his best to make the threat sound more convincing.

"Sigh, let's continue later.", Said Aiden as Denzel fell silent.

From the backyard he fetched the axe and proceeded to position a log of wood on the chopping block. Pulling the axe back, he braced himself and hacked down hard on the log like he had done so many other times in the past. But something felt different and strange this time.

Contrary to the usual resistance he'd have normally faced as a result of the hard wood, it felt like slicing through butter. And the axe didn't stop at the log, continuing to force it's way through the chopping block too.

It only lost its momentum from Aiden's swing after embedding itself, 5 inches into the earth.

"How.….what just happened?", Aiden muttered.

Suddenly Denzel chirped in, "Ah right. I probably forgot to tell you this but since you have broken through 3 stages of the first Dan, the amount of power your body can exert has increased. So there is a significant difference between 100 % of your previous strength and 100% of your current strength. You'll have to exert finer control over your body and it's muscles if you don't want to break apart everything you work on."

Aiden gave a worn out sigh, "Couldn't you have mentioned that before?"

Denzel replied with an indignant voice "Well I'm sorry for overestimating your capabilities for understanding things yourself. Hmph"

“I didn’t know gods could throw tantrums.”, Aiden retorted.

Aiden waited but there was no response this time. “The silent treatment huh? Fine, do as you wish.”

Keeping his axe back he thought of what to use as a chopping block now. Thinking of this he suddenly had an idea. “How about I try breaking the logs with my bare hands?”. Thinking this, he positioned a second log on the ground and hacked down on it hard with the blade of his hand.

The log didnt get a clean cut but rather broke apart roughly at the point of contact as if hit by a club and basically launched splinters everywhere. That was still fine.

But contrary to how Aiden had expected everything to go smoothly, he felt a dull ache on his skin where he had made contact with the log and an extremely sharp pain shot through his entire arm.

His hand was bleeding from scratches and skin tears, and wooden splinters had embedded themselves into the blade of his hand.

Overall it was a pretty painful experience but Aiden was used to beatings from the Jeffersons and only let out a small “ouch”

“It’s pretty foolish of you to go around hitting everything you find with your bare hands. There’s a reason people use an axe. And since you haven’t cultivated or strengthened your physician body yet, your skin and bones are as weak as anyone else’s. It’s just your mana and strength that has increase.”, Denzel finally spoke.

“Hey aren’t you able to read my thoughts? Why didn’t you stop me?”, Aiden said indignantly.

“Hmmm its a very fine weather indeed. Ah such cool winds and such green grasses”, Denzel ignored him and started whistling.

“SIgh nevermind”

Aiden had completely given up trying to reason with Denzel.

He went off to the shed and removed the splinters carefully. Thereafter he washed his hand with cold water and waited a bit for the bleeding to stop. Suddenly Denzel chipped in again.

“You can use mana to heal so it should not hinder your daily activities.”

“How do I do that?”

Denzel continued “It’s simple really. For minor cuts and bleeds like this you can just channel your mana to your hand to hasten the rate of recovery. This won’t be as effective as using a healing art but it’s definitely faster than letting it heal naturally.”

Aiden tried it and could feel his hand healing. After 10 minutes of channelling his mana to the place of injury and back to his core, he finally felt that the pain was gone.

“Hey Denzel, why don’t you teach me some healing arts?”, Aiden perked up.

“There are two reasons for this. Firstly, your cultivation level must be at at least foundation 3-dan to use even the most basic of mana arts.”

“Oh…ok and what’s the other reason?”, Aiden asked.

“The second reason…….”, Denzel started saying.

“Yes?”

“....is that that I have probably lost my memories.”