"A rank one spirit beast. Almost anything living on this mountain is going to be one, there's so much qi in the air and water and plants. Not smart, not a spirit, just a sort of - magical animal, you can think of it like that."

She brandishes a small stone. Not like the red spirit stones, it seems... Muddier, somehow. "Beast core. Useful for tons of things, as are materials from the body, but the cores are the most important. I'm terrible at refinement so I'll probably trade them to someone in exchange for pills and things once things are more settled."

She nods. "Refinement?" That sounds like a facet of the economy as experienced by cultivators that she is still unfamiliar with. 

"They make ... Stuff. Cultivation tools, weapons, pills and medicine, talismans, formations that can extend what is possible. Like the carriages, or the lock that keeps boys out of this side of the housing. Healing pills. Beast cores are mandatory for every batch of healing pills, I know, even if some of the other ingredients can change..."

A brief pause.

"I think refining particularly is more about taking basic things and - transforming, preparing, or concentrating them. And it happens to be that most of that results in pills, but not all."

"Huh. Does the sect teach that sort of thing?" 

"There's a Refiners' Hall, I think probably you should ask there? Elder Su's lecture starts soon-ish though, and the physical training is after that, so you would have a chance to investigate it without missing those in the evening."

"I think I will have a lot to investigate. I will certainly take a look." 

She is suddenly struck with the horrible possibility of arriving late to Elder Su's lesson and starts looking around for kitchen tasks which need aiding with.

Then today's portion of meat will be cooked all the quicker, and they can eat meat on rice. With salt, and a few greens.

Sia Bis eats like she's barely tasting it, and finishes first.

"...So. You ignited your qi in one night. I presume by spending the entire time since yesterday morning cultivating. With just red spirit stones. That is kind of an insane thing to do, just so you know. It took me three and a half weeks, and that was considered quick. You are either naturally talented at cultivation and very lucky, or absurdly talented at cultivation."

"I didn't realise it was supposed to be that hard, I thought it would be a given that I'd be able to make enough progress to matter since you said most people would have." 

She hopes the confusion in her voice will make that come across as less arrogant than it might. 

"That is the way everyone starts cultivating. I was expecting it to take you a few weeks. Maybe a month or two..."

She peers at Mei Cao. "...You probably feel a sort of dull empty pain in your dantian right now. I have a qi sensing art and it looks... Swollen in the way a bruise does. That's over-cultivation. I have seen it before. You will want to take a break from cultivating for a little while."

"Obviously you should try your best. Some people have more talent. Others must find other ways to keep up. Thus is the will of the heavens. Do you want to try to earn more spirit stones together, perhaps?"

Does her manual contain mention of overcultivation? If it does, she will make a note to slow down and do other things. It's not like she doesn't still need to study literacy and learn to fight and figure out what refining is like and presumably six other things that the real teachers will point out.You can avoid overtraining injuries if you train different things on rotation, right? 

"I'd love to! ... I still don't know what my schedule will look like in practice for the next" rest of her life "few weeks." 

The book did indeed warn against overcultivation! Especially when just starting out! Mostly in the context of using multiple powerful medicines and skipping sleep or food to cultivate.

"Lessons. All the lessons, until you get kicked out for underperforming. Normally you'd have to pay through the nose to get an Elder's time, I cannot emphasize it enough."

Well she arguably was missing sleep to cultivate. Not an important amount of sleep, but. 

"I was not in danger of refusing teaching from our elders while they offer it." 

"Hm. Well. The next step once you get used to Argent Soul is going to be finding more techniques to-" Sudden frown. "I'll let the Elder's words of advice come before mine." Another pause. "I am trying to be - open - and honest, here. I think you are going to end up... Strong, and powerful. So I want to help you, and be - friends?" She says 'friends' as if it's a foreign word. "-I think it's a lot better to be open about that from the beginning. I don't mean to be transactional about it, or to make it so you owe debts or anything. I mean... I don't know you yet, nor you me, and... As much as it can be... Friends would be nice. I don't know what that looks like yet, though."

That's terrifying. 

"I appreciate your honesty. To return your honesty I don't really believe you that I'm going to end up powerful or important. But you have presumably seen in me the same thing that made the Duchess's agent give a scholarship to a random peasant in the first place, so I suppose you must be seeing a real thing."

"... I would still like to be friends." 

"I suppose... Some of the things I did with people I consider friends were, hunting together, and listening to Mother tell stories, and swimming in the shallow parts of Old Smoke's Shadow - a lake... I don't think I have much experience being friends. We called it 'allies'. And then I got selected to come south, here, to Argent Peak. And Ren... Did not."

"Those seem like the sort of thing people who had friends in my village reported doing with their friends. They also went to festivals together, when there were festivals in nearby towns." Nobody in her town except maybe the headman was prestigious enough to describe themselves as having an alliance with anyone. 

They can spend the rest of breakfast speculating about possible normal friendship activities before they need to head to class. 

On the way to the lecture hall, one of the scribe-like disciples says, loud enough to be clearly heard, "Look, the brutish fish found a muddy peasant leech."

Sia Bis coldly replies, as if to Mei Cao, as if the other disciple is not even worth looking at, "Ignore that cicada's chirping. We have a lecture to attend."

What the fuck. She's not offended by the insult but it's a new layer to the creeping sense that she has enemies whose means and motives are beyond her compensation. She does not like that creeping sense, but it was creeping 24 hours ago and it's creeping today as well. She hopes her choice of alliance was sensible enough; it's certainly paid dividends in her not having fallen behind all of these people in the first day of classes just from lack of cultivation.

"Y-yeah." is what she manages to say. She also manages to not stare nervously at the other disciples, though this does result in her obviously not looking in their direction instead. 

Well, the lecture, being held by one Elder Su-

-Divides people into an 'advanced' and 'simple' class, with the kindly-looking Elder standing on the stage splitting into two as she goes. She directs Mei Cao to the left side, and Sia Bis to the right, and advises with a concerned whisper that Mei Cao should refrain from cultivating for the next day or two. Sia Bis gives her a confident nod. And then a wall of some shimmering material fades in, splitting the lecture hall in two.

This side of the hall is mostly martial types, and a few bureaucratic types. The nobles are almost all on the other side. The mood is different. People mostly aren't staring, looking at the Elder instead.

The lecture is surprisingly informative, the Elder clearly has a lot of experience compressing this information into a useful format for those who might not already know it.

Some of the highlights include:

The first few stages of cultivation- One must cultivate both body and soul, to Red, Yellow, and Green for soul, and to Gold, Silver, and Bronze for body. These stages are divided up into additional ranks: Early, Middle, Late, and Peak. Every time you advance a rank there is a qualitative change in one's body or qi, slow improvements finally realized all at once, like water turning to a boil.

There are many aspects of qi. Qi 'aspects' are something like flavors: They can be general, or very specific. They make it 'taste' different, and aspected qi is often more efficient at some things and less at others. Many of the more powerful arts require specifically aspected qi. 

You can have trouble managing your emotions if you dip too deeply into certain aspects of qi, without much balance. The imperial eight (the eight most simple and common aspects) are used as examples, a virtue and vice named for each. Earth: Selflessness, Passivity. Fire: Passion, Wrath. Heaven, Cai's element: Ingenuity, Obsession. Lake: Peace, Gluttony. Mountain: Determination, Stubbornness. Thunder: Ambition, Hubris. Water: Adaptability, Cowardice. Wind: Curiosity, Fecklessness.

This is only really something to watch out for if you use practically just one aspect, though.

Most of the qi on the mountain is 'Argent' aspect, which is very close to neutral. But there are places all over where the qi is stronger and has an aspect, like a pond that has Lake Qi, or a cave that has Darkness Qi. It's easier and more productive to cultivate in such places. Students are encouraged to find these places themselves if they wish to use them, both to practice their skills and to reward effort and competence.

Even Cultivators Live in a Society. Hermits who forget the mortal world and simply cultivate to get stronger, or advance, or learn, but don't actually use their cultivation, are useless at best to the Empire. Cultivators must participate in society, or they are failing the Empire. Whether this means fighting barbarians, or keeping spirits quiescent, or crafting tools and talismans and pills for other cultivators to use, or serving in the bureaucracy, the Empire both demands and rewards their service.

The first step is awakening your core. The next step will be unlocking meridians and then learning more arts, but she will go over that in much more detail next time.

She unironically appreciates the instructive imperial messaging about what she's supposed to do with her life! She has a list of recommended options - she can be a solider, or a priest, or a crafter, or a bureaucrat. Her father said she shouldn't be a soldier, and her last interaction with a spirit went badly, and she's still only barely literate, so she supposes she'd better try really hard when it comes to that visit to the refiners she was going to make. 

She supposes it's fine that they're covering a thing she's already done, if she isn't supposed to be cultivating for the next few days, but what does the elder seem to think someone in her position ought to be doing doing forward?

The Elder was hinting that she should make sure to do her physical cultivation diligently and consider what sorts of magic she might want to learn, perhaps research technique options open to her, in the Archives or achievable through rewards or purchase, and consider which ones might be good for her.

She could also 'cultivate the Argent Soul art', which is separate from cultivating her spirit up the Red Soul levels, and specifically means following a set of exercises of escalating difficulty in the second half of the book until she can do them easily. The Argent Soul Art is apparently specifically designed to be a good, safe, balanced starting point.

Has she been instructed on how to do physical cultivation yet? What does the schedule of tutorials from elders look like for the next few days? 

She has not yet been instructed on physical cultivation!

Looks like physical cultivation lessons start in the early morning, every morning, starting tomorrow. While spiritual cultivation lessons are every other day, in afternoons.

No more lectures are scheduled today, anyway, and it's still fairly early in the afternoon.

Is there an obvious intended solution for students who have just gotten out of class and want something for lunch or is she going to be having cold rice and some of whatever the local "making it easier to enjoy eating cold rice" condiment is?

There aren't any places serving food, no. Rice and venison back at the house she and Sia Bis claimed is probably her best option. There did seem to be some spices in the cabinets earlier.