Lenard kept silent, as he didn't know what to say. But Muni still didn't let him go.
Muni glared at him and said, "Heck, if it were not impossible to change one's Metac after using it to advance to the rank 2, I wouldn't mind taking your Innate Metac for myself."
"Actually, I am still contemplating abolishing my cultivation to start afresh from rank 2. If not for the fact that I could die in the process, and if not for the fact that even if I succeed in replacing my Metac, my enemies will take advantage of my period of weakness to kill me, I would give it a shot."
This time, Lenard saw the jealousy and ferocity in Muni's eyes. So he quickly shrank his next and scotted away from Muni.
Muni sneered at him and said, "What use is your sex when you can't control your life and death?"
With that said, Muni had finally vented his frustration. So he ignored Lenard and began addressing the rest of the class.
He said, "You have now received your Core Metacs. The next thing to do is to refine it. To refine a Metac, the first thing you need to do is to drop your blood on it."
"Once you drop your blood on the Metac, you will be able to create an energy link between you and the Metac. At that point, you can withdraw the Metac into your energy well, where you can baptize it with your life energy."
"The goal is to saturate the Metac with your Will and take control of it. The Metac will resist this, so you will need a lot of energy and a minimum Willpower of 1 to refine it."
He paused and glanced briefly at Slav before saying, "In general, at the same level of willpower, the larger your energy well and the more life energy you have within you, or the more energy stones you use to assist yourself during the refining process, the faster you can refine a Metac. But there are other factors that affect the speed of refining a Metac."
"The most important factor is still the Dao Heart and the level of willpower that it provides. The second most important factor is the skill of energy manipulation."
"The refinement of the Dao Heart takes time, up to decades, and it is difficult to see a result in a short amount of time. So I won't teach you how to refine your Dao Heart now. What I will teach you is the skill of energy manipulation."
"The skill of energy manipulation is very important since it affects not only cultivation speed, which you should have noticed by now, but also affects the control of Metacs. So from today onward, we will spend one hour on cultivation and one hour on training energy manipulation."
"The training of the Dao Heart won't begin until next month. In the meantime, those of you who refine your Core Metacs the fastest will be rewarded."
"The first person to refine their Metac will be given one extra Branch Metac of their pathway. Since you've been to the market, you should know how valuable this reward is. So do your best."
"The second person to refine their Core Metac will be given 300 energy stones as a reward, while the third person will be given 100 energy stones. In one week, you will receive your first Branch Metacs."
"After you receive your Branch Metacs, the hunting grounds will be opened for you. Then, two weeks after that, which will be one month since the beginning of the initiation program, I will conduct a test of your cultivation. The four of you with the poorest cultivation will be eliminated."
When he said the word "eliminated," many people felt a chill. These were the people still afraid and concerned about their fate. Loki and Slav were not among these people.
Muni's eyes roamed over them as he said, "That is all. I wish you good luck. Now, let's talk about energy manipulation and the skillful use of Metacs."
"There are many definitions for skill, but its simplest definition is the speed at which you can do something with your internal energy. This speed can be how fast you move your internal energy from point A to point B. It could also be how fast you can activate a Metac."
"Thus, skill is absolute and can be measured in clear-cut terms. Skill is thus measured as the percentage of progress activating a Metac of your rank in one second. So for rank 1 cultivators, your skill is how fast you can activate a rank 1 Metac."
"If you need 3 seconds to activate a rank 1 Metac, your skill will be 1/3 × 100%, which is 33%. If you need 5 seconds to activate a rank 1 Metac, your skill will be 1/5 × 100%, which is 20%. So the less time you need to activate a Metac, the better."
Then he paused to think about something. After making up his mind, he said, "For those of you who want to advance to rank 2, your goal is to possess rank 2 Dao Heart, rank 2 Core Metac, and a skill of 100%. You can begin to work on your skill now. As for how to advance your Core Metac to rank 2, that is a secret that you will have to pay for."
"That aside, let us continue with the matter of refining skill. The key to increasing your energy manipulation skill is practice. As they say, practice makes perfect. But that saying is most apt for this situation."
Muni spoke for an hour, and Loki listened attentively to every word of it. He learned a lot from what Muni said in class, so he was able to understand why his skill had improved unknowingly.
Apparently, the process of pulling and pushing the life energy within his Core was a type of training in energy manipulation. This was why his skill improved after a couple of days of cultivation.