Hou clothed himself again and sat on his bed, not the floor this time.
"Is there anything else to this lesson?"
Mo Huai thought for a second and then came up with his answer,
"No for now the lesson will end but until night time you should meditate. Unlike before you are not absorbing from a specific item, depleting it of its laws. Instead passively absorb surrounding laws which you can hold."
"Ones that I can hold?"
"Yes, right now since you do not have a spirit stone you have limited space in the spirit stones and they are best used for similar laws. In your case you have the sun, flight, sword, and space spirit stones. These are the main laws you will cultivate, other laws will be too taxing on your body and will have the same problem as not 'real' cultivators. Remember the beggar? That's the safe limit of most laws, enough for small techniques. Anymore and his teeth could've turned to copper permanently."
"Really?! Okay I understand that now, ill make sure to focus on my existing laws, but how do I decide what I'm absorbing?"
"Just passively use mental energy and resonate your existing laws, pulling in other laws into your body and by extension spirit stones."
Hou nodded and sat back onto his bed. He closed his eyes and sat up in a cross-legged position. Inside his body he controlled the Celestial Law Amplifying Physique with the help of Yue to vibrate his laws in the spirit stones.
Then Hou, himself, used mental energy to create a vortex and pull in surrounding laws. There was a candle on the bedside table beside Hou, when he started to cultivate it flickered and dimmed.
Then once he fully started to meditate, his vortex and vibration of sun laws caused the candle to snuff. The fire jumped of the candle and into Hou!
"Stop!" Hou heard Mo Huai shout a command back to Hou when he absorbed the candle flame.
"What's wrong?"
"It is too strong, in this case you are ruining your absorption of sun laws. Think about it, what did you do wrong?"
'Wrong? I felt I was cultivating well, there was a strong amount of fire laws being absorbed...hmm'
Hou opened his eyes and looked around and saw the snuffed out candle. The black smoke rising up from its wick.
'That's it! That's where I got my fire laws from, but is that also where I went wrong?'
Hou shocked his head in defeat and asked Mo Huai,
"I don't understand, was it the candle? Why is that wrong?"
"You do not understand that pushing and forcing is not always the best way. In this case a steady and slow absorbing would have gained you more laws overall. The candle flame was turning the wax and wick to fire, then the fire would dissipate in heat and light. If you slowly absorbed the flame before it separated into heat and light, the fire would continuously be fed and regenerate."
"Yes..yes I understand! By leaving the flame to create more flame, I would be able to effectively absorb the candle in its entirety and not just the flame at that moment!"
"Exactly so! So I will relight it, control the way you absorb laws more effectively!"
Hou nodded and closed his eyes again, ready to cultivate with Mo Huai's suggestion. Mo Huai activated a small amount of fire laws he had in his Spirit Stone Soul and relit the candle.
Hou used his intuition and felt the candle had been relit. He breathed out and begun cultivating. Yue coordinated the vibration of Hou's existing laws while he focused his mental energy to guide new fire laws into his sun spirit stone from the candle.
This time he focused his energy on the candle, taking a steady stream of fire. From the outside the candle's flame started to swirl into the air and when it made its way to Hou it flowed into his body.
Through Hou's translucent skin, Mo Huai could see the fire follow his blood stream, then dissipate further into his body, like a sunset, being absorbed into his spirit stone.
Initially the stream was unstable and was thicker in parts, thinner in other. Sometimes it even broke off and he needed to rebuild it, slightly adjusting his technique. This was due to his lack of control, or even in distractions, causing his mental energy to be diverted.
But eventually after some tweaking, Hou gathered a ready unbroken stream of fire, absorbing it into his sun spirit stone.
It was possible to hold fire laws in his sun spirit stone due to their similarity. If Hou did not have a sun spirit stone, the fire laws would not absorb into any other spirit stone.
This would only leave one option for the sun laws, to be absorbed into Hou's soul or body. This might be fine initially, but they would be unstable and could 'activate', his body bursting into flames.
This was the inherent danger in false cultivation, without using a spirit stone or Spirit Stone Soul. This was negligible in small amounts, for example Xiao Ye.
She only had a small amount of heat and red laws. At most if they went out of control it would cause a fever. But in larger quantities, people could explode or turn into monsters.
Hou continued to absorb the candle until it finally was fined and all was left was a puddle of wax on the candle holder. Hou opened his eyes to see that it was night, the window showed the sky was very dark.
However in the dark, Hou could see little flying lights. Not stars but a type of bug. Myriad Cloud was designed with creatures in mind, even in the city there were incredible creatures.
"You're interested in the bugs?" Mo Huai saw Hou looking into the sky through the window.
Hou absentmindedly nodded,
"Yes, it's quite beautiful"
"Yes...they are... They're called Star Imitation Beetles. At day time they lay on the rooves and absorb the sunlight in their liquid sacs. They do not absorb the light into metaphysical laws but real tangible laws in a liquid. This is highly dangerous, as you saw in your alchemy attempt. At night they expel it like stars. The bright light is used to ward off predators"
Their translucent abdomens sloshed a golden liquid, the sunlight laws. As the beetles flew erratically, they collided and sparked out a brighter light.
"How does the light ward then off? Wouldn't it just attract them?"
"Yes, but also no. The world is not black and white, it would ward of the many. This is because the predators would eat a few because of their visibility but soon realise that if they eat more and absorb too much sunlight it would be dangerous, and so only a few beetles are eaten while the rest survive."
'The predators understand eating the beetles would give temporary sustenance but in mass would cause damage. Like how greedily consuming the candle only gave me one burst of fire, while patience yielded hours of steady nourishment. Hmm...maybe I should take inspiration from the world more for my cultivation' Hou thought about how the world reflected what he saw himself, it was all connected.
"Woah...everything is so complex and connected if you think just a little deeper. Like I thought taking more fire from the candle was better, but really taking less gave me more haha."
"It truly is beautiful, but you should go to sleep now. You might get some new thoughts about everything and let your spirit stones assimilate the laws fully"
Hou retracted his view of the window and crawled under his covers. As he was snugly in bed he spoke,
"Goodnight"
"Goodnight"