Awakening Ceremony

In the Gu Yue clan on Qing Mao Mountain, fifteen-year-old youths gather for the Awakening Ceremony as the turning point into Gu Master life. ^{ch. 2 ch. 4 ch. 22 ch. 81} The academy elder leads them into the clan pavilion, then down stone stairs into an underground cave that holds a spirit spring and a cultivated sea of moon orchids. That spirit spring produces primeval stones and is the foundation of Gu Yue Village. ^{ch. 4}

The walk

Each youth whose name is called crosses a shallow underground river and walks as far as possible into the flower sea. Farther is better. Pressure from the rich primeval qi of the spirit spring deep in the flowers acts like an invisible wall. Lights rise from the orchids, enter the body, and briefly soften that pressure so the youth can push farther. ^{ch. 4 ch. 5}

Those lights are Hope Gu. Each spot of light is one Gu. They gather in the abdomen, three inches under the navel, into a ball of light. When the ball bursts, an aperture forms out of thin air, and the ceremony succeeds for that youth. ^{ch. 5} A thin membrane of the same light then supports the aperture so it will not collapse, and no more Hope Gu enter once the aperture is open. ^{ch. 6}

Not everyone has talent. In general terms, five out of ten people have it; in the Gu Yue clan the ratio is higher, around six, because the first generation clan leader’s bloodline raises average quality. A youth who cannot walk far enough leaves without the talent to become a Gu Master and lives as an ordinary clansman at the lowest status. ^{ch. 4}

Talent grades

How far the youth walks is the clan’s talent signal. Fang Yuan states the bands: below ten steps means no cultivation talent, ten to twenty is D grade, twenty to thirty C grade, thirty to forty B grade, and forty to fifty A grade. ^{ch. 5} Talent itself is the four-grade scale from A to D, and clan teaching ties each grade to expected rank growth and to how much of the aperture the primeval sea will fill. ^{ch. 4 ch. 7}

In Fang Yuan’s batch he walks twenty-seven steps and opens as a C grade rank one Gu Master. His twin Gu Yue Fang Zheng walks forty-three steps and is named A grade. ^{ch. 6} Cheating is possible: Gu Yue Chi Chen appears as B grade after thirty-six steps, but Fang Yuan’s memory places him as a true C grade whose grandfather faked the result. ^{ch. 4}

After the ceremony

A week later, those who opened their apertures sit in the academy as rank one Gu Masters with coagulated primeval seas. The academy then sends them to the Gu room to pick a vital Gu to refine, and finishing that refinement is the first assessment. ^{ch. 7} In Fang Yuan’s batch about a hundred youths joined; around fifty-seven had cultivating talent. ^{ch. 22}

The aperture, primeval sea, and talent grades after the walk are covered on aperture and primeval essence. A grade as a specific result is on A grade.

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