"The people of the Martial Body Sect also believe the same thing. But they chose to prioritize the unconscious and emotional part of their mind. They even go further by taking a conscious thought and transforming it into an unconscious thought. Then they sacrifice every emotion and thought to that unconscious thought."
"But we in the Four Directions Sect choose to prioritize conscious thoughts and logic. We refine our Dao Heart by increasing the area of the mind controlled and occupied by conscious thoughts and logic while decreasing the area of our mind controlled by unconscious thoughts and emotions."
After saying this, he dropped the chalk and wiped his hand with the clean towel. As he did so, he said, "There are many ways to refine Dao Heart. If you ask me, controlling one’s state of mind is more reliable than morality as a tool to refine Dao Heart. But that’s just me."
"However, no matter how divided we are on the matter of refining Dao Heart, everyone can agree that there are nine ranks of Dao Heart just as there are nine ranks of cultivation. From weakest to the strongest, these ranks are steam willpower, water willpower, ice willpower, wood willpower, and stone willpower."
Then he chucked and said, "As for the rest, I don’t know what they are called. If you find out, please make sure to tell me."
He became serious again as he said, "If you notice, you will realize that as the willpower gets stronger, its density increases. So if there is only one thing that you will learn from my lecture today, it should be that Dao Heart is the density and hardness of one’s mind."
Then he grinned maliciously at them and said, "For the rest of your initiation program, I will help you refine your Dao Heart. I will tell you now that it won’t be a pleasant experience. But then again, anything worth having should not be easy to acquire."
Loki saw Muni’s face as he told them about how refining Dao Heart was going to be painful, and he didn’t doubt Muni at all. His trust lay in the fact that Muni won’t intentionally do something that will harm them just for the sake of it.
If anything, he can trust Muni to try his best to make them stronger. After all, the stronger they are, the better for Muni. So if training Dao Heart is going to be painful normally, he can be sure that Muni will make it extra painful so that it can be extra effective.
Many people also thought the same thing. What they thought made them shrink and pale with fear.
In order to encourage them, Muni said, "From now on, you will be tested every week, and the poorest one will be eliminated. You will be tested in cultivation and total internal energy, skillful energy manipulation, and the power of your Dao Heart."
"That makes a total of three tests and three chances for you excel. Your sCores in each test will be tallied, and the worst in all three will be eliminated."
"If you do very well in one test, it is unlikely that you will be eliminated. Since Dao Heart and energy manipulation don’t require special talent, your survival won’t be entirely reliant on potential for cultivation anymore."
"You can take advantage of your grit and hard work to pass the energy manipulation test and the Dao Heart test. This is just my humble advice. You can choose to take it or not."
Muni claimed it was his humble advice, but no one dared to disregard it. Everyone quickly accepted his advice as if their life depended on it, which it did. So everyone was encouraged.
Unfortunately for them, no matter how determined and encouraged someone is to do something, the value of their determination won’t be worth much until they begin to do that thing and realize just how difficult it is.
In his past life, Loki had heard a saying about how everything was more difficult than it looked. In this case, the refining of Dao Heart was far more painful than Loki expected.
For their first step of training, Dao Heart, Muni called a healer for them. Then he began cutting their limbs, starting from their fingers. The healer’s job was to keep them alive during the training and help them reattach the cut appendages once they were done.
Muni said to them, "The goal of this step is to acclimate yourself with pain and eventually overcome it."
Then he cut off the finger of an initiate within a single swish of a water blade. The initiate in question cried out in pain.
Muni didn’t stop him from crying. But he did frown and say, "Don’t let your emotions control how you react. You need to realize that while pain is real, it is not the master of your mind. You need to become the master of your mind, so register the pain and let it go."
As soon as he finished speaking, he cut off the whole arm at the wrist.
The pain that the poor girl experienced was far more than usual because there were still two fingers left on her arm, and she expected him to cut the fingers, not her whole arm.
So no, she couldn’t execute Muni’s instructions at all. The pain was just too much for her to let go. Any will to control her pain was quickly overwhelmed by the shock of losing her arm.
Muni didn’t force anyone to undergo the painful process. He would only cut off the limbs of those who were willing.
He shook his head and said, "I won’t force you to go through this because forcing you to do something will make the training less effective than you willingly coming up to suffer."
"The goal of the process is for you to control yourself and master your mind. What can be better than controlling yourself to step forward for a painful experience despite knowing how painful it is?"