What cultivation entails

Enicya wasn't supposed to refine the Three Shaded Flame by herself, but Kaede assumed that having too little to do might end up in her disregarding his instructions.
"I'm not making much progress." said she, with an accusatory tone. "Didn't want to go back to lord Vosphel after getting stabbed in the back, but if the alternative is this then I might just reconsider."
Kaede was successfully annoyed. "I can't say I enjoy your entitlement, but I get it: your meridian is being eroded, and this is painful on levels our soul isn't even capable of fully processing."
"Don't pity me, you're just a bit ahead of me in the Body Refining Realm and you act like you know everything. Your big idea is not working."
Kaede cringed at the idea of having to prove himself, but it probably was the right thing to do. He undressed his top, revealing the parting gifts Siciha left him with. So much for the wounds healing properly, each one of them was just as horrible as after Garnlao took care of them.
"Four? What's the fourth scar?"
"It's rare, but some people aren't born with just three meridians"

"One thing I notice is that medicine works on you as it's supposed to. For some reason your issue is with cultivation. Could you tell me how you cultivate?"
"What do you mean how? I fill whatever I'm refining with spiritual strength until it's enough."
"Not bad, but Three Shaded Flame is flickering and burning. How do you fill with spiritual strength something like that?"
"That's exactly the problem."
"Close your eyes and visualize the flame in your body. Do not try to refine it, instead envelope it in spiritual strength and notice how it behaves. Understand the flame, its temperature, its properties, its purpose. Become that flame."

Twentysix hours later the flame was fully assimilated. It wasn't an effortless trial, and it took quite the taxing amount of mid grade pills in order to succeed. She coughed blood eighteen times, passed out twice, strained her zenith meridian extensively... But she was safe now.
"Congratulations also for breaking through the Blood Purification Stage."
"I figured what you told me about understanding the flame might be applied to blood itself. In a way it's not really a matter of refining your body, but the opposite."
"It's becoming your body"
"Exactly. Though, this makes me wonder: if I was missing so much of what cultivation entailed, what might I be still missing right now?"
"A lot, but also nothing at all. I'm sorry for this useless answer, reaching a deeper understanding of cultivation helps only if you're ready for it, otherwise it will blind you."