Chapter 168 - Physical Cultivation III: Skin to Muscle to Bone to Reason

  Hao ate and sat in meditation. The day was long, and it had only started. It made him wonder what the Second Elder would make him do if Guan had already done all this to him.

  He never got a moment of silence. Guan always had more to explain than what Hao asked about. Even when he fell into deep meditation and sank into that void of white and black and flowing colors, that booming voice was all around him. It told him to focus, then spoke in his ear.

  “Boiling Blood Fruit is named for the sensation it bears on the skin,” Senior Brother Guan said. “It doesn’t really boil blood, of course. But vessels, arteries, and capillaries are cleared and expanded. All cultivation utilizes them, at least before the Meridians are fully dug up and fixed from their mortal state. That is how World Energy flows.”

  While the Senior Brother gave his lecture, Hao kept steady. He sped up his digestion and his blood flow with the technique he was instructed to follow. His eyes remained closed, even though he wanted to open them and see if he was as sweaty as he felt.

  He wasn’t given the chance to check. If he opened his eyes for long, he was met with a four-foot-long steel ruler that made him wish the senior still had the World Energy whip.

  “Focus. Don’t lose concentration. The flow of blood is more important than my words.”

  Hao nodded, ignoring the murals and carvings that came to life inside his head. Orange-eyed dragons and red phoenixes wandered in a fog of blue petals. Breaths and voices faded in and out.

  “…Strengthened those vessels. Blood will flow faster, with more vigor… Less fatigue, quicker recovery… For you, since you did well, it will have gone deeper than skin. Muscle, bones, and organs would have… Should I explain a bit more? Anatomy is just as important to understand.”

  Hao shook his head. The longer he did this technique, the louder his heartbeat was in his ears. Half of the words would soon be hidden under a heavy tun tun.

  He had worked with Li Tuzai, the sect butcher, for a while now, and shared a roof with one of the medicine servants, Zhengqi.

  “Alright, then just stand when you are…”

  Hao opened his eyes and rose. He flexed his fingers to make sure the lightness he felt wasn’t an illusion. His skin stretched smooth, nearly transparent. The sweat he was expecting was a haze around his skin and wisps floating up from his collar.

  “Senior… I don’t entirely understand. Didn’t the early Realms of Reclamation do something similar? Why did the fruit seem so strong?” Hao asked.

  Guan laughed, “Junior Brother Hao, surely you’ve found out I’m the last person to ask about Spiritual Cultivation.”

  “Stretch. Stretch. Simple ones,” he demanded, his hand moving to his space ring again.

  “At least it is a simple question, Junior Brother. Reclamation doesn’t affect skin or blood, not directly. Your pores are clear of impurities by World Energy being forced through, but that’s all.”

  Hao tried to make sense of it. The only thing he remembered clearly from then was the agony of a breakthrough.

  Guan continued, nodding at the sight of Hao’s basic Water Breaking Fist stretches. “In truth, I’m surprised Junior Brother was able to absorb the potency of the fruit. All three… There is a simple correlation: the more impurities, the less effective most medicines, alchemists like to call it pill poison. But an alchemist is looking for any chance to mention the word ‘pill’.”

  The Senior Brother looked off at the mention of alchemists. So full of righteous fury and passion, yet it seemed the Fifth Elder’s disciple wasn’t as pure as the clouds below the peak as first impressions implied.

  “You must have built a solid foundation starting from the first layer,” Guan muttered.

  Hao laughed as he came back up from a stretch. Senior Brother Guan wasn’t joking; the squint in his brow made that obvious.

  Hao didn’t intend to explain. Being stuck at the First Layer, locked off from World Energy, surviving off poisonous food pills and digging rocks sixteen hours a day for six months wasn’t exactly an exciting story. Just a long one he could tell in a few words.

  “Senior Brother Guan, what are you going to teach me now?” Hao asked, moving the topic along. He tensed and grasped a sense of his own body—his neck and pecs, his body under his robe, his legs and feet. He felt like a lion and an eagle. Yet still, the thing in front of him, the senior brother, was no dragon, but a volcano’s flames were enough to melt great jaws and set wings aflame.

  “Basics,” the senior said calmly. “Basics, as I said already.”

  The Senior Brother said it like it was a calming reminder. That failed, then panic set in as a boulder-crushing hand gripped Hao’s arm.

  “We can find the limit of your flexibility since you are warmed up.”

  “Senior wait—” The words came late, and Hao was looking for his arm, not sure if it was still attached to him. He wiggled his fingers, and they were touching his lower back. Then his other arm followed, and he gave in.

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  He took the chance to do the rest of this step himself. Somehow, he managed, pulling his legs to his shoulders, threatening to kick his own neck if his fingers slipped. It was a position he had to hold.

  “Senior, if this is… Basic, what would be advanced exactly?” His leg escaped his hands and slammed the wooden floor with a deafening thud, and he realized it would take a cultivator-forged steel to break his bones. The thought made him gulp, but he was quick to hide his smirk as Guan spun around.

  “Up,” Guan said, gesturing to his leg. “Don’t worry about that. You need the ability to divide and sense different kinds of Spiritual Energy. Beyond Yuan. Most cultivators don’t reach that level of precision until they reach the Soul Palace Realm.”

  The Senior Brother shook his head. “Even then, with all the resources I have access to, the most I managed is a fundamental loose joint technique.” His bones cracked to make a point. His shoulder, elbow, and wrist snapped and hung like a spider’s leg, each joint going the wrong way.

  “This is somewhere between basic and advanced,” the Senior said, his bones seeming to bend like rubber.

  Hao just got his other leg lifted to his neck when he saw it. His fingers slipped, and his leg struck the ground again. He wondered what use that would be, but didn’t dare air the question. He quickly lifted his leg again and moved the topic along before the Cultivator, who was older than he appeared, explained or showed anymore.

  “What about elements? You mentioned elements before—” Hao was only partway through his question when the scoff came.

  “Different. Completely,” Guan ground his teeth. “For that, you need to sense, be able to separate, and be able to move a Mortal Element.”

  The senior’s arms snapped back. “You need a grand treasure that is pure in an element. Something like… at least a nine-rank beast core, but that has beast force in it. A person would turn half rabid. I’ve thought about it before. It would take all the resources on this mountain to get something better.”

  “Except fire, that's the most common, but the least useful,” he added.

  “What about Yin or Yang?” Hao asked, his focus breaking as his World Energy pooled near the Spirit-Holding bag.

  “The taming and mastery of the force would be the same, but the treasure would be rarer.”

  “It gives you a little hope that full control over elements isn’t required,” Guan whispered to himself.

  The blue-robed Senior suddenly turned and looked Hao up and down. It was the first time since he got out of the water that the Senior glared at him with his small brown eyes. He took out a small fruit from his space ring.

  “Don’t be scared by their appearance. They're sweet and beneficial, Junior Brother.” Guan placed more fruit on the ground and turned his back. “You can take a rest once you finish… I need to find my old Spirit Iron blocks.”

  This new fruit was sweet, but the texture was the molded cheeses merchants sold for cheap, waxy, and red, and its glistening smoothness and white juice made it obvious they weren’t the Boiling Blood fruit. The skin was hard to chew. Other than that, it was a pleasant snack, but another thing that made his body temperature rise.

  It touched his stomach and burned away. I already consumed a beast core, a frost one, and a Yang treasure. I still have more, he wondered if this ‘beast force’ had come to affect him. He didn’t think so, but he never would have thought he would kill people in their sleep before entering the Secret Realm.

  It made him think, but not worry.

  Hao took one of the plain holding bags out from the Spirit-Holding Bag and unloaded some beast meat. Something he could offer as thanks.

  Guan noticed it as soon as he walked back over, “I don’t need anything like that. Junior Brother Hao, you should keep it for yourself. Meat like that is more valuable than the dried pork they put in food hall porridge. Just be careful with vital organs. They are better suited to be sold as ingredients anyway.”

  “Senior Brother, do you have another reason to help me enter this tournament?” Hao asked, curious.

  Guan froze up. He hid it well, but Meiqi’s lessons were based on her time in a Cultivator's service.

  “That is old history,” he reached out and took a hunk of smoked snake meat. It was tough, but his pearl teeth made light work of it. “But know this. I owe my Master, and this is one way I can repay him. I owe the First Elder, too, but in a different way, one without gratitude.”

  Hao already knew it was better not to ask anymore. He was socially inept and bad at holding back his tongue, but the day had made it easier just to let his jaw hang slack. Besides, this was the exact step he was looking for. The second of many steps to ruin the First Elder’s many plans.

  “Junior Brother Hao. Do you need to rest at night?” Guan asked, his brows low as his eyes scanned.

  Hao shook his head as he stored the rest of the meat.

  “Good,” the elder disciple crouched, “You’ve done more than I expected already, we will keep this going until morning. Do you have any spirit stones?”

  Hao had to say no, a little guilt creeping out of his lie, but the spirit stones he had were full of white World Energy and not the normal blue. There was already one situation with the Source Stones that led to all his problems.

  “That’s fine. It seems fate always places the hard path in front of Junior Brother.” Guan let out a chuckle.

  Two blocks of metal tumbled out of his sleeve. They had a dim shine and a faint blue shimmer.

  Guan dropped them into Hao’s hands.

  They were light, too light for anything this Senior Brother would bother to carry. Hao flipped them over and noticed a hole crudely drilled in both cubes.

  “Here, Junior Brother, these are some special Spirit Stones I got from a Demonic Cultivator fifty-odd years ago on a mission.” Guan placed the two red stones in the rough holes in both cubes. “Now push World Energy into your hands, hold tight to the cube, and touch the stones.” The Senior said, a sinister smirk growing on his face.

  Hao did, their weight doubling as his World Energy was drained.

  “Careful, Spirit Iron is greedy for Energy. Sadly, you will have to constantly supply them with your World Energy if you don’t have any spirit stones.”

  Hao quickly pulled his thumbs from the hole in the spirit stones. This was the second time something pulled World Energy from his body without warning. The first being the ruby on the Spirit-Holding bag.

  “Adjust to that feeling first. It must be uncomfortable being at Reclamation and having Qi torn from your body.” The notion made him shake his head.

  Even so, Hao got no respite.

  He touched his thumbs to the red spirit stones again, less channeling World Energy to his hands now and more trying to wrangle it to keep it from leaving him bone dry and depleted. The weight grew. His hands slowly dragged closer to the ground.

  Senior Brother just stared. And waited.