It had been 4 years ever since Nio and the rest of Squad 9 started to cultivate, and a certain stability could be felt around them. There was no longer the feeling of pressure from their instructors, most likely because they left them alone to let them cultivate and grow stronger.
The members of the Stygian clan were now reaching their teens and therefore were harder to manipulate and brainwash. While it was true that their age and the surge of new emotions and new changes to their bodies caused them to have highly unstable psyches, the rooted trauma that the family imposed on them since birth was enough to keep them in line and manipulate them.
For Nio, who was going through puberty for the second time, things were quite abnormal. It was like he was being drugged with arousing substances, he felt like his body no longer belonged to him. That was probably born from the difference between his physical age and his mental age.
Mentally he was already a mature young man, while physically he was becoming a horny teenager. He could restrain himself well enough, though.
His only failure was the certain times he was caught staring at the curves of some maids, but that was only thrice!
Anyway, things were going in a good direction in regard to other topics.
Nio was now preparing himself to step into the last stage of Body Tempering, Dantian Forming. This meant that he was now a Meridian Tempering Stage cultivator.
He felt that with only cultivation he would be capable of completely smashing that panther into pieces!
He wasn't the only one that was making progress in the meantime.
Nero had recently reached the Meridian Stage as well, and Notres was stabilizing his Mind Tempering cultivation before attempting to start tempering his meridians.
Most of the Squad 9 was around Skin Tempering Stage, though.
After their instructor advised Nio to slow down in his cultivation due to the risk of advancing stages at great speeds , everyone became more careful when cultivating.
That was why it took four years for Nio to reach the stage he was now in. He normally took vast amounts of time to practice after reaching a new stage and finishing tempering a part of his body completely. This resulted in an increase in his mastery of martial arts and even his control over Qi.
His experience with this new type of energy had been quite intriguing.
Until he reached Martial Begginer, his [Android Physique] was incapable of producing Qi, for now it could produce various different variants of Qi. [Bone Qi] , [Organ Qi] , [Muscle Qi] , [Skin Qi] and [Mental Qi].
These energies weren't particularly useful other than being a great obstacle for his chakra and cursed energy when he wanted to use them, this resulted in a great increase in his control over those two energies.
Meridian Stage was probably the one he had spent less time in. His dormant meridians had been partially awakened due to their fusion with his chakra channels, and now that they were completely awakened, his chakra could flow so much easier that it was insane. He had to spend a few days adjusting to the new chakra output.
And after a long time, not only was Nio ready to form his dantian but also to buy something new from his System, he just wasn't sure what yet.
[
Status:
Name: Nio/Nioo/9-1-1/Alex
Age: 14(32)
Cultivation: Body Tempering Stage 6 : Meridian Tempering
Bloodline: Mortal Body of Chance and Change
Health: Very Healthy
PHY: 105
SPE: 90
END: 131
INT: 82
CON: 72
Credits: 1631
]
Thanks to Mind Tempering, he was able to slightly bridge the gap that existed between his reaction and processing speed and his physique and endurance.
Overall, he had gained a lot, and even though he hadn't visited the forest for a while due to his feats during training and the four birthday rewards he had received, he now had quite a few credits to spend.
However, he was now saving them for after his success in forming his dantian.
Forming one's dantian was a complicated task. While meridian tempering, one awakened their dormant meridians, however during their dormant state, some of them are entangled with the others and must be sacrificed. These sacrificed meridians' remains were then "stored" in a specific place on the body, normally either at the solar plexus or the abdomen.
When forming their dantian, a cultivator must use the remains of these sacrificed meridians to build the structure of their dantian in a sphere-like shape, meant to store the Qi generated by all the parts of the body, which would be forced to mix forming true Qi.
Nio actually lacked a good amount of meridian remains to form a dantian of normal size. This was due to his early partial awakening of meridians and their fusion with chakra channels, but it was also caused by the awakening of his bloodline.
This meant that either he sacrificed more of his meridians, formed a smaller dantian, or went through a complicated process to turn some of the various energies in his body into the same metaphysical material the dantian and the meridians were made out of.
Over the last year, Nio went through this process, not only to create enough of this material to create a normal dantian but also to create a bigger, multi-layered dantian.
With his [Android Physique], Nio could generate any type of energy infinitely, this meant that he had virtually infinite amounts of energy. But that was wrong, if he found a way to completely drain his entire pool of chakra, cursed energy, or qi faster than his physique could replenish it, it wouldn't be good.
As a test, in one of his missed night visits to the forest, he had attempted to completely drain his energy reserves. By sending all his chakra and cursed energy outside his body, for a few moments Nio was surrounded by a really cool aura and was able to little by little drain his energy.
Fun Fact! His infinite replenishment of energy only worked if he was conscious! Meaning that once he reached the end of his reserves he would pass out, and his physique would be incapable of completely filling his energy pool, forcing him to do so at the same rate as a normal human.
Less Fun Fact! Due to his body's high dependence on the [Android Physique], his natural energy regeneration was abnormally poor.
Therefore, besides finding a way to upgrade the speed of his physique replenishment, increasing the energy pools overall was probably a good idea.
So, Nio came up with the idea of increasing the size of his dantian as well as giving it multiple layers to better manipulate the various energies in his body. After all, Chakra would also use the dantian as a place to be stored, and he didn't know the consequences of mixing chakra with qi, and he didn't want to try it.
He was not suicidal, after all.
After great research and late-night discussions with his peers and the Anime System, he was able to come up with a design for the best dantian the world was about to see.
Around twice the size of a normal dantian, it had various divisions as well as small meridians to connect each one of them. The reason why there were so many divisions was to properly separate any new power systems that he decided to include in his arsenal in the future.
And after so much time preparing he was finally ready to create it.
He was once again below the tree in the yard, meditating. In this meditating state he was not moving energy or anything really, right now he was only calming his mind and making sure that he was at his best before starting.
He kept at it for around two hours before finally starting. He moved the various pieces of the metaphysical material around his body. Furthermore, he bent them to his will, reshaping them, molding them, and fusing them together.
Soon the first layer was complete. It was barely the size of an walnut.
He proceeded to create small meridians and connect them to the first layer before starting to form the second one. This one took more time, but it was completed rather swiftly.
Now, the dantian was around the size of an average dantian, many times bigger than the walnut dantian.
But he was not done. After creating more meridians to connect the second layer, he started creating the third and last layer. This one was double the size of an average dantian.
And that was done. But, before exiting the meditative state he was in, Nio used the remaining material to form subdivisions inside each layer.
And with that, he was now a Stage 7 Body Tempering cultivator.
[
Status:
Name: Nio/Nioo/9-1-1/Alex
Age: 14(32)
Cultivation: Body Tempering Stage 7 : Dantian Forming
Bloodline: Mortal Body of Chance and Change
Health: Very Healthy
PHY: 111
SPE: 96
END: 137
INT: 88
CON: 84
Credits: 1691
]
**
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