When I woke up, I was on a bed, a solid improvement from before, but still not great considering it wasn't my bed. I looked out a window and saw it was dawn outside, signaling a new day.
I looked around and saw I was still in the house I found in the middle of town yesterday. Meaning that everything that happened yesterday was real, I had transmigrated into a xianxia world.
I didn't freak out again, I did that enough yesterday, but I did let my shoulders slump a little before bringing them back up. No, no, I'm not completely helpless, I have the manual.
At the thought of the manual, it made itself known at the forefront of my mind. The cover with the title "Nine Color Purifying Elemental Body Manual" shone brightly as if the manual was trying to remind me of its full name.
'Okay, I have the "Nine Color Purifying Elemental Body Manual" to help me get strong. There, happy?' I thought with some exasperation, and the brightly shining letters faded from view as the book opened up and I could finally read its contents.
Well, 'read' isn't the right word for it. It's more like I just knew the relevant information when I thought of something. I assume that's why I passed out, my brain was downloading the information from the Nine Color Purifying Elemental Body Manual.
So, to summarize the information I have access to at the moment, there are nine stages of cultivation to immortality following this manual, and each can be represented by a color.
The stages are as follows: Body Refinement, Meridian Creation, Qi Refinement, Foundation Establishment, Golden Body, Nascent Body, Essence Gathering, Law Refining, and Void Shattering.
A few things stand out to me, for one the first stage isn't Qi Refinement like it is in every damn cultivation novel I've ever read. Nope, it's the third step in the process which then continues as I expected until reaching the Golden Body phase.
The problem I have with it is that, as far as I know, it's supposed to be Golden Core, not Golden Body. And the fact that it is followed by the Nascent Body stage, unlike the usual Nascent Soul stage is eye-raising, to say the least.
But to me, the most concerning part about this entire thing is that the second stage is called Meridian Creation. Based on the name, I can only assume that it means I need to create meridians, which, according to what I knew from the books in my old life, is supposed to be extremely difficult, if not impossible.
It also implies that the cultivator doesn't have meridians already. Something that, once again, as far as I know, should be impossible.
Sure I've read stories where the meridians were blocked, or maybe crippled because of damage or a birth defect, but never have I come across a case where there is just straight-up none in the body.
This puts a bit of a hole in my current theory of being in a xianxia world. I may still be in one, but if this training manual is to be believed, then it is operating under very different rules than what I thought.
I'm missing something. Okay, I'm missing a lot of things but my gut is telling me that I'm missing something very big. I can't skip ahead in the manual since I'm not at those stages yet, so I can't get more information from the manual about what those steps actually entail.
I don't know.
I have no way of knowing or figuring it out either. So, there's only one thing to do: start cultivating and figure it out later.
Body refinement, also known as the white stage, has 5 minor stages within it. In order they are the refinement of the skin, muscle, organs, blood, and marrow.
Begin by refining the skin and working your way in until you reach the bones. While that does make sense to me, I feel like it would be faster and better if you flip the process.
Thinking about it scientifically, the bone marrow produces the blood, which then flows through the rest of the system. Wouldn't it be better to start with the marrow and work my way out?
The "Nine Color Purifying Elemental Body Manual" cover page appeared at the forefront of my mind before flipping its pages and giving me the answer to my question.
To put it simply, Qi is on the outside of the body whereas the bones are on the inside of the body. How do you get the Qi from the outside to the inside?
Either you slowly permeate your skin, muscles, organs, and blood with the Qi to reach your bones, or you expose your bones to the outside and let the Qi permeate your bones directly.
What's funny is that the second method, where you cut your bones out of your flesh, is actually pretty viable and extremely effective. You just need the herbs to make a medicinal bath to soak in so that, one, you don't die from having your bones outside of your body, and two, your bones absorb Qi at a faster rate than from the Qi in the air.
There was a third option that wasn't as extreme as the second one, where you eat highly dense Qi foods and let those temper your organs while you work on the skin from the outside. But once again, that method requires you to have medicinal herbs and highly dense Qi food on hand.
I happen to have exactly zero of the required materials at the moment. Hence, the Nine Color Purifying Elemental Body Manual didn't mention them since they weren't helpful to my situation.
'I feel like you're sassing me, but you're a book, so there's no way, right?' I thought suspiciously as I sent the mental equivalent of squinting my eye at the manual.
It continued to float at the forefront of my mind, not responding at all as it continued to display the answer to my previous question.
'Yeah, I'm being ridiculous. It's a book. It's literally, heh, get it, impossible for it to sass me,' I thought with some amusement at both my pun and stupidity.
'Alright, how do I start cultivating my skin?'
The book's pages filled before the answer revealed itself to me. I did not like the answer I received one bit.
There are two phases when you cultivate: the breathing phase and the activity phase. The breathing phase is exactly what it sounds like: you set aside time to sit down and breathe.
The point of breathing is that you are supposed to feel the Qi around you and get a sense of what it feels like as it enters through your skin. Eventually, you can saturate your skin with it and move on to saturating your muscles. Sounds simple, right?
Only, to feel the Qi around your skin, you have to increase the sensitivity of your body. This is where the activity phase of the training comes in. To put it simply, it is exercise. To put it truthfully, it's being a masochist.
Qi naturally flows around and through your body, it's how you can heal from getting tired or injured. However, because it's omnipresent throughout your whole life, you don't feel the process.
The activity phase seeks to make you very aware of this process by way of making your body take in Qi at a faster rate than you are used to. This results in more Qi entering your skin than is necessary for healing, thus fortifying it and beginning the cultivation path.
In other words, you need to beat the shit out of yourself until you can feel yourself healing. The more you feel the Qi, the more it enters your body, and the faster your rate of cultivation.
It's like anaerobic bodybuilding where you tear the muscle to build it back stronger, but for your skin. Taken up to eleven.
The manual does give some recommendations as to the best way, the less painful way, to do this but it is still far from a pleasant experience. Unfortunately, there is no way around it.
"So my options are to punch some trees and rocks, find some herbs, and make myself a bath after flaying my flesh open, or dying in horrific agony when whatever bullshit plot comes and smacks me in the face," I mumbled as I thought through my possible course of actions.
There's only one option, huh?
"Alright, let's go try this breathing technique and then explore the town a bit," I said aloud as a plan formed in my head.
I sat cross-legged on the bed in a position the manual recommended, scored one for the cliches, and focused on my breathing as I closed my eyes.
The good news about this whole cultivation thing is that I was already practicing a bit of it when I woke up in this world in the dirt yesterday.
The breathing exercises I was doing yesterday are a very primitive form of the breathing the manual recommends. Only, instead of focusing on my heartbeat, I needed to focus on my skin instead.
I was still injured from yesterday, the cut on my arm having scabbed over while I slept, but still not healing completely, hence I started my focus there.
I breathed in deeply, through the nose, before letting it out through the mouth after a few short seconds. I repeated this, slowly feeling my awareness slip away from the world around me and focusing solely on the scab.
I don't know how long I stayed like that, but eventually I did feel a slight itch where my scab was, causing my focus to break.
I opened my eyes and looked at the scab. It had gotten smaller and darker by just a tiny amount compared to when I started. I could still pick at it and draw blood, but there was a noticeable, if very slight, change in the healing process.
I looked out to see the sun high in the sky. I must have spent a few hours going through my breathing and the results were a very slight increase in the healing rate. Not extremely promising but I need to keep the expectations realistic.
This is my first time doing this, on an extremely small injury, and it's the first part of the manual. I'm not a cultivator at the moment, I'm a regular dude who tried a cultivation technique. Of course, it's not going to be all that impressive to me.
Hell, for all I know, if a doctor just saw what happened, they might shit themselves. I have no idea how much it healed, nor how fast it is in comparison to the normal rate.
The only basis I have is my old scrapes and bumps, and compared to what I remember about them, it was faster than letting them heal on their own.
That was good enough for me to finally go out and try the ridiculous training methods the manual was recommending.
And so, I got up and wandered around the empty town, grabbing spare clothes that fit my size, spare food and water, as well as anything that looked even mildly useful.
My pillaged goods all ended up in the spatial ring; a simple tap on the desired object with the jade was enough to send it safely inside for storage.
After about an hour or so of wandering around, I was satisfied with my haul for the day and brave enough to slowly make my way towards the outside walls while munching on some bread and fruit that I found.
I had reached the burned ash-covered walls dividing the town from the outside in a couple of minutes. After picking a direction via "eeny meeny miny moe," I followed the wall until I reached an opening in the form of what used to be a gate.
There was a giant archway in the blackened stone with a giant mangled mess of steel and ash lying a few yards from the wall. A clear trench in the ash-covered soil marked the path it took.
As I got closer I noticed that the ash grew deeper and that there were cooled bits of molten metal littered over the ground.
I stopped looking at the ground and kept my eye facing forward as I continued through the gate. I walked under the archway, dodging the last bits of metal before taking my first step since coming to this world on ground that wasn't covered in ash.
The surroundings were filled with broadleaf trees, with streaks of light from the dense canopy above illuminating the ground. There was a well-worn dirt path that continued off in the distance, bits of leaves and twigs littering it.
I stood still as I took in the sight, making sure to take a deep breath and enjoy the smell of the forest. The sounds of animals filling the air and breaking the oppressive silence I've been dealing with for the past day.
I feel myself smile as I observe everything. It was beautiful, completely untouched from the destruction that lay just a few feet behind me. The difference in scenery was simply mind-boggling and a much-needed break from the black-and-white color scheme that dominated my vision ever since I arrived here.
I resumed my walk at a slow and steady pace as I followed the path deeper into the forest. I kept my eyes peeled as I continued forward, looking for a suitable tree to start hitting for my training.
The tree needed to be thick and tall without being too sturdy. The bark needed to be smooth and uniform, the leaves not too thick as to block out the sun but still thick enough to provide shade. The manual had very specific requirements, suggesting a tree I'd never heard of.
Hence I just walked and wandered, never straying too far from the path or the town while mentally comparing every tree to the example in the manual and letting it decide if it was close enough or not.
After about fifteen minutes of searching, I found a tree that had a close enough match. It looked like a very weird mix of a maple tree and a birch tree. Then again, for all I knew, it could be a tree in my old world, though I don't recognize it.
I stood before the towering tree, its bark was smooth but thick while its leaves were broad, providing a nice bit of shade but still letting sunlight stream through onto the ground.
I took a deep breath before settling into a stance that the manual showed me. I drew my arm back and focused on the spot where I was going to hit. I held it there for a moment, feeling some doubt in my mind about following through before dismissing the thought and focusing.
I had my chance to back out and it was too late to have regrets now. The choice had been made, if I let doubt seep into my mind at every step then I would never make any progress.
I let my right fist fly towards the bark, making sure to twist my hips and put my back into it. A resounding thud echoed throughout the forest as my fist made contact with the bark, and the tree's leaves rustled just a bit from the sudden movement.
The shockway traveled up my arm and into my shoulder bringing pain with it. It was sharp and piercing even as I pulled my hand back, shaking it to try and alleviate the feeling somewhat.
The tree was unsurprisingly not damaged in the slightest by the attack, though the skin on my knuckles had ripped and left some blood on the bark. The pain faded from sharp to dull as it throbbed up and down my arm.
I looked down and saw a minor cut on my knuckles along with some swelling of the wrist. I wiggled my fingers to make sure I didn't break anything before taking a stance again, this time aiming at the tree with my other hand.
I felt the manual give me information, adjusting my stance to correct the errors it had found before surging forward again. My fist made contact with the bark again, the skin breaking once again though this time the pain was less sharp and more dull after it made contact.
I brought my fist back and observed it. The size of the cut on my knuckles was about the same, though there wasn't as much swelling on my wrist this time.
I took a different stance, this time intending to strike with my right elbow. The manual gave me more information on how to adjust it, I did so and lashed out. This time, a dull thud and shock reverberated throughout my body, though no blood. An improvement, even if it was only a minor one, to my technique.
I repeated the process with my left elbow, gaining similar results before continuing with my feet and knees. Each body part was left throbbing as a dull pain radiated out and into my brain.
I took another stance and struck again with my right fist. The thud resounded throughout the forest, the pain less this time with new swelling almost non-existent. I moved on to the next body part.
I went on like that for who knows how long, repeating the cycle after every correction and adjustment the manual recommended to me. And the crazy part is that it was working.
Each repetition brought a new observation that improved my stance and lessened the pain. It brought more understanding of how my body was moving and how it was supposed to move.
I see why the manual needed to be linked to you now. There was no other way that it would be able to give you live feedback on your training with as much clarity as it currently was. Words, pictures, both can be misinterpreted if you are just reading them on a page.
But actually feeling how it was supposed to be with your body, feeling the nudge in your soul that moved your arms or leg just a little to the left or right? There was simply no substitute.
I had no idea how far I advanced today in terms of my fighting technique but I felt like I knew a whole lot more about how to punch and kick than I did this morning.
After repeating the sets of punching a tree for each body part, I felt my body reach its limit. Everything was in pain, not the pain that I felt when I first arrived in the world, I don't think I can ever get close to that again, but pain nonetheless.
Meaning it was time to enact the second phase of cultivating, the breathing phase. I sat down cross-legged under the shade of the tree as I tried to get into the flow state I experienced yesterday.
I let my breath fall into a familiar rhythm as I closed my eyes and focused on my injuries. I felt my awareness expand to my whole body, the soreness in all the different muscles was distracting but I eventually tuned it out and focused on what I really wanted, my skin.
I felt the cuts on my knuckles slowly begin to itch but this time I was expecting it. Instead of letting it take me out of my trance, I instead paid closer attention to the feeling.
At first, it seemed like the itch was just getting stronger but I was able to gradually focus on it. I realized that the itching came in waves. They were faint at first, but once I found them, they seemed to grow in strength while slowing down in frequency.
I slowly matched my breathing to the wave's frequency, careful not to break my concentration and before long my breathing matched their slowing pace. The next step was to feel where the waves would travel after they radiated from my knuckles.
I felt it glide along the surface of my skin, making its way up my arms to my torso where it split off, some going up to my head while the others traveled down through my torso and into my legs and feet.
I couldn't control them at all, they simply rippled up and down my skin following their own motion. The longer I observed them, the more pronounced the feeling became.
The intervals between the waves became longer as the feeling got stronger, eventually becoming powerful pulses that danced across my skin until finally the last wave ran its course, and I was broken out of my trance.
I opened my eyes and was greeted with pictures of a forest at dusk. The last beams of orange sunlight illuminated my now healed skin, having some redness and scarring visible, but otherwise, barely any scabs.
"Amazing," I found myself whispering in awe as I observed the changes to my wounds. It wasn't all that impressive when compared to the cultivation stories I read in my old world, but it was still leagues above what was expected after resting for just a few hours.
'If this is how fast my healing is at the first stage after a single day of training, what will the other levels look like?' I thought as excitement and anticipation welled up inside me.
I was eager to train more but it was getting dark, and I doubted the forest at night in fantasy land was safe for training. I slowly got up, careful to avoid aggravating my sore muscles and began the walk back to the town.
As I followed the path, the sun disappeared leaving the only light source to guide me as the moon. Let me just say, I get why no one ever went out at night back before electricity was invented.
Even with the moon being almost full, it was still shockingly dark without any other light source. I'll need to bring a lantern or something in my spatial ring in case I'm still out after dark again.
Luckily, the walk back wasn't too long as I just followed the path rather than wandering off and getting lost.
I made it to the walls and passed the mangled lump of metal that was once the gate before arriving at what I'm pretty sure is the only livable house left in the town.
It was almost pitch black inside, the moonlight barely illuminating the way to my bed. I fumbled around in the dark before flopping onto it, exhausted and starving.
I ate my dinner, bread with some smoked meat, before drinking a canteen full of water. As much as I would like to continue my training, I need to get more food and water before my supplies run out. It was time to put the survival skills my dad taught me to use.
There has to be a source of water near the town, either a well that I can try to repair or a river. I hope there's a river that would solve both of my problems in one go. I need to go exploring tomorrow, huh?
With my rough plan and goals set for tomorrow, I let the tiredness from the day wash over me and slowly drifted to sleep.