41 Body Methods

For the next couple of hours, Jack sat under the tree in the park and read his scrolls.

'If I use my intent on the shape sigil I could mold the Air Blast into what I want, but I'll have to use the range sigil together with the compression and focus sigils too. I might even have to sever the strengthening sigil all together, but it should work in close fights. I'll have to test these things out carefully over the next few days.' Jack thought as he finished his last notes and stood up.

He wrote everything in English so the people around him couldn't figure out what he planned to do. If the young lady had the ability to read his notes yesterday when she saw them he might have had to kill her.

Jack left the library and went to get the food for his people. The rest of the day went by in a blur as he performed his duties as the Senior Brother and leader of the Gravediggers. When he gave that day's earnings to Elder Yu's spirit puppet, it just gave the pouch a glance before taking it away.

After the evening meal, he went to his clearing to practice the Air Blast spell.

He first tried to construct it with his right hand, but his meridians still ached him a little when he cycled spirit energy through them, so he decided to let it rest and started practicing with his left.

'Connect air with compression first, use shape to visualize what I want, use focus on compression and range together to make it smaller, sever any strengthening, and finally add the forward sigil for direction.' Jack had to stare at the spell's structure for over five minutes to visualize exactly what he wanted while still holding the entire thing together.

When he felt sure in his arrangement he connected the last strand of spirit energy and activated it.

With a soft *hiss* sound, a compressed stream of air, the size of a fist, left Jack's hand for a couple of meters before dissipating.

Jack frowned at his hand and sat down on a stump to think. 'What am I missing? This should have worked, it had a bit of the effect that I wanted, but it's still too big. How did the Elder make his spell as small as he did?'

He closed his eyes and thought back to the demonstration that Elder Yu performed for him a couple of days ago. Now that he had more knowledge about the process he saw a few things that he just couldn't understand on that day.

A few minutes later Jack's eyes snapped open as he exclaimed "He added more than one link!"

He remembered that when the Elder did his demonstration, his spell had more than one connection to different sigils. His strengthening and range sigils had a lot more connections to each other and other sigils than his shape or compression had.

Jack felt a sense of glee as he looked back down at his left hand and started experimenting.

The next day, his people had strange looks on their faces when Jack drove the corpse cart to their gathering location with crude bandages covering his hands.

Kuang Bindun walked to the cart and looked at Jack's hands as he asked "Tanda, what happened?"

Jack smiled down at him and answered "I had a breakthrough, Bindun." He looked up at the brightening sky and added "Things are looking up, my friend."

An hour later he left his men in the Gravedigger courtyard and started walking down the main street. This time he made sure to ask if the place that he planned to visit worked from dawn during his debt collecting. The answer he got from the burly representative of Unbreakable Rock Mountain assured him that "True practitioners of the Martial Dao always stand ready to face their enemies."

Jack took it also to mean that they stood ready to face them at dawn too.

He stopped in front of an identical pair of doors to the library's, only the materials of these ones looked like some kind of white wood. They had the Endless Cycle Sect's crest emblazoned on the left door, done in a peculiar black metallic paint, and a clenched bloody fist on the right.

Jack walked up to the left door, fished out his martial hall entrance token, imbued it with his spirit energy, and touched it to the center of the Sect's crest.

The sigils that lit up looked like the ones from the library's doors, only on these ones the bloody fist opened up to reveal a handle.

With a push, Jack entered into a large packed dirt training yard filled with training dummies, weights, wooden weapons, and a ring for sparing.

A few people dressed in dark brown robes were already sweating in the yard. When they saw Jack a couple of them had a slightly surprised look flash across their face, but then they continued with their practice.

Jack gave them all a glance, before focusing on the one-story squat wooden building that stood in the back of the yard.

In comparison to the glamorous library, the martial hall looked quite lacking. Jack headed straight for it.

When he entered he saw six people in brown robes sitting on the wooden floor in different parts of the hall while staring at the walls. Jack glanced at the walls and saw a lot of different real life-sized drawings of spirit energy circulation, along with their descriptions on the side.

One of the people sitting down on the floor stood up and walked towards Jack.

"Welcome, new Disciple Brother from the Eternal Rest Mountain. It gives me great pleasure to see one of you take an interest in body cultivation." The large and burly man said with a friendly smile as he clasped his hands in greeting. He even gave Kuang Bindun a run for his money. "I am Bi Xiongtuo; I take care of this martial hall."

Jack returned the greeting and said, "I'm Song Tanda, nice to meet you." He hesitated for a second before asking "What's the price for learning the cultivation methods here?"

Bi Xiongtuo gave a rumbling chuckle as he answered "We demand no cost for knowledge except for your sweat and diligence. Any disciple has the freedom to come here and learn our ways."

Jack's brows rose in surprise as he looked around the long walls for a second before asking "Do you have any recommendations for someone that wants to improve their body's recovery abilities?"

Bi Xiongtuo nodded his head as he said "Of course." He turned to his right and led Jack up to a cultivation diagram. He gestured towards it with his hand and said "This Beast Recovery Method teaches us how to use our own spirit energy like the spirit beasts do. It can increase your recovery speed by six times of what it is now if used properly."

Jack stared at the cultivation method with greed as he said "Thank you for your help, Disciple Brother Bi." He moved in closer to the depiction on the wall and started studying the process it described.

Bi Xiongtuo studied Jack for a few seconds, glanced at his bandaged hands, shook his head, and walked back to continue his own cultivation.

An hour later Jack let out a long breath through his nose, stepped back from the Beast Recovery Method, and shook his head in exasperation.

'Do they really have to put so many flowery descriptions into something that could fit in a single sentence? Just say move your spirit energy to the injured areas through the blood, instead of through the meridians. I wonder how many people even got that when they studied this drivel.' Jack thought as he closed his eyes and focused on the meridians near his heart.

A few seconds later a strand of spirit energy separated from one of his main meridian clusters and attached itself to his aorta. 'Just a bit, don't want to blow myself up.' Jack thought as he imbued a tiny amount of his spirit energy into his blood.

The next second he felt a burst of comfort as the imbued blood circulated through his body.

'This feels great!' Jack exclaimed in his mind as even some internal injuries that he didn't even know he had started to heal. He kept the trickle of spirit energy going as he turned and walked over to Bi Xiongtuo.

When he saw Jack coming his way, Bi Xiongtuo stood up with a knowing look on his face and said "Do not lose hope, Song Tanda. Body cultivation methods are difficult and mysterious to comprehend for everyone."

Jack felt taken aback for a second, but then decided to go with it and put on a dejected mask as he said "Yeah, I guess I should start with something simpler." He looked up into Bi Xiongtuo's eyes and asked "What would you recommend for someone that doesn't have much spirit energy, nor training in its use inside the body?"

Bi Xiongtuo beamed at Jack in happiness, because he believed that Jack would give up after his first setback like he had seen many do in the past. He slapped Jack on the shoulder and said "Worry not; I have the perfect beginner cultivation skill to show you." He turned around and walked to the other side of the hall.

Jack almost collapsed to the floor when Bi Xiongtuo slapped his shoulder, and his blood imbuement stopped immediately. He cursed under his breath, reattached a strand of spirit energy to his aorta, and followed in Bi Xiongtuo's steps.

Bi Xiongtuo stopped in front of a much simpler depiction and said "This is the Oxen Rush Punch. Any novice in the martial path has to learn it, a lot of more advanced techniques stem from this skill." He turned back to face Jack and saw a strange look on his face. "What?" Bi Xiongtuo asked as his brows furrowed a little.

Jack gave an awkward cough as he said "I think I better learn something more suited for evasion first." while on the inside he fumed 'That cheap old bastard, he sold us the simplest punch possible for so much spirit stones. I'm gonna wring his neck the next time I see him.'

Bi Xiongtuo said "Oh." and took another look at Jack's slim frame. After a second of thought, he said "I guess you do have a point, follow me." He turned and walked down the row of depictions to one located a dozen meters away.

He stopped in front of it and said in a practiced way "This movement method is called Moon Step. Legends say that when practiced to its peak, it will allow the user to walk on moonlight. The best thing about it is that even cultivators such as us can learn it."

Jack gave it a quick glance and said "Perfect. Thank you Disciple Brother Bi." as he clasped his hands towards Bi Xiongtuo.

With a wave of a hand, Bi Xiongtuo dismissed Jack's courtesy and said "Thank me by giving it your all in your training." With that, he turned and left back to his own cultivation.

Jack looked at the cultivation diagram for the Moon Step and smiled while he thought 'This looks much more promising.'

A few hours later he turned away from the diagram and walked over to Bi Xiongtuo.

"Still no luck?" Bi Xiongtuo asked as he rose to his feet.

Jack shook his head as he said "I had a little progress, but I have to go back to my job. I'll come back tomorrow to continue my study. Thank you for all of your help Disciple Brother Bi."

Bi Xiongtuo nodded his head in understanding and escorted Jack out of the building.

When Jack returned to the Gravedigger building he went straight to the courtyard.

He entered just as they started their training warm-up exercises with Bai Maolong.

When they saw him everyone stopped and turned towards Jack.

He smiled at them from the entrance and shouted "Men, who wants to learn how to step on moonlight?!"