7 Eager to Cultivate!

Dinner ended up being rather eventful this time. Yuri was incredibly happy that Ashley was able to awaken a form of ether power. When confronted about what exactly his newfound power entailed, Ashley merely answered that he needed time to explore the possibilities and stabilize his internal energy.

Actually, the problem was he wouldn't actually be able to use any type of control power until he had finished practicing the <Goddess Weaving Technique> to perfection, since it was basically an important prerequisite to every thing that was contained within the Five Phase Manual. This was mainly a requirement due to the end result of the <Goddess Weaving Technique> leading to the person practicing it having a full compatibility with the ether powers that the Edict of the Yellow Emperor would end up granting the user.

Since Ashley had just learned the technique, he needed to cultivate it. However, he wasn't comfortable with sharing these details immediately. "As I said," Ashley started between mouthfuls of delicious pork cutlet. "I still need to explore the extent of which I can use my power. However, I am currently focusing on the enhancement side of things. I plan on further tempering my body since I have lost many years of developing my ether."

The three others at the table didn't see anything abnormal about that. It was a very true fact that because he only entered Ether Nourishment stage in his teenage years, he lost a lot of time spent in development that normally took place during early childhood. Thus, Ashley was perfectly in the right to focus on stabilizing his body and core, in order to make progressing in the future much smoother.

Since he immediately rose to the terminal stage of Ether Nourishment after absorbing the legacy of the Edict of the Yellow Emperor, his body was actually still in a relatively unstable state, since children usually gradually rose in a proper and progressive manner. After dinner, Ashley felt a lot better and immediately went to his room in order to practice the <Goddess Weaving Technique>. He quickly sat cross-legged on his bed and began to lock in on the Fairy Energy in his body.

Since he was able to produce it internally through Ether Resonance, he technically wouldn't ever run out of Fairy Energy as long as he was able to breathe. This was one of the reasons why practicing this technique was actually not that bad. The tough part was properly using his Fairy Energy as the 'thread' that would be woven into his very genetic makeup.

Carefully focusing his nerves and mental signals down on to the Fairy Energy which very coincidentally was located in the region above his groin, he began to draw it out in strands. At first, the strands were very thick, impossible to use in weaving. However, he quickly retracted it and attempted to tune his mental control of the Fairy Energy in order to thin it out. It took three hours of tough mental activity to get that single first step correct, but as it was a finely ingrained mental procedure, he ended up never messing it up after that.

The thin Fairy Energy then was fashioned into a stringy substance inside his body, which Ashley strained to try and control properly, as it began to fray! Nemea's voice rung out in his mind.

"Child, you are too hasty. It was already a big gain that you could create the Threads, this has already given you a minor success in the cultivation of the <Goddess Weaving Technique>. Fairy Energy Threads are the basic building block for the reconstruction of your body. You are not literally using it to weave, rather you are utilizing it to inject in a pristine state into key points in your body."

Nemea quickly pointed out that the <Goddess Weaving Technique> was composed of individual stages also, much like the stages of Ether Evolution. First, the Fairy Energy Threads must be injected into the tendons. Afterwards, they are directed into specific points in the body where a heartbeat's pulse could be felt. Nemea simply referred to them as 'pulses.'

Next, the muscles are injected with Fairy Energy before ending with the bones. After this is done, the Fairy Energy would then be able to permeate into the rest of the body, the turning point being the pulses. Since these pulses originated from the movements of arteries, that meant the Fairy Energy would have already penetrated the blood stream, which would flow through Ashley's entire body.

This also meant that this was the hardest step, since they were specific areas rather than simply generic body parts.

Learning all this, Ashley decided to stop for the meantime and he would continue through the spring vacation.

The days passed by. Spring vacation was actually not terribly long. It was only a bit longer than a week. So far, Ashley had spent the next three days doing absolutely nothing but attempting to cultivate the <Goddess Weaving Technique>. Bit by bit, Ashley could feel the changes in his body. His skin began to become more like smooth jade, and it was pale like a fair maiden's.

During the second day of this period of cultivation, Ashley had already succeeded in completing the injection of Fairy Energy into his tendons. He could feel his degree of movement and flexibility already increase by an absurd amount, finding that he could bend himself in all sorts of crazy ways without it hurting. It was truly a formidable way to cultivate the body! However, he did not let himself get complacent. This was, according to Nemea, the hardest part of the <Goddess Weaving Technique>.

Scientifically speaking, there were twelve common palpable sites on the human body. On the wrists, near the armpit, on the inside of the upper arm near the elbow, in the inner thigh, somewhere above the knee, on top of the foot, somewhere on a side of the ankle, and of course the places on the head and neck. The twelfth spot was actually not considered in the Five Phase Manual for some reason, but Ashley didn't bother asking about it.

Ashley had to manipulate his Fairy Energy in order to nourish all eleven of the spots. Nemea fortunately guided them with her voice of course, but Ashley still struggled to get the job done. By the end of the third day of this period, Ashley had only gotten one third of the way through, having spent half a day just to get the Fairy Energy to his elbows. Despite this, Ashley was already starting to feel changes in his mental state and bodily condition.

His mind felt more at ease and he seemed to be in a deeper state of clarity. It was mostly due to the power of the Fairy Energy being pumped about through his blood in small amounts. This would have a greater effect with the more pulses he nourished with Fairy Energy, but this had to be accomplished bit by bit. He continued this trend for a couple of days, and he finally managed to complete nourishing all eleven pulses by the end of the fifth day.

At this point, he had already spent half his spring vacation doing nothing but cultivating. It made his parents worry for him somewhat. Ashley simply brushed it off, saying he was working hard to try and nourish his body. He really wasn't lying, but it made Heather especially suspicious. However, she did not decide to confront him about it.

On the morning of the sixth day, a weekend, Ashley was about to continue on and begin to nourish his muscles, but the doorbell rang. Ken went to check the door and discovered that it was Ashley's friend, Rin Hanae, who dropped by for a visit. "Ashley, your friend is here to visit." Ken called out rather loudly, causing Ashley to go down to see her. He was still wearing reasonably loose-fitting clothing, as he didn't wear pajamas to bed.

He instead wore jersey shorts and a very plain t-shirt, which, coupled with his now incredibly womanly appearance, made him look rather different. Even Ken was shocked when Ashley had come down to see Rin.

"Hi, Rin!" Ashley smiled. His voice had risen a tiny pitch, which was detectable by Rin but not by Ken. However, she did not ask about that. She was instead more surprised that Ashley's appearance had become even more effeminate.

"Haha. Good morning, Ashley. Are you hiding something from me? Don't tell me they gave birth to a second daughter." Rin shamelessly joked right in front of Ken, causing his mouth to twitch and his face to twist into an awkward expression. He hurriedly left the two of them alone.

"We can talk about that later though, I just dropped by to see what you were doing. I hadn't heard anything from you online, so I was a bit worried... Who knew you were just taking it easy at home, eh?! Let's hang out today!"

Ashley felt he was getting a bit stuffy cultivating at home all the time and figured taking a break and hanging out with Rin wasn't a bad idea. Heather had already heard Rin enter too and it wasn't long before the entire family had invited Rin for breakfast.

Nobody mentioned anything about Ashley being able to control ether, which was good, since Ashley was sure Rin with her big mouth would spread the fact like wildfire. On top of his looks, that would really be the equivalent of courting death. With a tacit understanding of the situation, Ashley explained he had been relaxing at home and trying to forget about the stuff he went through at school throughout the academic year.

Yuri regaled Rin with embarrassing stories about Ashley's formative years, and overall the morning was rather cheerful. Then Rin brought up the idea of Ashley going out with her to hang out. Ken and Heather obviously had no problems with this, as they knew Ashley had spent half his vacation doing nothing but cultivating. It was socially unhealthy, and they were concerned that he would become an ether nourishing fanatic.

Ashley had the same thoughts too. "Yeah, I'd love to hang out! I never get the chance to do that after school, what with all those crazies trying to jump on me. I'd be happy to go with you." he said. Yuri was having strange thoughts in her mind.

"It's settled then, you go hurry up and get ready. You shouldn't be going out like that, right!" Rin laughed as Ashley flushed a little. Once breakfast was over, Ashley went upstairs to get ready while Rin stayed down to chat with Yuri. After about fifteen minutes, Ashley returned to Rin in his casual wear, a pair of skinny jeans and a very plain, non-descript white tee shirt. With his appearance, it really made him look like a genuine girl. Rin grinned and gave him a thumbs up.

"We might as well make this a girls' day out, huh!" Rin giggled.