22 The first steps on martial road!

It was finally time to start cultivating the body. His wounds healed and the foundation was strong enough. The Dravas clan had a special set of exercises before real inner energy cultivation. Neo closed the doors of his room and started to practice this set. In a previous life, he had a body with a lot of impurities, so he was preparing for inner cultivation for a long time. This time, it will take a few hours at most.

First movement... Second movement...third movement... It was repeated in a loop for straight 3 hours already. He finally felt a trace of inner energy in his body.

"Three hours not bad! Hahaha. If Dravas clan saw this they would be extremely shocked!"

He was extremely happy because martial arts will allow him to protect himself. It will be possible to go and explore the forest of death when his strength grows.

(Cultivation of inner energy, time to start using breathing technique.)

The breathing technique allowed the user to produce the inner energy in the body. He mastered this to perfection in his previous life. The amount of inner energy will slowly grow until the moment, it will be enough to open meridians. Neo trained entire night and he felt amazing. The presence of inner energy was a wonderful feeling. His body still has physical needs like sleep and hunger but going a few days without sleep won't be a problem. The most important part that inner energy boosted was stamina and regeneration ability.

A few days later

Neo finally left his room and decided to visit the laboratory of Marcus. The place was like a few tornadoes had a party there for a few days. The appearance of Marcus wasn't better, hair standing straight like he was after thunder strike.

(Mad scientist indeed. Good that I didn't give him any formulas for unstable substances, or he would kill us all. I need to reconsider the position of the laboratory in the future.)

"Marcus?!? I told you slowly ingest the knowledge and look at you! Go clean yourself and get some sleep!" He ordered him with domineering voice. It was obvious that without pressure this man would not go sleep until he collapses from exhaustion."

"Please, just a few more moments..." He was like a child begging to let him play little more.

"No. If I let you do this time, I don't know what will happen in the future." Neo needed to be strict parent or Marcus will eventually kill himself.

(I know that it won't help much...whatever...I can make him go to sleep with the contract. Let's have little hope into this mad moron.)

The paper mill was ready and the process of paper making started.

(In future I will make a more advanced version of this but for now, it's more than enough.)

During the last days, he prepared enough cleansing elixir for the entire mansion. The condition was that people will be contracted to one of his subordinates. If one of your minions contracted someone, contract worked on minions of minions. The hierarchy was important in any organization. He could take care of everything, his knowledge was needed everywhere.

(It would be easier if I could clone myself...)

All of his trusted subordinates had already a minimum second level of soul embryo. The process of contracting all people started. Some of the people turned out to be spies. Fortunately, they didn't leak much, most of the important secrets were still safe.

They were executed as an example that there is no place for betrayals in this mansion.

(It would be impossible to contract every person. It's an only temporary solution. Maybe in the future, I won't need to enslave them with contract everyone to be sure that they won't betray me.)

Neo imparted necessary exercises for the body and flexibility to the Sam. He will learn them and later he will teach the new recruits.

(I could teach them one of my Earth's languages, and we could use it as a secret code. More safety measures are good. The improved learning capability will, let them learn an easier language with no time.)

Meditation technique didn't only strengthen the soul. It improved the learning capability and comprehension of martial arts. The better subordinates meant easier and faster recreating the technology.

Another problem was creating glass. It required high temperature to melt sand into glass, thus normal stone wasn't a good tool for that kind of job. There are two necessary items, a stove that could resist very high temperature and something that would create this temperature.

(I think this craftsman family could be useful. Most of the craftsman professions respect each other. I will leave glassmaking for a moment.)

A month later.

The paper mill made the second batch of paper. It wasn't white like modern paper but it was still cheaper and better than skin parchments. Neo was almost ready to open meridians. In his previous life, he relied on luck and natural potential. This time he couldn't risk that much. Meridians were like other organs and acumpture with help of inner energy could resolve the problem of opening them.

He needed to prepare, the meridians opening weren't that big, so he needed the special needles. The needles of this kind of precision were hard to made by current blacksmiths. It will take two weeks to make these special needles.

(I could help them improve their methods...however, it's risky and won't help me in my plans.)

Someday, he will have his own blacksmiths, and they will learn modern world methods. These people are not ready to advance technology yet.

The first batch of beggars is trained by Neo and Sam. Most of them are not talented in martial arts but it doesn't matter. Neo decided to write some books about the economy, math, and other basic fields. The orphanage was an investment in the future, and he cannot be stingy with these people. These people will become the foundation for the civilization.

(Writing so many books will be a hassle. Maybe I should create the printing press?)

"For now, I will write the one of every book and order someone to copy that. I don't have an exact design in my head and it will take time to recreate it."

He began to write elementary books. It will important to educate his subordinates. The knowledge will push their minds into new inventions. There was even possibility of some of them to create technology without Neo helping them.

(Writing on a computer is a few times faster! It's annoying but I need to write these books, none has this knowledge to do it for me!)