12 Nature's breath manual

Everyone was dumbfounded. There was no such name in the history of their race. It wasn't unheard of, someone making his own name, it was just unusual.

"Drake. I like it!" shouted Gillian. "My little boy, Drake! Haha!"

All of them agreed that the name was good and they accepted it without any arguments.

"Drake, I know that what we discussed can be a big burden for a child of your age to bare, but try to forget about it. The chances of you seeing something like that again are simply too low. Right now, you should be focusing on growing stronger." said Darth. "But we had enough excitements for today. It is better for you to go straight to bed since you still have training tomorrow."

"I will be picking you same time tomorrow, Drake." smiled Doko and left along with Darth.

"You heard your father little one, go straight to bed, don't forget you went berserk not too long ago, and since you do not know the breathing technique yet, you won't recover so fast. Luckily for you, I have the feeling you will be learning it tomorrow," said Gillian while gently pushing Drake towards his bed.

After he lied down on his bed and he was left alone to sleep, Drake started rethinking his dream.

'According to what they said, that means the dream is real and is something that happened a long time ago to that monkey god. It is good that I left the details about the staff out of my description. I have a feeling that the staff, that God was using is the same one as the one Darth uses. After I get strong enough and find a way to leave this place, I should find an opportunity to steal it. I'll take as repayment since my actions will be helping them as well.'

Eventually, Drake fell asleep trying to plan his next actions, but he knew that the most important part is to learn the breathing technique and the cultivation manual so he can acquire some actual strength. Otherwise, all his plans will be for nought.

The next morning, Doko came on time as promised but this time Drake was already awake and ready for him. As soon as they arrived at their usual spot, Doko started explaining the breathing technique to Drake.

"Ok kiddo, listen up, the breathing technique is actually simple since you already know how to absorb Ki. All you have to do is change your breathing rhythm while infusing Ki to your breaths. From now on I want you to keep breathing like that at all times, no matter if we are doing body training, cultivating or sleeping.

You will be taking three long breathes and one short. Between the long breaths, you will be taking a pause of three seconds, two seconds and one second respectively. As for the short one, there will be no pause between the last big breath and it. It is essential to infuse Ki to your breaths, so you have to coordinate your soul and body to succeed.

Today and the next two days you will be focusing on that, and from the third day, you will be doing it while also focusing on your soul. One week from now, your body will be fully recovered, so we are going to start body training. Lastly, about one month from now we are going to test your soul power once again. It will have probably increased significantly to make you eligible for learning our cultivation manual, providing that you are diligent in your training."

Even though Drake had a hard time at start adjusting his rhythm, he became familiar with it soon enough as it was just a matter of getting used to it. In order to make things harder, after he started sensing his soul and keeping the breathing technique, Doko started distracting him either by shouting at random times or pushing him slightly to throw him off balance.

Soon, one week has gone by, and his body was ready to start training. Doko and Drake were facing each other at their usual spot.

"Alright Drake, your progress so far has been admirable, but that was the easy part. I will be showing you a set of moves, and I want you to copy them. We will be doing these moves for the better part of the day. These moves are focusing on training your body based on agility.

However, do not think that your agility will be the only thing increasing. Since you will be doing them along with your breathing, your body will naturally get stronger due to the natural Ki. These techniques are enough for you to break into the first stage of the Body Refinement realm, which is the first realm of cultivation. Either I or your father will explain more about the cultivation realms after you learn your cultivation technique, so once again, focus on our current training and not your future one."

After Doko finished explaining, he started doing some yoga-like movements that made him look kind of funny. Due to him being a monkey, Drake thought he was doing some kind of Circus act.

'Isn't this just yoga specialized for monkeys? I swear if this wasn't including some poses that could only be done by having a tail, it would be identical to the yoga back in my world.' thought Drake while having a funny looking expression on his face. 'Well, if it can make me more powerful, I wouldn't mind walking on all fours every day.'

Drake was thinking it will be easy for him to master these movements since he had taken some yoga lessons when he was using, but as soon as he started, he noticed a huge problem.

'What is this? Every time I try to perform these movements, my breathing gets disrupted.'

"You thought it would be this easy? HA HA HA. Since it focuses on becoming one with nature, then this was bound to be hard kiddo. The key to success for it is doing the movements while keeping up your breathing technique." Looking at Drake, Doko had a triumphant smile on his face. "Time for your real training to start. I will be correcting your mistakes so you can master it faster."

After Doko said that, his expression turned stricter than before and he started correcting Drake's mistakes. When he said correcting, he meant hitting Drake on the part that had the movement wrong, with his tail.

But who was Doko? He was one of the strongest in the tribe with ages of cultivation and body training behind him. A cultivator trains every part of his body, including the tail. Every time he hit him, Drake was like being whipped and soon the parts that the tail had hit more than once, started bleeding.

"That's enough for today. Go back and take a red pill from what your grandmother gave you and eat some of the herbs. I want you to take a pill and eat the herbs daily from now on as soon as we finish our training. Then you are to rest immediately." Doko stopped the training as he could see that Drake was on the brink of falling down.

The moment Doko said that Drake actually fell down and started breathing heavily. He couldn't even keep the breathing rhythm he just got used to. It took him a few minutes to adjust it again; then he tried standing up to go home.

'He didn't even whine or uttered a complaint the whole time...' Doko thought while watching Drake leaving. 'That's a good son you have there Darth.'

After Drake arrived in his house he was barely able to eat the pill, the herbs and some fruits his mother had prepared for him. Under the constant complaints and threats toward Doko from Gillian, mentioning how he was mistreating her son and she needs to have a word with him, Drake moved to his bed and lied down.

He was unable to relax due to the pain his whole body was in.

'Holy fuck, this is painful.' was Drake's last thought before sleep took over him as he was clearly exhausted.