23 Assiduous

Controlling the 20 qi wisps he had already formed with his thoughts, they soon made their way towards a certain part of his body in unison, smashing against it with as much force as they could muster.

Bang!

At the very instant the qi wisps and the insides of his body collided, Bell instantly felt an immense wave of pain wash over his body, pain that could even be said to be worse than getting kicked in the procreation chamber. Naturally, such a level of pain had never been experienced by Bell before in his past life and in his current, which meant that he could not help but vent out all of the pain he felt through a mix of screams and grunts.

Surprisingly, even though a normal cultivator would have been annoyed at Bell screaming in pain every once in a while as he continued to cultivate his body, Sixth Void had his eyes closed as he continued to passively absorb energy from the surroundings. It was as if Sixth Void was thinking that Bell wasn't there at all.

Then again, even though Bell felt immense pain from what he was doing to himself, he eventually noticed that the pain he felt from hitting the spot he first picked with the qi wisps gradually decreased. Sure, it was still painful, but it was not as painful as it previously was.

With that, Bell felt a bit more motivation to continue torturing his insides by hammering his qi wisps towards the walls of his insides, gradually feeling that his perception of pain on that spot was gradually disappearing. Eventually, by the time he had hammered the qi wisps on that spot an uncountable number of times, a dull thump resounded throughout his body, prompting him to stop as he thought in excitement, 'Did I reach the 1st Stage of the Body Forging Realm?'

As he thought of this, he went ahead and commanded the system to show him his latest notifications, only to find out that none of them were related to him breaking through to the 1st Stage of the Body Forging Realm. Wondering what he had done wrong, Bell decided to take a look at the Crimson Body Manual once more, wanting to make sure that he did not miss even a single detail.

Fortunately, it did not take long for him to find out the reason why he had not reached the 1st Stage of the Body Forging Realm yet. As it turns out, to reach the 1st Stage of the Body Forging Realm according to the Crimson Body Manual, the thump that would have to resound out of Bell's body would have to crisp and clear, not like the dull thump that resounded when his qi wisps collided with the spot he had been hammering on.

While thinking up of methods to achieve this crisp and clear thump, a wave of realization soon washed over Bell, inwardly letting out a sigh as he moved the qi wisps he had formed towards a spot he had not hammered before.

And so, Bell's symphony of cries, screams, and grunts had returned once more. Nevertheless, Bell noticed that the thump sound that would come about when he had hammered a certain spot on the inside of his body to its limit had gradually become clearer the more spots he hammered. With that, his previous conjecture, which he thought was the worst case scenario, turned out to be true.

By the time he had finished hammering every spot on the inside of his body to its limit, about two-thirds of a day had passed since then, with the time now being in the middle of the night. With only one spot on the inside of his body not being hammered to its limit, Bell focused all of his attention towards this remaining spot, allowing the qi wisps he had formed to do all of the work as eventually, a crisp and clear thump resounded all over his body, allowing Bell to finally let out a sigh of relief.

Ding!

[You have broken through to the 1st Stage of the Body Forging Realm!]

[Constitution +0.1]

Seeing as how the system had acknowledged the clear thump that resounded out of his body, Bell could not help but inwardly scream in glee that he had finally taken a step into the path of external cultivation. Unexpectedly, this celebration was short-lived as he felt that the cells making up his body had expanded, though they still gave off the feeling that they were compact. Sensing this, he now knew what he had to do to proceed in the path of external cultivation, letting out a sigh as he had finally noticed the amount of time it took for him to reach the 1st Stage of the Body Forging Realm.

"Sure, I may have already been at the 1st Stage of the Body Forging Realm once I unlocked it, but it only took me half a day to break through to the next stage. Although the difference in cultivation speed is only four hours, surely there's a way to speed this up, right?" Bell muttered to himself before asking the system, "System, is there a way I can increase the speed at which I cultivate my body?"

Surprisingly, the system responded in its monotonous voice, "To answer the owner's question, the option to see the rate at which the body is being cultivated and how much progress is needed to proceed to the next stage has been enabled."

Ding!

[You have unlocked the Forging Speed stat. This stat shall appear beside your Origin Marrow. Your current Forging Speed is 1 point every minute.]

[You have unlocked the Forging Points stat. You currently need 2000 Forging Points to proceed to the next stage of the Body Forging Realm.]

Rather than be excited by the fact that he now had a way to visualize his progress whenever he cultivated his body, he was instead left at a loss for words.

"Eh?" Bell could only utter this sound from the mere shock he felt. And here he was, thinking that the reason the system did not allow him to visualize his progress in external cultivation was because he thought the system was making it feel more realistic. Ha! What a joke!

"You're telling me that I had the option to visualize my progress in that area all this time?" Eventually, Bell snapped back to reality, feeling a hint of anger from the system for not telling him, only to let out a long sigh soon after. In his mind, he thought that it was better for him to know of this feature rather than not know of it at all.

Then again, his original question was never answered by the system. With that, he asked the system once again, "System, is there a way for me to increase the speed at which I cultivate my body?"

Unexpectedly, the system decided to answer in a roundabout way once more as it responded, "To answer the owner's question, the owner's would have to reach the peak of the Body Forging Realm to obtain the answer to that. Teehee~"

"Don't you teehee~ me, you goddamn system!" At this point, Bell's anger had reached its peak, feeling like the system had been toying with him all this time. Fortunately, he did not let his anger reign over his rationality, taking in a few deep breaths to calm himself down.

By the time he was back to his usual composed self, he went ahead and took a look at his status screen, taking note of the rate that appeared beside the Origin Marrow stat.

________

Origin Marrow: Mortal Stage 1 (1 pt./min.)

________

Seeing how he would have to fill up the Forging Points stat to 2000 points to reach the 2nd Stage of the Body Forging Realm, he soon calculated that he would have to waste around one and a half days just to achieve it. Thinking about how the amount of qi he needed to accumulate doubled with every 10 wisps he created, he could not help but think that it would be better for him to focus his attention on internal cultivation in the meantime.

And so, that's what he did. In his mind, he thought that it would be better for him to reach the peak of the Qi Sensing Realm first before he focused his attention on cultivating his body. Closing his eyes once more in the middle of the night, he went ahead and spent about four and a half hours to conjure his 21st qi wisp, allowing him to officially enter the 3rd Stage of the Qi Sensing Realm.

Surprisingly, after that, as if he had gone into a trance, he continued to absorb qi from the surroundings and conjure wisps nonstop. During this trance, he reached the limit of the 3rd Stage of the Qi Sensing Realm, only to break through the 4th Stage of the Qi Sensing Realm sometime later.

By the time he had gotten out of this trance, he had been continuously cultivating for over 10 days at this point, which meant that he had now been in this world for about two weeks in total. As he opened his eyes, a gaze that contained a hint of hidden strength in it could be seen coming from Bell as he looked at his surroundings from a slightly newer perspective.

At this moment, Bell had now reached the peak of the 4th Stage, forming a total of 40 crimson qi wisps, giving him a total of 400 True Qi points to work with. Although he did not have the ability to release this True Qi out of his body yet, he knew very well that if he infused it all over his body, his combat prowess would undergo a substantial increase, given by the fact that his Constitution Multiplier stat was now at 1.4x.

Seeing as how Bell's aura emanated the feeling of slight bloodlust, Sixth Void finally opened his eyes and looked at Bell on his shoulder. Scratching his head, he asked him, "You're not going to cultivate any more?"

"I'll continue cultivating after this, but I just wanted to know how much I've improved since I've started cultivating," Bell replied. With a hint of killing intent in his tone, he continued, "You do know what I mean by that, right?"

Sensing the slight killing intent coming from Bell, Sixth Void lightly nodded as he was all too familiar with what Bell was feeling. Opening his mouth, he replied, "You want to fight against some beasts in the wild?"

"Yeah," Bell replied in affirmation. "Although I've already broken through the curse of not being able to absorb qi, I can still improve my strength by absorbing blood."

Now that he had been baptized by the feeling of cultivation, he had allowed his morality as a person to be more loose, allowing his instincts as a beast to become more prominent. Of course, the bloodlust he was emanating at this moment was still a far cry compared to the bloodlust emanated by beasts that constantly lived under the law of the jungle. Well, he still had the soul of a human, after all.

"Hmm…" Sixth Void went silent for a bit before deciding to ask, "Now that I think about it, why are you asking me? Do you want me to come along with you?"

With a light chuckle, Bell replied, "Sure, I'm fine heading off into the forest depths all on my own…but I have a feeling that you want to see fight against other beasts. Is my hunch correct?"

Feeling as if he was being exposed, Sixth Void let out an awkward chuckle as he stood up. With Bell hovering in midair, Sixth Void looked at him and said, "Well, you're not wrong. I am quite curious as to how a mosquito would fight against other beasts."

"And here I am, giving you the chance to see a mosquito fight against other beasts firsthand," Bell replied. "Though, if you really want me to be serious, could you help me search for beasts that have rare bloodlines?"

"Sure, why not?" Sixth Void shrugged his shoulders as he responded to Bell's request, making Bell let out laughter in excitement.

And so, with an agreement between the two of them, they had finally left the area near entrance of the cave they had been staying for over a week, heading into the forest depths to find beasts to fight against.