A Step on a Long Road

With the core also comes the completion of a quest. A quest that would hopefully provide Angela with yet another means of increasing her power. If she was to face the incoming trials (though she would do her best to avoid the needless killing of sentient life) she would have to continuously strive to become as strong as she could, there is no upper limit to how much preparation can be considered good with regards to ones own life.

[Explore a rank one earth class demon island and retrieve its core: 1/1, reward: rank one 'earthen body' tempering arts (complete)]

That's right, the cultivation she had read about so often, that is the potential source of strength rewarded by the quest. Though she doesn't know what the body tempering arts are, from the name she can deduce that it is similar to the cultivation of the 'fleshy body' that is talked about so often in those wuxia novels.

Upon opening the book, Angela is confronted with a series of baffling diagrams depicting a humanoid figure in various different positions, often with many complicated lines and arrows. Thankfully there is some explanation otherwise she would have been completely lost.

"To strengthen the body one must first strengthen the mind's control over the body. To do this one must visualise and control anima to flow along the natural canals of the body. From there the true body strengthening can begin."

"Once in control of the entire canal network the expansion of each canal can begin. This is a long and arduous process that will cause immense pain to the practitioner. Once the canals reach a suitable width a qualitative transformation will occur, causing the flesh, blood and bone of the practitioner to reach a new level of durability and strength."

The diagrams show the various postures and positions required to reach each level. There are nine levels (one for each mortal rank) and each level requires a different position and focuses on different channels.

Ranks one through to three are focused on the waist downwards, starting from the feet before working up to the lower leg and then the upper leg. Four to six is the hands, forearms and upper arms. Finally, seven to nine is the torso, head and brain.

Shortly after starting Angela encounters her first problem, the positions are incredibly hard to hold, it is almost like doing yoga. Each position requires her to bend her body in an unnatural way, contorting he shape into bizarre poses. She can barely manage to get herself into the first position but once she does it is almost impossible to keep her balance, not to mention concentrate on something as intricate as the inner flow of anima.

Eventually she gives up on holding the position for now, she has to focus on her balance and flexibility first. Of course, this is more easily said than done. The difficulty of creating a way to improve both flexibility and balance with no prior knowledge should not be understated, it is incredibly difficult.

Most people, in order to practice their balance, might stand on one leg or walk across a narrow object, this is hower, an unefficient and limited way of practicing. Instead, Angela plans out a series of poses designed to be perfectly balanced. Then she forcefully unbalances herself by putting a weight on one of her wrists. This method of training is much more difficult but also much more rewarding. In addition, due to the nature of the poses Angela chooses, the task also improves her flexibility at the same time.

This will be her first step onto the road that is cultivation and as such, Angela wants to make sure that she does everything extremely well. As they say, only deep foundations can support a magnificent sky scraper.

With exemplary dedication and perseverence, Angela procedes with her training, devoting most of her time to the training exercises as well as the body arts. With such a great amout of input, how could there be a small output, Angela's flexibility and poise increases at an astonishing rate and within a week she can easily hold the first position that had caused her so much trouble at the beginning.

It was time to begin. First Angela spent a long time preparing her mind and body. She had read about such rituals being taken before cultivation though she honestly has no idea if they are actually helpful or not. Still, there was no harm in being overly cautious and it was in Angela's nature to be as ready as possible.

After the preparations Angela gracefully takes the pose depicted in the book, her body forming a lambda symbol, her legs about a meter apart with her body curved like the neck of a swan. Once in this position Angela could feel the anima all around her, it was a miraculous feeling akin to being submerged into a hot bath after a tiring excersize. She was ready to begin.