Training

It took several hours for John and Mike to finish memorizing the entirety of their manuals. At this point they were free for the day, but Mike decided he wanted to begin learning gunsmithing and went off to sign up for some classes. Steven had long since disappeared, leaving John all by himself trying to figure out what to do.

The book told him where to find the special training room required of the Soul Wave cultivation method, so he decided to check it out. Despite it's power, the technique was actually incredibly unpopular due to how difficult it is to train. Unknown to John, every year several freshman choose to train in the technique only to give up after training a single time. The constant barrage of light and sound is incredibly distracting and somewhat painful, making it incredibly difficult to maintain your concentration and move your Qi to refine your body. The plus side is that due to it's difficulty you can progress through the levels fairly quickly. The record being two years to reach the peak of the Body Refining Realm, with the average being a three and a half years.

Since he'd taken so long to memorize the entire manual, he was actually the last freshman to arrive at the special training room. A bored looking young man wearing a Hunter's Badge looked up from his phone to say in a monotone, "It's free for this week, costs 5 academic credits per hour starting next week. Crush this to leave if you need to get out fast." He handed a talisman to John before waving him through the door to the training room, sending a text to his girlfriend. 'Got another one, wanna bet on how long he lasts?'

Taking a minute to remove Snakey from around his neck, John said. "Take a nap, I'll be back in a bit. We'll go find some live mice for you after I'm done."

Snakey hissed in agreement, slithering along the floor until if found a heating vent and curling up on top of it.

A minute later, the guy got a reply from his girlfriend, 'Blowjob says he doesn't make it 5 minutes.'

Thinking for a moment, the guy grinned. Either way he won in this scenario... 'Done, he went in at 1612.'

Entering the room, John sat down in the middle and heard a voice say, "Beginning training in 15 seconds, ready yourself."

Shrugging, John closed his eyes and took a deep breath. Before he could let it out, a blast of high-pitched noise shattered the silence and his eyes flew open showing a blinding light surrounding him on all sides. "WHAT THE!?!?!" He screamed in surprise. He'd known what to expect, but still. Thankfully, the high-pitched noise lowered in pitch a bit, giving him a moments reprieve to sit back down and close his eyes to searched for his Qi.

In order to enter Gallandwell, High you had to break through from a mortal to become a Body Refining Realm Cultivator. In order to do this, you have to find and open your dantian. For John, this had taken him 6 years of hard work and training, but that hard work paid off now as he was able to find it within 10 seconds. Only spent another minute fumbling around to begin controlling his Qi, moving it from his dantian to his body. Following the special pathway laid out in the Soul Wave manual, John started feeling his body heat flare, then go numb. He felt as if ants were crawling all over him, and during all of this he had to remain still. Ignoring the sound and noise while trying desperately to maintain control of his qi even as it fluctuated crazily with every change of frequency.

The first try, he got through about 5 percent of the route before he lost control. Bending over, he threw up all over the training room. As if this was a regular occurrence, a bot ran in and cleaned it up, removing all traces of the vomit within a minute. The 2nd, a little over 10%. The third, 25%. He lost track of time, falling into a kind of trance his entire body began shifting automatically to match his Qi every time the sound or light shifted in frequency.

According to the manual, the first time he trained he should only do a single full rotation through his body after which he needed to wait at least 12 hours to allow his body to adjust. He could then double the number of rotations every time he trains, increasing the speed of rotations every time he trained. This exponential increase causes your Qi to gather momentum over time and is what makes this technique both one of the most difficult to start training, and one of the easiest to finish training.

'Through the armpit' John was thinking, now so used to the room that he didn't even think about it. 'and back through the body to the dantian and I'll be done!' His Qi was constantly shifting, trying to escape from his grasp, but by this point he had learned how to maintain his calm and stay in control at all times. The nearer he got to completing a full rotation, the more difficult it was to continue until he spent nearly 5 minutes sitting there unable to move forwards, waiting for the perfect moment to complete the cycle.

Outside, the guy was no longer bored. He'd long since won that blowjob from his girlfriend, but now he starting to get worried about that freshman. Looking up his details, he used the computer to call in Mr. Carter who was listed as the freshman's teacher.

Walking briskly through the door, several new stains had somehow accumulated on Mr. Carter's yellow sweatshirt and his feet were just as dirty and bare as before. The upperclassman stared at Mr. Carter unable to believe his sights, he'd never seen anyone like this in his life...

"Why'd you call me?" Mr. Carter asked the upperclassman, snapping him out of his daze.

The upperclassman pointed to the door to the training room saying, "One of your students, a..." He took a moment to look up the name. "John Caplin, has been in there for nearly 2 hours, and it's his first time. I've never seen anyone last more than 10 minutes before!" By this point, the student was half frantic. He sure as hell didn't want to be held responsible for some idiot freshman killing himself in the sound and light torture chamber.

"Relax." Mr. Carter said, walking past him to the computer and bent over to input a special access code that allowed him to look into the training room. "Wow, he's almost done it!" He exclaimed. It'd taken him nearly a week to finish the first round of training when he'd started. The only reason he'd managed to even finish it was his father yelling at him over and over again that this was one of the strongest cultivation techniques in the world...

"Why isn't he finishing the circuit?" The upperclassman asked, looking over Mr. Carter's shoulder. "He's right there, he could finish at any instant."

Mr. Carter smiled, remembering how hard it is to complete the first revolution of the Soul Wave technique, "Because he can't. If he goes forwards even a little bit he'll lose control of his Wi and he'll be forced to wait for at least a week to try again as his body recovers from the backlash. He's waiting for the perfect moment to go..."

As Mr. Carter spoke, John suddenly felt it. The sound in the room had shifted to a such a low pitch that he couldn't even hear it anymore while the lights flashed in the perfect frequency that allowed his Qi to move under his control without problems. Before he lost this chance John pushed forwards, his Qi finally returning to his dantian after completing a circuit around his body. Instantly, muck poured out of him as his body expelled his impurities for the first time.

As soon as John completed the circuit, the room had shut down and so when he opened his sun burnt eye-lids he was met with a regular looking room with massive speakers hidden behind several layers of lights. Shaking his head in amazement, John stood shakily and made his way out of the room trying ignoring the incredible stink.

To his surprise, Mr. Carter was waiting for him when he exited the room. Before John could say anything, Mr. Carter pointed to the left and said, "Put your clothes in the fast cleaner and take a shower, you're to report here everyday to cultivate. You have an appointment at the registration office tomorrow at 0800 to fix your schedule."

After saying this, Mr. Carter fled the stink thinking to himself, 'I knew I stank when I broke through the first time, but was it really that bad? Maybe there's something in the theory that soda contains impurities and drinking it will slow down your cultivation. I'll have to approach the school board to appropriate funding...'

Mr. Carter was so lost in his own world of that that he completely ignored the people around him. Eventually, he bumped into someone eating a hotdog and was splattered with relish and more ketchup. Ignoring the cursing, he continued to think as he made his way to his office and sat down where he saw the new stain and said, "Where'd this come from?"