Competition (iii): Rapid Advancement

[AS A FAIR WARNING TO MYSELF, IT WOULD BE WISE TO PREPARE MYSELF FOR A LIFETIME OF PAIN. BECAUSE CULTIVATION, THE ART AND THE STRUGGLE FOR IMMORTAL PERFECTION IS NOT A BED OF ROSES. PAIN HAS ALWAYS BEEN AN INTEGRAL PART OF ANY CULTIVATORS LIFE, IT IS SAID, THAT PAIN IS A GREAT MOTIVATOR, AND THAT IS TRUE. CULTIVATORS WHO EXPERIENCE PAIN GO FASTER, HARDER, AND LONGER THAN THOSE WHO HAVE NOT.

IT'S ANOTHER DRIVING FORCE THAT A CULTIVATOR CAN NOT DO WITHOUT. BUT PAIN MUCH LIKE ITS OTHER COUNTERPARTS OF THE DRIVING FORCE GENRE COMES WITH ITS OWN DISADVANTAGES. ANY MAN OR WOMAN WHO GIVES IN TO THE PAIN WILL FIND IT HARD TO WEATHER THE STORM THAT IS THE WULIN. BUT SOMETIMES ITS NOT THAT SIMPLE OR EASY, BECAUSE IN THE END, NOT ALL PAIN ARE PHYSICAL. AND A CULTIVATOR IS MOST WEAK TO THE PAIN CAUSED BY THEIR HEARTS.]

BARTHOLOMEW ÁLÈ

When Alex got back to the inn, he had chosen to lock himself up in his room to ponder on the fight he just had. But the pain was rather intense, so he applied the medicinal cream he was given, and took the pills too. The result was almost instantaneous as Alex immediately felt the bones in his shoulder and back pop into place. It was rather painful for the first thirty or so seconds, before an intense wave of relief washed over his body.

Alex wondered if it was a mistake to take the two different types of medicine at the same time, but it was to early to tell though, but at the moment, Alex was incredibly tired and all he really wanted to do right now, was sleep.

However no matter what he did, that sleep did not come. His very bones creaked in protest, but for some reason he could not get the rest he so badly needed. He also had no idea where his father was, or what he was doing. And Anya was busy doing what girls like her usually did, what that was, he had no idea. Without anything left to do, he sat up and faced his open window.

Dekina was brightly lit this night, of course it could all be attributed to the fact that such an important competition was in town, but there was a beauty to the atmosphere that was not usually there. Alex found it incredibly calming, and he felt that he had to make the best of it.

He closed his eyes and opened his senses to the world. He felt the Qi around him almost as easily as it was for him to breath, it was like water, like earth, like fire, and like air.

There was no definite words to explain what Qi really felt to someone, sometimes it was psychological and QI would only feel the way a person perceives it. But for Alex there was no definite feeling, if that was a bad or good thing he couldn't answer that, the only thing he was very sure of, was that he was very comfortable with it.

Qi was said to be the very essence of the world, you could say it was the air that the planet breathed and exhaled, existing in its own mysterious biological circle. But the effects of Qi would always be a wonder to anyone and anything that could have come in contact with it for the next thousand years to come.

Alex reflected on his fight, and with the presence of Qi around him, it made his mind all the more sharper and clearer. He had expected his opponent to be strong, and he was. But Alex had made many mistakes, chief among them was that he underestimated his opponent and over estimated himself. He had taken strength into consideration, and due to his opponents rather frail frame, he had deduced that his opponent was just a well trained fighter, and that in terms of strength, speed and defense he had him beat.

Alex had won due to luck and gross but lucky miscalculation on his part. This fight had shown him that as far as the Wulin(martial world) was concerned, everything is not as it seems. This world was a mountain filled with crouching tigers and hidden dragons.

And it was in his best interest to never, ever, make the mistake of underestimating his opponent. In fact it would be better if he assumed everyone he met was stronger than him, that way he could at least keep some semblance of humility, and carefully analyze every fight and opponent that would cross his path in the future.

Alex took a deep breath and let the Qi that had been circling around him flow into his body.

"Arghh!!"

Alex screamed out loud as he felt a sharp pain from his abdomen. Then this pain moved from his abdomen to his chest, pulling at his muscles , as they were stretched and torn apart. Alex had no idea what was happening, but he was very familiar with this sort of feeling. Alex was a soccer player, so he knew what having torn muscles and ligaments felt like, and this was exactly like that, only you had to multiply the pain to be a million times more intense.

But even with the pain he could feel his muscles healing and becoming more compact, his bones shook within his body as he felt Qi wash all over them like the serene wave of an ocean. He felt the pain move all the way to his head, and he was assaulted by a headache so intense that blood began to drip from his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth. It was almost as if his body was being reforge and remade. When the pain got to his head, he could not scream or call out, so all he could do was to endure it silently.

The pain came to an end, but whatever was happening was not over yet. While he had his eyes closed, his surroundings had taken on an entirely new look. The Qi within a twenty meter radius had all gathered around him to make a spiraling Qi tornado that had thrown his room into disarray. The tornado was made of pure Qi that was constantly being absorbed and used to strengthen Alex's body.

Unlike what the stories might tell you, cultivation was not always as smooth as either opening a door or drinking water. Sometimes it was extremely painful, and even more so during the body refining realm. In the body refining realm, Qi is used to rapidly change and increase the grade of a person's body, and usually, it pushes and breaks a man's body past its limit before putting it back together again. Forget what you're told, such a process is always completely painful to the point of death.

A lot of people with weaker wills, have fallen prey to the pain, some of them died, others tried to interrupt the process and ended up ruining their chance at cultivation essentially ending up crippled and unable to cultivate for the rest of their mortal lives.

Pain is usually associated at the beginning of every cultivation gate. And for the mortal gate, that pain comes from the body refining realm. Alex slowly became accustomed to the pain, eventually it had reduced and came down to a point where he could manage it without screaming out loud.

He gritted his teeth as he bore through the pain with every ounce of willpower his fourteen year old body could muster.

Eventually the pressure began to lift up, and with it, the pain. Alex felt that for some reason his cultivation seemed to be a whole lot more painful than was usually documented.

But the end justify the means, because right now, Alex felt like a new man. He felt lighter, stronger, and his senses were more sharper than ever before. As a child Alex had been short sighted, but now, he could see the ants on the wall of the building across the street, almost fifteen meters away. Alex felt if he wanted, he could run with the wind and fly if he so chose.

But with all this came a stench so bad Alex felt like vomiting. He wondered how it was that he had not been able to notice the smell considering the fact that it was coming from his own body. He looked down on his night clothes to discover them completely covered in a sticky black substance that smelt worse than the word 'bad smell'. But with this view Alex could not help but exclaim in shock, but a voice behind him put a word to his surprise.

"The early stage of the ninth level of the body refining realm."

Alex turned around to see his father, Anya, and a few other faces he did not recognize standing at the doorway to his room, and all of them were looking at him like he was some sort of monster. Though Alex did not blame them, because anyway you looked at it, he had only taken about a week to get from the lower levels of the body refining realm to the peak. If that was not monstrous, then Alex did not know what is.

"Um hello."

Alex greeted his unexpected visitors, what he didn't know was that his cultivation had not just destroyed his room, but the phenomenon of Qi gathering around his room had drawn the attention of those who were a higher leveled than he was, and he also made a lot of pain filled noise. But who would have thought that they would all be witnessing the birth of a genius.

Thankfully with a little help from his father and Anya, they were able to clear the room of any on lookers and debris from his attention grabbing cultivation session. However by the time midnight rolled around, the entire town already knew about Alex and his monstrous talent. Dekina was a place where everybody knew each other, the place was only crowded because of the competition, so it was no surprise that more than half the whole town had already found out about Alex.

Though there were a few embellishments, it was to be expected, because the shocking sight of someone jumping from the sixth level of the body refining realm to the ninth was not something you could say with a straight face without being called insane.

But as this was going on, Alex was getting an explanation about his father abnormal rate of growth from his father. And to be honest it was quite illuminating.

According to his father, Alex was already born with what you would consider a heaven defying talent, after all his ancestry from his mother's side came directly from one of the leading factions of the Wudang sect. However coupled with such talent, Alex was a hard worker who had started training his body from an early age. Of course his father had forbidden him from absorbing Qi, which meant his body kept getting stronger, and with all the sports he played, he was able to constantly keep his body in an optimal state.

And with his body's instinctual absorption of Qi, his body was nourished in a slow and steady way, completely unlike what any other cultivator went through.

In essence, his body was also starved of Qi, as the little piece he had been getting over the years had not been enough.

So when he finally started cultivating, it was like feeding a man who had trekked through a desert for an entire week, a bottle of mineral water. But according to his father, it would only be this way for him in the body refining realm. After he advances to the next realm, his training speed would become somewhat normal, though without a doubt he would still be faster than most people.

Alex had a body that was built for Qi and cultivation, coupled with his father's rule of not cultivating for a number of years, he had somehow trained his body to be able to absorb more and thrive in a Qi rich environment. Alex had no idea what kind of a freak he was, but deep down he could not help but feel a little pride about himself. After all, it's not everyday you experience that you're a favored son of heaven.