Chapter 18: Body Cultivation

The next morning, Eric woke up with a plan. He was going to tell his dad he chose soul and body to practice and get the Basic Body Cultivation Method and start practicing it daily as well as the Soul and Mind. With this, he would be able to finish the quest quicker.

Early in the morning, after finishing his physical exercise routine, he cultivated the soul for the rest of the day till evening. He had almost used up all his Qi Gathering Herbs and therefore, his speed of cultivation for the path of the soul would decrease quite a bit.

However, since he would be cultivating the other two paths as well, it wouldn't be that big of a setback. Eric had decided when he would cultivate which path: the body would be early in the morning, followed by the soul which would take up the afternoon, after which he would cultivate the mind late in the night.

At evening that day, Eric approached his father and told him his 'decision'.

"Dad, I have decided what paths of cultivation to cultivate. Except for the obvious choice of the path of the Soul, I choose the path of the Body as my other path of cultivation. I don't really have a personal preference or inclination towards a certain path so I decided to go with the ones I had the highest aptitudes for."

Eric said this with a serious face and was able to instantly fool his father.

"Good, good. I will give you the Basic Body Cultivation Method and whenever you are comfortable after reaching the first stage in the Body, tell me; I will take you someplace." Blake was also serious, but his voice had a hint of satisfaction, as if he inside wanted his son to choose the path of the body after all.

'Well, it makes sense since he is a dual cultivator of the Soul and Body. He would be proud as a father if his son followed the same paths as him.' Eric thought as he sensed this feeling from his father's tone of speaking. 'Well, I am cultivating the same paths as him… along with the path of the mind.'

Eric smiled internally at this thought but remained to have a serious look on his face.

Blake took out a scroll from his space ring and handed it over to Eric. This scroll was the Basic Body Cultivation Method and Eric carefully took it back with him to his room.

Once in his room, Eric was a bit curious about the Body Cultivation method and decided to try it out. Since it was evening and he had a couple hours before his mother served dinner, this was the perfect time to check it out.

Eric made sure not to get carried away, though. If he ended up over exerting himself right now, he wouldn't be able to cultivate his mind later on in the night. Therefore, he decided to limit himself to only starting to absorb qi in his body.

He opened the scroll and proceeded with reading it.

'The Cultivation Method of the Body is very similar to that of the Soul. The energy being absorbed by the cultivator in both of these cases is Qi. The difference, however, is where said Qi is being absorbed.'

After this, the method described how to sense qi, which was identical to the method for soul cultivation; and since Eric had already sensed qi a couple days ago, it wasn't really useful for him.

He then started reading the next part of the Basic Body Cultivation Method.

'The body is the host for the soul and the mind; and can also potentially be the host for your Qi. Instead of using the body as a medium to direct Qi towards your Dantian, when you absorb it directly into your physical form, that is how the body is cultivated.

In order to absorb the Qi into your body, sit in a meditative posture and calm your mind completely. Once you are in this state, start to sense the energy all around you. The process of sensing Qi will take about half an hour to an hour depending on your aptitude and talent. The first part of this process is the same as Soul Cultivation.

After you have sensed Qi, focus on your body and start feeling the Qi in your close vicinity. Keep on doing this until you feel as if you are one with the Qi that directly envelops your body; and that is has basically a part of you.'

Eric was a bit confused as this seemed almost identical to the method of cultivating the soul, but he continued reading it.

'After a while, you will feel as if the Qi is an extension of your own body. This is when you start absorbing it. Instead of guiding the Qi towards your Dantian, make it integrate with the surface of your body: your flesh.

The first realm of the Body Cultivation is Flesh Refining. This means assimilating the Qi of the Heaven and Earth with your flesh to upgrade it. After absorbing Qi, your flesh will be harder, will have faster regeneration and durability; and along with that your overall body will become way stronger than before.

Just because only the flesh is absorbing the Qi doesn't mean that the other parts of the body aren't affected. Your entire body will be faster, stronger and tougher than what it was before.

Cultivating the Body is similar to the Soul in the aspect that they both deal with Qi; but it is different from both the Soul and the Mind because there is no specific area for storing the respective energies, which is also why there is no inner Qi and outer Qi in Body Cultivation.

Beware that cultivating the body is the most physically painful Path of Cultivation and if you pass out or give up due to pain while cultivating, there could be serious consequences.

These adverse effects can range from light injuries and throwing up blood, all the way to losing your ability to cultivate along with your entire cultivation base and sometimes even instant death.'

After this, there was an illustration of the meditative posture which Eric knew and the Basic Body Cultivation Method had nothing left to read in it.

Eric was a bit confused about what the so called inner and outer qi mentioned at the end were, but he didn't pay much attention to it.

'If it is something useful I will come to know of it on my own in the future. Right now, let's start cultivating!'

He was very eager to start cultivating as the method for Body Cultivation wasn't complex and was pretty easy to understand and execute; but it still had that addictive charm to it which made Eric want to try it out instantly.

Funnily enough, it had no addictive charm at all. Eric had this feeling of wanting to try out all the cultivation methods and was attracted to them because he had extremely high aptitudes for and was very dedicated to cultivation.

The instinct he had to cultivate as soon as he learnt a new method wasn't natural; it was something Eric developed himself through his will and determination.

***

Eric placed the scroll to his side and got in the meditative posture and started sensing Qi.

It took him only a couple moments to sense the Qi directly surrounding him; since he had the highest aptitude towards the cultivation of the Soul, his affinity with Qi was stupendously high and as of right now, this process took him less than five seconds.

Up until this point, everything he did was identical to cultivating the Soul. This was the moment where he actually started cultivating his body.

With a deep breath, Eric moved the Qi towards his body instead of his Dantian; and after feeling a very slight pain course through his body, the Qi started to integrate with his flesh. He could feel his body full of energy. Moreover, his skin had become more a bit more robust and looked a little healthier and less pale than before.

Eric got up and moved around a little bit. There were slight improvements in his physical constitution, even though he only absorbed Qi in his flesh.

'Cultivation is a magical thing.' Eric thought to himself, grateful that he had been thrown into this game world of cultivation and scamming!