Creating a Dantian in a Magus World

Everyone's eyes went wide, and their jaws dropped like they were trying to reach the ground as they couldn't believe they were seeing the Alden Patriarch greet them.

Meanwhile, even William had an incredulous expression on his face as he asked, "Father! What are you doing here? Don't you have more important things to be doing?"

The lady, who had on thin circular-rimmed metal glasses with a French braid to accompany her brunette style, as well as a small beret, pushed her glasses up as she sighed, "You'd think the Lord would prioritize his duties, but he insisted on coming here to greet you all personally."

"What could be more important than greeting my beloved son, daughter-in-law, and grandson? Nothing I say!" Raymond roared with a smile plastered on his face.

As he finished speaking, Raymond opened the door and started to walk as he put forth, "Come on now. The night is starting to get late."

The group walked down a similar-looking hallway to the teleportation hall in Colth.

As they reached the front lobby, Raz noticed there was more than triple the amount of personnel that seemed to work in the Tessar teleportation hall.

As Raymond walked through the place, those who were present paused whatever they were doing and bowed before resuming their busy work.

Outside the teleportation hall were two carriages as well as a dozen or so horses that the group all used.

Raymond, William, Fay, and Raz all got on one carriage while Raymond's assistants, Ed, and Marisa, got on the second carriage while everyone else doubled up on horses.

Inside the carriage carrying the Alden family members, Raymond quickly chanted a word before slapping his hand on the carriage's wall as a semi-transparent blue field seemed to cover the insides of the carriage like a protective barrier.

"Alright, it should be safe to talk now. Now tell me, is it true? Raz's magic circuits have truly developed?" Raymond inquired as he looked at his grandson with curiosity and pride.

Raz himself answered, "Yes, grandfather."

"Good, good! Continue to develop so that no one can stand in your path, not the elders, not your enemies, and certainly not the world," Raymond preached.

Before he could continue, William leaned and whispered something into his ear before Raymond seemed to freeze as he just sat there with his eyes widened and jaw almost dropped to the ground.

Judging from his reaction, Raz had no doubt his Father had just told Grandfather the results of his Magic Circuit test.

After a few seconds, Raymond laughed, "Hahaha, even better! In fact, excellent! But never forget, my grandson, to balance yourself. While your magic circuits are certainly a blessing, anything in excess is never good. You must balance your awesome prowess with knowledge and theory.

"Physical health is also an important thing for a Magus as well. While some Magus do fit the preconceived notion of a book-studying worm that has about as much muscle as a skeleton.

"Some train their skill with a weapon while keeping their physical health in working order. After all, while mana can be restricted and even fail you at times, your weapon will never abandon you."

Raz already knew some of this as William and Ed had occasionally lectured him with a similar lesson and even tried teaching him some basic combat skills with a few weapons, not that he needed it.

After all, Raz was at one point considered the most proficient and skilled master of various weapons in his life, as Xin was the pinnacle cultivator.

He had no preferred weapon.

As Xin, he personally crafted almost every weapon known to humanity and used them sparingly.

Though he had to fool his Father and Uncle, as it would be impossible to explain his skill with weaponry, which wasn't too hard as it was difficult to adjust and perform his various techniques with a child's body.

After ten minutes, the group managed to make great progress as the streets were somewhat empty in certain parts of the city, as night had already settled in for quite a while.

Soon they started to climb up a decent slope before a giant complex appeared as the slope started to plateau towards a rather big flat plain at the top of the cliff.

However, there was no wall or fence protecting the compound, only a single large metal gate that appeared to stand by itself with the unique dragon symbol etched onto both sides, while the top of the gate had the word, Alden, etched onto it.

At the gate were two hooded and masked figures who stood still like statues with their arms behind their backs.

When they saw Raymond stick his head out of the carriage, they said nothing but politely bowed and saluted before resuming their duty by signaling someone until the gate started to creak open.

William looked at the masked and hooded figures and sighed with a slight nostalgia, "I see the gatekeepers are still the same. Silent and slightly unnerving. I always got the creeps whenever I had to interact with them while leaving the Alden complex."

Sticking his head back in, Raymond replied, "You know how they operate, plus that's just how they are trained."

As the group started to approach the first buildings, Raymond turned around with a serious expression, "While those elders wouldn't dare do anything to hurt you while you stay here, but be careful for they may strike your reputation. You know how stubborn those old fools are."

"It's been more than six years, and still won't forget that I married the love of my life instead of giving away my happiness for some political marriage that we don't need," William sighed before kissing Fay on the forehead, who looked slightly troubled but seemed fine after glancing at Raz.

Raymond led the group towards the biggest and most elevated residence complex, obviously meant for the patriarch of the Alden Clan.

There was enough space that everyone could request their own rooms if they so wished.

Usually, Raz enjoyed staying with his parents as he fell asleep between their warm and affectionate embrace, but he felt it.

His cultivation level had painfully and slowly reached the limit of the first level of the Immotus technique.

Raz purposefully held off his daily morning cultivation session as he wanted to do it alone at night as he did not know what to expect from this technique when he created his dantian.

After getting his own room, Raz sat down crosslegged on the soft silk-like textured bedsheet as he prepared himself mentally for what he would experience when forging his dantian.

Back in the cultivation world, when he was Xin, he learned that each person's experience of when their dantian is created is different due to a variety of things, but particularly their cultivation technique.

Putting his hands together with his middle and index fingers as well as the thumb while interlocking his pinkies and ring finger, Raz calmed his mind as he prepared to absorb the final strand of qi that would send him over the top.

As Raz gathered the qi into his body, his entire body began to tremble and shake violently as if someone was shaking him with all their might.

Gritting his teeth in an attempt to keep himself grounded and calm, an intense jolt radiated from within his body that seemed to bounce within his body like soundwaves in an echo chamber.

The room seemed to grow darker. But Raz soon realized that his assumption was incorrect.

His senses were the ones being affected as they began to dull as he slowly could no longer feel or see further than an inch from his body until a searing blinding white flash burned into his retinas.

In fear of damage to his vision, Raz closed his eyes shut and opened them a few seconds later, but when his eyelids lifted.

He was no longer inside the room.

In front of him was his past three selves floating in what seemed like pitch black void.

The furthest person on the left was his appearance from his time on Earth.

There stood an average-height man of Asian descent with square glasses that seemed just right for his facial features.

A slight stubble of a mustache remained while he wore a baseball cap with the U.S. flag embroidered onto the side.

The moment he looked at his past self, the darkness transformed all around him into a cityscape straight out of hell as the skyscrapers and buildings were shaking from a giant earthquake in the distance a massive mushroom cloud rose high into the horizon.

Then Raz realized something. This was the moment of his death back on Earth.

Looking at the familiar rooftop of his dormitory as an undergraduate student in California, he stood at the railing with an expression of fear and despair as he looked at the impending blast from the nuclear explosion in the distance.

Before the blast could even make its way towards his location, Raz, or more accurately, Noah at the time, started to lose his footing as the entire building shook until he went over the railing.

As he wildly waved his arms around with a fearful expression, which tossed the physics books he held into the air before hitting the ground with a splat.

Before he could react, he glanced at his other past life standing next to Noah.

What met his eyes was a regal-looking officer with a white and blue uniform that matched the combination cover sitting atop the long golden, blonde hair that was neatly kept, which accentuated his lean body and handsome face.

Once again, the cityscape suddenly disappeared as what appeared to be a control room, otherwise known as the bridge.

Outside the many windows that adorned the room was the chaos of space and battle as numerous ships dotted the void of space.

Inside the bridge were numerous other people whose faces were blurred but seemed to panic as they saw their space-faring battleship torn asunder by some blast as the entire vessel collapsed in on itself.

Raz stood there watching his frustrated expression self when he was known as Leo and thought, 'How I died back in my second life…then this final one must be my death as Xin.'

Looking at the final and third person, a large, decently bulky man stood towering well over two meters tall.

Numerous scars adorned his body and face, and long jet-black hair was messily flowing everywhere into the wind.

Like watching a replay or a movie, he watched his exact death as he saw the anger and surprise of being backstabbed.

These experiences stirred up unpleasant memories but confused Raz as his previous experience when his dantian formed was nothing even remotely close to this.

Before he could properly hypothesize, the scenery changed, and now he stood at the base of a towering, never-ending mountain. Etched into the rock was the word: Immotus.

The winds howled, and a strange gaspy, whistling voice rang out as the winds howled around him, "Unshaken. Steadfast. Immovable."

The mountain remained, but the surrounding changed, displaying his past lives and their deaths again but instead of the emotion of fear, panic, and frustration.

His face remained stoic, while his eyes showed ambition, motivation, and an unwavering will.

Raz realized the mountain was showing him if he was steadfast, unshaken, and immovable in the past.

Before he could get a word in, the winds raged and howled once again as the words howled out once again, "A steadfast heart does not stray from the path."

As Raz experienced these things, his body in the real world had been floating in the air for several minutes, still crosslegged and holding the same position.

A dull light had started emanating from his body while a semi-transparent image of the mountain that Raz saw appeared behind him before it disappeared, and Raz returned to the world with his Dantain, now created.

-Elsewhere in a place far away from the Iron Wolf Kingdom-

Atop a high, lofty marble tower, a teenage girl with long, flowing blonde hair in marble white robes stared at the stars in the night sky above her even though her eyes had a white blindfold tied around them.

Her stoic expression twisted all of a sudden as she started to mutter, "The stars have scattered. The winds of change are here. Who could it be?"

As she seemed to stare more intently and intensely into the sky, she suddenly screamed and shrieked out loud as blood flowed from her eyes, staining the white blindfold red.

Voices in the distance could be heard echoing as footsteps rushed from a set of stairs leading up to the stairs as the voices shouted, "Your Highness! Are you alright!?!"

On this very day, when the first person in the Magus world had achieved creating a dantian of unimaginable strength, the very balance of the world had been altered.