Getting A Hang Of Cutivation

Ryujin was confident in his ability to control it; after all, he had experienced it more than five times before reincarnating, and once with his father.

However, he tried and failed countless times before giving up.

He did not know how long his baby body would last before falling asleep, so he stopped despairing and started thinking.

The Qi was abundant in the atmosphere, and whenever one of the adults used it around or on him, he would get a strange beckoning sensation within himself that reached beyond his physical body and tugged at his mind and soul.

It was almost as if, the sensation was trying to help him create a connection between himself and the atmospheric Qi.

Those were all good news, but they still couldn't give him a concrete evidence as to why he was constantly failing.

He never expected to succeed at the first try, but he had thought that something would have at least happened.

So, he started thinking back to when his father had filled him with Qi. That feeling was not new to him, but he had simply never experienced it with his body.

Ryujin searched through his memories until he was able to pinpoint a time when he had gotten a similar sensation.

And soon he found out. Apparently, he had gotten that same sensation back when he was undergoing his second trial within the labyrinth of lost souls.

back then, he had the body of a jaguar, and as such, he was able to clearly connect the similarities.

During that trial, the entire forest had stood still around him for a moment, connecting his physical and mental perception to the nature around him.

He remembered how in sync he had been with nature, that it felt as if they were sharing rhythmic breaths and heartbeats.

'Well, I've got nothing to lose. Let's give it a try.' He thought to himself as he shut his eyes.

Ryujin calmed his mind and then breathed in through his diaphragm; simultaneously relaxing his torso as well, in order deepen his connection to the atmospheric Qi and draw it in.

Then he held his breath and stiffened his torso for a few seconds to let the Qi permeate his entire body, before he then breathe it out to relax his whole body.

In that moment, a feeling of nostalgia hit Ryujin, bringing back memories of his past life on earth when he usually meditated or did some breathing exercises.

Back then, he had always thought the intoxicating feeling he experienced during his first days of practice was just some kind of placebo effect.

That it was his naïve young mind deluding itself into thinking that the weak could miraculously become strong by simply believing and practicing all that internal energy shenanigan.

But now that he thought deeply about it, he couldn't help but ask himself;

What if that feeling only stopped because the atmospheric Qi on earth was just too thin?

Ryujin kept repeating the breathing exercise in a looped cycle, and moments later, he began to feel a tingling sensation all over his body.

It felt like hundreds of centipedes were crawling all over his skin, causing a tingly and ticklish, yet painful sensation.

The more he repeated the process, the clearer he could sense the atmospheric Qi, and the stronger the sensation got.

Then he began to urge the Qi through the same path his father's Qi had threaded, causing his body to begin glowing once again.

Then a few minutes later, Ryujin felt his body brimming with power.

Trying to test out the result of his experiment, he held his breath for a prolonged moment, and then forcefully released it through a very tiny hole between his lips.

~Phew!~

A sharp quietly swished across the room as a needle-like gust of air shot out of his lips and stabbed into the wall.

Creak! 

Ryujin watched as a thin crack snaked across the entire slab of marble; luckily for him, the marble didn't fall off and crash.

If that happened, the commotion would have alerted the adults in the house; and the moment he repeat the process, then it would only be a matter of time before he was caught, if not instantly.

Nevertheless, Ryujin could not stop grinning.

'This is really a great start!' He thought to himself with a babyish cackle.

-------

In the following weeks, Ryujin's days consisted of a strict routine.

During the day, when he was all wrapped up, he would only focus on practicing the breathing technique and learning as much as he could about his family and their language.

At night he would practice Qi absorption and control, until he exhausted himself to sleep. Then as soon as he woke up, he would start again until Lin got up for the day.

More than once he tried taking a break, but it would never last long.

Living as a baby was not easy, on the contrary, it was very stressful.

He could not speak, and even the words he had already understood only came out in giggles and babbles.

He could not move, he could do nothing but watch, sleep, eat and relieve his bowels.

He was simply not used to be so helpless and dependent on someone else for every little thing, and he was having so much free time that his mind was almost teetering over the edge of his sanity.

So, he would practice and practice, trying to adjust to his new reality without overthinking about how absurd and irrational his current plight was.

As Ryujin's absorption capacity increased, so did his control, and after a few weeks he sensed his first bottleneck.

Apparently, every time he absorbed Qi, all it did was increase the vitality in his blood; however, last night, when he tried to absorb Qi as usual, his body felt full and almost began to bloat.

And it was also in that same moment, that the swarm of Qi around him began to poke at his pores on his skin.

Even when they eventually managed to force their way through, there couldn't find any suitable path to take; so they simply made his skin glow brighter and brighter, before dispersing.

However, not all of them did.

In fact, one strand managed to reach as far as his brain, before arriving before a blockade of some sort.

It probed the blockade repeatedly, causing Ryujin a slight migraine, but was unable to get through.

Nevertheless, Ryujin was able to tell, that if he managed to open up that pathway, then he would be able to break past an unknown limit of his physical body.

Thus, he switched his night routine; absorbing Qi as usual, but now focusing more on probing the blockade rather than increasing his nigh-perfect Qi control.

Unfortunately, the amount of Qi that gathered before the blockade was always too small to make any real impact; even after he had channeled every strand within his body towards it.

But this didn't deter Ryujin; instead, he decided to take the slow, patient approach, rather than do something that might blow his cover.

After all, no matter how common cultivation was, he didn't doubt for a second that the news of a few weeks old baby cultivator would prompt a horrific reaction from others, instead of awe.

The Azure Dragon had given him a serious warning back then; so, he knew he had to play his cards right, and play them as close to the chest as possible.

Before revealing any hint of talent, he needed to know what the standards of this world was; especially that of his immediate surroundings.

However, for someone who had barely been outside the house, the chances of reaching any such conclusion, was too close to zero.

After three months, Ryujin's body reached his limits, and while his control was perfection itself, it still wasn't enough to help him unblock his pathways.

Yet he kept trying; now that he was at the peak of what his current body could handle, he was anxious to break past it and find out what is on the other side of his breakthrough.

Fortunately for him; just a month later, Ryujin, observing himself out of boredom, accidentally found out that he control his blood flow.

To be more precise, his blood was so saturated with Qi to the extent that, whenever he moved the Qi within him, it also carried his blood along.

Then with his knowledge of the human anatomy during his life as a Nobel Scientist, he began cycles his blood all through his body at a rapid pace.

The implication of his actions was that, every part of his body where certain minerals and energy were missing or lacking, they were instantly replaces, whilst the deficient ones were ejected through his poop.

Though, the entire house reeked with a pungent smell every time he pooped; no one complained because they could see that he was growing at a rapid pace, brimming with health and vitality.

Soon enough, Ryujin began to focus his attention on gaining more control over his body.

It was hard at first, but as a baby with the soul of an 100 year old and a pool of knowledge worth thousands of years, it didn't take him long to figure it out.

He stopped wetting himself at the age of three months, letting out a shrill cry whenever he wanted to relieve himself.

In fact, to make it easier on his mother, he cried at different pitches, whenever he needed something.

He sobbed quietly whenever he was hungry, cried in wimps whenever he wanted freedom to crawl around, and released a shrill cry whenever he felt nature's calling.

With that, everyone in the house knew what he wanted at any particular time, making his existence very much bearable and convenient for the entire household.

Each day that passed, Ryujin continued to absorb Qi, and the more he cycled blood through every part of his body, the weaker the blockade got.

Then on a fateful day, the blockade leading to his brain suddenly gave way in his sleep.

This was the result of him trying to constantly maintain his breathing exercises throughout the whole day nonstop.

At first, the daring endeavor left him constantly lethargic, worrying his parents to no end, but as he got the hang of it and began to familiarize himself with the feeling, he got used to it.

The moment the blockade open up, the Qi in the atmosphere swarmed around him in droves; luckily, it happened during the time he had gone to his cousins to play.

Dara was out to train as usual, whilst Jada was busy doing some chores as Lin was out to the market to get some supplies.

For that few moments that was about ten minutes but felt like hours to Ryujin, Qi kept surging through the blockade, enriching his brain and strengthening it significantly.

It wasn't until it had ended that Ryujin finally realized what had happened; he had just unlocked the body vessel that led to his brain.

Apparently, there were nine of this vessels, and this was the second one. The first vessel was the one that led into his blood, and it was the same one he used to enrich his blood's vitality.

Now he had unlocked the one that led to his brain, and the moment he did so, Ryujin's perception about the world around him, and the one within himself, changed drastically.

Not only was he able to sense the slightest changes in his environment, he was also able to do so in real-time.

When he focus, everything seemed to slow down around him, he could see the insects buzzing about within their house; see the birds flying over, and even perceive what everyone was doing at any particular moment.

Everything seemed so slow around him, and he couldn't help but be stunned.

As someone who had never been exposed to cultivation before, such scenes and sensation was proved to be mind-boggling for him, despite having the memories and composure of a being thousands of years old.

But all of these benefits didn't even come close to the last two.

The first, Ryujin was able to make contact with the treasures in his body, and was now able to consciously activate them.

Then secondly, he had accidentally stumbled upon Spiritual Qi.