Hellish Training

Ella's work ethic didn't give room for any favoritism of any kind. Ryujin may have been her future apprentice, but Jada would simply have to wait for her turn, just like everyone else.

Though Ryujin didn't like waiting for being in the queue for anything, he couldn't help but be grateful this time, as he could instead use the waiting time to gather up more knowledge about things he didn't know.

"So much to read and so little time. Thanks to the Pupils and Codex, I can simply scan through as many books as possible, and they would record and perfect an edition tailored for me alone.

In the best-case scenario, it might take years to get my hands on a book again, and there is only so much I can learn through being self-taught."

When it came their turn, Ryujin had scanned through a dozen books. Most of them having to do with the concocting and refining pills and potions.

Furthermore, he was able to learn about the flame Ella and the adults of his house usually used.

Apparently, it was something called a Soul Flame, and everyone only discovers it during or after their Awakening, before they then begin to learn how to control it.

He had seen Yama use it as well on multiple occasions, and whilst it was a general belief that one could only awaken the soul flame upon their awakening, Ryujin felt his case would be different.

For one, when he was undergoing his creation trial, the moment he had conjured the Phoenix Feather and used the Rebirth Flames, the latter had somehow fused with his soul.

And despite the fact that his perception of his soul had been somehow dulled by his mortal body, Ryujin knew the his soul Rebirth Flames, was somewhere within his soul; it was just that he couldn't sense its location yet, and thus, draw upon its power.

Nonetheless, being next to Ella as she treated Jada, Ryujin could appreciate every gesture and hand movement she used as she conjured qi and the several elements she used in treating his sister.

Her Qi had enveloped Dara's body, quickly turning grey around her chest, clearly outlining the shape of her lungs.

"I have good news, and I have bad news. The good news is that Dara's condition is the same as always, there is no sign of degeneration this time.

The bad news however, is that it doesn't seem to be improving either.

I'm afraid that she will remain like this forever. The more she grows, the lesser the chances that her body will be able to somehow fix itself."

The air in the room suddenly turned heavy, a lifetime of illness was barely better than no life at all.

Ryujin was so shocked, that he completely forget about the books he was reading; the whole world meant nothing to him if he could not share it with the three people he loved and trusted the most.

They trio left Ella's house in low spirits, returning home without speaking a word to each other.

Once they arrived, Lin searched for Raja to deliver the bad news, and soon, the entire family was wrought with a bout of sadness and melancholic tears, hugging each other in search of comfort.

Ryujin allowed himself to cry, cursing the cruel fate that had befallen his sister.

During the following days Lith kept second guessing every life choices he had made, and it wasn't until after a while (about three days) before his calm returned, as he began to accept the reality that bad things happens to good people even.

Dara illness had occurred as an aftermath to the tragedy that had befallen their family a few years back; apparently, the fire had messed up to the air with dust, debris and smoke, and the little girl had inhaled a fatal amount of it, thus, it couldn't be said to be his fault.

Having been accepted as Ella's apprentice, he could now cultivate openly, and thus, it didn't take long for him to start showing his physical prowess; assisting with different chores, and proving himself capable of cleaning the whole house on his own.

This relieved his mother and his cousins as well, from all the chores.

Thanks to his observation of Ella's feats, he could now draw upon the moisture in the air by simply using the same method with which he circulated his Vital Qi.

He also made countless experiments with flames as well, in hopes that perhaps, his rebirth flame would react to the external flame.

He would on certain occasions also diagnose Jada with his Qi, so as to get a clear idea about the progression of her illness, and before long, he had found the situations that caused the illness to develop and spread.

With such information now readily available, Ryujin, with his memories as a Nobel Scientist, and his understanding about Vital Qi, could now begin to administer treatment to his sister.

However, since Jada had yet to unlock any of her body cultivation vessels, there was no way she could generate Vital Qi on her own, thus, Ryujin took control of that by helping her absorb Qi and using his overpowered mental sense and Qi Control to saturate her blood with it.

Regardless, his method proved incapable of curing Jada's illness instantly, and neither did it show the potential of doing so very soon.

Nevertheless, it did have its own upsides, and that was the fact that, Jada's illness no longer worsened, and her bouts of intense cough seemed to grow lighter and fewer in between.

Then by helping her circulate and focus the tiny amounts of Vital Qi within her body into her lungs, Jada soon became to gain some much needed weight, and even her skin began to appear rosier.

The entire house couldn't be more overjoyed; Raja, Shin and Lin were profoundly pleased with their little monster, whilst Dara subconsciously began to form a deeper bond of brotherhood with him, and finally, Jada's love for her little cousin, grew deeper as days went by.

The whole family never ceased to praise Ryujin for how much money he was saving them due to his actions, they even allowed him to start teaching them Qi Control, and how to generate more Vital Qi, since none amongst them were body cultivators.

This way, Ryujin found himself a glimmer of hope to once and for all, establish a culture and habit of cultivation within his family.

Thus, after teaching them his breathing exercises; one that seemed almost impossible to them on their first tries and even made them appreciate his monstrosity the more, he set his cultivation plans in motion.

To improve their stamina, Ryujin created a set of physical exercises that the entire family must undergo every morning before breakfast, and at nights before dinner; save for Jada.

He had intentionally positioned the training hours such that, they would be able to satiate their hunger and replenish their lost energies before starting their day and going to bed.

The physical exercises were tailored with the sequence of his new body cultivation technique in mind, but whilst he strengthened his body from outside-in, he made it such that the rest did it in from inside-out, due to their lack of stamina.

In addition, now that they were more appreciative of him, he felt that he could now begin to draw out of his thousands of years of knowledge to help improve his family's health.

Whenever, his family then began to get suspicious, he would chuck it up to the knowledge he had gained from reading most of Ella's books, claiming that he had used the advantage of his eidetic memories to record them all.

Since they had been experiencing glimpses of Ryujin's so-called eidetic memories, their suspicions would then vanish like a smoke, and Ryujin, striking the iron while its hot, would come up with some other otherworldly ideas as to how they can improve as a family once again.

Firstly, he changed everyone's diets; tailoring out the specific kind of food each of them needed to uniquely improve their vitality.

Then to the family's surprise, these diets didn't really cost them much; in fact, it only took the same amount of money and efforts they had been spending, and on some occasions, even less.

There were also instances where he would force the entire family to fast during the afternoons, and now, most of their diet now contained lots of greens, leaves and meats.

Then Ryujin invented a new kind of sponge, which with the help of Lin was woven from the mildly sharp spines, of the leaves of a certain tree that was ubiquitous and thought useless to their entire tribe.

He would force them to bathe in hot water twice a day, making sure that they scrubbed their bodies intensely, so as to get rid of the grease, dirt, and dead cells on their skin.

This not only allowed them made their skins glow with health and vitality, but most importantly, it also helped loosen their pores to better sense and absorb the atmospheric energy.

These were for the Skin Shedding and Pore Loosening, part of the body cultivation.

Normally, they were supposed to use certain herbs, pills and potions for this, but their current financial state couldn't afford them; however, Ryujin had postulated the idea to them, making them promise him that they would do so once they were more financially stable. 

---

For their Veins, he created several cardiovascular exercises, such as, aerobic activities that involved running whilst simultaneously doing the breathing exercise in order to strengthen their hearts and improve the pace of their blood circulation.

Then they also performed some exercises that target large muscle groups, so as to increase their venous return and promote efficient blood flow.

---

For their muscles, they were to engage in physical strength training that included exercises such as squats, deadlifts, bench presses, and rows to build muscle mass and strength.

Afterwards, they would then move on to flexibility training, which included, stretching exercises to improve muscle flexibility and prevent injuries.

---

For their tendons, he created eccentric exercises that involved performing eccentric-focused movements to increase their tendons tensile strength and density, and also improve their resilience to injury.

Then after came some plyometric exercises like box jumps, where Ryujin would draw certain boxes on the ground and only tell them which ones they were to step on at the instant when they landed on the previous box.

He also had them dig several pits that were initially waist high; one which they were supposed to leap out of by gathering momentum on the spot, and as they grew accustomed to their height or depth, he increased them; this was to enhance tendon elasticity and core strength.

---

For their bones and marrows, he created weightlifting activities, and to make their training more bearable, he included dancing, which came as a boredom relief to them, but also served to stimulate bone density and endurance.

For the Marrow Composting, their diets took care of that; it was not only strict, but it was made in such a way that no matter how different or unique everyone's respective preference for food was, they still mostly used the same kinds of raw foods and ingredients...

---

The family's tissue training, was always the most anticipated part of their training, and it only came after dinner; massages.

Each person would take turns to use rollers to release the accumulated tensions in their muscles, tendons and tissues. Obviously, Lin did this for everyone except Raja, who Dara personally took care of.

After that came their long awaited and most treasured sleep. Most of the nights, each member of the family randomly achieve oblivious breakthroughs in their sleep.

Their body would have been induced with a hellish level of stress that when they slept and their bodies repair its damages, they woke up feeling bouncier, nimbler and stronger.

---

The blood and cell exercise were totally focused on their diets and Vital Qi circulation; a feat all of them (except Jada) were able to achieve just after six months of intense, nonstop training.

---

Ryujin tailored the more physically demanding trainings for the morning and the aerobic and more elastic ones for the evenings; each of them initially lasting three hours at a stretch.

He would then alternate these sessions throughout the week, gradually increasing their intensity, duration, and complexity, so that he could optimally and efficiently push them to their limits every time, and then force their bodies to adapt and evolve on a continuous basis.

Since they had an estate to themselves, they had enough space to undergo these training routines without being seen, bothering anyone else, or weirding them out.