Luckily the water was slow enough for Alex to be able to paddle with one hand towards the direction where the riverbank should be and to his great surprise he arrived almost instantly only to encounter another problem.

On touch the bank felt like an edge of a swimming pool – it was also wet and the water near it didn’t become any shallower. Tightly grabbing the edge, Alex tried to find the bottom to stand on, but unfortunately the stream was much deeper that he imagined.

Understanding well that the underground river might have no other cave openings like this one for hundreds of meters or even several kilometers, he had no other choice but to climb out here and only managed to do so after struggling for over quarter of an hour.

‘I never thought disabled people have it so hard.’ Alex thought lying on the back while catching his breath.

The sound of the water falling became increasingly annoying, especially since it echoed in surroundings and it was hard to tell where the waterfall actually was. But Alex consoled himself with the fact that at least it was a sign of him still having his hearing.

After few minutes of rest he began to scan his own body in order to calculate the damage. Besides the left arm and the left leg below the knee, several ribs were broken and he obviously had a concussion. The surroundings were pitch black because of the lack of any source of light and not because he lost the sight, but it was basically impossible to tell directions or if there was an actual exit.

Alex lie down again in order to rest and to consider his options, and few minutes later began to carefully crawl around, exploring. At first he went along the riverbank and after fifteen or so meters bumped into a wall. His guess turned out to be correct – the river soon went under the rock as a proper underground river should and the cave area he was currently on was not that big.

He explored further along the wall and after another twenty, maybe twenty five meters found a narrow passage – at most half a meter wide. He didn’t go directly inside, but went further along the wall again only to end up at the underground river again.

‘Alright. It’s a cave with an underground river.’ Alex smirked, ‘Who would’ve thought.’

Then he directly crawled towards the spot where the narrow passage was, but after few meters, in what should be the center of the cave, he stumbled on a slight elevation. It seemed round, several meters in diameter, but when Alex crawled on it, in the middle he found a pond.

After dipping his hand inside Alex realized that contrary to the river, the water here was surprisingly warm. In the dark he could not see if it was clean, so he carefully tasted it first, only to sink his face inside right after, greedily drinking with large gulps. Until now he didn’t even realize how thirsty he was and this spring water was particularly refreshing and sweet.

When he was finally full, Alex turned towards the direction of the passage, but clumsily slipped and rolled inside the spring, head first. The last thing he noticed before passing out was the piercing pain from his left leg.

Alex didn’t know how much time had passed, but from the comfortable feeling he had it was obvious he was in the belly of his next mother. Everything was dark and quiet, but pleasantly warm at the same time – it has been some time since he felt this way.

“Alright, let’s see what the eight life will bring.” Alex said with a smile, but realized his voice echoed in the surroundings.

Right, it was not the mothers womb he was in, but the pond he fell inside earlier. For some reason he was floating on the surface and the feeling somewhat resembled that of an embryo, except for the posture, of course.

After realizing where he was, Alex quickly checked his condition only to find out that neither his hand or leg felt broken and the breathing was painless as well as if the ribs were fine.

‘Ok! I have to sell this stuff to the doctors! It’s one hell of a painkiller!’ Alex grinned, but soon after his expression turned serious.

He clearly remembered where his arm was broken, but now, even after pressing gently on it, the bones were obviously connected. And the same with the left leg.

“Hahaha! So it did exist after all!” Alex loudly laughed.

The only explanation to his sudden and miraculous recovery was that he somehow managed to find the place where the Qi naturally gathered under the Western peak and after soaking in the water enriched with Qi for who knows how long, his body got healed at increased rate.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

With these thoughts Alex carefully climbed out from the spring, checked himself again to make sure he was really fine and the carefully found the passage.

‘Please be the way out! Pretty please!’ He prayed to himself, but then realized something felt off.

It wasn’t a feeling of anyone else being present in the darkness or a danger approaching, but the still atmosphere felt completely out of place. When after another minute Alex couldn’t think of anything, he shook his head and squeezed into the passage.

It turned out to be long, really long. It had twists and turns, and went up and down. At times Alex barely was able to squeeze through and at some instances he had to go on all fours. Every now and then he bumped into a stone wall, but each time after some pushing the stone barring the passage moved and he was able to crawl through.

The further he went, the less the passage seemed to be formed naturally, but it also couldn’t have been the work of an animal – at least Alex didn’t know of any beasts who were capable of drilling through thick cliff walls. On the other hand, if it was the work of a human, the passage should’ve been a straight tunnel, right? Obviously it didn’t matter much, but thinking about these things took his mind off the deep discomfort caused by claustrophobia. He had never been claustrophobic, but crawling through a dark, narrow tunnel for so long without knowing if he would ever get out could easily cause a panic attack.

Alex sighed in relief when he finally arrived at a larger cave room, at least so it seemed from the way his voice echoed. The surroundings were still dark and he was faced with another problem – where the hell was the exit? Or the next tunnel?

The only thing he could do was to explore along the wall again, guiding himself by touch, just like he did in the first cave room. After poking and clapping the wall for a minute or two, he found a passage, similar to the one he came from. He happily took few steps inside, when an unpleasant thought struck him – what if this was the one he arrived through?

Unwilling to go all the way back to find himself at the starting point, Alex thought for a bit, then returned to the cave room and along the wall measured the distance between both tunnels both clockwise and anticlockwise.

‘F*ck this! I hate being blind!’ Alex cursed realizing he actually almost went back.

He sighed and sat on the stone floor to calm down and gather his thoughts.

‘Ok. What do we got?’ He said to himself, ‘Someone, either the emperor or some other guy had a similar speculation to mine and found the place. They probably dug from outside and that is why the tunnel is so weird. Although I don’t know how they did it, it must have been one hell of a work! Ok, what else? Most likely the place with the Qi pond is under the Western peak and the tunnel leads to … how the hell should I know? I don’t have a compass here! Wait … I’m f*cking stupid! The place had to be below the former lake, that means … the way out has to go up!’

Alex smacked the back of his head as a form of punishment and began to check the wall again. Soon he found several cavities that could support him and carefully climbed up. He did bump his head on the ceiling and fell down once, but ignored this slight setback and went back up again.

With the second try he found the narrow hole he could squeeze through and entered another cave room. It was the last piece of evidence he needed to prove this was a man made passage and all that was left was to patiently crawl out.

It didn’t go as quickly as he hoped, but after what seemed to be an hour or maybe two, he pushed the last stone aside and entered a small cave scaring a family of foxes. The whole place terribly stank, but to Alex it smelled like freedom.

After setting the stone back in place, he crawled out and finally could enjoy the benefits of sight again. Even though he saw only a starry sky, for him it was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen.

There was only one problem, though. He had no clue where he was!

To not loose the entrance to the very special place, Alex decided to meditate through the night and return to the academy in the morning. In addition, he didn’t know how long he was underground, therefore few more hours wouldn’t make any difference.

Feeling happy and refreshed, Alex sat down and concentrated on the Qi flow, when he got an idea. After a long break he used the technique captain Tarazi taught him and almost immediately a soul particle appeared in his vision.

‘You little motherf*cker!’ Alex cursed in delight, ‘Quickly go and call over your friends! Enough wandering around – time to work!’

His happiness was understandable. After the Qi deprivation he lost the ability to sense the soul particles and his theory was that he simply lacked the necessary amount of Qi. But now, after he bathed in a pond that was basically full with it, he absorbed enough to start to seriously cultivate again.

These were great news, but the only problem was that he lacked time – there was barely a month left for him to finish the essay and win the ten challenges. But then Alex’s expression turned into a wide grin – for the first time in all of his lives he would train to actually beat up spiteful teenagers. Even though they were much stronger than him now, it didn’t mean it had to stay like that forever! The essay part didn’t worry him one bit – he could go back and write it in one go. He already had an idea for the subject – it’ll be ‘Technique for a burst of power during extreme circumstances – to train or to forbid?’.

He opened his eyes at the sunrise and saw the fox family had returned. They lie around him like the ferocious lions did couple of years ago, but at least this time Alex’s heart didn’t jump out the chest from fright.

He lazily stretched, got up and realized that, in fact, the passage was as long as it seemed – currently he was behind one of the hills south of the academy. The cave the fox family inhabited was hidden between large pile of rocks and on his own Alex would’ve never found the place.

“Ok, guys! Guard this place for me. I’ll be back in the evening!” He said and jogged away, but foxes lazily barked at him and unwillingly went back inside their home.

Half an hour later Alex arrived to the training grounds, all freshened up and in clean clothes. It was finally time for a real training.