When Xan arrived at his room, he sat cross-legged on his bed and began to use the respiration technique Rad had explained. During yesterday's conversation with him, the old man had revealed some relevant information that would aid him in being a step ahead of his companions.

One of the things Rad had explained to him was the existence of energy conduits inside one's body that helped the energy flow through it more efficiently.

If one didn't know about them, he would try to make the energy pass through flesh and bones directly, losing most of it on its way toward the dantian and making its control much harder. Because of that, if he learned how to use those conduits, he would be able to use less energy to do it than his companions.

And that was a true advantage in the end, not only because of the time and energy he would save but also because his body wouldn't feel so tired after cultivating. According to Rad's teachings, cultivating using your lungs was very taxing for one's body, resulting in the need to rest and eat much more than usual to compensate for that tiredness.

By doing shorter and more efficient cultivation sessions, he would be able to rest less between each time, which would mean that his cultivation speed would be much faster than that of his companions at the end.

Xan repeated the process a few times with those ideas in his mind.

In the backyard, he couldn't feel the energy inside his lungs because of the noise and voices of the other kids. But now, in the room and without anyone disturbing his concentration, Xan focused on his insides and the airflow.

It didn't take long for him to learn the feeling of the energy inside him, and the next step was to learn how to direct it.

He could feel that each time he exhaled, the energy inside his lungs would disperse into his body equitably. But that's not what he wanted. After all, even if he became slightly stronger now, the progress he managed to make with this cultivation technique wouldn't be comparable with what he would obtain once he cleaned his dantian.

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To try and direct the energy across his body, Xan created a mental image of his insides and the energy and imagined it flowing as he wanted to.

This was one of the multiple tips he had received from Rad the previous day, as he had told him that the mind was in charge of directing and controlling a cultivator's energy, both inside and outside his body.

It took him more than half an hour and a lot of concentration, but after that time, he managed to reduce the dispersion of the energy and guide more of it toward his abdomen.

With a smile, Xan opened his eyes and lay on his bed for a few minutes. That had been his first cultivation session, and he felt he had done a reasonably good job. Sadly, he felt pretty weak after cultivating for that time, and the fact that he had missed the lunch didn't help either.

After resting, he got up and went to his kitchen to prepare something to eat. Because of his mother's early death, even if he had the possibility of going to the canteen, he had learned to prepare his food at a very young age. He had learned some of his mother's recipes, so each time he cooked, it felt as if she was back with him, even if it were for a short time.

That made cooking one of his favorite times of the day, where nothing could go wrong as long as he followed the steps of each recipe. It was a time of relaxation for him.

After preparing lunch and resting for a while, he decided to return to cultivating. He felt much more refreshed, so he hoped he would progress significantly in that session.

And he did.

If last time he managed to redirect more energy toward his abdomen, this time he managed to use his energy conduits to direct it toward where he wanted, filling his belly with energy.

Thanks to that, he felt his dantian for the first time. He felt how the energy was absorbed by something on his abdomen before it released something else in exchange.

When he finished that cultivation session, he suddenly felt something going up his throat. Black fluid came out of your mouth, accompanied by some coughing, which made Xan panic a little.

'Calm down, Xan. That should be what was obstructing your dantian. It has come out means you are doing a good job. You only need to continue.' he thought.

Closing his eyes, he tried to feel if anything had changed in the area around his dantian, but after some minutes of inspection, he gave up as he felt nothing.

'Well, I just started cultivating, so it may take some time. I only need to continue sending energy toward my dantian until it's clean...' Xan thought before his eyes fell on his bedside table.

On the table, Xan saw a small leathery bag containing a dozen energy coins. Seeing them, Xan couldn't help but smile.