The coin started turning grey, with layers of its matter falling as dust. The more energy Xan extracted from the crystal, the faster this change happened.

After half an hour of cultivating, he felt his mind start to get tired, but that didn't discourage him from continuing after a half-hour nap.

Xan repeated this a few times, and he felt rapidly progressing toward the next stage each time he woke up.

At one point, when the coin had shrunken to the size of a rice grain, Xan felt an intense pressure on his head. Scared, Xan lost concentration for a few seconds and stopped cultivating, which caused him a severe headache.

Realizing what was happening, he used his dantian to get the most energy possible from the coin and his surroundings to feed it to his mind. As he did that, the pain disappeared, and the pressure continued increasing until it stopped suddenly.

Xan continued cultivating for a few seconds just in case it hadn't ended, but when he realized how easy it was for him to control the energy, he realized he had done it.

He had reached the second stage of his sea of consciousness.

The difference wasn't significant, but he required less attention to cultivate than before.

Also, he could faintly feel the energy in his surroundings. Before, he could only feel the energy inside his body or in objects he touched, but now he could feel the energy flowing in his surroundings as if it were air currents.

'If I get my mind to a stage high enough, would I be able to detect people over long distances just with the energy on their dantians?' Xan dreamed about what one day he could become.

This breakthrough was an achievement for him, as it meant another step toward freedom.

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He then spent the next few minutes testing his new capacities by controlling the energy around him.

First tried to condense the energy around him on his finger without using his dantian, just by using his mind. That resulted in being more challenging than he expected, but in the end, he managed to create a small ball of light that dispersed into the air as soon as he lost focus.

Then he tried doing the same, but this time using his dantian to gather the energy first. As the energy flowed through his body, his control over it wasn't comparable to the previous one, and he effortlessly created a ball five times the last.

And instead of dispersing it, the ball melted into Xan's hand, creating a layer of dim light.

This layer disappeared as Xan moved his hand, but he felt he could maintain it if he used more energy.

He had read in Rad's notebook about martial arts before, so he wasn't surprised by what he had done. After reading their descriptions in the notebook, he had a vague idea of how they may work, even if he would need to perfect them a lot if he wanted to use them in a real battle.

And he would not do that.

He was sure Rad would teach him a few techniques once they started the fighting training, so instead of wasting his time on something he wouldn't use, he would continue cultivating even more.

After finishing his test, Xan sat on the ground once again.

Seeing the size of the energy coin, he decided to take a new one from the pouch as he didn't want to stop cultivating once he had already started.

With his mind stronger than his dantian and body, he decided to reconsider his energy redistribution. As Rad had said that the body was the less important, he decided to use half of the energy on his dantian and then split the other half between his mind and body.

As he started cultivating, Xan lost track of time again, falling asleep multiple times between his cultivation sessions.

It didn't take long for him to consume another coin, increasing his dantian's size significantly. As he had to stop cultivating to take another crystal, he decided to prepare something to eat, only to realize he had already used all the food that he had in his kitchen.

Xan stood still for a few seconds as he thought about his priorities.

'If I want to eat, I need to go to the canteen or the market, so either way, I have to leave the room. Instead, if I decide to skip this meal and continue cultivating a little more, I may get the slight push I need to get to my dantian's second stage.' Xan thought as he rubbed his chin.

A few seconds later, he turned and sat cross-legged on the floor again.