At a few points in his life Anton had gotten too close to the heat of a stove or an open fire. A quick jerk of his hand and maybe some cool water or a salve to soothe the burn was enough to comfort him after that. However, he’d never had fire inside of him before.

As the pressure of the energy in his meridians built up, it transformed into fire. It was already far too late to stop, if he did nothing the fire would rage inside him uncontrolled… the best he could do was circulate it through his meridians and hope he hadn’t killed himself. The energy inside him circulated from his core, the area underneath his navel the cultivation technique spoke of as the ‘Dantian’ and out to his extremities and back. Each time it completed a full circulation, the power increased. If it continued, Anton didn’t know if he could keep it under control.

Each circulation left a little bit of flame in the middle of his dantian, extremely hot and spinning around releasing more energy. Anton continued the circulations, trying to remember the instructions down to the tiniest detail. He wasn’t sure, but perhaps… this was supposed to happen. As the energy circulated more and more, it wrapped more strands around the fiery core, twisting like a ball of twine. Then he reached the limit of his control and the strand snapped away from him, coiling around the burning ball. However, instead of unraveling or exploding it suddenly condensed.

Anton had only skimmed over the section of the cultivation manual related to reaching the first level of cultivation. It wasn’t something that should be quick, and he knew age would make cultivating slower. However, perhaps he had underestimated the time it would take. A month and a half didn’t seem like long to a man a hundred years old… but for someone who was ten or fifteen years old it was indeed much more significant.

Now that he wasn’t dead, he pulled out the starry manual again. Indeed, the text covered ‘igniting the first star’. He’d only thought he was making progress along the way, pushing himself closer… not making the actual breakthrough. However, he couldn’t deny that he certainly had the first star inside of him now. There was nothing else that he could call it.

Anton sighed. Was he young and reckless again? Then again, even if he’d been prepared… what else could he have done? He was ready to break through or it wouldn’t have been possible, and there was something to be said about letting things happen as they came naturally.

He stood up and noticed a cracking sound. He looked down at himself and noticed a layer of blackness on his skin. Was he burnt? He scraped some of it with his hand and found it was more of a sort of goop. It didn’t hurt, but it smelled foul. He would have to clean himself off.

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After having ignited the first star, Anton’s body no longer hurt, whether cultivating or not. He felt much stronger… as if he were ten years younger. Granted, that would still be what he was like at ninety years old, but he thought he was a fairly vigorous ninety year old. The most important thing is that his meridians felt more durable, so he was able to cultivate more smoothly.

The manual for Ninety-Nine Stars described the choices he had to make next in body tempering. Upon reviewing them once again, he decided that fully refining his meridians next would be the best choice. Better cultivation was good, right? He felt his chest. Since he hadn’t died… his heart should hold out for the moment. He might want to consider refining the organs in his torso next, however.

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Out in the forest, Anton’s body felt lighter. “Young” people never realized what they had until it was too late. That was true for Anton, and he hadn’t even really noticed the decline over the past decades, gradual as it was. However, returning to some of his former strength and feeling of youth reminded him. He had the many decades of experience hunting to rely on as well, since farming alone had never been sufficient. His body moved stealthily through the brush. He saw a small pack of deer, and could actually pick them out well enough from a distance that he didn’t startle them. His eyes still weren’t good, but he didn’t need to pick out their patterns… just hit them in the side.

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He was able to achieve a draw on the bow he hadn’t in quite some time. It was still far below the bow’s capacity, but his arrow flew true, sinking deep into the side of the deer. It didn’t run nearly so far as the one during the snowstorm, and he was able to quickly bring it back to the village where he would eat some and turn the rest into jerky.

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Anton turned dour as he looked over the rows of graves. Was there even any point in cultivating, swearing vengeance upon the bandits? He’s taken the first step, but was it even possible to do more?

He shook his head. At least, he had to finish this job. His shovel drove into the frozen ground, much deeper than he’d been able to before. Within three hours, he had a shallow grave prepared. Deep enough to keep scavengers out, at least. He moved to find the next nearest body. Lily, he believed her name was. He tried to remember everyone’s name, but some he only spoke to occasionally. He made a simple grave marker out of wood, carving her name into it. It wouldn’t last forever… but it was all he could do. He had no access to stone or a chisel to make a lasting headstone.

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Focusing the next tempering on his meridians was more difficult than he had thought it would be. Perhaps he had grown cocky after having ignited the first star. If cultivation was so easy… everyone would do it. The first star inside of him stored more energy than he had been able to before, as well as allowing him to gather it more quickly with the proper breathing technique. However, using that energy to temper his meridians beyond where they already were… he found to be quite slow. Even spending more time each day cultivating, his progress felt minimal.

Then Anton realized why it was so hard. He’d become aware of his success, his ability to live on at least for a while. He was being cautious, when his only chance of becoming relevant was to surve forward. He couldn’t be happy with just the first star, or even the second. He had to complete all of the Body Foundation stage at least to be able to avenge his family- the first nine stars.

With the fire of a small star inside of him, he had to be able to do more. It was quite calm and gentle at rest, but if he riled it up it could spin and more rapidly release energy. That was what he needed. He flooded his meridians with energy, straining them to their limits, limits he more clearly understood now that he had experience cultivating. The fire burned through him, down each extremity one at a time seeping into even the smallest parts of his body. Once his energy faded to a small ember, he gathered more, breathing it in from the world around him.

He barely slept, not wanting to give up cultivating but also needing to bury as many bodys as he could before the thaw. He was rarely glad for a long winter… and of course he would have preferred the current one to be mild and gentle, but it might not have stopped the bandits. At least he wanted the villagers to be relatively whole in their graves, as much as he could do it. But he also couldn’t afford to waste time not cultivating, because he wasn’t sure if he could live long enough to become strong if he didn’t.

He lost track of time, and soon enough another month had passed. Each day he cultivated, he was more efficient with the energy he gathered and he found he could store more and more in his dantian, and the first star. However, he had begun to slow down, having reached a bottleneck. Was he ready to advance to the second star? There was only one way to find out.

Anton continued gathering energy from the world with every breath, condensing it as much as he could into the first star in his dantian until it was overflowing. Then he called upon the energy, circulating it through his meridians, forcing its power against them and into them. Fire burned in his veins, but though there was pain, it was a good feeling. He wasn’t beyond what he could bear yet. He kept pushing himself towards the limits, consciously breathing in more energy at a regular pace to feed the fires inside of him. When the fire inside him reached their peak and began to overflow, he grasped them in his control, wrestling the strands of energy around each other until they began to form another ball… the second star. It grew and grew and grew, becoming harder and harder to control. His meridians were on fire, the pain constantly intensifying, but he pushed back the physical pain with his memories which bore much worse emotional pain, and the desire to somehow make amends for what had happened. As he pushed himself knew the energy would eventually exceed his capacity, but he was unable to pull back… and when he reached the limits of his control, it once more collapsed into a more condensed star. The second star, burning bright. He’d made it. Perhaps… he might be able to have some success at cultivation after all.