I really was lucky. Mom quite obviously didn't have the slightest clue how a normal infant grew up, just like me. I would have normally told her about my origins, she deserved to know after all, with me replacing her daughter and all, but lacked I the words.

At the same time I also wouldn't believe me myself, a small infant talking about a world so foreign it could only be made up. The same way I did not accept being reborn at first, but without reality slapping me in the face, forcing me to accept facts. I would try when I grew up a little more.

As things stood I currently used most of my free time to cultivate, drawing in ever more energy per day. I also stopped returning qi back in my bones as often, now doing so only once a week. My body just didn't need as much new blood as it once did. I still felt a little scared about moving too much energy in my heart and organs, though I felt pretty sure it wouldn't harm me by now.

I didn't want to risk it!

The day after I first moved qi after it settled down I had felt miserable, my whole body being sore like I did a full workout for every cell in my body. At first I was worried, I remembered hearing that too much training was harmful for children. My body didn't seem off worse though. So I concluded that luckily at least this kind of exhaustion wasn't harmful for me, something I knew thanks to my qi informing me of my body's condition.

While I would have jumped to learning how to read the moment my mother offered, she didn't seem in a hurry to start the lessons.

Not even a week later, or a month, or a year. Currently I was nearing three years of age, and was about a metre tall already. The qi in my bones had already far exceeded the concentration of ambient qi too, but the thing I speculated would happen didn't. What a letdown. Still, if I were not to return qi into my bones every week, and allow it to diffuse equally throughout my whole body I felt would already be a little above the ambient qi too. But that didn't seem the thing needed too. Strange.

"Honey, come here for a moment." Mom called from the side.

I looked up, and saw the sun was about to set. Mom herself sat on the table, waiting for me. I dropped my toys, ran over to her and drew the second chair back, satting down in front of her. With my head just reaching over the tables edge. I must’ve looked hilarious.

I looked up to her, and saw her smiling down at me.

"You're three now." She started. "And I know you want to learn how to read. I don't remember much from my childhood, but know I didn't learn reading with three, so I am very proud of you regardless of what happens.

I will try my best and teach you, see how you can keep up and delay my lessons further if you can't." She explained.

Mom stood up, and took something from the topmost drawer in the sideboard near the door, hiding it behind her back. She kneeled down in front of me, presented me with a blackish slate.

I stared blankly at her as she set the board down on the table, before picking me up in an embrace.

"Happy birthday honey." She said. "Let's get started. No more sleeping all day, if you want to make mommy proud and learn how to read and cultivate you'll have to practice digillenty. Perhaps you can even be a powerful cultivator."

"I don't wanna be a cultivator, I wanna be like mommy." I stated.

"Life is so much easier as a cultivator. You can be a cultivating seamstress too, if you want." She consoled me with a sad shake of her head.

That was an obvious lie, but I couldn't call her out on it. There was some deep seated pain there still. I’d really have to ask one of these day.

"Now let's get started." Mom said.

The written language of this world, or at least this nation, was far more complicated than the latin alphabet I knew and used. It wasn't as bad as some of the asian ones, luckily, but still had more than double the letters.

It was easier to use and learn though, as all characters were written exactly like they were spoken. It also connected language and writing on a deeper scale than I ever thought possible. Making learning one easier if you knew the other.

And as I knew the language, even if I still couldn't speak it perfectly due to bodily limitations, I had a relatively easy time learning, taking only three months until I knew all letters by heart. 

Mom still didn't give me a way to learn how to earn a name, stating I only had the one chance, and she wouldn't let me read the booklet until she was sure I wouldn't waste the chance.

Six months after my third birthday I was finally deemed ready. I sat nestled against my mother, the small booklet secure in my hands. Now that I could directly touch it - mom kept the booklet from my hands until now - I felt it brimming with qi.

The small booklet held nearly as much qi as my skull! Well, it made sense I supposed, qi was quite ill suited to hold memories, but I couldn't think of a better way to teach something like this other than direct memory transfer.

I also noticed a problem, any knowledge I gained through that book would be tainted by whoever produced it, and looking at the poor state and make of the book that was probably the dress guy. He probably stole it from some poor fellow, and filled it with his qi, to produce this booklet.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

But that also meant he planned on paying mom from the beginning! I hoped he was ok, and his family didn't catch him! Though, to be honest he didn't seem like an all that successful cultivator to me. Not that I knew how one looked, for all I knew they could all be like that, wearing torn clothes filled with blood.

Nope. I didn't want to have anything to do with such people. At all. Ever.

Stop it. Enough delaying.

I opened the booklet, and started reading, feeling the qi within the first page streaming directly into my brain, overwriting the written text. The qi solidified directly into the knowledge contained in the first page.

"I do not know who you are, but know that I am about to bestow you with my great wisdom.

I am Brayden, a mighty second realm cultivator and member of the exalted Secret Grove Sect."

Wait what? A secret sect and he just named them on the first page? Whatever. 

"The seed of all cultivation is qi, the energy that permeates everything and everyone. Qi is life itself, and connects to all life. With qi, we can do wonderous things no mortal can hope to replicate.

Cultivators are stronger, faster, more powerful than mortals, they are better, in short, we are superior."

What a waste of space. Somehow he managed to drone on about a perceived superiority that smelled of a serious inferiority complex for the next three pages, adding some religious drivel in between, only sparingly mentioning some useful information.

"Cultivation is separated into realms. As far as I know there are infinite realms, but those are increasingly hard to reach. The first realm is the easiest to enter, a living being just has to perceive their own qi.

Such cultivators are useless, no better than mere mortals, worse really. To really start cultivation you need to learn how to force qi to move to your will.

Most simply lack the will and drive to achieve that, and will forever be stuck at the cusp of greatness."

And here it was, misinformation. Why would I try and force qi to move when controlling it differently was so much easier? No matter, this was quite interesting.

"Once you earned the right to cultivate by demonstrating your resolve to the heavens you can actually start. There are as many ways to cultivate as there are people under the endless heavens, but some are simply superior to others."

He then proceeded on to describe a convoluted way to move qi through your body, mainly strengthening skin and the muscles in your arms and legs.

I felt my IQ drop reading it, as so much of your time was simply wasted, though it seemed directly controlling qi had one advantage - it didn't leave its designated paths as fast as my qi did, allowing it time to bond with his body. It also sounded like a perfect way to harm yourself while fighting, never strengthening any important bones or organs. 

He mentioned viewing the snippets of information held in qi only once, and not to increase cultivation speed. Just something about using the insight of cultivators of old. To me, it seemed he mainly relied on spending time drawing in pure qi from your surroundings or something called 'spirit stones'. They looked just like normal gems, and I made a mental note to try adding a crystal lattice to my cultivation. Perhaps it would help speed it up further.

I really only knew the molecular setup of salt and diamonds though, and figured the latter would be better. No reason not to try both though.

As it turned out I shouldn't be cultivating as fast as I was, which didn't come as that big of a surprise. Living beings were shielded from ambient qi until their body reached an equilibrium with it. That usually happened at around ten years of age for humans, which meant I was far ahead of the curve.

These guys really were fans of harder not smarter though. Or perhaps it was just a cultural blindness caused by inherited bias and keeping secrets.

"After accumulating enough qi you will need to force it together, beyond what was possible for you before, and produce your first drop of liquid qi. Doing that will break you through to the second realm, and is what marks you as a true cultivator."

That didn't sound too hard, a few weeks of having qi seep out of my bones should be enough reach an equilibrium with my surroundings. I estimated my cultivation speed would further skyrocket after qi could enter my body through my skin in addition to my lungs. My cultivation method would need some changes to account for all that new qi though.

But liquid qi? Did you have to fill up your body like a glass of water to further advance, or perhaps the term was more of a way to describe what happened?

"The second realm is all about adapting your body to cultivate better. To produce the drop of liquid qi you will need to use up most of your qi, tempering it beyond that of a mere mortal, and allowing you to change it to your will. To a degree at least.

The first, and most important step is forging your meridians, allowing liquid qi to freely move through your body and reinforce it at will. After that you will have to open your dantian, located right under your navel. It will allow you to store more qi than your physical body can, and will be the center of your being for the rest of your life."

The center of my life? Were the first cultivators all drunks? Or why would they need to concentrate most of their qi near their kidneys otherwise? Perhaps the world was filled with poisonous animals? I made another mental note to store more qi in my kidneys, just in case. 

"After opening your dantian you have to meditate upon and imprint your qi with an intent, which will influence your entire cultivation from then on. After all your qi is transformed you once again compress it, creating a core seed and breaking through to the third realm.

The first realm is called mortal realm, as, like their namesake, cultivators in it are barely worth mentioning for anyone of real power.

The second realm is called earth realm, as cultivators in it are bound to move just over the earth, while their betters move above them, as is their right.

The third realm is the realm of cores and named after them. Core Masters are above us, just like they move and live above our heads.

The fourth realm and above is dominion of immortals, and a lowly cultivator like me has no business knowing their great insights and secrets." He finished.

Great. I didn't learn all that much, only how he felt qi - quite similar to me, how he moved it - really inefficient, and information about what was to come - probably heavily tainted by cultural bias.

Ah well, I would've never thought about 'liquifying my qi, and probably cultivated until that happened naturally. I still didn't understand why I should liquify it though, liquid held less energy per mass than gas did. Sure, it could be stored easier, but gases still held far more energy. Perhaps qi was different?

Well, I'd see in time. For now I should make use of all the free qi floating around in my head, cleansing it of the cultivator's words and incorporating it into my cultivation base.

I really only needed the knowledge it held, not the feelings and impressions he stored within.

I couldn't wait for my body to reach ambient saturation though, I really needed that second syllable for my name!