Gray awoke several days later, groggy and unable to understand what was happening. As he opened his eyes, he saw the blurry image of the ceiling above him, which he knew to be the ceiling of his room.
However, the room was completely dark. As he looked at the ceiling, he found that despite it being dark, he could see as clearly as day.
“The fuck?” He confusedly mumbled as he tried to sit up, his body slowly regaining its energy. Rubbing his eyes, he finally completely opened them, and when he looked around, he was even more confused.
Despite it being dark, the entire room seemed perfectly bright to him. In fact, it seemed close to ten times clearer than during the daytime. All around him, he could see immense colors and movements. He could even see the dust moving through the air slowly. Each breath he took, he could see the condensation in the air, the coldness of it leading to fog.
His breathing… how was he breathing? How was he alive? He had been struck by an extremely powerful bolt of lightning as a child on the brink of death with a condition that made his body even more frail than normal.
Turning his head downwards, he saw that his entire chest had been covered in bandages, as had his arms, legs, and everything else as well. But he didn’t feel any pain.
Confusedly, he unwrapped the bandages, only to find that his body underneath was completely undamaged, to the point where even the scars he had sustained in the past had vanished.
“How the hell? What the fuck happened?” As he continued to unwrap himself, he grew continually more and more shocked. His entire body had changed in every way. His condition of weakness was gone, his body had healed, his muscles had grown to normalcy, and his bones had strengthened even beyond the strongest they had been in his entire life.
And then… he saw it. Floating through the air lightly, moving with the air, flowing through everything, in everything, and out of everything.
“Qi? Why the fuck can I see Qi?” As he focused more, he began to be able to see every last bit of the energy that made up everything in the universe. He could even distinguish the color and type when they were compared to each other.
He had never heard of someone being able to see Qi, but he knew instinctively that that was what he was seeing. But it wasn’t only that. He could feel it. He could feel the Qi in the air and in everything around him, and he felt like he could control it and absorb it.
After just barely even thinking about this, he suddenly saw some of the Qi in the air move towards him as it entered through his skin, moving through his body in strange paths before converging in his chest, in his dantian.
His dantian was located on the opposite side of his heart, in the same place, and it was about the size of a baseball.
He was once again shocked, because his condition had not only made his body weak previously but also his dantian. It had led to him being unable to cultivate, but now he had done so by barely even thinking of it. The difference was just too massive for normal means to explain.
‘Is this a different body?’ It was the only explanation to him. However, when he looked in the mirror, all he saw was his own strange gray eyes staring back at him. It was the same body, but it had just changed somehow.
Searching for a reason, the only thing he could think of was that strange lightning. After all, all the lightning in the sky had gathered to form it, and it was nearly rainbow in color, which was something nobody in this city had ever seen before.
Thinking about it further, he realized that there must’ve been something within that lightning that his body absorbed and used to heal itself. Or perhaps his body had simply been capable of absorbing it in the first place and he had never known about it before.
Of the two, he truly couldn’t tell which was more likely, but he had a feeling it was the second option, as if his instincts were explaining it to him.
All he knew was that in that moment as the lightning was gathering, it had collected all kinds of elemental Qi, giving it the rainbow color. And that lightning was attracted to his body like it was a lightning rod for some reason.
As he reviewed the information he had, he felt like there was not only a lot that he was missing, but also a lot that he would come to understand in the future. As such, he didn’t bother.
Standing up, he reached out with one hand, staring at the air in front of him and opening his hand, twisting it slightly. As he did this, the Qi around him began to twist lightly.
He continued to do this back and forth a few times before suddenly pushing his hand forward, to which he Qi followed. He then pulled it back, finding that the Qi also responded in kind.
But this was it merely copying what he was doing, with that being the intent from the beginning. He then rapidly changed his intent from controlling it to absorbing it.
And with this change in thought, the Qi flowed through the air and into his body rapidly, as if it was flowing water going to the lowest area. A breeze crossed his face as so much Qi moved that it actually created a gale.
Feeling this gale across his skin, he somehow felt relieved, as if some burden on his life was lifted. And in reality this was exactly what had happened. With the newfound ability to gain strength, the goals he had, once absolutely impossible for him, became possible.
His revenge for his sister, his wish to become strong, and even his wish to just be normal and live a normal life. All of them were now possible, though the third option had ceased to exist the moment his sister died.
Steeling himself, he walked out of his room, only to find that the entire house was dark. His mother seemed to not be home. As such, he went outside, intending to test out his newfound strength. He wasn’t worried about people thinking his transformation was weird, since anything could happen in the world of cultivation, and nobody had even seen him for several weeks.
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Even before he fell to sleep, it had been a week since he had been outside. But now, he wasn’t even sure how long it had been. It could’ve been a few days, it could’ve been a few months. But he figured it had most likely been a few weeks.
Heading outside, he was suddenly met with the smell of the street. He had never noticed it before, but this street smelled quite bad. All his senses had increased, including his sense of smell. The smell was horrible, and he realized that having enhanced senses wasn’t always a good thing. He was also beginning to get a headache from all the sensory input. He would have to work on not getting overstimulated later.
Walking through the street at night was usually a bad thing, but he was just too antsy to test out his newfound strength. He quickly made his way through the maze of streets and alleys, eventually arriving in front of a wooden gate surrounded by a wooden fence about ten feet tall.
However, rather than for defense or keeping people out, the fence was solely there to keep out prying eyes, as any person could easily jump it or directly break it down. But the gate was wide open, as anyone was allowed to train here. In fact, it was a crime to prevent someone from training in this area. This was the sole reason he had been allowed in this place previously despite his condition.
As he went in, he quickly made his way around the open layout training field, which had four primary areas.
The first was weapons training, in which there were tens of dummies made of stone which you could attack.
The second was the agility and endurance training area, containing about a hundred stone pillars which you could either attack until you were exhausted or bounce between to increase your agility and flexibility.
The third area was a mini arena, in which you could fight someone else freely as long as nobody was killed. There weren’t even any referees.
And finally, the fourth area was used for training your body. There were countless weights that you could use and lift.
Currently, the most useful are for Gray would be the agility and endurance training area, since this had always been his number one weakness.
As he approached the stone pillars, he recalled all the times he had been here before, watching everyone around him attack these pillars seemingly endlessly, while he could barely manage to hit them a few times before his knuckles were bloody and bruised, and his body so weak he could barely stand.
He had even broken the bones in his hands more than a few times by punching these pillars. And that was against the pillars which were covered in pads, the ones made for the weakest of the weak.
He went up to the padded pillar and just stared at it for a few moments, reminiscing and recalling the painful memories associated with everything that happened to him previously.
Closing his eyes, each and every memory flashed through his mind in an endless series of flashes, causing him to clench his fists so hard they began to tremble and bleed.
And all at once, his rage, pent up over the past fifteen years, exploded out. His eyes snapped open as his body moved on its own, inner energy from his dantian filling each and every muscle he had.
All at once, everything he had exploded outwards as his fist collided with the stone pillar, not only completely destroying the padding around it, but also leaving several cracks through the stone.
Letting out a breath, he pulled back his hand, small bits of rock crumbling off the pillar. The pain he felt in his hand was enhanced by more than ten times with the increase in his senses, but he didn’t care.
All he did was pull back his other fist, slamming it into the pillar as well. Cracks once again spread from the impact, and another wave of pain spread.
But he continued to just punch the pillar, endlessly, his rage building with each second and fading with every hit, in a strange endless cycle.
His eyes grew unfocused, and his fists grew bloody. Exhaustion built up, and several minutes later, he found himself panting heavily, so tired that he fell over, leaning on the pillar, which now had several large chunks missing out of it.
His whole body was sweating and red, and despite it being cold out, he felt hot all over his body. And hungry.
Catching his breath, he stood up straight, his eyes perfectly still. He had managed to get rid of some of the anger he had built up.
With this, he stabilized himself and headed back to his house, thinking as he walked about his past and the horrors that he had experienced up until now.
He didn’t even know what he should do from now on. All he could do was continue to grow, to get stronger.
Suddenly, as he was walking, he heard rapid footsteps behind him, and felt a strange feeling in his spine as he bent forward instinctually, seeing a body go past him.
He didn’t react further, simply standing up and watching the boy who had attempted to bash his head stumble as their attack missed unexpectedly.
It was a boy about Gray’s same age, with brown hair and eyes. He was even a little bit pudgy, a sign that he was clearly well-fed by his parents, who were likely rich or at least above average.
As the pudgy boy turned around, he yelled with anger, “How dare you dodge?! You’re just a stupid punching bag!” Clearly, he had beaten up Gray before, and he only referred to him as a punching bag, nothing else.
With this arrogant and stupid remark, he then punched towards Gray. However, Gray did absolutely nothing to stop him, and didn’t even dodge. He just watched the boy, staring into his eyes calmly.
If he wanted to, he could easily dodge the punch. In fact, he was now strong enough to directly block it and take no damage. Perhaps it was instinctual, perhaps it was intentional, but he knew that for a fact.
As the punch connected, Gray felt his head turn to the side, but that was it. He didn’t stumble, move, struggle, or grunt. Nothing happened as his head quietly turned back towards the pudgy boy, his expression still completely calm.
Not expecting this, the pudgy boy let out another punch, and another, and another. With each punch, he grew more and more concerned with the fact that not a single hit was dealing even the slightest damage.
Gray didn’t have so much as a red mark on his face from the repeated punches of this boy, who used to be able to knock him to the ground, almost unconscious, with a single punch.
It was only now that he realized just how trivial everything had been. How it wasn’t that his life was worthless. Instead, it was the others whose lives were worthless.
“This is what I was afraid of for all those years?” Gray didn’t even look happy. And he looked more disgusted than agitated.
Hearing his words, the pudgy boy backed up, about to flee. All his previous arrogance was now gone, a result of the fear that had set in of the one who stood in front of him now. The one who had turned from a piece of glass to rigid metal in the blink of an eye.
“I guess I was just stuck in my own head.” With these words, he threw out a single punch, and the boy flew backwards, a giant welt forming on his face as his unconscious body rolled across the street.