On the same day that Dog, Zuger, and the rest of the bandits took for the camp, while their leader Grip, alongside Joul, departed from their stronghold to locations unknown to any of them. In the said camp, little Levis was with his back on the mattress as he was exhausted and in pain from having tried to form his personal energy, as to begin his journey, as a cultivator, but as he was failing constantly while being forced to go over and over again by the voice in his head, exhaustion and pain cumulated on him, making him look sickly pale.
[Let's go over again, we are close I can feel it. Next time you will definitely do it, forty-seven is a good number.]
[A-a-aa break please, I can not do it anymore, I'm tired and my consciousness still hurts.]
But little Levis could not be as enthusiastic as the voice that was pushing him further, as he was tired and in distress from having his consciousness crash into the energy he was taking in while breathing.
But the worst thing of all, the biggest reason for his lamentation to the sky that was his tent, was that in the morning, the group of kids had visited him, but as they had found him pale, while sweat covered him, as he was gasping heavily, they had inevitably called the adults as the chief and his wife had visited him immediately, but as he was lying his way out of the fake sickness situation, only the chief was taken out of the equation, but his wife had continued to take care of him, as she had stripped him over and cleaned him with some wet towels. And continued to help him to eat and drink, but the problem was that she did not stop taking care of him, as he was, on one side trying to listen to the chief's wife and on the other side, to the even more nagging voice inside his head, as he was constantly explaining what and not to do.
“You still have not gotten any better, you're still breathing so hard, I hope it's nothing serious. If it does not pass by mid-day I'll call sister to see you.”
[Kid, focus and gather your consciousness together and then crash into the energy inside your lungs.]
[I am trying, but it has no effect, no matter how many times I do it, it won't change anything. You said “ make your cold air like consciousness crash into the hot energy you feel from the outside world that you take in your body, in order to make normal energy to fuse with yourself”, but no matter what I do, all I gain is more pain.]
[That's because you are just throwing your whole consciousness as the separated small parts, you need to unite them all, and then throw them in a concentrated way, to truly affect the energy. Normal cultivators would have needed tens of thousands of breaths before making the smallest personal energy.]
“Yes, yes, personal--.”
“What? Oh my, you have become delirious from whatever you have. I should call sister healer immediately.”
“Ahamm, aunty no need to do that, I bet aunty is occupied with treating other villagers, there's no need to call her here.”
“I am not convinced, if you show any other sign I'll take you to her. Now, where was I? I was talking about my little Ni and the daughter of sister healer, are getting marr--.”
[Kid, be more careful, don’t use your mouth when you need to speak with me, especially if there are others in your vicinity. Now gather all your consciousness to a single point.]
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[Alright.]
As the two conversed inside his mind, while a certain never-ending monologue from outside was in little Levis's ear, he began to call the separated and spars consciousness from all of his body as it was accumulating above his chest, and as it was becoming a small ball, a large intake of air and energy rushed into his lungs, as the ball of consciousness hit the energy inside his lungs, causing him the most intense head pain yet, as the only thing he knew was a deafening noise that did not resemble a noise.
As the crash happened, his face paled, sweat formed in large droplets, and his eyes almost went to the back of his head as though he was about to lose consciousness. But as he was coming back and the noise subsided, he was feeling something new inside his body, something that was like him, a part of him that had come from nowhere.
A strand of ethereal energy like a small snake moving around, almost too small as the strand was only one-tenth of one of the billions of small parts that made him.
[Quick kid, don't lose your energy, or you'll have to do it again. Get it inside one of the small parts of your lungs.]
While the voice shouted at him, he began to move as he was previously prepared by the voice.
["Use the consciousness to guide the energy to your small part."]
As he was reciting the instructions to himself, his consciousness was surrounding the small tendril of energy while dragging it inside one of his separated small parts that made the new him.
[I did it! ahaahha I did it, it’s done, it's finally over.]
[Don’t get too cocky, begin to breathe in the outside energy, and start to refine more personal energy, to send to the rest of the other small pieces of your body .]
As he was taking in a larger breadth of air for more energy to be refined for many more additional small parts, he found himself shaking.
But as he took a glance, he saw the chief wife in panic as she was looking at him in fear.
“Levis, Levis, can you hear me.”
“Aunty, I can hear you, stop shaking me, you are making me nauseous, I am alright.”
As little Levis finely gave the woman an answer, she stopped shaking him like a rag doll.
“You are not good, you looked like you were about to die, you almost scared the heart out of me now. I’m going to call sister, stay here, I'll return immediately.”
“Aunty, there is no need to bother aunty healer, look I am all goo--.”
But as little Levis was trying to get up, in order for the woman to see that he was in good health, he was pushed down, as the woman looked at him with a glare, as she stormed out of the tent, leaving the boy alone as though a criminal that needed to accept his fate after the evildoings in his life.
But meanwhile he was accepting his fate and starting his regime of loud and hard inhales, as though he was a child that was trying to get underwater for the first time, in the time he was taking the hot energy that he was feeling on the outside world and using his concentrated mental consciousness to crash into it, the voices that had started his weird regime of training had gone silent even though he had never noticed.
[ [Why are you making it hard on the kid, you could guide him far faster? For his personal energy, you could have told him how to use the consciousness more efficiently and far faster, and now, he is continuing to use the same method you just gave him, while he could use his personal energy to take it far faster than this brute method. Even the situation he is in, are you trying to help him or not?] ]
[ [Do not start and do not say anything! If you believe in whatever fate you do, don't make things easier for him. We are not here to control his life and progress, he needs to understand the hardship of the cultivation, or else we'll create just another arrogant fool ready to die at the first problem he’ll encounter. He needs to understand and acknowledge his fear and cluelessness, if he were smarter that would be one thing, but he is far from being the most clever kid we could have taken as our disciple. If this truly will go bad we’ll just intervene to save his life, after all, revenge, hate, and regret are big motivators.] ]
[ [I do not understand if you simply want what is good for him or just hoping for bad.] ]
[ [Life is too messy for concepts like good or bad, all I care for are the results in a real scenario, if he can live through it, it will be his fortune if not, his funeral.] ]
The day of little Levis was truly chaotic, with his cultivation ongoing, while the village chief and his wife checked on him, after which the village healer inspected him, forcing the boy to stop cultivating momentarily so he could finally try to dismiss the two aunties.
As he was finally restarting the monotonous and painful refining of the energy, as the night was in full view with sparse clouds and stars assembled in the sky. Movement could be seen under the same sky, as west of the camp a large group of horse riders were coming east.