Thirst overcame him and he decided to look for a source of water. Ryu didn’t doubt the bracelet one bit since he could feel endless profound Qi emitting from it. The bracelet also seems to be doing its duty, Ryu saw a gigantic spider that glared at him with its many eyes only to look away after a second.
He finally found a small pond after a while. This forest was untainted by human civilization, the air and water was the cleanest Ryu has ever seen. The abundance of Qi around him was much denser as well. Ryu has been slowly gathering Qi as he walked and could feel a world of difference.
After drinking Ryu noticed a huge floating object right behind him. He screamed out of reflex and turned around. He saw nothing but when he looked at the pond again, the reflection on the water showed the foreign object floating there still. Was it always there?
No matter how Ryu twisted his neck or how much he ran around, he couldn’t see it.
Why is it behind me? Why doesn’t it show itself to me? Ryu thought after exhausting himself.
Suddenly the object floated right in front of him. It looked like a book, the cover was golden and there were strange symbols on it. He opened it and flipped through it. Nearly half the book was filled with strange writings but the other half was blank. Each page was extremely thin, Ryu has never seen this kind of material. There was thousands of pages in there. After investigating it for a while, Ryu realized that although he can touch the book, the book seems to be transparent to all other objects. Upon further thinking, he remembered that the golden floating object inside the cave was about the same size.
The book will hover around him based on his thoughts and even open up for him but he can’t get rid of it. After a while Ryu shifted his mind towards the treasures in Alexis’s storage rings. The book seems harmless enough and he can deal with its mysteries later.
He first takes out the Wudang cultivating manual - Way of Heavens. Having seen firsthand of Wudang’s might in the city, it was the most logical choice to him. This book was made of special material, each page had a special layer of Qi embedded into them but Ryu couldn’t figure out why.
The first chapter talked about the twelve Qi channels within one’s body. Ryu was surprised that there’s more than one since he has only ever gathered Qi through breathing. There are seventeen channels inside the body that could gather and release Qi. Not all are accessible to everyone at birth but with hard work, they could be unblocked. The anatomy of the human body was explained in detail but Ryu couldn’t comprehend the complex explanations. He deduced where the entry/release points are for the channels:
1. The top of the head, more specifically the top of your skull
2. The eyes
3. The nose
4. The mouth
5. The ears
6. The back of the neck
7. The middle of your back
8. The shoulder
9. The elbows
10. The hands
11. The chest
12. The ribs
13. The belly
14. The knees
15. The feet
16. The anus
17. The genitals
With a few simple thoughts Ryu gathered Qi throughout each channel. He was positive that he didn’t have all his channels unblocked before, something inside the cave must have freed the points up for him. The rest of the chapter talks about unblocking each channels since your cultivation rate would be much faster if your Qi channels were all opened first. This was meaningless to him since he just found out all of his channels were opened.
Chapter two talked about the Qi reservoir. Just as Ryu was about to get into it, he noticed something was not right… in his hand, he was still holding the first page of the manual! But he was clearly on chapter two now. In fact, with a single thought he can recall contents from other parts of the manual.
Without a second thought he quickly grabbed the Shaolin cultivating manual – Yi Jin Jing. The book itself was written on old parchment in regular ink, no Qi was found on this manual. After putting his hand on the book, he suddenly found himself being able to recall information that wasn’t there previously.
He moved on to a few techniques manuals and the same thing happened again as well. How on earth was this possible?
Unknown to him the golden book behind him flipped to an empty page when he first started reading. Thousands of text appeared in an instant each time he touched a new manual.
It took Ryu an hour to realize that the book floating around him might have something to do with it. To his amazement, every manual he has touched so far was recorded in this mysterious book in extremely small text. Although dozens of manuals were recorded, only twenty pages were used up. The ratio was more than 100 to 1!
He decided to shift his attention back to this magical book. With a single thought he could remove sections that was written in there before and he wouldn’t be able to recall it anymore.
Does this book give me a perfect memory? What kind of magical item is this? How could it doesn’t need any of my Qi? Ryu was extremely confused. He flipped through the pages with his mind trying to find a clue but the first half of the book was filled with a foreign text that he just couldn’t decipher. It looked similar to the symbols in the cave but Ryu couldn’t be sure. Beside the copied manuals, the second half was blank.
I wonder why Alexis and the Fairy Lady couldn’t see this magical book… I wonder what else it can do…
The moment Ryu had that thought, the book flipped to an empty page and the storage rings on his fingers suddenly flew towards the blank page and disappeared once it made contact. Ryu panicked, the rings were priceless!
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“Give it back.” Ryu shouted instinctively and instantly the rings shot out from the page.
So it can also act as a storage? I don’t even need to wear the rings? This was good news for Ryu because he was worried that other experts would just rob him once they see his storage rings.
“What else can you do?” Ryu asked impatiently. However, to his disappointment the book did nothing.
Suddenly Ryu felt a sharp pain from within his body but the pain isn’t physical. The magical book is also closed and has stopped moving. The pain slowly subsided. Ryu wasted no time and sat in a meditative pose trying to figure out what’s wrong.
The pain seems to be affecting his Qi channels, he traced the flow of Qi down the channels to find the source of the problem. What he found was completely unexpected.
Is that a… second Qi reservoir? Oh my god it is! His Qi channels were pointing to a large pool of Qi which he assumes is his first Qi reservoir but a small amount was also going towards a much smaller pool of Qi.
This book… does it use Qi from the second reservoir? It was the only explanation that made sense because after exhausting all your Qi, your body would be in extreme discomfort. Since the second reservoir was much smaller, Ryu assumed it’s at level 1. This was totally unprecedented since all the cultivating manuals he absorbed didn’t mention a second Qi reservoir.
First things first, Ryu is focusing all his efforts on absorbing Qi from around him to replenish his second Qi reservoir so he could experiment with the book more. He attempted to move his Qi from his primary reservoir to the other one but the two pools wouldn’t connect no matter how he tried.
While he meditated Ryu decided to name the book the Infinity Tome. Infinity because the possibilities are endless with this book. Not only does it allow him to have a perfect memory and nearly instant memorization of knowledge, it can also store objects better than a storage ring! Not to mention it is also a bit sentient. That part still scares Ryu a bit. As for why he named it a tome instead of a book is because the first half of the book seems to be a piece of a puzzle to something bigger. Ryu had a strong gut feeling about it.
After he had enough Qi to open the tome again, he decided to first absorb all the Rank 7+ techniques and the top cultivating methods. Ryu found out that the majority of the manuals are dark arts. Some can steal essence from other people to increase your own cultivation or enslave another person by entrenching your own Qi on them. These dark arts are truly demonic, Ryu was repulsed and wasn’t interested in learning them one bit.
Ryu decided to build up his cultivation and raise his level high enough to learn stronger techniques first. There were seven cultivating methods that caught his eye. One common trait was that they all utilize the seventeen Qi channels which told Ryu that it was advanced enough. A lot of the other manuals mentioned a lot less channels.
The first was Shaolin’s Yi Jin Jing, although only the first volume out of three was here – Ryu believes that in terms of cultivating Qi this one was the most profound. Also the first volume was Qi cultivation, the second volume was body strengthening arts and the last one was Qi utilization. It employs a concept of cycling Qi.
The next one was Wudang’s method. This cultivation had a vastly different concept of balance, especially cultivating a Yin and Yang type of Qi. The Yin and Yang will negate any impurities by either burning it or freezing it.
Another one was the Transcendent Knight Spirit cultivation method. The way they gather Qi wasn’t spectacular nor the way they refine it but they have a method of strengthening your Qi reservoir so that your soul weapon would be stronger.
Nature’s Harmony was another one that caught his eye. Ryu wasn’t sure which continent this manual came from but they actually ask the earth, the beasts and the elements for Qi.
There was also a high level mage cultivating methods called The Third Eye. Its concept is to use all the Qi channels in your body to power up the “third eye” to control and order the Qi to gather faster.
The next manual without a name is the oddest manual because instead of cultivating, it directs the user use outside Qi such as eating spiritual pills or even getting hit by lightning. It promises speedy cultivation at a very high risk. It has a refining method a lot similar to his very own self-made “filtering” method.
Lastly there is also a Soul Fusion manual. This one must be from Infernia Ryu thought. It talks about how to cultivate when one fuses with a beast. The part that interests Ryu is that once fused, that being has two reservoirs like him and this manual talks about how to cultivate two reservoirs at once.
With ultimate control over Qi and a perfect memory, Ryu decides to take the best parts of each method and create his own.
Shaolin’s method is most orthodox and effective, it gathers Qi from all seventeen channel efficiently and cycles them profoundly in a way that not only refines but increases the Qi reservoir size. This is what Ryu will use as his base.
In order to gather more Qi, The Third Eye and Nature’s Harmony is will be added in on top of eating food/pill with high quantity of Qi.
As for refining, Ryu will use his own method improved by the nameless cultivation manual along with Wudang’s Yin and Yang to negate additional impurities.
The knight’s cultivation method will strengthen his reservoir. Although Ryu thought that only improves the durability of a soul weapon, it also prevents direct attacks at his Qi reservoir!
The Soul Fusion manual teaches Ryu how to do cultivation in parallel!
In fact any of these manuals will lead to great heights if practiced long enough. The reason why everyone else sticks to one is because training to control your Qi to establish one cultivating method takes a life time already. Practicing two kinds would require you to get your Qi to do two completely different tasks.
It’s harder than writing with both hands! The reason why Ryu could easily attempt seven kinds is because of his unique disposition to bend Qi to his will. Also Ryu doesn’t have to worry about cross contamination from practicing multiple methods, his sensitivity to Qi allows him to detect anything wrong right away and correct it.
With the Infinity Tome’s ability to give him access to any recorded knowledge all at once and his unique ability to completely control Qi, Ryu has the most potential than anyone right now.
However, unexpectedly his cultivation did not rise as fast as one would expect…