“Is it meat?” The strange blob asked, his voice full of expectation.

“No, it’s bread.”

“Oh…” The voice sounded disappointed.

Without standing on ceremony, though, Red threw the piece of bread in the blob’s general direction. Even after spending such a long time together and some sort of cooperation budding between the two, the boy still didn’t dare to get close to it.

A pink lizard-like tongue emerged from the mouth, flicking through the air for a few meters and snatching the piece of bread back with such speed that it was hard to follow with the naked eye. Quiet chewing sounds could be heard as the being still ate the food with undisguised excitement despite how disappointed it seemed before.

At that point though, Red had already stopped paying attention to it. Turning around, the boy headed to the center of the room and took on some sort of combat stance with his legs slightly bent and both of his fists held to the side of his waist.

Soon enough, Red started punching the air in front of him in a slow and deliberate manner, alternating with his hands, taking care to time it with his breathing very carefully. After repeating the same slow motions for 30 seconds, he started changing his movements slightly, bringing his foot forward along with his punches. Then low kicks started to get mixed in, and slowly but surely, the speed of his repetitions started getting faster, moves chaining into each other to form a far more complex routine than the training seemed at first.

Red’s force in his punches left much to be desired even for someone of his age but his form was still very good. Or at least, that was what Viran said to him when he had taught him these very specific sets of moves. All he could do was to exert his body as the old soldier told him to, and sure enough, after less than a minute of the high-intensity training routine, Red felt his muscles begin to ache as sweat gathered on his body.

He never considered himself to be strong, much more so down in these caves where one barely found enough food to stay alive, but even then these sets of exercises seemed to take more out of his body than seemed logical. This was the intent, Red had come to learn, to squeeze the body to a point nearing exhaustion, where it would be in the optimal state to absorb spiritual energy. And the boy wasn’t far from it.

The routine continued for thirty more seconds in what seemed like an eternity for him, until eventually beneath his aching muscles another feeling appeared. It felt like a dull spark but before long it intensified into an electric numbing feeling that covered his spine before spreading to his upper arms. Red knew this was the cue.

“Hey!” He called out to the blob. It had been chewing that single piece of bread for the entire time the boy was practicing his moves before it stopped as it heard his voice. “Do it now.”

The chewing stopped as the dark blob pulsed slightly, swallowing the piece of bread. Suddenly the purple lights emitted by its tentacles started to move along the appendages before gathering in the central “heart” in a far brighter manner. Suddenly the mouth opened again, before expelling a purple mist which quickly dissolved into the chamber’s air as its tentacles regained its previous glow, this time fainter than before.

Although Red couldn’t see the purple mist anymore, he could feel it. It was a very pure spiritual energy. The numbing feeling around his arms got stronger before he sat down cross-legged, grabbed two moonstones with both of his hands, and concentrated on that sensation, ignoring the aching pain that his muscles felt as his breaths got deeper and deeper.

The boy was trying to open his spiritual veins according to the method Viran had taught him. As the man had explained, everything in the world contained spiritual energy, even the air that they breathed. It was a wondrous type of invisible matter that could be harvested and used to control the elements and shape the world at your will. Red was skeptical at first, but by following the instructions given to him he was really able to sense this so-called spiritual energy and unlock these organs he didn’t even know existed before.

Opening the spiritual veins was the first step towards being able to control this energy. From what he was told, Red knew that there were twelve individual spiritual veins in the human body, 2 in his arms, 2 in his legs, 4 in his torso, 3 in his head, and one that connected all of them together through his spine. Together they formed a perfect circuit through which the energy could flow freely. To open each of them, you needed to use spiritual energy and slowly force the acupoints in each vein open. This was an extremely dangerous and delicate process. Any deviation in the practice could cause one to cripple their spiritual veins in the best case scenario and even explode their entire body with excess spiritual energy in the worst one.

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The majority of human beings weren’t born with any sensitivity towards spiritual energy either and the process of opening their veins was much harder for them. In other words, those people had little to no talent in manipulating spiritual energy. Red happened to be one of those people. However, although the path was more difficult it wasn’t uncrossable either.

Viran just so happened to know a set of special exercises and breathing techniques that could help someone in opening their spiritual veins, and he seemed to be very experienced in the matter too. Pretty much everything the boy came to know about spiritual energy was from the man. Red had heard about it before from some slaves, but never in as much detail as from the old soldier. Not to mention, his unnatural strength seemed to back up his knowledge, as the man was capable of beating any other slave in these caves with the same ease, no matter how big or strong they were. Even many monsters had fallen in his hand.

The effects of opening his spiritual veins were showing themselves to the boy too. Red had completely opened the spinal vein, and he had never felt as energetic as he did that day. Even with the same amount of food he ate, he felt he could run twice as long and these exercises which seemed hellish at first started becoming less draining on his stamina. This much already was accomplished with Viran’s help and close guidance. If the boy had to go at it alone from the get-go, then he had no doubt that something would have gone wrong already with his practice.

Still, either Red was a quick learner or he had a very good teacher because since then he had managed to do these exercises and the breathing technique by himself. Viran had even encouraged him to do it on his own, mentioning that even he wouldn’t be able to guide every step of the way for the boy, not because he didn’t want to, but rather because he couldn’t. Right now, for instance, Red was focused on opening his second spiritual vein, this one was located in his upper arms and on his shoulder, where they connected into the central spinal vein.

This was, however, proving itself to be much harder than he initially thought it would be. Viran had warned him of this too, that this task was much like climbing a mountain, getting harder and harder as you got higher. However, Red had never thought it would be this monumentally difficult this early on. Even opening the first acupoint on this second vein took him close to a week, where the first few ones he had succeeded in a matter of days. The old soldier had been incessantly bothering the boy about being quicker, but it was to no avail. It seemed all his potential was already being tapped.

It was to his luck though, that in his time of need Red eventually met that thing.

...

As soon as the purple mist completely dissipated into the air, the boy concentrated on his right arm, feeling a strong torrent of spiritual energy pouring into it, far more than these caves normally held. Using his already opened veins, Red had some mystical degree of control over the energy that entered his body. Well, he didn’t so much control that spiritual energy as much as he pointed it towards the general direction of the closed acupoint before it could do any damage to his body. A sharp pain started to spread in that general area as the invisible energy battered against his closed vein, trying to open a path that it knew was there but that had been sealed tight.

A few minutes passed by as it took all of his attention to not let himself pass away from the sheer pain and exhaustion that his body was going through. It was an arduous process for someone of his age, but it was one that Red had been training for a long time to be prepared for, and suffice it to say, for someone who had been raised in such a hostile environment, his threshold for pain was far higher than most other his own age.

His efforts eventually paid off, as he felt the acupoint give way and let the spiritual energy through. This was the sixth acupoint he had opened in this second vein, almost halfway through it. Even after having progressed, Red didn’t feel the spiritual energy around him dissipate that much. However, any further practice would have to wait, as he felt his body was near the limits of what it could handle, and if he continued he would most likely suffer from some very nasty side effects.

“You know, you could be doing this much faster.” The same childish voice resounded in his mind, as Red turned his gaze over towards the blob, seeing its mouth moving in conjunction with the words. His face though remained as impassive and emotionless as ever.

“How?” Although he indulged the creature, he had a feeling about where this was going.

“Bring me meat!” It responded excitedly. “It could make the energy around here purer and you would be able to open those channels in your body much more easily.”

Red shook his head. This wasn’t the first time the matter had been brought up.

“I would bring you meat if I could, but it’s not easy to come by.” He wasn’t lying. What meat they acquired from hunting monsters was very carefully divided, cooked, and eaten on the spot, most of it going to Viran either way. Red received some of it too, more than a child deserved according to the rambling of some slaves, but he would never give that nutrition up no matter how much his training speed could improve. It was one of the few things that kept his body in some functioning shape. What use would it be to increase the speed of opening his spiritual veins if he could barely defend himself?

“Well… The deal still stands whenever you do get some meat.” The voice sounded disappointed once again, but the boy knew that the next time he came by it would probably bring up the same matter again, and he would give it the same answer.

“I’m leaving.” Saying so, Red patted the dust off his pants and turned around, heading towards the exit with no plans to indulge the creature with any more conversation.

“Farewell, bring some meat the next time!” The voice responded, its mouth suddenly retracting into its blob-like body.

Even as his body ached, the boy made his way through the twists and turns of the narrow passages leading to his hidden training room. He didn’t dare to spend one second more than was necessary in that place. Even if that shadowy being was intelligent and not intent on hurting him, there was no telling what sort of things could happen if he stuck around too much, considering the thing’s hunger for meat.

As he crawled through the narrow tunnel, Red could not help but wonder to himself for how long he would be able to fit in here. It would be very unfortunate for the day to come where he couldn’t partake in dealing food in exchange for pure spiritual energy with that strange creature. Still, this was a matter for another time.

Exiting through the other side, Red proceeded to carefully hide the small tunnel entrance with a pile of rocks. As he got ready to return to Viran though, the boy heard faint but quick steps approaching from a connecting corridor out of his vision.