A bit more time had now gone by. Lee Gu, otherwise known as Max by those around him, was now just past 6 years old, and getting ready to start school. He had developed a basic idea of the world he was reborn into by now, one of which wasn't violent. To Lee Gu, this fact was quite odd. In his previous world he was accustomed to violence at all times, betrayal was common, and death would constantly be lurking in the corner waiting for the right blade to find you. So to him, the fact that this world was so quaint and relatively passive was something that took adjustment. Not that it was something Lee Gu was too unhappy with of course.
In terms of his Qi Path development, he could now access all but the smallest of them. This is not to say that they were perfect or anything, but he could actually access them. The cleanliness of his Qi Paths still left much to be desired, but that would come with time. In his eyes he had already made stellar amounts of progress. He felt confident now that if he pushed a bit, he would already have his Qi Paths in the same state he did in his past life.
Regardless, he knew that shortly after his enrollment to this school, he would have far less time than he was used to to train himself and clean his paths. He was glad that he had expanded his Qi Pool a couple months ago since he would not be able to get a chance to do so for another long while.
From Lee Gus' understanding, he would be at school for 5 days out of the week, while he would be home during the weekend, both his parents had also arranged to be able to be off on weekends during the school year. This meant that both his mother and father would be paying more attention to him and thus he wouldn't be able to do much of his usual routine of cleaning his Qi Paths, nor would he be able to obtain the time to expand his Qi Pool, though he wouldn't be able to for a long while regardless.
Now theoretically he would be able to yield a portion of his sleeping time to go about doing a lot of these things, however, until Lee Gu advanced his cultivation this would be a much more difficult plan to pull off. He had forgotten how much sleep a mortal body required in his past life where he only needed sleep twice a year. This was doubly so since he was still a child.
Something that Lee Gu hadn't realized until a short while ago was that his mind was being influenced by his body. He could tell something was wrong when he was 3, but now it had become far more obvious that he had some mentality of a child despite him not ever really letting his guard down. Or... Perhaps he had let his guard down? He may not have realized it, but having to rely on another being for your continued survival makes it difficult to not feel safe around them, even more so when they are evidently softer on you than others.
Speaking of his parents. His mother was pregnant again. He wasn't sure what the gender of the child would be, but he was aware of the child's existence at this point before even his parents knew. He could feel the Qi of the unborn child after all. Mind you it wasn't a life form yet, but it was evident that a form of some sort was growing due to the gathering of Qi in his mother's womb.
He purged that thought from his brain as he readied himself for the hell that would surely follow from putting a bunch of children his age into a single room. His mother corralled him into the car, not that Lee Gu really fought it too much. And the duo drove to his school on the way his mother decided to make some small talk.
"So... Are you excited Max? It is after all the first day of school." She smiled at him, taking a quick glance at him in the rear view mirror.
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"Mm. I mean, I guess. It seems like it's just going to be more trouble than it's worth, to be perfectly honest." Lee Gu replied.
"Ohh... That's no fun. Max you have to be more optimistic, that way you can make some friends. I know you aren't that social, but please at least try?" His mother gave him a slight smile that he could barely glimpse through the rearview mirror. It was times like this that reminded him of the fact that his mother truly was quite beautiful.
"I promise I'll try." Lee Gu relented. He was still weak to women in this life too, moreover, it was his mother. He hadn't gotten much of a chance with his previous one, she had died shortly after he was birthed after all.
"That's my boy." She giggled a little bit at the frown that found its way onto Lee Gu's face. She knew he didn't like to be treated like a child, even if he technically was a child.
She then ran him through a few things about what he should try to do, nagging in only a way that a mother could before they arrived, where he got out and had to assure his mother that he would be fine and that, no, she did not need to come with him to hold his hand.
He simply entered the building and found his way to his classroom. He was part of kindergarten class 4. at least officially. unofficially it was known as the flower class, all the kindergartens had class names,one had the name puppies, which was a bit amusing to Lee Gu. He simply didn't understand why these classes of dribbling, snot covered, kids needed such names. It wasn't practical at all, although it also was better to say than kindergarten class 4. Just rolled off the tongue better.
As he entered, a teacher walked up, asked him his name, gave a name tag to him and directed him to his spot in the classroom. He was put at the rhombus table. Why the tables were named he had no clue, although he quickly gathered that all the tables were in fact different shapes. so he at least knew where the names came from.
Sitting in his chair he waited a few minutes for other kids to come in. Many were crying and screaming their heads off, but Lee Gu had long since learned to tune all that out, so he just sat quietly, eventually messing with the blocks on his table because he was bored. Next thing he knew another kid sat down next to him. It was a somewhat chubby boy, who was just a bit shorter than Lee Gu, his eyes were tinted red, indicating that he had been among those who were crying. Lee Gu had some compassion for them in this regard. He had cried too when he had lost his father, mind the difference between him knowing his father had died against the fact that these kids were likely more confused than anything, but still, suddenly having no one to rely on in a place of strangers was something that the kids around him received some sympathy for.
"Whoa, that's so cool!" The boy said looking at the blocks Lee Gu had been messing with. In Lee Gus' mind it had simply been a crudely stacked tower of blocks, but if one had seen that boy's eyes they'd be forgiven for thinking he had witnessed the second coming of the tower of babel. It was still wild to Lee Gu how children could have such amazing imaginations.
"Thanks. My name's Max, well technically it's Maxwell, but everyone just calls me Max. What's your name?" Max looked at the chubby kid, the kid had brown hair, and seemed like the kind who was going to be a big softy rather than intimidating in the future, or at least that was the vibe Lee Gu got from him.
"M-my name is Jeremy." The boy suddenly shied up a little bit now that he had been spoken to.
"Nice to meet you Jeremy. Wanna be my friend? My mom says I'm not very good at making friends." Lee Gu gave his best attempt to smile.
"Uhmm. Yeah, okay!" And like that Lee Gu had gained his first friend in this world, of course no one knew whether they would stay friends forever or not.