Haiyang awoke the next day feeling refreshed, and proud of his recent achievements in his refinement technique. He gave a small happy smile before walking out to the courtyard.

As per normal morning routine he had to train his body. So Haiyang stood outside in the center of the courtyard and breathed. Deeply in and deeply out he focused himself. He let his power flow through him.

He felt strong and unstoppable for that moment. He ignored the feeling and got ready. He bent his knees and got low to the ground.

He launched himself forward, sprinting towards the end of the courtyard. When he reached the wall he quickly turned and headed towards another.

Back and forth Haiyang ran. He kept running at full speed trying to continuously gain more control. He didn’t want his speed to overwhelm him so he had to gain more control.

Minutes went by of this before Haiyang stopped. Not even out of breath or even tired he stood there. Haiyang analyzed what happened and all the changes that were done and the results.

Just standing there and thinking for tens of minutes before Haiyang came too. His eyes opened and shone with a light of understanding as if he found a small piece of a puzzle.

He found changes in reactions to the environment depending on how he distributed his force. When it was spread in a wide area the ground wasn’t pushed down. When he focused it on one small point the ground would cave in.

This was a very big piece of the puzzle for him. If he could master this idea then he wouldn’t need the seals to restrict his strength.

Haiyang gave a slight smile before he refocused himself. He moved on to his second test, jumping.

He started to jump up and down up and down. He was focusing on the different ways he distributed his force.

He focused it on a small point but the soft dirt caved in. When focusing on a small point he got higher but he also lacked control. Focusing the force in a broader area caused the dirt to not cave in but he didn’t get as high although he did have more control.

Haiyang wanted to try something. He sent yin qi to his paw and made a small pad. The pad was about three centimeters bigger than his paw in diameter.

Haiyang started to jump again this time focusing the force through the pad. The results were just as expected. He didn’t get as much height but the dirt didn’t look the slightest bit disturbed.

Soon he stopped jumping and smiled. He walked over to the tree and gave it a few strong slaps. He again focused on his force in broad and smaller areas.

The broad slaps made the tree make a slight cracking sound along with a small “boom”! When Haiyang focused on a smaller area there was no boom! A small cracking sound was still audible but a small dent was made in the bark.

He tried to do this again but this time he made qi pad. First, he tried a bigger than paw pad to slap the tree. As expected there was a boom and cracking sound but no serious damage. The second time he tried a smaller than paw pad. When he slapped the tree the force was all focused in a smaller area. There was no boom only a crack and a dent. This dent was the size of a fist!

Haiyang stared at the dent in amazement. He didn’t think he could cause such damage. He couldn’t understand how a slap could do that to a tree! He didn’t even want to think about hitting someone with that.

He stopped staring and sunk into thought. He organized what he learned today and started to get a better understanding. Smaller and bigger areas distribute force and cause different effects.

Haiyang stayed in thought for tens of minutes. A small chirping of birds woke him up. His eyes opened and glowed with enlightenment. New confidence started to grow within him.

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He turned around and looked up at his tree before sitting down underneath. He focused and entered a meditative state. In his mind’s eye, Haiyang looked at each of the taiji symbols. He studied them, each and every one of them.

He found that he felt and unstable aura coming from them. He saw that they were constantly changing in shape and the two sides were trying to break free from the other. They weren’t even imprints but symbols that floated above the muscle. It was like someone glued a piece of paper onto some wood rather than carving into the wood. The symbol was trying to separate back into two imprints!

He started to absorb the wood qi surrounding the tree. He filled his dantian to the brim.

Using the fresh qi he sent it to one of the symbols on his arm. He filled the outer lining surrounding the old sun and moon imprint full of wood qi.

The outer lining got bigger and bigger. The two imprints started to stabilize and stopped fighting back. Soon they were completely stabilized and were one. The Taiji symbol started to sink into his muscle. It was no longer a symbol but an imprint!

The imprint was now one with his muscle! It reached mid-tier of imprints and started to release even greater strength.

Haiyang gave a smile as weakness flowed over him. His dantian was completely empty. Haiyang could only give a wry smile.

The normal tree in the courtyard could only give enough qi for maybe two and a half full dantians. He needs a lot more qi if he wants all of his imprints to be mid-tier.

Haiyang looked up and found that almost an hour had passed. He also needed more time to complete each imprint.

He though for only a minute before going back to absorbing wood qi. When his dantian was full he started to work on the second imprint. Making the outer lines thicker and stabilizing the two fighting elements.

When it was noon and wood qi thin and almost gone Haiyang stopped. Haiyang’s head started to hurt and it started to feel strained. It hurt but it wasn’t unbearable. He got up and walked to the training field.

Haiyang walked briskly to the training field. When he arrived he ran sat under the Copper Crown trees. He took a minute to think about how these trees gave off more and better quality qi.

He could only make a few guesses. His only real guess would be that the trees are a type of spiritual herb so it gave off more qi. The Silver Crown trees are probably then an even higher quality than the Copper Crown trees.

He pushed the thoughts to the back of his mind and started to meditate. Slowly Haiyang absorbed the wood qi. When his dantian was full he started to work on the next taiji imprint.

Another hour passed and another imprint was stabilized and brought to the mid-tier level. This time he wasn’t hit by a huge wave of weakness like last time. His dantian still had a fourth of his qi left. This helped lessen the wave of weakness. He smiled and started to absorb more wood qi.

The process continued of absorbing and stabilizing again and again. Soon the sun started to set and the Copper Crown trees stopped giving off qi.

He looked up staring at the Silver Crown trees. He got up running to the trees and started to meditate. He absorbed more and more wood qi and stabilized each imprint. Each imprint needed only about a half of his qi so he could make more imprints faster without a grace period for absorbing.

This helped his cultivation go faster but without the grace period, the mental strain started to stack. After doing two with no grace period although it dropped some time the mental strain was much stronger than doing three imprints with a grace period.

Haiyang quickly ignored the pain and kept cultivating and refining each imprint.

Soon the moon hung high and he stopped cultivating. He looked up with tired eyes and stared at the moon. He took a breath and close his eyes.

He analyzed the imprints and saw that for a day of cultivating he stabilized his whole right arm and most of his right leg. He didn’t think this was bad speed but he needed to go faster.

Haiyang started to think of what else could be done. He thought of herbs but they were too expensive and not the best way. He couldn’t stay here as the trees weren’t enough.

He started to think of all possibilities. He thought and thought before he came to one and he smiled. It was a tad crazy and maybe dangerous but it was just what he needed.

He needed to go back to the forest. He would have a lot more trees so he wouldn’t have to worry about a lack of Qi. He could even try and find some good spiritual trees in higher amounts.

Haiyang looked in the direction of the forest and smiled. His eyes had nothing but determination in them and his heart was set. He was going back!

First, he had to sleep. His mind was strained from the constant stabilizing of the imprints. He quickly stood and walked back to the courtyard. He got into bed and quickly fell asleep. His pain already started to subside and the sleep was what he needed to finish that up.