At last, the time hast cometh! Wait, master said that my way of speaking is very strange at times, that I don’t use the grammatical rules of the language properly and us strange words and phrases all the time…
Well, it’s understandable! I am very unfamiliar with this planet’s language and as it’s been several centuries for me since I last used it. Besides, languages tend to change very very quickly. Not even a thousand years passes and it becomes unfamiliar. “What kinda alien lingo are those youngsters in their mid-four hundreds using?” is the kinda question you hear all the time.
Terpeno, the most popular language in the Galaxy which is especially commonly used closer to the middle of it, has a slower rate of change. It’s because cultivators under two hundred years of age aren’t taught the language in general. They have to attend classes on Terpeno after they reach that age though.
It’s also one of the reasons that a cultivator is considered an adult only after reaching two hundred years. Well, that and the fact that the biological processes in the body slow down more the more you cultivate. Well, they don’t all slow down. Some disappear outright. Like, you’ll never see a cultivator during the Core Formation stage that is sleep-deprived, unless they practice some very special technique. That’s because at Core Formation you don’t need to sleep. The mechanisms behind it are extremely complicated, so I’ll omit the explanation why.
But if your realm is high enough, nobody will dare to treat you as a child. At two hundred years old, most would be in Foundation Building, I remember that I reached Core Formation at the age of one hundred and was treated as an adult already. Which sucks, because at that time, my biological processes slowed down even more and I was more of a child than real children, when it came to temperament at least.
I remember I cried for two days after I reached Core Formation. In my life at that time I had very few activities that I enjoyed and sleep was in top 3...
What about refining the foundation well and not rushing with cultivation, you ask? Hello, I’m a supreme-double-root once in a century rare cultivation genius, nice to metcha! Even if I don’t rush, my cultivation will increase on its own like dust in a dirty room. It also slows down my biological development, so it wouldn’t be weird to see me acting like a child during the Nascent Soul stage.
Maybe I went into Demon Dao when I grew older because of it? I just thought that Demon Dao practitioners were kinda cool… You know, the long hair, the spikes and the leather robes… a very strong visual effect.
And did I just spent 8 paragraphs worth of words speaking nonsense before getting to the point? I swear wasn’t as talkative before I died as I am now…
What I wanted to say, master finally agreed to me using the technique I developed and he prepared the necessary materials too! Yeeey!
Now, comes the problem: it will take a week to completely run the technique and cultivating so fast would draw unnecessary attention.
What my master and I came up with was this scenario: because of practicing the sword technique wrongly, I received a very complicated hidden injury. This wound was hidden so well, that even Master didn’t notice it, until I practiced the sword technique again. During that time, the injury aggravated and I now have to go into seclusion while master will spend a week treating me. During the treatment, some unexpected coincidences will happen and all of my meridians will open miraculously! I am saved, everybody is happy, the end.
…
Yeah, the scenario is shitty af. You know, I used to have a hobby of reading all kinds of junk literature that mortals came up with in the past.
There was a genre where they imagined how cultivators lived and the scenarios like: the protagonist fell off a cliff and got a supreme inheritance of some ancient overlord, or, the protagonist’s lover got injured by some baddy and the protagonist wiped the whole fucking family of the baddy off the face of the planet – these kinds of things were fairly common. The scenario we came up with is kinda similar to these. I feel like I lost somehow…
Anyway, even if the scenario is shitty, nobody will find fault with it. After all, after we came up with the scenario I spent three hours refining the theoretical part. I doubt that there will be anybody on this backwater planet that will find any fallacies with what a former Ascending Celestial can offer. Reality is not a crappy novel where super powerful old men wander around trashy backwaters everywhere after all… So there’s no problem with the method.
Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.
No problem, except…
Well, the problem is… Well, I’ll let you see it now
*Inner monologue unmute*
“Waaa, itshhh mwai faauuultt zhat big brashhaaa Olaaa ishh hurrttt!” (crying sound, it’s my fault that big brother Oalur is hurt – My junior sister, Meti)
“No, little Meti, you are not to blame… It’s all my fault! I’m so sorry, Oalus, I failed you as a senior brother! If not for me, then you, you… *punches the wall with a frustrated self-blaming face*” (My second senior brother, Tilor)
“Junior brother, why you of all people! Arrgh! I hate how I can’t help you! If only I could take some of your pain unto myself! Argh! Do you want anything? Please tell me if you want or need anything and I’ll immediately get it for you!” (Natter the Drama King and my first senior brother)
“Master! Can I look after Oalus with you? I won’t trouble you, I promise! *falls on the knees*” (Tilor again)
“Noooo, I wiiiill! Mashhtaaa!” (Meti again)
“No, leave it to me!” (Natter the drama lord again)
*Inner monologue mute*
Weeell, it was something like this… What? I’m biased against Natter somehow? What? Pff, of course not.
But to be honest, I really feel like scum cheating such good children like this. It was heart-breaking seeing their crying and frustrated faces as I lied and pretended to be sick…
Master is an incredible educator. He taught these children well and they really trust each other and rely on each other… I once too was a part of that group. But it was so, so long ago… I am now looking at these little kids and only see adorable juniors rather than fellow brothers and a sister. It’s very lonely sometimes…
*Unmute*
"""@%#! """(The trio speaking at the same time. I really can’t understand what they’re all saying at this point)
“Such infernal discord. I demand silence!” (Master)
"""…"""
“…*hick*…”(Meti)
“He’s not in danger, this old man promises you this much. This old man will treat him to the best of this his ability. This kind of injury is too trivial to deal with for me. Now, everybody, instead of crying and shouting, go and train our lineage’s grand sword art!”
And that should be pretty much it for the discussion.
…
Alright, everything is ready now.
Master prepared a separate place in his own residence for the sake of performing the technique. There’s a pit in the middle that kind of looks like a bath. Well, it is a bath. I discussed it with Master and we decided that for the duration of the performance of the technique I will lie in a medical bath in order to avoid any physical injuries or other problems like this.
Cultivator’s medical skills are far beyond anything a mortal civilization can offer. A powerful interstellar Empire of mortals where they can regrow limbs, treat all diseases and modify genes can’t compare to a cultivator’s personal stash when it comes to medical equipment.
You can extend a mortal’s lifespan by two hundred years by a year-long treatment in some weird capsule? Pfff, look at this tiny pill in my hand. It’s called “The Heart Wave Pill” and it can make mortals live for four hundred years after a single ingestion! *whisper* though it can only treat minor internal injuries for a cultivator of my level…
A medical bath prepared by a cultivator is the kind of thing a mortal king would sell his whole country for.
Of course, not everybody can afford this kind thing. But Master is the kind of person who can easily afford all kinds of luxuries in the cultivation world. In the stories I read that mortals wrote about cultivators there was often a stereotype character: Usually a young man, comes from a big sect or a lineage, has high talent, extremely arrogant and often is the biggest talent in a backwater place… Usually, such people are called young masters in the novels. I have rarely seen such people in my life, but now that I think of it… Aren’t I a young master? Scary… Self-awareness is scary…
Well, I’m not about to laugh “hohoho” in the back of my hand anytime soon… Wait, that’s a different stereotype.
Back to the topic! The medical bath will serve two functions: first is life-support. I won’t be able to eat or drink during the whole week, so the medical bath will take care of that for me. Second, strengthening of the body’s meridians. The way I am going to open the meridians is quite forceful, violent even, so in order not to damage my foundation, I’ll have to stay at the peak of the Qi-Refinement realm for some time and nourish the meridians. This bath will shorten the necessary time by a large margin.
It took a lot of time for me to calculate the materials and the methods for preparing the bath. I follow the Heavenly Way of Formations, but my Dao partner used to follow the Heavenly Path Of Alchemy and was the greatest alchemist in the Galaxy. While I am not as great as her, not even close, when it comes to the understanding of Alchemy, my realm as an Alchemist is pretty high.
And yes, I was the greatest formation master in the Galaxy. I still am, I just can’t apply most of my knowledge at my cultivation realm.
Anyway, I will be put into the medical bath and the rest of the process will be similar to what we’ve done to the substitute body before. Master will give me a small amount of Nascent essence that in turn will transform into very pure spirit qi. I will practice the meditation technique I wrote to control the spirit qi and open my three Seas and from there I will have to control the oscillations in the spiritual qi to gradually have the level of spiritual qi be equally dense and equally saturated throughout the whole body, and from there I’ll use the second layer of my mediation technique to cause a resonance with the meridians and open them.
Master will monitor the whole process in order to prevent any accidents. Plus it can be helpful for his own cultivation too. I haven’t seen Master’s Nascent Soul as at his stage one doesn’t use the spirit’s manifestations lightly, but I’m sure it looks more healthy and realistic that it was before.