There were two reasons why Relic wanted to restore his master's dantian. The first was that he wanted to help strengthen her body. Years of neglect had left her with a broken body, which without the help of the medicinal baths, caused her pain everyday.
The second reason was that he wanted her to live a longer life. As long as she had a completed dantian she could always cultivate again even if she was old. They could then continue to live together for a long time and enjoy each other's company.
“Pascal, can you show me your cultivation method?”
“En”
She cultivated a fairly advanced cultivatipon method called the 7 divine lightning manual. It consisted of seven stances, which when done quick enough, flows like a streak of lightning. Although it was not an exclusive method within the the Thunder storm sect, it was only permitted to those who contributed great merit within the sect.
She stood still as the breeze on top of the hill passed through her hair. Her face was tranquil and serene like an undisturbed pond. Slowly, she began to move from one stance to the next. Faster and faster, until the movement looked like a flow of lightning. Energy began to swirl around her. Every stance increased the swirl of energy surrounding her. As she entered a meditative state a resounding sound rang out.
Booom!
“Wah!”
Pascal jumped in surprise.
The inital stage of cultivation in a person's journey to cultivation is called the Qi gathering realm. To truly begin ones journey, one had to grasp an etheral thread from the heavens. These threads dangled from the heavens and attached themselves to everything around the world from rocks, trees, people, the sky, almost everywhere.
As one cultivates they will begin to be able to sense these threads and grasp them. When a cultivator grasps onto a thread they must guide it towards their dantian which then forms a bridge, connecting the individual to the heavens. Cultivation allows the energy from the heavens to flow into your body and towards your dantian.
With good talent, one would naturally be able to draw in the energy of the heavens faster than others. Cultivation methods allowed one to begin their journey by allowing them to see the heavenly threads. However, after that, different methods allowed cultivators to draw in different types of energies from the heavens.
Cultivating the 7 divine lightning manual will allow cultivators to draw in energy essence of lightning and connects the cultivator to the Dao of Lightning.
This is why it is very important to choose the correct sect to enter at a young age so that their talents and affinity will be maximized.
Pascal had already grasped the heavenly thread and is considered to be in the Qi gather realm. In the Qi gathering realm she would then continuously absorb the energy from the heavens until it fills up her dantian entirely.
Back in the sect, she had always cultivated diligently but was always merely at the Qi gathering realm. The process was long and boring and at times it seemed like it would take months for her to break through. Thus she did not expect to break through almost immediately after she began cultivating.
“How did this happen?” she said in disbelief.
She had just broken through to the Soulless warrior realm!
Even Relic was quite surprised. A large reason for her fast cultivation should be because she originally had an above average talent in cultivation, coupled with the fact that she had constant medicinal baths. It would be no suprise if she was capable of cultivating faster than regular people. However, even if it was that, Relic thought it was too fast. In fact her old age should have counteracted some of the effect of the medicinal bath, making her cultivation slower.
"Is it because I used my spiritual root to supplement her dantian?"
“Continue.” He spoke quickly.
Pascal continued to cultivate once more. After a few moments a second boom happened breaking into stage two of the soulless warrior realm.
This time they both jumped in surprise at the rate of her explosive cultivation.
“Uncle…. Am I a genius?” She turned and asked Relic. Her eyes radiating with happiness.
“O-of course, I would say you are a genius that comes along every hundred… no, every thousand years.” He spoke proudly.
“Really!” Her eyes sparkled
“Yes, when you return to the sect, you will probably be the center of envy of everyone!”
Her smile radiated an aura that could make anyone happy. Her body also seemed to have rejuvenated slightly. Her back straightened out slightly, her skin was tighter than before. She still looked like an average elderly grandma but it was undeniable she was on the more youthful side.
At this moment Pascal was jumping for joy. To her, every sect had their own group of geniuses. However, she was now a genius among geniuses. No one could bully her and she would receive all the attention from her father.
“Now father will be proud of me just like sister!” she was genuinely elated.
“Pascal!” His shout made her stop her spouts of excitement.
“Although you are a genius, you must remember to continue to cultivate hard. I have traveled very far and have seen countless geniuses waste their talents because they lacked the resolve to cultivate diligently. It is fine to be excited of your progress but you must never lose yourself in it.” His reprimand resonated with her soul. She took in the words spoken by Relic seriously and calmed herself.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
“Yes!”
Her position shifted back to her beginning stance and she continued cultivating the 7 divine lightning manual.
In mere minutes she broke through to the third stage, however, this time she continued to cultivate without stopping.
At half of the hour, she broke through the fourth stage.
After two hours the fifth stage was broken through.
As night came, she broke through the sixth stage.
At this time she opened her eyes and a big grin was smeared on her face.
“Uncle, I just broke through the sixth stage!”
“Mn, you did well.” He said so calmly but in his heart he was shocked beyond words. "At this rate, reaching master’s old rank will probably take less than 15 years!."
He was excited about her progress. As her cultivation raised so too did her longevity. His greatest wish was for his master to live a long and happy life, and with a powerful cultivation, she could do exactly that!
“Okay, Okay, you have been cultivating all day. Go take a bath and then join me for dinner.”
Pascal nodded and only now noticed that she was covered in layers upon layers of black sticky substance. This black substance was the result of the many years of harmful substances put in her body. It would be hard to pinpoint exactly what contributed to this great amount of black substance, but at this point, neither Pascal nor Relic cared.
The soulless warrior realm used to be called the cleansing realm. It has 9 stages with each stage, the Qi in her body will flush out her body of harmful substances. It was also called the 9 heavenly rotations as every stage she broke through will result in her body being cleansed on a deeper level. The reason the realm was now called the soulless warrior realm was because of the sheer number of people in this realm. Those in this realm were not incredibly powerful and were only slightly stronger than regular people. If enough mortals surrounded a cultivator in this realm, they could still win over the cultivator.
That was why instead of being called cultivators, they were sometimes regarded as cannon fodder. When war broke out between countries or sects, these people will almost surely be in the front lines.
She rushed into the bath house, ripping her clothes off instead of taking them off.
The sound of the caked on clothes made heavy sounds as they dropped on the floor. Undoubtedly, her body had great amounts of impurities and after cultivating, these impurities were finally ejected out of her body.
She jumped into the water where a huge splash was made. The water almost instantly turned black and continued to turn darker as she rubbed off the impurities off her skin.
Relic chuckled at the scene as he cleared out remnants of the clothes and left out a new set of clothes.
....
“Fuwaa, what a great bath!” Pascal felt like her body had under gone a complete transformation.
Her outward appearance had changed drastically. Her liver spots were almost gone, her scars were faint, her skin no longer sagged excessively. Even her hair was now shoulder length. If one were to look at her now, they would probably guess her age was around the 60s. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say she would get quite a bit attention from elderly gentlemen.
Without a pause, she sat down at the dinner table and began to pig out.
Seeing her like this made Relic's heart became quite warm and her genuine smile has been a consistent uplift to his mood.
“Pascal, you have worked quite hard today and have exceeded even my expectations! I will let you decide any reward you want.”
She immediately stopped eating and her eyes glistened as she turned to face Relic. If it were her father, he would probably made her continue cultivating endlessly and without rest.
”Really! Any?!”
“Yes!”
“Then, will uncle buy me a spirit beast dog?”
He thought for a moment. A spirit beast dog was quite popular with families. They were loyal and they loved to play with kids. Most parents will have at least once in their parenthood, been begged for one by their children.
“Mn, alright! We will go buy one tomorrow.”
“Yay, Uncle is the best!” She jumped up and gave him a hug. Their meeting had been very brief, but for Pascal, she felt extremely close to Relic despite not knowing him for long. In fact, her trust in him was probably only a little less than that of her father.
They finished their dinner and slept but not before Relic recounted one of his adventures.
....
Morning came and the two treaded down the hill as they have always done.
“Mister Astor, Pasc…….” The middle aged lady standing by her chicken skewer cart called out to the two people she normally sees walking through town. However, she cut her greeting short as soon as she saw Pascal.
“Ah, hello Miss Hou….. wait what?” This time it was the middle aged lady that dragged Relic to the side.
“Pascal, sweetie, be a dear and wait for us grownups to finish talking." She said as she dragged Relic to the side.
“Mister Astor, why does Pascal look so young?! She looks 15 years younger!”
“Ah, well you see….” Relic began to sweat. It seemed he was constantly making up stories left and right.
“You see, granny had a very fortuitous encounter!”
“What kind of Fortuitous encounter?! ” She asked intently.
“A couple days ago, as we were having dinner, we heard a knock at the door. At the door was wanderer who was asking for some food. At the time, I thought I would do a good deed and invited him in to have dinner with us. Who would have guessed he was a mighty cultivator!”
She nodded fiercely as he told his story.
“After dinner, he said that he saw granny had potential in cultivation he had not seen in the hundred years that he has been cultivating. Thus, he decided to take her in as a disciple and began to teach her cultivation. Within a few hours, grandma Pascal broke through several ranks, and increased her longevity which is why she looks so much younger now!”
The middle aged lady looked in surprise but also disappointment.
“Ah, I see, I thought you were able to find some beauty cream that makes old ladies young again.”
She walked towards Pascal. “Pascal, I’m very happy for you.” She proceeded to give her a hug.
Pascal was kind of confused as why this chicken auntie gave her a hug. Maybe she heard of her great advancements through cultivation? She decided to accept the compliment and said, “En, Thanks Auntie!”
The two waved the lady good bye as they headed towards their favourite restaurant to eat breakfast. Upon entering, everyone was stunned to see Pascal. The changes of her outer appearance were too different for people not to notice.
Almost immediately, women of all ages were rushing to ask Pascal on how she achieved such miraculous results!
“OH, I FORGOT, WE SHOULD GET TO THE SPIRIT BEAST SHOP EARLY SO THAT WE CAN GET THE BEST DOG!”
Relic grabbed Pascal’s hands and rushed out without saying anything to the charging women. The two ran so fast many of the spectators were stunned to see such an old lady out running a group of younger women.
Of course, that had a lot to do with the fact she was now at the sixth stage of the soulless warrior realm.
“Uncle Astor, why are the people here always acting so strange?”
“Uh…. It’s because everyone wants to be Pascal’s friend!”
“Really?!” her mood shifted upwards
“Really!” he said with an awkward smile.
“Come, didn’t you say you wanted to get a beast dog?”
Her eye’s glistened as she took Relic's hands and headed towards the spirit beast shop.
At the shop there were a variety of spirit beasts. Red-eyed demon monkey, spirit jaded turtle, crystal apocalypse peacock, many of which would make newer cultivators drool. However, Relic did not recommend any of these to Pascal. He kept completely silent and allowed her to pick whatever she wanted.