Eon familiarized himself with the improved qi perception for a moment, before turning back to Zerle.

"It seems my qi perception has considerably improved. I am able to much more clearly sense the surrounding qi as well as the qi inside of my body," Eon said, deactivating his qi perception to save stamina.

"Good, very good. Alright, I will try to quickly explain the first realm of cultivation. There are 108 special points on your body. These points are connections, called acupoints, that act as the portals to the energy body, which we will discuss in depth some other time. This energy body exists in a separate yet parallel space to our own, generally known as the metaphysical plane. The meridians, which are a vast collection of intricately arrayed tubes, exist in this energy body. This is a rule for all living beings regardless of origin or size, and so far you are the only exception to this I have seen. Anyway, body tempering requires unsealing the 108 acupoints existing across the body by saturating them with true qi. True qi is the most malleable and common form of qi in the universe, true qi can be used for breaking down the seal that closes off the acupoints, other forms of qi could work but they will likely cause qi deviation, an affliction where the true qi floods the consciousness turning a cultivator into an irredeemable monster whose bloodlust is only stopped by their death. Through unsealing the 108 acupoints in the body, one gains greater control over their body, mind, and qi by allowing the meridian to effectively produce and regulate true qi. The results of unsealing individual acupoints are small and only by reaching certain milestones does one achieve notable increases in strength as the open acupoints can synchronize. Each of the 5 stages of body tempering returns more or less the same strength so an entry-stage cultivator has about 1/5th the strength of a peak body tempering. When one opens their first acupoint, that is considered the entry stage of the body tempering realm. Opening the second-36th acupoints is considered early stage, the 37th-72nd is mid-stage, the 73rd-107th is late-stage, and opening the 108th is the peak stage where one is ready to break through into the foundation. This realm is referred to as body tempering because it focuses mostly on the physical body, in the sense of both strengthening the body and opening the physical body's connection to the energy body. This is where you come in. You can't do any of this. While your energy body still exists, as do your acupoints, the fact that you lack meridians means that you can't interact with the true qi in the environment to unseal the acupoints, and even if you could, it wouldn't do you any good since you can't draw power from meridians that don't exist. No, your path will be quite different, at least in the method I have been able to devise thus far. What I hadn't mentioned earlier is 'how' opening the acupoints strengthens the body. Reactivate your qi perception, and focus closely at places I point out," Zerle said as he pointed at some places on Eon's skin.

Eon did as instructed. There was something hiding inside the healthy qi inside of Eon’s body that he had missed before. It was elongated pockets of liquid so dark red they were almost black, flowing along with his qi like a snake in the grass, if Eon wasn’t focusing intently on these spaces he would have likely missed them unless he spent a long time observing his own qi. Just looking at these liquid pockets made Eon feel a sense of discomfort and disgust that he couldn't understand, it was an instinct buried deep in his psyche.

"Do you see it? There is a second type of qi in your body. The first bright red kind is blood qi, due to its color and connection to blood. Blood qi is responsible for all of the life processes, from breathing to the liver filtering toxins it relies on blood qi to function. Humanoids produce blood qi from the food we eat and are assisted by the true qi that leaks from the acupoints. The second kind of qi you just found is impure qi or impurities for short. Impurities exist from the moment we are born and, at least for mortals, are with us till the day we die, slowly growing. Impurities cause worse aging and illness such as heart disease, cancer, mental illness, etc as impurities disrupt the production and functioning of blood qi. This means the impurities weaken blood qi from its true potential. There are several theories for why the body has impurities, from small buildups of qi in the environment causing damage to the body during fetal development to the idea that they help stabilize our bodies when we are young preventing our potential strength and small amounts of true qi from literally tearing us apart, or. It doesn't really matter though, at least for our purposes. When a person is young, they are unable to remove the impurities of the body, as the impurities and blood qi haven't stabilized yet, so trying to remove them is likely to cause one's blood qi to run rampant, crippling or even killing the child in most cases. In the majority of species, the blood qi stabilizes around the age of 17 when physical development slows down. That's why children are left only to practice mortal arts until they come of age, so they can gain strength without hurting themselves in the process. Besides, even if small, having mortal arts does improve cultivators' strength as they cultivate. Those who cultivated mortal arts to the limit as children are on average about 10% stronger than their contemporaries when they reach peak body tempering. What we are going to do is a bit dangerous, but as far as I can see it is the only means to strengthen you. You are going to use your new art to slowly ball up the impurities, and then expunge them. If you expel too few impurities at a time, they'll grow back, and too many impurities at a time will put too much of a strain on your body, agonizingly killing you. Don't worry, you have me here, I will help you determine how many impurities to expel at a time, vastly lowering the risk. The downside of this method is that you won’t be able to utilize true qi to use the techniques of cultivators, so you will only be able to rely on your body and any fighting skills and martial arts you have. You will struggle more and more to keep up with the actual combat abilities of your contemporaries as while your physical strength will remain up to par your power will fall further and further behind the curve. Are you ready to get started?" Zerle said.

Stolen novel; please report.

"Wait wait wait, that's a lot to remember, so you have this written down somewhere?" Eon asked, his head hurting a little from trying to remember so much at once.

"Actually, I am glad you asked. While you were cleaning up, I wrote everything down in the book you saw me reading. Consider it a gift, it is your new personal journal that you can use to keep track of anything you wish to remember," Zerle said with curved lips.

Zerle handed Eon the dusty leather-bound book he saw earlier. Eon traced the binding of the book with his finger, feeling its thickness and weight.

With a little guilt, Eon said, "It seems I owe you quite a bit now, don't I?"

Zerle chuckled, "Yes, you do. So you should get strong enough quickly to pay me back. Hurry and reach for the top, those resources I used on you for the ritual weren't cheap after all, I used nearly a year of funds, which is most of my savings. The sect can only spare me so much, and even if one has money they often can't find suitable materials unless they go searching outside the sect. Well, this is all assuming that this new kind of art works as intended, if it doesn’t, there is nothing to be done about it and I will just write off the resources as lost. Asking you to repay this on the salary you make as a servant would be petty."

Eon silently committed to himself that one day, when he had the strength, he would repay this old man however he could. Not only had Zerle saved his life but Zerle also spent great amounts of resources on him with full expectations of losing them if Eon couldn’t pay it back. This was a very rare type of person, and even with his few personality flaws, Zerle was still someone Eon felt he should maintain a relationship with.

Eon, under Zerle's guidance, activated his new art that he still hadn't thought of a name for. Eon was in no rush for a name, as this would prove to be his future path so he wanted to be sure to come up with a good one. After a few attempts, Eon managed to slightly move the blood qi surrounding an impurity for a few seconds before losing control, causing the impurity to immediately move back into place.