CHAPTER 2 --- CULTIVATION?
Sighing now that he was alone, he once more started asking the questions he was asking himself from the beginning.
’Why am I here? How did I get here? What happened to me? Why am I a kid?’ Of course, he had no way of finding out, so he just lied down in contemplation for a while.
After spending a few hours thinking and not coming up with anything (except for a dozen theories about aliens, someone stealing his body, his brain having been transferred…) he had made a few decisions for himself.
First, he would tell no one he woke up in a younger body. Why? Obviously, if they already treated him like a slave, who knew what they would do to him if they found out he became younger…
Secondly, he would listen to all instructions until he could find a way to escape. Why? Well, he had no idea where he was taken, so even if he escaped, he wouldn’t know where to go! Not to mention he didn’t know how big this ‘sect’ was.
Third, he would never tell them his full name, so that when he escaped and went home, they wouldn’t be able to track him!
Of course, making those decisions was more to calm his mind by giving himself the illusion that he still held some form of control in this situation. As long as he had that, he could somehow keep himself sane, or so he hoped.
Having done all this and calmed down, he started looking around his room. He actually had a bathtub in his bathroom, and a small mirror.
Ignoring the mirror for now, he looked at the tub. It was just a wooden tub filled with cold water. Above it was a cord that could be pulled to fill it up again, and there was a latch you could open to let the water flow into a pit, which also served as toilet. When he thought about it, he noticed that his body had a terrible smell to it, so he jumped in and quickly washed up.
What should’ve been a normal quick bath, became a painful experience as he was confronted with the changes in his body. Knowing you have a child’s body and actually being in one is a whole other thing!
‘What am I going to do with this?’ He asked himself as a feeling of powerlessness once again overcame him. But he couldn’t change the situation so he quickly dried his body with a towel, trying not to pay too much attention to it.
When he was done, he had to gather up all his courage to walk over to the mirror to take a look at himself.
Looking into it, he was stunned speechless. What he saw there was a younger version of his own face, with pristine white hair, and those eyes… they were a whirlpool of colors! But strangely it was not in a dizzying way, but actually had a soothing beauty to it.
Staring at himself in awe, he couldn’t believe how he looked right now. The feeling it gave him was quite conflicting. On one hand, he was happy that he didn’t look utterly disfigured, and incredibly happy that he still had his own face. On the other hand, his hair and eyes still gave him a strange foreign feeling, as if they were not from this world.
Walking up to his bed while drying off, he noticed a pile of clean clothes next to it. Looking them over, it was a simple white shirt, and brown pants. He quickly got dressed, and decided to explore his room. The first thing he noticed was that he had no windows, and the light in his room could not be turned off! This meant that he would not know how much time passed, much less how much days had gone by!
This might not seem important, but he was basically stuck in a room for an unknown amount of time, without a way to get out or to know when he would be let out! After yelling and knocking on the door until his voice was hoarse and his fists bloody, he decided to give up. He finally had to accept that he had no control whatsoever about this situation, leaving him frustrated and exasperated. Not knowing what would happen to him left him wanting to just sit in the corner and cry!
The past few events had been one blow after another to his psyche, and he was starting to become incomparably depressed. He went from a good life living in freedom and having fun all day to a life where he didn’t have any freedom or control! No basic rights either apparently! And who knows how long he would be stuck there!!
Like this, he spent his time thinking of ways out, but even if he managed to escape his room, he was still stuck in this building… After realizing this, he finally decided to try out this ‘cultivation’ thing. He had nothing better to do anyway, now that he was stuck here. And getting killed for not listening didn’t seem to be the best way to go about things…
Going over the steps the elder explained again, he almost managed to spread the essence over his whole torso this time, until it reached his bruises. The tingling sensation changed into a prickling one, which startled him and the process popped like a bubble again. Frowning, he started anew, but more carefully this time. Millimeter by millimeter, he slowly spread the feeling until it reached his bruises. This time he was ready, and managed to get used to it.
After failing another two times he finally managed to cover his whole body. As he was about to rejoice, he yelled out as pain relentlessly assaulted his whole body.
“Aaaargh!”
The energy inside had started accumulating and was beginning to form his space. He felt like he was a balloon about to pop, and lost control over the essence. As the energy flooded his body, the pain only grew more intense! His body accumulated more and more energy, and his whole consciousness suddenly imploded! A muffled *BANG* could be heard, as Ren finally blacked out.
When he woke up, he felt completely refreshed! But his whole body was incredibly dirty, filled with a black sludge. Sighing once more upon seeing his small body, he quickly washed up again. As he calmed his mind and sat back down on his bed, he was suddenly flooded by a torrent of foreign feelings. It was like two people were about to walk against him, so he quickly dodged, jumping off the bed. He was still not steady on his feet, so he stumbled and knocked against the wall.
Looking around in confusion, he, of course, saw no one. And the feeling was gone without a trace. Cursing the fact that he was still unsteady on his feet, he moved back on the bed.
Once there, he calmed his mind and the previous feeling assaulted him again. This time he kept his cool, and noticed that it was like he could ‘see’ everything around him, or more like feel, because he could not see the perfect details, but he could ‘see’ the guards outside moving about, and he somehow knew if they were male or female, and if they were carrying something or not. It left him completely dizzy and disoriented.
He started moving around to get rid of the feeling like when he jumped off the bed. This time, however, it didn’t disappear completely but started to recede until it felt more like noise in the background. He could still feel the guards if they passed by his cell, but if they went past a 100-200m radius, he would have to concentrate to notice them.
With the feeling no longer going away, he was left disoriented. Stumbling around in his room, he was finally left with no choice but to close his eyes. Once he did so, the feeling of dizziness disappeared. After walking into various objects like a brain-dead moron for a few hours, he actually managed to move about. Once he got used to moving with his eyes closed, he opened them again, taking a good hour to get used to the feeling. But once he got used to it, it became just like walking, something you can do without paying it any mind.
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After this, he walked about in his room, bored, touching and moving everything. He was hesitant to cultivate again, after the pain he went through last time.
‘The elder said I wouldn’t survive if I didn’t manage to create my space, but how do I know when it’s done? Do I have to go through that pain each time? Why do I need this space anyway?’
As more and more questions started to appear in his mind, he decided to just give up and go sleep.
Waking up the next day, (or so he assumed, as he had no windows) he found a meal on a latch in his door. Looking it over, it was simple bread and some kind of meat. After not eating for the past few days, the smell alone made him salivate.
He quickly took his meal, and started eating as if he hadn’t eaten in years. Only after having eaten everything did it occur to him that they might have put something in it. But it was too late now anyway, and if they truly wanted to kill him they could’ve just done so. Nothing he could do about it in the body of a twelve year old! So he decided not to worry about it.
After spending another half a day doing literally nothing, he decided that if he didn’t want to go crazy out of boredom and anxiety, he’d have to do something! So, he started doing the only thing he could do: cultivating.
Carefully sensing the essence again, this time, the feeling was completely different. He could feel a lot more of the essence, and if he concentrated, his whole body started absorbing it.
‘why is it different? Did I do something wrong? Or do I already have that spacething? Should I make that core he talked about? But he said I would be lucky if I finished my space…’
After worrying it over for a while, he finally decided to just continue. The next few days passed a lot faster. As he cultivated, time seemed to fly! Of course, he had no way of noticing this. To him, it felt like he cultivated for an extremely long hour, while between 2-6h actually passed each time! The only times he stopped was when he washed up or ate his meals. Of course, the main reason he cultivated was not the elder’s orders, but the fact that cultivating calmed his mind and left his body feeling completely refreshed afterwards.
As time passed, his cultivation speed started to slow down bit by bit, until it felt like he could no longer absorb any of the essence. It was when he finally reached that stage that a tremor went through his whole body. At that moment, he was overcome by the feeling of his whole body slowly being pressed in a ball! It was a strange feeling, as it didn’t exactly hurt, but just felt incredibly uncomfortable and left him feeling claustrophobic, like he was stuck and could not get away.
The feeling persisted until he felt that something was about to break! This time it did start to hurt. The pain lasted until he suddenly felt like he lost control over his body. It felt like his connection with it was completely severed!
He opened his eyes, breathed in deeply, and… it was as if nothing ever happened!
The only thing that hinted at it all being real was a layer of black sludge that covered his body. It held a foul stench that was a mix of exhaust gas, cigarettes, and burnt plastic. He quickly went to the tub to wash up, and went to sleep in his bed immediately after. He was completely exhausted, both mentally and physically!
At this time, up in the elder’s residence, the 5th elder had come to visit once again.
“Hohohoho” The fifth elder’s laughter resounded throughout the hall,” I never would’ve thought you would hold that much sway over the 2nd elder! You’ve really exceeded my expectations this time!”
“Hmph” the third elder snorted,” with what she owed the arena, I just hope it was worth it!”
Hearing this, the fifth elder’s eyes flashed with understanding, as he said. “Of course, my pills are not things I can just give away for nothing! But don’t worry, I can almost guarantee that this Earthfire pill will help you break through!” While thinking ‘hehehe, so that old witch likes to gamble, huh, I’ll be sure to remember that…’
The third elder couldn’t help but glance at a small black box that lied on the table, while he said. ”yes, of course, I wouldn’t dare doubt your skills. Your mastery over alchemy has long since been something I have strongly admired you for!”
The fifth elder laughed, seemingly pleased with the compliment. The, he suddenly seemed to recall something and asked, “say, I haven’t seen that new slave from last time yet, is he not going to play in the games?”
The third elder nodded, ”You’ll be able to see his debut in 2 weeks, but he won’t play in the games, just in the executions.”
“Oooh? Caught your interest did he?” the fifth elder asked.
At this, the third elder just snorted and changed the subject.
Back in his room, Ren woke up after having slept like a baby.
“Hmmmmmhhh” He groaned as he stretched his body. His whole body felt completely revitalized, as if his whole being had just had a massage!
After basking in the afterglow of that incomparable feeling for a while, Ren sat up and started inspecting his body.
The first thing he noticed was that his skin was really smooth and soft, and he could feel a strange power coursing through his body.
‘Is this Qi?’
He thought, but he had no way of knowing for sure.
Remembering the change of feeling last time he had a change in cultivation, he quickly sat down and tried cultivating again.
As he closed his eyes and started concentrating on the place just below his navel, he could suddenly see the space that was situated there. Curious, he concentrated on it and his consciousness was pulled inside.
Once inside, he saw a strange black sphere, or well, he assumed it was black, because it had a strange black smoke swirling around it. As he tried to get a closer look, he noticed he couldn’t. it was like the black smoke was an actual barrier his consciousness couldn’t pass through.
Pulling back out of his space, he tried cultivating normally, and it actually went a lot faster this time. He could accurately feel where he had to send the essence now. A lot of the essence was lost before because it missed the entrance to his space and dissipated.
It might seem like he had an enormous space inside his body, but the actual entrance of the space was minuscule, and now that he knew the exact place to send the essence he absorbed, it was like the difference between heaven and earth compared to before!
As he continued to cultivate, unknown to him, the last few days of his stay in that room came to an end.