In the end, the discussion proved fruitless. Johannes and Alexis were suitable awed by the revelation, a chorus of damn, really, jislaaik and Jesus following once they understood the implications. However, throwing around ideas and suggestions how the two could improve their bonds didn’t result in any appreciable results. Alexis’ query as to how the body could be restored from near total destruction actually was the most relevant contribution to the conversation. Ryan soon got antsy and when the discussion dragged on he excused himself with: “Guys, this isn’t helping. If you’ll excuse me I’ll go cultivate a bit, maybe go hunting nearby with Fury. Let me know if you figure anything out.”
Long and steady strides quickly brought him to the sparring area. He was greeted by grunts and the clack, clack, clack of wooden swords, crafted by Mike. The ring was occupied by Mike and William so Ryan just moved to the sandy ground next to it. Fury looked at the duo with deep interest as Ryan smoothly started with the poemsae. In mere seconds he dove into his inner world, focusing on the flows of energy entering him, circulating his core and diffusing throughout his body. The clack, clack, clack he remained tangentially aware of was slightly distracting so he focused harder, to the exclusion of everything besides the flow.
As he felt the energy being absorbed by his skin, flowing subcutaneously until it pooled at the ankles, elbows, wrists and other points before it got shunted along a network of pathways towards the centre of his chest, his core. Miguel had described these collection points of energy and his core as dantian and the channels through which the energy flowed as meridians. The training regime he had undergone at the hands of Alexis and John had improved his perception of the meridians and dantian, he could sense far more detail, feel the strength of the flow, follow along ever smaller channels, observe where the energy was used by his body. By now he had built a comprehensive picture of this system and intuitively started to understand what effects the energy had. He knew that it strengthened him, reinforced him, made him stronger, faster and sturdier than he should be. Ryan had also proven to his satisfaction that the small amounts of energy that disappeared from his senses where used to improve his body permanently, increasing the stats reflected on his interface. The amounts where minuscule and he sought to change that. For days he had tried directing the flow but the energy proved ethereal, intangible and however much he concentrated, he couldn’t grasp it, couldn’t direct it.
Frustrated, he had approached Miguel before the hunt on the lioness, asking if the teen had any ideas that could help him. Miguel had sat down cross-legged and adapted the tone of a sage: “Disciple, you should not attempt to run when you can barely crawl. To direct energy one must start at the centre. The first step on the path after forming a core is to build on it. You must compress your core. Spin it to keep it stable and then compress it and soon you shall achieve what you long for.” Miguel had burst out laughing after that and when he more or less gathered himself had gasped out: “Honestly, no idea how to help you. But, it every cultivation story I have ever read compressing your core is the way to go. I’ve started spinning mine but it doesn’t have the necessary size yet. Spinning it has increased the energy flow rate though.”
“How’d you get it to spin?” Ryan had asked.
“I don’t know, sorta visualised it. Sorry, its vague.” Miguel had shrugged.
Now that he had time to focus on the matter he wanted to follow Miguel’s advice. Ryan focused on his core, the sphere shimmered in his senses, streams of energy flowing in and out. Closer observation showed that the inflows and the outflows where diametrically opposed and always at opposite angles. Puzzling over the layout he determined that spinning the sphere clockwise on the z-axis would draw more energy from the inflows and feed more energy out. Ryan couldn’t accept that energy would be affected by centrifugal force and to resolve that internal paradox he forced himself to visualise it as a gas, subvocalising: “Gas is affected by centrifugal force and can be compressed.” With that, everything clicked into place. His perception of the energy changed, became grainy. Instead of a smooth continuous flow Ryan could intuit a massive amount of motes flowing through his channels. Understanding dawned. Dim memories of his physics teacher explaining the concept of wave-particle duality in school percolated through his mind. “I can visualise the energy as both a wave and a mass of particles.”
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With that realisation his grasp on the energy became tangible, real. Mentally he grabbed a chunk placidly lying in the core and tried to move it along the circumference. Instantly a massive headache throbbed into existence. “Too much, way too much.” he groaned. Ryan dropped out of the poemsae and sat down, holding his head in his hands and piteously moaning softly.
“Hey, you okay?” William had interrupted his spar with Mike. “You okay Ryan?”
“Cultivation headache.” Ryan grunted. “I’m okay, nothing you can help me with.”
“Ooookaay.” William headed back into the ring and left Ryan to his misery. Eyes closed and slowly massaging his temples Ryan recovered. After a while his head felt marginally better, the throb reduced to a nagging pulse. Cautiously he got up, stretching his body and then, with slow deliberate steps, headed to the pool. The cool water would probably help, Ryan thought. Carelessly he dropped his clothes, untied his shoes and, by increments, lowered himself into the pool. Ryan took a deep breath and submerged. Hearing the beating of his heart, the flow of the water into and out of the pool while weightlessly floating helped. The pulse of the headache got fainter and fainter. Gasping Ryan returned to the surface, warm air rushing into his starved lungs. Ryan hadn’t meant to stay under for so long, but so focused on the headache, had repressed the need to breathe without appreciable effort. The headache was gone and Ryan felt fully aware again. Pushing against the restriction of the water he walked to the steps, rising from the pool.
Ryan first pulled on his shorts before he decided to ignore his shoes and shirt, placing them next to the fence before striding back to the sparring area. It was time for another attempt.
Starting his poemsae he quickly fell into his inner world, the process smoother than before. His perception immediately focused on the core and without further thought Ryan grabbed a couple of motes of energy, applied his will and forced them to move according to his wants. Sweat beaded on his forehead, then along the entirety of his body. Ryan strained his will and slowly, ever so slowly, the motes moved. The mental strain was immense and Ryan feared that another headache was imminent.
As his chosen pack of motes moved faster and then faster again the strain lessened, the threat of another headache subsided. At some point, indefinitely later, Ryan felt that the motes wouldn’t consent to a faster speed, so he maintained the flow. As he observed, relaxing for a moment, individual motes where spun out of their placid drifting, dragged along the path for a mere moment before they came to a turbulent rest again. Ryan could feel the drag and maintained his concentration to keep the pack moving. Gathering himself, he grabbed a few more motes, those that were dragged along, and one then more at a time, added them to his pack. The strain increased only marginally and bit by bit the pack grew.
Ryan was unaware of the passage of time and eventually the tangential awareness of the lack of light in his surroundings made him aware that the day had passed. Still, without pause, Ryan persevered. An indefinite eternity later Ryan was nearing his end. Even focused on his cultivation as he was Ryan became aware that his body was close to collapse. Hours of uninterrupted poemsae had taken him far beyond his endurance. Indistinctly he felt his aching muscles, his breath rasping through his throat and the incessant pounding of his heart. Ryan couldn’t stop now, he needed to finish this.
With abrupt suddenness his core spun up. Ryan felt the deep thrum of a massive bass speaker pounding through his system for the barest moment before all strain disappeared. He caught himself before he collapsed, only near insane amounts of determination allowing him to maintain the cultivation and his poemsae. Desperately he split his attention, somehow managing to send a message into the group chat. “Get Alexis and carry me to bed.” Ryan let himself go. By the time his head hit the sandy ground he was out cold.