Calling it the heart meridian was simply a manner of speech. This meridian was located near the heart but was in fact, not a part of it so it was quite the stretch to call it that.

But anyway, who was he to judge the ways of immortals from other worlds?

"Wait... How do so many stories exist with accurate facts...how suspicious?" He knitted his brows while thinking about that, currently he was taking a break from trying to break through his first meridian.

Half a day had already gone by, so he had one day and a half before the guards tried to check on him for not eating so it was quite worrying to know whether or not he'd be able to do it, but deep down he knew that by himself this might've taken him years to achieve on his own.

He could secretly feel Darkie helping him, which made even more sense as to why he wasn't responding currently, perhaps he couldn't do too many things at once.

"I can't stay like this; I have to become self-efficient quickly." Exhaling through his nose he didn't look quite as calm as before.

Here goes nothing! Bracing himself he began to greedily suck in energy, as soon as it reached inside of him, he made it swirl around before taking in even more. This action was followed by a small sensation of impending doom as the energy gathered into an orb.

Now! His eyes involuntarily widened as the ball of otherworldly power slammed down onto his heart meridian, breaking through it easily after all the degradation it had been suffering from during the past 10 or so hours.

Ba-dump. Ba-dump. Ba-dump.

His whole being twitched for an instant as he felt his heart beating, a feint trace of dark energy was released into his body as the energy that was within him slowly subdued before getting released through his pores.

"This feels...familiar somehow?" He had some questions, many questions actually...but the only one who could answer them currently was protecting and boosting him from behind the scenes so he could only hold onto them and wait for now.

Closing his eyes he focused on his body once more, now he could feel as if a pathway had been opened up within him which passively held onto some energy of its own.

Usually, one would choose to go upwards and focus on those meridians, but he did not. Instead, he went down and began gathering energy at the next pair of meridians he found. While doing so he also kept on feeding more energy into his muscles, slowly strengthening them. Doing these two actions took up all of his focus as he gave it his all, not even sleeping this time around.

The path he took was illogical and felt so odd even to him, but that was what he needed right now. Reading cultivation and experiencing it by himself were two different things...and honestly so far it wasn't as cool as how it remembered it to be, this stank. Quite literally.

But this wasn't about logic, this was about making it through and getting stronger, something he did not have the option to but had to.

As the hours went by the cell looked just as uneventful as always, but that was only on the surface.

At some point he had lost his patience and had begun forcing the violent and untamed energies down his body into large amounts, further boosting the process and letting those wild energies run hammock through his body. During this letting round of experimenting, he also figured out that this dark energy was a part of him. Using the bound between him and his shadow he could also use and create this energy so all he had to do was use it to in case the much wilder one, making the whole process safe.

"Finally, I'm almost done!" His eyes opened wide as he awoke from his slumber, his patience was running thin, so he took in an even bigger amount of energy.

The more of this wild energy he had within him the bigger the sensation of impending doom was and the more thrilled he became, biting more than he could chew truly was scary in this case. But being thrill seeker he only pushed forward...and finally it happened.

A small explosion resounded within his body as he trembled, he had broken through the final meridian of his lower half in less than one day.

"Alright, now time to release the energy." Not being able to cultivate his soul at a normal pace meant that he couldn't keep this energy within him, and all that breathed in also needed to breath out, same was true in this case.

Now then, all I have to do is let it out slowly as to not hurt myself... "UWACK!?" The second he attempted to put his theory to practice the energy within him, it acted like a defiant animal and broke all out of the shadow encasing it.

His eyes rolled onto the back of his head as he collapsed there, an unbearable pain similar to billions of scorching hot needles stabbing through his body could be felt all over. The energies destroyed everything in their paths forcefully breaking through his other meridians and out of his body in the process, but the solidified filth that the male was within didn't seem to conduct the energy so it could only bounce back into his body. Rebounding around and trashing everything in their paths before finally finding its way out by small amounts via his head.

Sensing the danger, the entity on the other side of their contract quickly got to work. Using his own energy to tend to the male's inner wounds, by the time it was done the shadow had lost its features and went back to looking like your everyday shadow.

At the same time a deeper change was happening to the young man on a cellular level as they all mutated due to the shadow, and ten or so minutes later he abruptly woke up.

"Ouch... " Just as he was about to analyze the situation, his mouth hung so wide open that an egg could fit in.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

"I feel...muddle headed?" he groaned, feeling displeasure, it wasn't just that. His eyes also felt wrong, so wrong. It was as if someone had placed an ugly yellowish filter on the world around him.

"Wait now I remember what happened!...I think?" Closing his eyes, he breathed in, using his mind eye which stung a bit this time around to scan his body while probing around with the energy, to his surprise all his meridians as if they had been broken through...well pierced to be exact which made them feel slightly damaged, but he could tell that it would heal if he cultivated them and broke through them again.

"This might be reckless but..." With energy in his heart meridian, it was pretty smooth to guide it down to his other ones, soon his legs meridians were full of the energy and just before they saturated. He straightened his legs with all his strength as the energy was discharged causing an increase in power and the faint release of aura...alongside the stench covering his body.

But he couldn't pay attention to that right now, as soon as he was freed, he scurried toward the food dispenser and began chugging down big mouthful of nutritional paste. "Damn, this feels so good!" For the first time in forever he spent more than five minutes there, just eating the flavored paste without thinking of anything, just eating.

Soon the bottomless pit he could feel in his stomach had filled up, giving a small burp in satisfaction he used some water to rinse his mouth before going back to his corner.

"Well then... Cultivating for one sitting should be safe but let's avoid that for now.... Besides I have to clean up my meridians, feels like that energy made quite the mess. Outta em hehehehe, right Darkie?" He grinned while turning to look at his shadow, then he froze.

"Darkie!? " His eyes bulged out of their sockets as goosebumps appeared all over his skin "Buddy? Where are you?!?" An intense panic took over him. Quickly he closed his eyes and focused.

After feeling that their link was still there, he tried to calm himself down, but it felt harder to do.

"Ugh... I need to distract myself..." Knowing that his friend was no longer there physically made his cell feel immensely empty and big now.

Clicking his tongue in annoyance he pondered on what to do, cultivating straight away was out of the question. His body was in a terrible shape and was still in the process of healing.

"Well then...this leaves the creation of artifacts." Forcing his thoughts not to sway he tried his best to remember what Darkie had thought him.

"First I need items to strengthen, second the longer they have been with me the better....and thirdly the higher the quality of its material the higher the possibility of it being good..." He spoke softly as he stared up. "Yeah, that's about it. These chains have been binding me for a while, so they have a better score in those categories then these clothes.... I'll use the clothes to figure this out through trial and error."

Focusing he began pulling energy towards him, but instead of taking it in himself he imbued it into the straitjacket he had on. Under his forceful infusion the energy particles slowly fused in with the materials of the straitjacket, causing a phenomenon on the molecular level where its atoms restructured themselves to facilitate the transfer of this new energy and also strengthened themselves and their bond together with the energy in the same process, one which was awfully slow.

"This...is abnormal." Quickly he detected something wrong, alongside the normal energy seeping into the fabric of his pants there was also the chaotic energy from earlier. But it was quickly kept under control by that all too familiar dark aura...talking of dark aura he now found his whole body emitting it when using his supernatural powers. "Ah... So, this is why it isn't capable of responding, I'm such a troublesome person to take care of aren't I?" With a self-deprecating smile he sighed sadly and kept on going, focusing on this sole task time kept passing, with no news of Darkie therefore no update on the situation of the asylum.

He quickly lost the track of time as a week went by, then two, on the third he had completely reinforced the straitjacket and now he felt a closer relation to it. He felt like if he concentrated enough, he might even be able to get it to open itself for him, but what was the most outstanding should've been its defense. Sadly, he had no way of testing the latter.

His body was still in a bad shape, but he was rapidly healing so he decided to move onto his shackles next, even though they were holding him prisoner they could actually be detached from the wall as a whole. Other prisoners who had done petty crimes due to their mental issues were usually allowed outside, and when that happened the system would automatically release them, which is how he knew that the wall was hollow and actually a compartment which had a prison ball in it.

By channeling his energy into the shackles, he easily confirmed that fact. In the past few weeks, he had experienced quite a bit with the whole upgrading an ordinary thing to a low-level artifact bullshit so he could do dive into it quite easily now.

"Seems like the boulders do have better conductivity than the straitjacket.... it's resonating with my energy better, and I feel like our bond will be leagues superior too." Grinning he ate his fill then quickly got to work.

In the process he couldn't help but remark how advanced things were nowadays. "I wonder how the outside world is nowadays..."

Empowering the shackles indeed felt different, especially with the prison balls attached, those felt like a starved lion that would consume everything that was thrown at it. So, he started by focusing on the cuffs, it barely took 4 days for them to reach the highest grade he could refine them to and now it felt like they could stop a sniper caliber with no issue, but they had also become quite heavy. If not for him becoming stronger he might not have been able to lift his feet or arms after that.

Soon after came the chains, he did not bother with the chains that held his two feet close with each other as he had planned on breaking those as soon as he could. Instead, he focused on the ones binding the cuffs at his arms, ignoring the balls for the time being.

Approximately one week and 3 days passed before he could finally finish, after that he was mostly healed. But even then, he did not act to carelessly.

"Who's gonna help me this time if I'm on the brink of death huh?" Sighing dejectedly, he began feeding the energy he could gather to the prison balls. Once again starting the basic refining process.

Month two had arrived without him noticing but he was still in the process of refining his equipment, so he failed to notice...

Soon giving up on the prison balls he began altering between refining the shackles and cultivating his body, which he separated in two tasks.

One was to use the outside energies to slowly heal his insides while properly breaking through his other meridians, the second was to strengthen his individual organs.

At the middle of the month, he had finally managed to complete a basic breakthrough of all his meridians, he then took a day off... The day after he cultivated one whole day, purging his body from impurities and readying himself mentally.

"Now then, if i keep on cultivating like this I don't think I'll achieve much more...besides I'm unsure of much time we... I mean i have left so i must use it wisely... Tch."

Brainstorming for a bit he then decided "Escaping requires a lot of legwork, doesn't it? And I'll have these shackles as weapon...ironically. So, I should be able to do quite well if I focus on my legs for now...and I'll throw in Darkie's abilities for variety's sake." He clicked his tongue before going back to work.

First part of the day was spent empowering every meridian from his waist down, hoping for another breakthrough. The second half of the day after dinner was spent trying to empower both his straitjacket to see if it could reach a higher level and the shackles before finally topping it off by attempting to study the energies within him, but for now he still had yet to figure out how to use them at will.

"Tsk...truly bothersome." At some point a vein had popped on his head as he wanted to rage quit.