Days passed.

‘I can’t keep on going like this.’

As Ren continued to breathe, he noticed a large problem.

‘The rotation number… its getting ridiculous’

At first, it was 5 to 6 rotations. Now he had to complete hundreds of rotations. Each rotation took him about 30-40 seconds. This meant that he was now taking hours to gain .1 wisdom.

‘Status’ Ren thought.

Host Name: Ren

Species: Ekans (Unborn)

Level: 0 [Limit: 5]

Bio-Energy: 0/10

Length: 5cm

Power: .3

Wisdom: .9

Agility: .2

Defense: .3

Skills: Breathless Breathing Technique [00.78%]

Over the last few days, his status had changed significantly.

His current wisdom was at .9.

He had taken 5 days to gain .6 wisdom! Even worse, he had spent more than 3 days trying to gain his next wisdom point.

‘I have to go to sleep soon…’

Ren had noticed a pattern after a few days.

After a few hours of activity, he would be forced into a deep sleep to continue his growth.

This severely affected the amount of time he could put into improving himself.

His current situation filled him with urgency. He was at a bottleneck and was severely limited in the time he could put into his breathing exercise.

‘1.0 wisdom must be a significant number…’ Ren concluded.

His instincts told him so. It made sense that it would take a long time to pass through the bottleneck.

Ren was truly worried about the future. Even if he were able to gain .1 wisdom after a few more days effort, he would still have to put in more and more time into gaining the next few points of wisdom.

He did not want to be greedy but he also did not want to be content preparing too little in a potentially life-threatening world.

‘I have to improve it…’

It was the conclusion Ren came to after a few minutes of thinking.

‘I can’t make any big changes… that would be too dangerous. Ok! Small changes to slowly refine this technique. Come on Ren!’ Ren encouraged himself.

After a few more words of encouragement, Ren began.

He slowly took in his breath and held it in. This time, he held it instead of holding it in for 5 seconds before taking his next breath, Ren held it in for 6 seconds. He continued to leave an interval of 6 seconds between his next few breaths before exhaling.

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Ren waited for the relaxing feeling to wash over him.

‘Nothing…’

He was not discouraged. Refining a technique should be a long and arduous process.

He tried again, this time decreasing the intervals between breaths.

Failure.

He tried making the intervals between breaths – non-constant and varying.

Failure.

He tried taking in large and small breaths in different… tens and hundreds of different patterns.

More and more failure.

Nothing seemed to work. Nothing was even remotely as good as the original, 6 breath 5 seconds between each breath formula.

Nothing.

As the minutes went on and his mind became more and more tired, Ren continued to feel more and more disappointed.

‘Why the hell is this not working… am I that stupid?’ Ren questioned himself.

He did not have much longer now. His ‘nap time’ was almost upon him.

He did not give up.

He stopped trying the different patterns of short and long breaths and different intervals.

Ren put all of his thinking power to solving the problem.

‘Ok… Nothing has worked. I have to think back to the fundamentals. What is this technique?’ Ren questioned himself.

‘It’s a meditation technique. No… No… that is obvious. What is its purpose and how does it achieve its purpose’

A realization hit Ren.

‘Breathless breathing is called breathless, because it makes you breathless. Why does it make you breathless? I have tried intervals and the size of breaths but those do not work. No! How could I have missed something so obvious? It is the number of breaths! I have to increase the number of breaths!’

Ren had over thought this problem. The answer was right in front of his eyes!

He immediately retired the breathing exercise.

This time, as he reached his breath he did not stop but rather took in a seventh breath! His lungs that were already expanded to their limit expanded a fraction more.

His lungs hurt… It was as if sharp needles were piercing into his chest.

‘Hold it… hold it…’

A single thought occupied his mind.

After what seemed like an eternity, Ren finally exhaled.

He could feel his heart beating with increasing vigor.

Blood flowed to his brain, nourishing it. He could feel it pulsating.

It was not just his brain. Blood reached all parts of his body, nourishing his flesh, his organs and his muscles.

He could feel it… a transformation of his internal physique.

He had broken through his bottleneck with the seventh breath!

[Ding! Wisdom has passed the first barrier! A transformation has taken place! All other stats have increased!]

‘Status’

Host Name: Ren

Species: Ekans (Unborn)

Level: 0 [Limit: 5]

Bio-Energy: 0/10

Length: 5cm

Power: .5

Wisdom: 1.1

Agility: .4

Defense: .4

Skills: Breathless Breathing Technique [2.73%]

He could feel that his mind was sharper and his body was stronger.

‘Still…such a simple thing…How could I have missed that?’

The seventh breath would dramatically reduce the number of revolutions needed now, but over time the number of revolutions to get .1 wisdom would continue to increase.

He slowly looked over his status.

He could not help but become happy.

His other stats had grown so much. Wisdom was good and all but Ren could not help but feel more secure with stronger physical capabilities.

Ren also noticed his breathing technique skill percentage had gone up dramatically from under 1 percent to nearly 3 percent.

He finally understood!

When he had asked the system earlier, it had said that skill percentages determined how easily and how powerful a technique was.

Although he had practiced his breathing technique over the last few days, the skill percentage had not gone up by much.

This told him that the key to significantly increasing his skill percentage was through improving a technique through slow refinement not mindless continuous grinding.

Ren carried completed another round of breathless breathing. The seventh breath was not as painful and as exhausting as before to reach.

When Ren tried to take his eighth breath, a sharp and sudden pain hit his lungs forcing him to discontinue the exercise mid breath.

‘It appears that I have to practice using seven breaths for a while…’

Grinding was still important.

He had to let his body get used to seventh breaths, improve his body and skill percentage slowly before tackling the eighth.

Ren stopped thinking about it any longer and pushed himself back into his monotonous training routine.

The egg was still except for the slight movement of the unborn snake’s lungs.

_____

Ren woke up from his long session of deep meditation.

‘It’s nearly time’ he thought. He could feel it. An energy running through his body that seemed to beckon him to break through the eggshell and reach the world outside.

He looked at his status.

Host Name: Ren

Species: Ekans (Unborn)

Level: 0 [Limit: 5]

Bio-Energy: 0/10

Length: 10cm

Power: .9

Wisdom: 2.4

Agility: .7

Defense: .8

Skills: Breathless Breathing Technique [2.73%]

Typical Pokémon had less than .3 potential when they left the egg and he had 2.4, 8 times the typical amount.

The time for his hatching was drawing near.

‘I am going to miss this place…’

Ren had absolutely hated living in the egg for the past month but when it was time to exit, he could not help but become a little sad.

It was his haven from the outside world.

Now he had to go and face the dangers outside!

‘I wonder what will happen to me…’