Seeming to understand that he was confused, Will’s father started to talk about cultivation.
“Ok Will, there is an energy that we call Qi that’s everywhere in this world. If a creature absorbs this energy, change it into their own, and then use it to refine their body. That is when they have taken their first step on the road of cultivation.”
Pausing he looked at Will, “That is where you are right now. Once they have absorbed enough Qi into their body, they can then use it to build their foundations. This is the next level of cultivation, called Foundation Establishment. After that, they condense the foundation they have built into a core, also known as the Golden Core Stage. Anything past that, when you get to that level, daddy will help you. Anyways, each step is achieved by gathering and refining the outside Qi into the body and storing it. That is the most important part, gathering, refining, and finally using the energy you have purified to change your body bit by bit.”
Turning to look at Professor Bun-Bun, who went back to munching on the grass pile Will had brought in. Will’s father continued, “Now in Shui-er and your case, due to our unique heritage, you children had a chance to skip the step of feeling and condensing your Dantain, or energy core, as you are born with one. Through a period of time special to our kind, you were able to rapidly absorb the outside Qi in the area and improve your bodies for a short period of time.”
'So I’m guessing that was the nap time I had while molting? Then what were those bright lights of colors I saw? Magic? …. Hallucination?'
“Now this is the part that your mother and I are worried about. Everything in the world can, in some way or another, cultivate Qi and have a chance to be able to ascend to immortality.” Will’s father paused again, staring at Professor Bun-Bun with a confused look on his face. “The thing is, regardless of their choices, everyone has to cultivate step by step. This includes those from the Devil Path, who take the cultivation from others, as in their case their entire cultivation is BASED on the stolen cultivation of others. They then have to turn that stolen cultivation into their own through… various acts. Still they also started by gathering Qi to condense a Dantain in the beginning. It’s only after that they can then start to steal other people's cultivation.”
Pointing at the small white bunny as it devoured the remaining grass with relish, “The problem is, all the examples I told you just now was either a person’s cultivation came from himself working hard or stolen from others. Your situation is the exact opposite of this, you have somehow transferred YOUR cultivation into a mortal bunny that has never cultivated in its entire lifetime! In fact, it didn’t even have a Dantain to store the Qi energy! Somehow you managed to achieve what was believed to be a fable into reality! This act of transferring your own refined cultivation into others, rather than stealing it away, is said to be impossible by modern cultivators.”
Will tilted his head as he looked at his father.
'Huh? How does that work? You can steal from others easily, from what I gather. But is it impossible to give to others? Where’s the logic in that? I can take your hard earned work for myself, but I can’t voluntarily give you my own hard earned efforts?'
He seemed to understand Will’s cute head tilt, as his father explained, “Think about it this way Will, imagine if Qi was mud. Your Qi would be like a keyhole made up of that mud and your body would be the key that fits that specific keyhole. Every time you took in the outside Qi, you would then mold it to fit your key. Are you following so far? For those who have molded the outside Qi into a keyhole, it would be much easier for someone else to take that same keyhole and change it a bit more into one that could fit their key. That’s how the Devil Path cultivators are able to steal other’s cultivation. However what you are doing is changing your very key into someone else’s and then dropping the keyhole that was molded by your key into another’s keyhole. Forget that it shouldn’t be possible, the fact of the matter is that your key is UNIQUE to only you! It shouldn’t be able to change its form! Not to mention that there is the problem of where to place the keyhole, when there isn’t even a key!”
Will stared at Professor Bun-Bun as he digested what his father had just said.
'So am I the wise old man? Or the blond? Also something doesn't sound right about what he just said... hmmm I just can't put my finger on it.'
Recalling a meme he saw before about locks and keys and how a wise man once said stopped his train of thoughts.
“Now Will you understand how important this is? You have done something that shouldn’t be possible and at the same time, created a technique that those old monsters would fight and kill for.” “Mommy” added in her two cents, “Remember, even if you figure out how to return yourself back to normal, you must never, ever, teach others how to do this!”
She grabbed his little hands and stared in his eyes, trying to get the importance of her words into her infant child.
Sadly, Will only ever had one kind of common sense (Earth’s), but was an excellent liar!
Nodding his head, Will made sure to vocalize his promise to “mommy”, “Of course! Me got it mommy! Never tell anyone about this!”
“Good boy!”
As she pat his head with her hand, Will privately thought that actions, rather than words, should be trusted more.
After all, aren’t all promises meant to be broken?
Looking as if they have been relieved of the majority of their worries, his parents shooed him off to his little crib to sleep. Considering that Will seems to be in perfect health, despite his loss of cultivation, Will’s parents decided that it would be better for him to rest up and worry about regaining his Qi back the next day.
Padding over to his crib with his little feet, Will made sure to drag Professor Bun-Bun along with him as he left. The bunny had passed out again after stuffing itself with a full belly. It had basically slept through the entire fiasco, with nothing to worry it’s tiny brain other than its next meal time. Will bet that it only bothered to wake up just to eat some more before getting right back to sleep.
Sometimes Will wondered if he could live such a simple life like a bunny.
Eat, sleep, and on occasions, mate with some random female, before going through the entire cycle all over again.
It would be such a bliss… shit existence. Afterall, he couldn’t keep the mate around... yea that was definitely the main reason for it being a shit life. This has no relation to the fact that he would be a dumb as a goldfish, and couldn’t think ahead longer then a week. Or the fact that he would have to eat his own shit, pun intended, just to get enough nutrients to survive.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Tossing the bunny into his little crib, Will climbed right in and started patting the bunny’s body for changes.
Since, you know, when you spit fire, there’s gotta be something lighting that up.
'At least in the monster encyclopedia I read back on Earth, even dragons had to have some kind of flint and gas in their body to create those flames...Then again, in that other fantasy version, they basically attributed everything to "it’s because of magic".'
Sadly for Will, he wasn’t able to find any kind of mutations or anything unusual on Professor Bun-Bun’s body. There were literally no changes what-so-ever, which then led him thinking about what his father said earlier.
'I’m guessing magic and Qi in this world are equivalent? I bet it is just like how people measure things differently, like feets and meters, basically the same thing with the only difference being just the amount and such. Man, almost freaked me out there, when he was like - mana? WTF is that?'
Feeling that today had enough weird things happening, compared to the rest of his relatively new and boring life. Will tossed the sleeping bunny out the crib and threw the blanket over himself and went to sleep.
He figured anything that showed up later was the future self's problem, that dude always gets the rewards from his hard work and doesn’t ever do anything for current self. Screw him.
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“Mommy” POV
She sat with her husband on the bed, watching as her daughter slept on, dreaming of all the bricks in the world or such cute nonsense.
“Dear, I feel like we should really go back soon and deal with all that crap happening back at the sect. I've finished giving birth so that there wouldn’t be any chance of the little ones being harmed this time around.”
Seeming to agree with her words, her husband nodded his head, “Agreed, but this time we are getting revenge for those bastards trying to hunt us down when we were at our weakest. Fucking humans always group together like some kind of insects swarm and jump us 10000 to 1! I doubt they understand the concept of a fair fight. Hell, I doubt they even know what the concept of a face is. They attacked a worn down victorious male and a pregnant female, what the hell were they doing before? Sitting there like a bunch of hyenas trying to reap all the reward once we had weakened ourselves.”
She gave him a look, “Dear, I don’t need to remind you why I was extremely weak? You REALLY tried hard didn’t you?”
He looked away from her gaze, “Look, I was young and naive, how would I have known that those weak humans would have called for that much backup? Plus, it was mating season…”
“That happened two months ago.”
Her husband suddenly stood up, and began walking towards the door, “Oh wait! Did I suddenly hear the sounds of footsteps? I’m gonna go check it out!”
Signing, she muttered, “Typically males…do the deed and then claim it was all due to mating season. First of all - you’re an avian, your mating season has already passed!”
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After a strangely peaceful sleep, Will woke up with the feeling of weight on his chest. Somehow, Professor Bun-Bun had managed to leap back into the crib overnight and slept on his chest. How the bunny managed that, he’ll never know, but guessing from what his father spoke about the day before. It was likely the work of this “Qi” thing that he had never heard about.
'I mean come on! Qi? Did they run out of words and just used two letters that were totally never seen before? Though, from what I can tell, only I perceive what they speak as English… so maybe a translation error? I bet it was supposed to be "manna" or something like that and whatever translation function I got made it “Qi”. Kinda weird but then again…'
Looking at the still asleep bunny on his chest, Will felt that life could have thrown even weirder curveballs if it wanted to.
Patting the sleeping figure, Will tried to get it to wake up, after all he couldn’t get off his little bed if it didn’t get off him first.
“Professor Bun-Bun? Be a good wittle bunny and get up. Otherwise I might forget to feed you one day and put you in a heated pot…”
Subtly threatening the innocent creature with a cheerful voice, Will was able to get the little ball of fur up and off him.
Pushing himself off the bed and basically falling to the floor, Will stood right back up and wandered out the room, with a little bunny trailing behind him.
“Oh, you’re awake Will! Good, good, sit down now and try to regain your cultivation! Your mother and I will watch and help out as much as we can.”
His parents were already awake, and seemed to have been waiting for him to get up before immediately moving to the issue at hand.
'Oh right, I forgot they were freaking out about this whole mana transferring thing… I mean, our mana pools are connected now, not really much to seperate here.'
Feeling the continuous connection between his and Professor Bun-Bun’s mana pool, Will could feel that in terms of increase in his mana pool, it had accelerated just slightly. However that slight change made him believe that he was on the right path to massively increasing his mana pool.
Originally, Professor Bun-Bun was just a little bunny with no trace of mana. By connecting their mana pools together, they both gained a slight increase in the growth of their mana pool. Even though it felt like a .0001% increase in growth, and his overall mana was split between the two. In the long run, that small increase would allow him to hopefully continuously increase his mana pool indefinitely. Plus there was the added bonus of having minions…
Even if it was a harmless to-be rabbit.
“Alright Will, you can start trying to regain back your cultivation, remember, just do what you did before and this time try to take back what you gave to the rabbit.” His father tried to pep talk him again. Unfortunately, it didn’t really help. Will still can't really understand why they couldn’t share mana in the first place, so he didn’t care too much about his mana being split.
However, seeing the anticipating faces of his parents, Will felt that he might as well try to restore his mana back to its original state. It couldn’t be too hard right? After all, he managed to split it in the first place.
Feeling the mental connection again, Will tried to focus on the thought of regaining back the mana he gave through it, it kinda felt right doing it this way. His alternative involved sacrificing Professor Bun-Bun as a tribute and hoping the split off mana would return on it’s own.
He decided that trying to “communicate” with the connection between their mana pools was a better idea…
As Will stood still and closed his eyes, concentrating hard on this idea, he could feel the stares from his parents on him.
Soon, Will felt his mana return back to his mana pool from Professor Bun-Bun's. There wasn't anything remotely close to making him feel like this was a difficult thing to do. It was as simple as pouring water into a cup.
The entire process took less than a few seconds and before his parent's eyes, Will and Professor Bun-Bun next to him had undergone changes in their mana pool level. As Will’s increased back to how it was originally, he could feel Professor Bun-Bun’s fall back to empty.
“It appears to be a success! Ok Will, be a good boy, and from now on never try to give your cultivation out to others! This cannot be known to anyone other than us, ok?”
Trying her best to get Will to understand the importance of her words, Will’s mother even made sure to stare directly in his eyes as she spoke.
Making sure to look her right back in the eyes, Will lied with a perfectly composed expression, “Me understand Meme! Me no show other people this!”
'I mean, it’s not really a lie, I did say “people”. Plus…'
Taking a quick look at Professor Bun-Bun, who had just sat on the ground next to him as he retrieved back his mana. Completely not caring that it had just lost its entire (given) "cultivation".
Will gently tugged at the mental connection between their mana pools again, a bright smile on his face.
Who said he had to cut the connection?