What? Character Development? IN WEBNOVEL? *gasps*

"And that's basically what happened," I said to Wen.

... (Back to third person)

After Axum got up from being pushed out of the room, he immediately started walking back towards Wen because he had the feeling he wouldn't be able to talk with Losho again.

He got up off the floor, and the large owl jumped off of the stone outcropping it had been sitting on since Axum first walked into the room and sat back down on his shoulder. Axum now had some proof that the owl was actually extremely intelligent for being an animal. He even suspected human levels of intelligence because of its ability to sense social cues as well as read emotions.

And that is where he drew the name he would give the owl, Wan Shi Tong, he who knows many things.

'I'll have to head over to the Capitol soon, but first I have to get stronger. I'm not dumb enough to walk into an unknown area without the strength to make sure I'm not in danger, at least not of my own free will. I'll have to be able to protect myself, and I think I'm close to having enough information and experience to be able to build my own regimen to train efficiently in this world.'

Axum wasn't spending his days idly gardening and staring at weirded out disciples. He was efficiently completing as many of his goals with a minimum amount of effort.

'Gardening is not only building up my muscle mass but also increasing my knowledge of herbs and other uses for plants. Spending time in the garden has helped me calm down my mind and helped rebuild my confidence. Finally, spending time watching the students train has helped not only my understanding of Qi but also my language comprehension and social cues.' Axum thought.

While Axum thought that the training he received as a child was traumatizing at best, he had to admit that some of the things he was taught helped. One of his favorite quotes from his teacher that he often repeated as a mantra was, "Where the willingness is great, the difficulties cannot be great."

'The little things add up, spending my time as efficiently as possible has helped so much. I'm much farther in my progress than I thought I'd be, even my legs are stronger than before they broke. The food and the salves they've given me must have accelerated my growth. But I also have to be wary of burning out, gardening has helped extend my meditation sessions by assisting in keeping a level head.'

The time he spent learning about this world fauna was also essential; if he was ever on his own, he would be able to eat non-poisonous foods. Not even taking into consideration the weird effect Qi and other unknown forces have caused bizarre mutations to the food, nothing like what he was expecting, though. There were no plants nor animals that, when eaten, exponentially increased speed, or strength. But the Qi that the fauna often bathed in helped peoples' natural meridians which directed Qi.

Axum drew the obvious conclusion that if some plants did increase strength or speed, then obviously they would've been made extinct long ago. Because natural selection would've made the plants that didn't have those benefits more likely to mate, therefore leading to the conclusion that it would be stupid if there was some natural growing herb that directly increased some aspect of the human body. But what was real was the mixing of certain herbs resulted in near-supernatural effects.

That was the assumption Axum was making about how his legs were able to make a quick recovery and growth.

...

"So my plan is to create a meditation and workout regimen to build up my strength and then go to the capital to search for the Eastern Wind Sect," Axum said to Wen after explaining his experience with Losho to her.

"Hold on, you're going to create your own cultivation method? Who do you think you are a grandmaster?" Wen was right to assume Axum was overestimating him with the knowledge she had at the time of Axum's accomplishments. But in reality, because she had never seen him fight nor train, she didn't know the actual limits nor intelligence.

"I already have 90% of the method complete, don't assume that one needs to be a grandmaster to come up with a cultivation method. They only need a lot of information and knowledge about how the human body works alongside how Qi flows within us. With my body not having Qi channels or meridians, I can't use any cultivation methods from this world, so I'll have to come up with a method on my own. I already have an extreme understanding of my body because of intensive research from before when I tried advancing in my past world, so applying that knowledge and combining it with the methods I've been watching over the past couple weeks or so isn't that crazy." Axum laid out his reasoning to a confused Wen, but after a few moments, she came to a better understanding.

"I see when you said you were a talented wizard before I thought that you were just above average, but you must be a monster when it comes to cultivation," Wen replied with a better understanding of just how nuts Axum really took to dedicating his life to studying and training in his previous world.

"This isn't that crazy my parents and teacher would be incredibly disappointed it took me this long to get to this point, the fact that as soon as I lost my magic, I wasn't able to overcome the pain and establish myself in the first week would've resulted in me spending a few days in the maze. I still need to figure out how to use dimensional magic again so I can get back already." Axum finished his statement with melancholy, but Wen saw fear when he mentioned the maze, so she asked him about it.

"The maze? Well, it's not a fun place, to say the least. Well, when I was around 8, I still couldn't pull myself together to kill people, so my teacher designed a 'maze.' It's not really a maze its mainly a few corridors but loaded with hypnotizing and distortion magic. So basically, they created a training regimen where I would go into the labyrinth whenever I failed in a task or achieved a milestone too slowly. The maze was where my greatest fears were located, and so it was a mental tempering training regimen." Axum finished his sentence trailing off a bit, and his face started shifting into a bit more of an indifference shade instead of the small smile he usually always had.

Wen was shocked at the treatment of Axum when he was just a small child, and that was when she connected the dots of why he loves exploring, it was probably the only time he had when he was away from his teacher and parents. But why does he love them, it sounds like more than anything else he'd be happy to be away from them?

It was at this point that Wen saw the smile on his face was completely gone and replaced with an utter lack of emotion. And the intent that usually hung around him completely evaporated, almost like he didn't exist at all.

"Axum?" Wen looked at him with a worried expression.

"I'm going to finish my cultivation method," Axum said without looking at her nor waiting if she had anything to say in a reply, and he left immediately.

He walked past her to go through the door that led back to the forest, and she saw him turn to the left instead of heading straight back out. When the guard that followed them here saw him moving that way, he looked towards Axum and was about to say something when it looked like he was surprised by something and then scared by it.

What Wen saw was Axum influencing his intent for the guard not to bother him, he was able to change his intent because of his control over his Qi. Something that nobody could do except hardened assassins who could suppress their killing intent, but no one could alter their intent to be something completely different.

The reason Axum seemed to turn cold all of a sudden was because he was thinking back to his training and his teacher. His parents called this change in the thought process as logical Axum, and he never did things without the utmost efficiency and with no emotions attached. His teacher loved this side of him and would try to extend this cold Axum as long as he could, he found that this Axum would come out when his teacher made him do things that made Axum feel conflicted like killing a death-row prisoner or when he left the maze. His parents didn't like this side of Axum, though, because they felt like it wasn't their child when he was like that and thought it was like cheating when he became like that when he had to kill.

Axum left the small hill and immediately ran towards the place with the highest concentration of Qi and collapsed as soon as the 50-minute run came to an end. He sat up into his meditation pose and immediately began concentrating on his cultivation and trying to find all the errors he had made when designing this technique.

After spending the night and morning not moving from this position, he finally awoke, confused. He looked around and then realized what happened.

'Ah cold-Axum came out, I guess, I don't really remember everything, but I do remember finishing that technique,' Axum remarked in his mind before feeling the hunger in his belly and getting up to get something to eat and drink.