Setting Things in Motion

After successfully stepping into the initial mastery of Absolute Vision, Jack was bereft of physical and mental energy, and so he fell asleep almost instantly. That being said, he was extremely satisfied with his progress.

During the following day, Jack inquired as to Jadelere's advances towards purchasing Klaus' old workshop. According to the accountant, to complete the necessary paperwork, a few weeks were needed. Additionally, the biggest hurdle had been convincing Ichabod that the purchase was for Jadelere to have a larger space wherein to work and teach Jack.

It took some convincing to do, but Jadelere was ultimately successful.

Pleased with the way things were going, Jack decided he would stop finding trouble with Jadelere intentionally; which meant that he no longer challenged the accountant to daily chess games. Instead, he insisted on spending his times reading any and every book Jadelere could get his hands on.

During this period of time, Jack focused on training Absolute Vision. At first, he was only able to perceive the flow of qi in very small spaces where he focused his spiritual sense. Only by slowly increasing the radius of his perception coupled by regularly strengthening his soul, was he able to gradually increase the area within his perception to include a small sphere around him.

Then, bit by bit, he was able to expand that area to a sphere three feet in radius around him. This coincided with the time Jadelere was able to finalise his purchasing of the abandoned workshop.

Both Jack and Jadelere effectively changed their routines to spend the vast majority of time at the newly acquired workshop. Jadelere refused Ichabod's offer of hiring artisans to help with its remodelling under Jack's instructions.

This was because Jack had a very clear plan as to how he wanted to lay out the building. And so, for the next couple of months, Jack added a new activity to his daily schedule, that of carefully overhauling the interior of Klaus' old workshop in a way that it would conserve its original structure but it would have a myriad of hidden utilities and secret storage spaces.

Regarding the façade of the building, Jack left it mostly untouched and only made sure to cover up all the holes in the walls, considering it a way of honouring the deceased Klaus by maintaining its original appearance. Even though Jack didn't believe in curses, he still wanted to be proper and thank the departed soul of the former master of the place.

To all of this redesigning, Jadelere simply shook his head, sighed tiredly, and proceeded to utterly ignore whatever Jack was doing. He had learned by now that it was best not to stick his nose in whatever it was that Jack was doing.

Furthermore, despite Jadelere's serious lack of desire to pry into Jack's doings, Jack secretly drew out many array inscriptions around the different areas that served different purposes. He laid out a simple qi convergence array which would, as its name implied, draw in the qi of its surroundings over long periods of time, in a way that it wouldn't stand out unless someone intentionally looked for it.

He also placed down a few protective arrays at the different entrances which would afflict any intruders with bouts of blindness and would also slow down their movements. Then, he also laid down a large number of concealment arrays, particularly around the hidden compartments in the floor, walls, and ceiling.

Although he didn't have any reason to believe that anyone would come investigating the workshop, he still considered necessary to prepare for the eventuality.

Something worthy of note that happened to Jack during the overhaul process was when he decided to take apart the pipe system in order to fix it up. The reason why he the piping hadn't been able to work was because there was an object obstructing the flow of water within it.

The object turned out to be a carefully wrapped leather knapsack within which was a diary and a hammer which Jack guessed had belonged to Klaus yesteryear. The diary was coded, and Jack had no means of deciphering its contents quickly. The hammer, on the other hand, was an amazing work of craftmanship but it seemed to be lacking something in its handle.

Whatever it was, Jack could only begin to guess.

--

The whole refurbishing process took close to one year. In that time, Jack was able to train in his techniques to the point that his martial prowess had increased by leaps and bounds. Even though he hadn't formally started breaking through the different levels of the Martial Realm, his overall combat strength was comparable to someone in the later stages of it. And it was even possible for him to kill someone in the early Foundation Realm if he caught them off-guard.

It must be remembered that he was only four years old!

The technique that he advanced the quickest with was the Revolving Trigrams with which he'd reached advanced mastery. This was to be expected considering the deep familiarity he had with it from his years in the Abyss.

On the other hand, the technique that was taking him the longest to develop was the Advanced Vision which he was still in the initial mastery stage. It was evident from this that this technique was the most complex of the seven he'd chosen to cultivate in, and by several levels.

However, Jack was extremely proud with his accomplishments given that the remaining techniques were already at intermediate mastery.

As such, shortly after his fourth birthday, he decided it was time to start breaking through the nine levels of the Martial realm.

--

The Martial realm was merely the introduction to martial arts for anyone who ever wanted to walk down the path of cultivation. Its main purpose was to help a martial artist cultivate their body and prepare for the higher realms.

It was in this stage where almost the entirety of a person's cultivation base would be determined. In other words, if the base was sloppy, that person would have no hope of breaking through to the peak.

Jack was painfully aware of how important it was to take every step in cultivation very seriously. It was for this reason that he'd consolidated his strengths by practicing extremely complex techniques for the last year. This made it so the qi he had naturally accumulated was exceptionally pure.

Put differently, if one could say that by practicing the introductory passages of the Harmony of Everything he'd turned his body into a cultivation machine, then by training his body using techniques he'd greased up the parts and made sure all the gears fitted perfectly together.

Now, however, Jack was ready to formally begin with his cultivation.

The Martial Rsalm was divided into nine stages because in each stage, a practitioner would use the qi they could naturally absorb to unblock one of nine acupuncture points in their body and unclog the meridians, which were naturally filled with impurities, in the process.

Jack already had crystal clear meridians, but he still needed to fully clear up all of his acupuncture points. However, he disagreed with the number because he knew that there were far more than just nine acupoints across the whole body. In fact, there were two thousand in total across the twelve main meridians and the eight secondary ones!

The people of the Alacian empire only knew of nine.

This was an extremely detrimental state of affairs for the martial arts of this world in Jack's opinion. That said, he never made any mention to anyone about it. Instead, he focused his cultivation towards clearing up each and every one of his acupoints.

The reason it was important for a martial artist to clear up their acupuncture points was because it is through these that the qi is absorbed and sent into the body's meridians. As such, the difference between someone who only has nine acupoints cleared up in comparison to someone that has all two thousand can easily be imagined.

Thus, Jack spent the following months clearing his acupoints of any blockage. Every day he would charge his qi into each acupoint until they opened up and every day he would be met with various degrees of success. For the smaller points, he could often succeed at clearing up a few by just revolving his qi a few times. For the bigger ones, he might take a few days.

Whatever the case, Jack was steadily becoming stronger and stronger.