Chapter 12 - Seeing the New World for the First Time!

2 weeks had passed since establishing a routine. When I'm hungry, I'll ask mom for food. When I'm sleepy, of course I'll sleep. When I'm awake, I'll check the progress of my 3 types of Qis and then move on to my daily exercise of my body. Rinse, Repeat. Mom never left me alone, even though my feeding times have been irregular.

I do feel bad about it, so usually I try to keep my feeding times from 6 am to 8 pm, basically from sunrise to sunset.

I don't even know what kind of world I'm in, a proper planet with different time zones? Or World Dimensions inside a universe, with plenty of other universes out there? Or maybe perhaps even just Planes of Dimensions, with different levels of classification?

There's so many possibilities that I don't even know where to start.

You know what? This isn't even supposed to be something a 2 week old should be thinking about. Rather, a 2 week old shouldn't even be thinking....

Bah. Don't sweat the smol stuff. Chill.

More importantly, today seems to be a different one. Mom's usual routine is resting on the jade bed meditating, occasionally joining dad on walks, and practising a palm technique that seems to be for exercise, or maybe even tempering, though chances are small. When you think about tempering, of course, first you think about forging techniques, then eastern fantasy ways of improving the physique. Usually painful, filled with suffering. Or at least, some sort of cycle of destruction and regeneration. I don't see any signs of it, or at least, I couldn't tell. Mom didn't seem to be in any discomfort whatsoever, rather, she seem to be refreshed. Though the exercise made her quite sweaty. I know because she was carrying me the whole time.

But today, she never did any of that. Rather, she had been preparing for something since before I awoke, and even after I awoke.

I felt much more energetic these days, thanks to more nutrients given by mom's milk. I grew bigger, heavier, and thankfully, stronger bit by bit every day. I can now easily straighten my arms and legs out, though whether my limbs could hold up my weight is a mystery.

And I could now easily hold up my head with my neck muscles no problem, curiously looking around is now effortless.

Perhaps some credit must be given to the 'neutral' Qi permeating throughout my whole body. The whole time, I expected pain, muscle sores from exercising my limbs and neck, but the whole time was a pleasant experience.

The amount of 'neutral' Qi in my whole body thickened compared to my first day, but it never went beyond that thickness. It seems that the 'neutral' Qi is being consumed somehow, since I've had daily replenishment from not just mom's milk, the『Yin-Yang Cycle』has been working hard too. The cycle, now a sphere, has grown in mass and is currently occupying the full size of my heart.

To put it into perspective, a thread of Qi, is literally that, Qi in the size and shape of a monofilament thread. It ranges from the thinnest possible, to 0.3mm in diameter. Very rough, I know, but I need to bear with it.

String ranges from 0.3mm to 2.5mm.

Tendril ranges from 2.5mm to 10mm.

Any beyond that, I classify into cords, then ropes and finally, cables. I'm not going into detail, probably because I won't need it, I'll probably make a proper unit to measure Qi by then. I don't even know how am I going to measure density and purity, but I'll get to it later.

Back to the point. How big is the size of an average infant's heart? About the size of their clenched fist. The size of their clenched fist in estimation would be 5*4*4=80cm³. That's the approximate size, or volume of an infant's heart. Not to mention, an infant's heart is more round and symmetrical compared to a grown adult's heart. Surprising, but makes sense, the size of an infant's body isn't as big when you compare the heart-to-body-size ratio of an adult.

The standard length of my Qi, I've decided, is 1cm in length. A thread, with a diameter 0.3mm, would be a cylinder, with radius 0.15mm and 10mm in height. A max-sized tendril is essentially a sphere of 5mm radius.

Volume of a tendril is 4/3π(5)³=523.6666666...

let's just use 524mm³. So 52.4cm³. So there's about 1.5 tendrils of Qi total in my heart. Sound very little, but I've always been using the smallest measurement of a tendril. Is what I would like to say, but clearly, my classification is faulty. It's a rough one after all. An approximation. Let's put it in threads then. For threads, I have always used 0.3mm diameter, cause, well it's small.

Volume of a thread would be π(0.15)²(10)=0.70695mm³ or 0.071cm³

80cm³÷0.071cm³=1126.76something,

or 1127 threads of Qi. Sheesh I need a calculator. That's a lot. If I use the rough formula I calculated last time, 20 to 1126 increase is a 56.35x increase in the amount of Qi. So a 28.175x increase in rate from my previous abysmal 0.2 threads/min. Now, my『Yin-Yang Cycle』produces Qi at a rate of 5.635 threads/min total! The amount is slowly ballooning. The actual rate is different, as I've observed, it's actually 10 threads/min, so my formula is definitely wrong, but eh, it needed adjustments from the start.

I still don't know how Qi is overlapping with my physical matter, but it's isn't important now. What's more important is that now, the Yin-Yang Qi being generated by the cycle, isn't being integrated with the『Yin-Yang Cycle』. Normally, when the Yin-Yang Qi first gestated, it will immediately be integrated into the cycle smoothly without problems, but now, the cycle isn't doing that anymore. It seems to be limited by the borders of my heart.

I don't even want to know how the hell this works, Qi can pass through and permeate physical matter, but it can't go out of my heart. Well played. if it's about being a container, then can't my body just be the container? Or because I'm not spherical in shape, so my body isn't suitable?

Sigh. Questioning myself here, when I have know inkling nor ability to research is futility incarnate.

Ignore it for now, the more pressing matter is, the Yin-Yang Qi, being unable to integrate into the cycle, is flowing through the blood in my veins now. 5 threads of a pair of Yin-Yang Qi is constantly being circulated around my body. It feels like my body is both dunked in ice and set in fire. Whew. Spicy. There's no harm at all, as far as I could tell. It's just the feeling the Yin and Yang Qi gives to my body's senses. Even if it flows back, through my blood, into the heart, it's like the cycle isn't there, and it goes on, pumped into another joyride tour around my body. admittedly, it feels not bad. Especially around my brain. It feels very stimulated, like I drank a lot of coffee and became hyperactive, but without the side effects I felt of headaches after the 'high'. I had no problems actually staying awake for 24 hours, still felt wide awake after that, but I still slept, so my body can work its hormones, especially the growth one. It's only produced when the body is sleeping, so kids who don't sleep early and a lot, become shorter than the ones who do.

If I knew that as a kid, I wonder how tall I could've been. ...I remember being 1.75m tall. Very tall for a female...of Eastern descent, decently tall for Western descent. I remember being average though, there were many of the same gender taller than me, so maybe... I was male in my last life? I remember very little about myself. Knowledge I have no problem. Plenty of it, almost too much even just pops up here and there, chaotically mixing up my thoughts. Maybe I had a job that required such extensive knowledge? What kind of a job is that?

....? I had no job? Wat. Just what did I do in my past life?! Collect knowledge? For what?! How did I even survive?

... Barely anything, when it concerns myself, comes to my mind. I definitely didn't remember stuff like my height when I was in the womb, so maybe I need to progressively unlock my memories?

...It doesn't really matter. There's little benefit to be had for forcefully unlocking it. Might as well follow where the river flows. Who cares if I'm a Neet.

..Neet? What's that? ...Not in Education, Employment, or Training. But I was collecting knowledge, so does that still count? It seems to be a phrase I said a lot, at the very least, I was very familiar with the phrase, considering the thought just smoothly flowed out like water.

"Are you ready?" A deep baritone voice sounded out from behind me, waking me up from my reverie.

"Yup, I'm done preparing the baby armour." An Xin replied.

Baby armour? What the hell is that. Why would a baby need armour? Baby fights?

"Good. It's been 2 weeks since Yan'er was born, and both you and her have grown much stronger than before, enough for the First Hunt. Of course, I'll be coming along to ensure your safety. Cousin Jiang will be coming along with us, with Uncle Lin accompanying him. Though we will separate when the hunt starts." Wei Bai informed.

"En. Help me put on the baby armour, okay?" An Xin asked while lifting up a piece of bulky looking leather armour.

Wei Bai wordlessly helped An Xin put on the armour without moving me from place.

I see. So the baby armour protects the mother and baby. Why though? Why hunt with a baby when it's so dangerous?

"Is Yan Yan awake?" An Xin asked.

Wei Bai silently nodded.

"Yan Yan, are you excited for the First Hunt? Don't worry, this is a baptism that every baby in our clan goes through. Usually, the parents of the baby will take them out to the mountains behind our clan while wearing this armour, to hunt a tier 1 savage beast. If the parents aren't strong enough, or are mortals, then the closest relative that is strong enough will take the parent's place in our ritual. This ritual is a baptism for the babies, so they get early exposure to fights with beasts. Our clan is situated near a dangerous zone, so we need everybody to be strong, unless they can't cultivate." An Xin gently and slowly explained what we were going to do today.

I see, what a dangerous place to be born in. Well, I will take what I can get, I didn't even expect to have a second lease of life.

"...Would Yan'er even understand you?" Wei Bai questioned.

"Don't know, but at least, I can tell she understands my intention somehow. My Yan Yan is a very smart girl. I've had to feed her a lot of times lately, since a week ago, 2 times a day. But it was always when I was awake. And I never heard her cry, she always patted me cutely on my neck whenever she needed something, even if she popped in her diapers, she was very patient, and waited for me to change and wipe her tender rear before wrapping another cloth diaper on her. I heard from the other mothers that babies are very demanding, they're cute, yes but they also cry a lot and would wake you up in the middle of the night just to feed and change her diapers. When I told them about our daughter the other mothers were so jealous that we could get plenty or proper sleep." An Xin smugly explained to Wei Bai, trying to convince him of my greatness(?).

"Fine fine, whatever makes you happy." Wei Bai relented.

"Yay~! Yan Yan, let's go~ Mommy's going to take you to see the world behind at the mountains! Mommy will tell you all about the herbs and animals that can be found in the vicinity~" An Xin excitedly shouted as she travelled towards the main gate.

"Aooou~!" I excitedly played along, raising my arms.

I am pretty interested in going on this hunt, it wouldn't hurt to know more about this world.