CH 7 Prana Cultivation - Part 1

'Hmm, Mana would be the hardest for me since my Spirit growth has been low even in my training. However, I have a decent Physique and my soul is monstrous for my Grade. There I guess I will either go for Ki or Prana.' Rudra analyzed various benefits of the three energy types.

'Out of the two, Ki seems primarily for the Body Cultivators. I do have a preference for training bodies, but I don't want to specialize in my combat technique to physical styles. I want to be versatile, making Prana the ideal choice with my strong soul. Moreover, Prana boosts the growth of Innates, and although my Innates can't grow further, I have a feeling that Skill Customizer, Laplace Interface, and Key of Akasha will benefit enormously from Prana.'

"I will choose the Prana Cultivation method," Rudra said resolutely after long contemplation.

"Excellent" Shiva exclaimed "Honestly I was hoping you would pick Prana. This is because while I have techniques for Ki and Mana, I specialize in Prana and I even created a specialized cultivation method I wanted to use for my new body. I will gift that technique to you little brother, I am sure you will love it. I named it the World of Lost Soul, which I created through inspiration from some old legends. It also has a very good chance of letting you gain one or two new innates."

"Prana cultivation mainly relies on refining energy you absorb through meditation in the energy channels of the body. The refined energy is then used to unlock the various Chakras in our body. With each Chakra you unlock, your Body, Mind, and Soul assimilate into each other. This helps you to evolve yourself and gain phenomenal powers."

"There are various Energy Channels or Nadi in our body. There are 3 Primary Nadi, 98 Reinforcing Nadi, and 71,899 Auxiliary Nadi that you have to unlock to start with Prana Cultivation, making it more difficult that Mana or Ki cultivation in initial stages. However, Prana cultivation shows its might in later stages rather than in earlier stages."

"Once all 72,000 Nadi have been unlocked, you can start practicing the World of Lost Soul. I will transmit the method directly to your mind, don't resist!" Saying so Shiva touched Rudra's forehead with her index and thumb joined together in the form of a certain mudra or hand sign.

Rudra felt a vast amount of information entered his mind and he used Virtual Mind Interface to capture all the information so that he won't miss even a trace of it. He looked through the method given to him by Shiva and marveled at the simple yet profound it was.

"Just cultivate it for the three weeks you have before your entrance test to the academy. You might give me a few more surprises at the end of it, maybe even you will be excited with the results. Also, I will send you course books for your subjects for the academy. Learn as much as you can, I want you to show me your best." Shiva said while patting his head.

For the next two weeks, Rudra worked hard to master everything Shiva gave him. The subjects he needed to learn were Languages, History, Geography, Mortal-Biology, Inhuman-Biology, Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, Combat Basics, and General Cultivation. Thanks to his Virtual Mind Interface skill, Rudra hand no problem in memorization.

To go even further to ensure that no problem occurs, Rudra instructed C.S. Alpha to get as much material he can on these subjects, especially Mortal-Biology, Inhuman-Biology, Physics, Chemistry, and Mathematics. With his excessive measures, he managed to even gain a few comprehensions and mastery-based skills for these subjects. He was even able to get a parallel thought skill.

Along with preparing for the various subjects, Rudra didn't slack off in Prana Cultivation. The Initial activation process for Prana Cultivation took the better part of the two weeks. He had to refine his body enough first so that it can handle the stress of activation of all 72,000 Nadi of the body. He first upgraded Energy Empowerment and Energy Refinement skills to Rank D-. It let him advance his Physique to Rank E- and Spirit to Rank F- within a week, after which he ceased the refinement.

Too much progress in a short time was putting pressure on his body. He decided to concentrate on Prana Cultivation and let his body stabilize and adapt to new power. He used the next week to unblock and activate each of the 72,000 Nadi.

Though the process was painful he had gone through worse training in his previous life. Shiva's provided cultivation method was pretty great too. The energy refined through this method made the unlocking process easier as all blockages literally dissolved in front of it without needing much force. All he had to do was endure the pain of the Nadi expanding and activating.

By the end of two weeks, he was done with all the 72,000 Nadi. He started the cultivation process for World of Lost Soul after that. The process had the same beginning as regular meditation, except that he had to go deeper now. He had to sink deeper into himself until he found his Soul Space, only then could he activate the next step.

Rudra sat in Lotus' position with both his hands on his knees forming a certain mudra and index fingers pointing towards the ground. When he began his meditation, his senses became super activated initially. As he further searched deeper into himself, slowly his senses started muting off one after the other.

First to go was the sight as his eyes were already closed and his sight shut off the remaining distraction of few rays of light. Next to go was the hearing, but it took some while as it had become even more sensitive with loss of sight. After quite a while he succeeded in overcoming sensitiveness of hearing and succeeded in muting it.

After that, it was the sense of smell. All the myriad of smells his brain was trying to identify faded away. Sense of taste went next, with the success of the previous three it was pretty easy. The next and probably the hardest one was the sense of touch. He was currently so sensitive that his mind was being overloaded with information of minute changes temperature, airflow, and pressure. He had never realized just how much his senses of touch actually sensed.

After nearly as much time as all the other four senses combined, he was able to shut it down. It was after that he was faced with the most mysterious sense of all, the sixth sense- the sense of instincts. It was going haywire as it directly depended upon the information provided by the other five senses.

With the loss of the five main senses the sixth sense of his panicked for a while before calming down and subsiding. Now he was unaware of any passage of time as all his senses were shut down. He felt as if he was floating in an endless void.

Loneliness struck him hard as he instinctively sent out pulses of energy, one after the other. He didn't know how he knew how to do this but he instinctively knew that these pulses of energy would attract something to take care of his loneliness.

After an unknown amount of time, as he lost track of everything going around him, he could somehow feel himself getting denser and larger. Slowly but surely pressure impacted him and kept increasing. When he finally came to his senses, he found that he had somehow become an enormous spherical body of rocks, lava, and gases.

He felt an enormous amount of spiritual strength welling up inside himself and sent his mind's senses outwards. He found that he was surrounded seven gigantic spherical bodies similar to himself yet hundreds of times bigger than him. Six of them were made out of some form of dark matter that seemed to absorb all forms of energy that hit them. They gave enormous pressure on his mind when he tried to further sense them, hence he stopped spreading his senses towards them.

The seventh spherical body was the only one that radiated a dim red light that was growing stronger slowly and progressively. As its light grew stronger, a spherical ring made of red material emerged around the spherical body.

As soon as the ring emerged, a jolt of energy emerged from the red spherical body and impacted him. the impact of the energy was both painful and rejuvenating. The impact sent his mind away from this mysterious space and he opened his eyes in the real world with a huge gasp.

For a few moments, his mind was blank and he was not able to formulate any thoughts. Once he came to his complete senses, he found that he had grown at least a few ranks in his body and spirit and even his soul had leveled up by one rank. He had even gained a few more skills.

Not able to make sense of what happened, he tried to look around and found that Shiva was seated right next to him on the ground and was looking at him with a smile. Before he could make sense of the confusion in his mind and ask anything, Shiva was the one who broke the ice.

"So, how was the experience? Didn't I promise you that you will be surprised? Now let's see whether you can surprise me or not"