Cultivating on a different technique

Under a dark cloudless night sky, Ryu sat in a lotus position, looking up at the infinite glowing spots above. For some reason, the tranquility of that desert brought him to a state of inner peace whose reason was incomprehensible to Ryu.

From an early age, Ryu has always identified himself as a city person, avoiding as much as possible camping or traveling far away to enjoy nature. But as Ryu experiences more adventures, he begins to value more peaceful moments like this one. It is not the case that he develops a taste for country life or anything like that, but he has simply started to value the time for personal reflection more.

As inner peace began to settle over Ryu, he slowly closed his eyes as his head lowered, letting out a deep breath. Gradually, his senses began to weaken; in return, his perception of nature's qi rose to a degree he had never felt before.

Not only was the amount and flow of qi that Ryu could feel in this place at a level he had never felt before, but also, this qi seemed to have something different, as if it tasted different, although Ryu couldn't think of a reason for that.

As he could not understand what was different about that qi, Ryu left the mystery aside to concentrate on cultivation, so Ryu's mental connection with the qi deepened even more so that he felt its presence almost as if were a real matter made of palpable qi.

Also, Ryu's awareness expanded beyond his body, very different from any other time he cultivated, when all he could feel was a thin layer of qi touching his skin. Plus, for some unknown reason, this qi seemed to obey his will far more easily than the qi anywhere else.

Despite his concerns for his friend Nura, and being on the verge of attacking a base filled with enemies, Ryu managed to put all thoughts aside, including his physical body, to plunge into a deep meditative state that would have made even Feng Po proud.

As soon as Ryu focused on cultivating itself, the system activated the cultivation technique in the first book Heaven and Earth Inversion to its fullest potential, causing the qi to penetrate Ryu's body and accumulate in his dantian.

Concentrated in this way, Ryu was unaware of the passage of time, so he continued to suck more qi into his body until his dantian was full to the point where he could not absorb any more qi. Once the balance was reached, qi began to flow from his dantian into his cells, giving him an invigorating sense of power. However, the rate at which qi passed from dantian to his cells was minimal compared to the flow at which qi had previously entered his dantian.

But just as Ryu thought he had reached his cultivation limit, a warmth surged from within his soul to show how wrong and ignorant he was. The system, noticing the abnormal amount of qi, activated a different technique.

The first thing Ryu noticed was that the qi began to leak out of his body, leaving him worried about losing all that precious energy he had acquired with so much effort, so he almost lost concentration and woke up from his state of deep concentration.

But his worries only lasted only for a moment since as soon as a portion of the qi escaped from her dantian, the incoming flow re-established itself, keeping his dantian full.

Although this exchange of qi did not seem to produce any apparent change, neither in his dantian nor in his body, Ryu persisted in cultivating, hoping that something would happen eventually. And his insistence brought results when the qi inside the dantian began to rotate at a counterclockwise direction, impulsion by the constant qi entering and leaving his body.

As time passed, the speed with which the qi swirled inside Ryu's dantian began to increase more and more, until a small void space appeared in the center of the dantian, pushed by the rotational speed. That qi pressing against the walls of his dantian gave a slight feeling of discomfort.

However, Ryu still felt no effect on his cultivation and continued to perform the technique, so the speed increased together with the discomfort. Until it was no longer mere discomfort but a sharp pain in his chest, but still, Ryu gritted his teeth and resisted the pain, excited that something was about to happen.

On top of the rock, Ryu's face was pale as a white cloud on a sunny day as sweat dripped from his forehead, all from the pain. Meanwhile, Bucky heard Ryu's noises grunting in pain, it lifted its head to see and returned back to sleep, ignoring Ryu's suffering.

Back to Ryu's dantian, the pressure inside was massive at this point, so the walls of his dantian started to deform, slightly expanding and contracting in reaction to the revolving qi.

Once Ryu realized what was happening inside his dantian, he severed the connection with the qi, interrupting the technique immediately as it was too dangerous to continue.

Although the process was guided by the system itself and therefore in theory should be safe, its development began to frighten Ryu. Case someone's dantian breaks, the person would probably become crippled for the rest of his life, incapable of cultivating. So, Ryu discontinued the technique, for even though it might bring him an unknown benefit, the only thing he could foreshadow was the destruction of his dantian.

It didn't matter if the technique was supposed to be like that or if Ryu made a mistake, but if he continued with the technique, his dantian would eventually break, which was too high a risk to take in a bet with the system.

Stopping the flow of qi did not cause the qi already internally rotating to stop. Therefore, Ryu was afraid to interrupt his meditative state and cause all the qi contained in his spinning dantian to do some damage, so he bore the pain and patiently continued his meditation, waiting while the rotation speed slowly slowed down.

As the speed decreased, the dantian became stable again, and the tiny qi emptiness in the center of his dantian began to diminish. Accordingly, the pain began to subside, bringing back Ryu's tranquility.

Eventually, the speed slowed enough that the qi vacuum in his dantian closed. But instead of calmly continuing to spin until it lost rotational speed and stopped once and for all, the void abruptly closed, causing the qi to explode violently against the dantian walls.

*CRACK*

Ryu's dantian cracked in several places emitting sound beyond his body as his dantian cracked. Bucky, still sleeping next to him, woke up from his sleep with a start due to the startle of the loud noise.

*Guach*

Ryu woke from his meditation puking, with an intense pain spreading throughout his body. As pain prevented his mind from working, Ryu fell on the ground, at the side of a pool of vomit, contorting his body uncontrollably.

After half an hour of contorting, the pain began to subdue, but Ryu continued at the ground breathing slowly to keep his consciousness, afraid that the worst might have happened.