Advancement

Waking up from yesterdays adventure I sent my senses straight into my body to find those strands.

Within the first 10 seconds I found one, another 10 seconds later there was another, and I kept finding them. The intervals between finding each one increased after the 15 strand was found. The last one took a whole 10 minutes before I found it. I had searched for another hour afterwards only to gain nothing in return. In the end there were a total of 27 strands gathered together now.

'Damn! It's only been 3 days and I can already be in the second level if I absorbed all of this. What happened? Why are the strands suddenly appearing more often? Is it because of the fighting I've been through? That would make the most sense though I don't know for certain.'

Starting the process of advancing to the second level I thought it would be easy since it was warm, refreshing, and even enjoyable the first time. Thinking back to it I lowered my guard. It had the exact same way of diffusing the strands the strands out; the only change was the target this time, my torso and head.

Sending the first strand out into my torso a sharp wave of pain came erupting within my chest. The feeling was so staggeringly different from advancing to the first level that I immediately lost focus before the strand could fully fuse with my flesh.

'What just happened? That pain, why did it appear? Is going from level 1 to 2 really such a pain? It only surprised me though, that's all! Yep, nothing I can't take! My pain tolerance is pretty good, I think.'

Once again I tried to send that first strand into my chest. The pain from before surfaced once again stabbing at my chest. It felt like someone just stabbed me with a knife and left it planted in me. Even as the strand diffused within my chest the pain from that strand remained.

I waited a minute or two and none of the pain disappeared, it only lingered there. Instead of waiting for it to pass I kept going and inserted another strand. And as expected more pain came with it, it even stacked on top the pain from before.

With the third strand heading in this time, it diffused and the pain increased once more. To my relief the pain was more like a linear line than a exponential curve. Finding this out I let out a light sigh before continuing onward with the other strands.

..

After the 7th strand I had gotten used to the pain in my chest as it increased. When that final strand went in I started to feel something within my torso. My torso was starting to change and I could feel it, though I didn't know what it was it definitely had something to do with those Qi strands.

Now all I had to worry about was the last four strands which was for the head. I could already envision the ensuing suffering so I tried my best to mentally prepare myself.

The first of the four strands was sent in and a headache instantly enveloped my head. The headache throbbed in a rhythmic pattern each time causing sharp pains. Each individual throb was just as painful as the final strand within my chest and the fact that the pain wasn't constant made it much harder to weather the pain.

Not wanting this to last any longer I started inserting the other strands as quick, yet steady as I could with the pain trying to throw me off. The next strand increased the pain only by a little more and so did the next.

But as the final strand went in the pain felt became 3x the first strand in an instant; it was more than doubling the pain from the first 3 strands combined. As that was the last strand and step I didn't know what else to do. Figuring that after a bit of time the pain would go away I steadied myself.

I didn't change my position or even move a muscle in case that would make it worse. There I sat enduring the pain. The first throb came immediately after the 4th strand was inserted.

The second took it's time and after 10 seconds it hit like a truck as it changed to 4x causing me to shake a bit.

The third took even longer eventually hitting, but the pain felt was lowered back down to 1.5x of the first strand.

The fourth took a whole minute and it felt even weaker than the original strand maybe 0.8x of the original.

Then a fifth came after 2 whole minutes, yet it was the weakest of them all feeling like 0.5x of the first strand.

Falling onto my back I had instantly soaked the bed in my sweat. I felt so tired at the moment and everything felt like it was becoming lighter and lighter. The moment my head hit the pillow the energy I thought I had seemed to disappear as waves of drowsiness washed over me. My eye lids felt heavier and heavy until they closed not to open for a while.

..

Slowly peeling my eyes open I looked down at myself to see how soaked I was in sweat only to notice that my body had changed drastically. I no longer had an that belly fat attached to my stomach, but had an average build instead.

I could even see some ab muscle beginning to form taking the place of where my fat once was. Standing up I looked all around my body and everything had changed. I couldn't find any excess fat anywhere and started doing a little dance in celebration. In the middle of it I remembered I still had around 16 strands remaining.

Cutting my celebration a little short I sat back down on my bed to advance to the next level. It was the first of the next two levels for my muscles.

The flesh, the first two levels, was for containing the vessel, an increase in protection, and general strength increase. The muscle, the third to fourth levels, is for explosive strength increase and endurance. The bones, fifth to sixth levels, will increase the structure of your body as well as harden it. The spine, seventh to ninth levels, will increase the speed at which my body moves according to my thoughts.

Preparing my self for extra pain I sent in the first strand to my muscles. As it went it was a familiar warm feeling.

'YES, IT'S BACK!' I had an internal celebration as the pleasant feeling from level 1 came back.

As I'm sending in one strand at a time trying to enjoy the feeling for as long as possible I realize I had already sent in the 11 that was needed. If I tried to do anymore then I might not have a good time with what would come next.

If I did try to do so then there was a high chance I would die from Qi exposure. It was something that would only occur to mortals and Body Refinement realm cultivators. If Body Refinement cultivators went over the 11 strand limit per level or if mortals gathered 9 strands of Qi their bodies wouldn't react at all for weeks at best and death at worse.

The reason why it was only mortals and Body Refinement realm cultivators who suffered was that they weren't able to store the Qi anywhere or control it. Once they reached at least the Meridian Opening realm they would be able to at least mildly control their Qi.

'*Sigh* that wasn't nearly as long as the pain I had to go through to get here.'

Hopping off of my bed I decide it's time to try out writing those inscriptions. Grabbing the brush, ink, 10 sheets of paper, and the basic inscription book.

Arranging them on the ground I start my first inscription on one of the papers. I'll start off with one for my weapon, a basic qi strengthening inscription. The effects of the inscription is that when the paper is completed and is placed onto a weapon the weapon will then absorb a few strands of nearby qi into itself, therefore strengthening the weapon through durability and sharpness. The effect only lasts for an hour before the qi disperses from the weapon.

There are tiers to the basic qi strengthening as to how much qi the inscription can really absorb before it stops and the the one I can make is probably only a low-grade human one. The qualities and tiers are the same as the manuals and types of treasures. The basic version ends at the perfect-grade human though instead focusing more on elements.

Picking up the brush and dipping it into the ink I began to strike the characters into existence. I tried to memorize the character as best as I could before starting my deliberate strokes at my future ace in the hole. I made each stroke of my brush as slow as I could so not miss anything since I could only try making this 10 times before I'd need more of the paper.

After a whole 10 minutes I had finished, but I didn't know if it even worked. I had to see if it worked though so I went to the back yard and placed it on the handle of my weapon. A few moments later the paper I placed on disintegrated but nothing else happened, so I went over to some nearby bamboo and hacked at it. The bamboo split a second later and the top half fell off.

'Oh nice, it actually works. I don't think I would of been able to cut that down normally. I didn't think I'd be able to make one so easily. I thought I'd need at least a few tries before anything happened.'

Heading back in I decided to make a couple more and keep the remaining 7 for future use.

If we ever have to go against higher levels again I'll pull out one of these and just slap it on my sword. Hopefully these ones work just as well as the one before. I wouldn't want it to just be a dud without even knowing it.

…

For the next few days I just practiced using a sword and the movement technique. I even made another one of the qi strengthening because I felt having another seemed better incase of emergencies.

…

Waking up, I decided to walk over to to the mission hall. I wanted to choose a mission to test out my new strength, but everyone else was already there looking at some at the same time. One of them saw me and invited me over to their group which I accepted since they were looking at the 2 star board. In the end they picked a mission where a we had to kill pack of beasts so they won't kill any wandering villagers or lone travelers. It seems the pack was in the same forest as where Yao Ya and I did our first mission, but it was just farther in.