Dangerous presence

They were all sitting at the table. His mother had prepared a meal herself.

Wei Ren devoured all of it very fast. Emperor Yan and Feng Yu were both cultivators. They didn't have to eat anything but they still joined Wei Ren for all three meals.

"Ren'er stop eating like an animal!" Feng Yu said angrily but her expression just made her look weird and funny.

Wei Ren looked at his father and they both started laughing uproariously.

"I am sorry mother. But in the military there was very little time so I had to eat like this. I guess it has become a habit." He explained while wiping his mouth with his sleeve.

"Just let him be." Emperor Yan said while sipping wine from his cup.

"You are spoiling him." Feng Yu snorted at Emperor Yan.

"And you are being too hard on him." He replied back.

Emperor Yan was a carefree soul. He never cared about manners and formalities. While his mother was very proper and formal.

"I wonder how they met. They are both opposites." He thought while eating his fish.

Boom!

He had an epiphany.

He had to do both things at once. When he tried to make a long meridian it collapsed because it was too weak. When he tried to make it short and thick it still collapsed because of its weight. Practicing enough to gain better control over qi could take months. But if he used a sudden burst of qi he might be able to make a thick meridian long enough to reach his navel.

This method is a little dangerous because a sudden burst in qi could injure him from inside but it was definitely worth a try.

In his heart he was thankful that he learnt something from his parents' fight. He finished his lunch fast. And immediately left.

"Where do you think he is going so fast?" Emperor Yan asked his wife.

"Who knows? Maybe it's a girl." She laughed slyly.

Emperor Yan also laughed when he thought about his son chasing after girls. Too bad he didn't know about the incident that happened a year ago.

Wei Ren ran back to the courtyard.

He immediately went inside the wooden cabin and sat cross-legged on the mat. The bottles of pills were still there.

The one pill he had used was still there. He pondered deeply as to how much pill he should eat.

"Plus why didn't father notice that I had elemental qi inside my body? " He suddenly asked himself.

As strong as his father was, hiding anything from him is futile. Cultivators at his level have something called Spirit Sense. They can sweep lands and people to find everything about their surroundings.

"Is it because he didn't use the spirit sweep on me?" He thought about this but then decided it was useless to think about things he couldn't understand yet.

The qi cloud in his body had grown smaller. It was slowly leaking through his body. It means this method of storage of elemental qi is not good for the long term.

He shaved a piece from the pill. It was still very thin but it was still half of the size of the piece he had swallowed the first time.

"It's better to be safe than sorry." He thought.

He popped the piece into his mouth without hesitation. The same bloated feeling filled him. Smoke of elemental qi in his stomach started to increase in size. But the rate at which it increased was too fast.

"Oh no!!"

Wei Ren immediately changed tactics. He initiated the Earth law and started forming the first meridian. A very thick line of smoke started moving towards his navel. Remaining qi cloud was very small. But as the qi meridian moved towards his navel, more and more qi was coming from the piece of white grass pill.

Wei Ren willed his mind and the qi moved closer and closer to his navel. Just a little more and he would reach the navel.

Suddenly the qi meridian started to shrink. The effect of the pill was ending.

"I can't fail right now!!" Wei Ren howled. He picked the remaining pill which was a lot and popped it into his mouth.

It was like the entire sky had fallen upon him. Qi smoke started coming from all his orifices. He looked like a human kettle.

Blood started coming out of his mouth. Pain entered each one of his muscles. His legs started to spasm.

"Stop shaking!!" Wei Ren screamed and continued to use the Earth law to move the qi meridian. The size of this meridian was almost twice the size of the previous one. It looked more like a vortex than a meridian.

The qi meridian smashed into his navel like a serpent. The moment it formed all the qi inside his body started to leak out of his navel. It was like a dam had opened and all the pressure that was building inside his body, lessened.

His mind also felt lighter. Soon he lost consciousness.

While he lay unconscious the muscles that had broken started to heal. His arm that had been injured during the ambush also completely healed. In return most of his qi cloud was used up. This was the natural process of healing that cultivators used. This is also why cultivators had long lifespans.

Six hours later.

Wei Ren woke up. He felt lighter. He got up and looked around.

"My qi cloud??" He immediately closed his eyes and sat down cross legged. When he observed his insides, he saw that his qi cloud was gone and only a few wisps of smoke were floating around. But just in front of that qi cloud was a shiny and silver thin thread like substance. It connected his navel to the qi cloud.

Success! It was all worth it.

Wei Ren jumped to his feet in excitement. He had done it. He was a cultivator now.

Tears welled up in his eyes. All the insults his father must have faced will be now washed away. He is no longer a burden on his father.

He calmed himself down and started to observe his newly formed meridian. In his excitement he didn't even realize that his arm had completely healed.

He could feel a strange change in himself. It was like being one with his surroundings. The qi meridian not only joined his qi cloud to the navel it also joined him to the world..

He initiated the Earth law to see how the new qi meridian would react. The qi meridian started to shine bright. It was now completely white. Grey colored qi smoke started to enter his own qi cloud through the surroundings. His qi meridian was the gateway to the atmosphere.

"Why is this qi grey?" Wei Ren thought.

"Maybe it is not pure." He guessed.

He was right. The qi inside pills is very pure while the qi extracted from the world around is always impure. Some places even have qi that is completely black. This type of qi can have adverse effects on your cultivation and cause problems when you cultivate. That is why most cultivators regulate the qi in their meridians to purify it before storing it inside their meridians. Adding impure qi into your body results in a weaker cultivation base. One would have to use twice the amount of qi to do the same job.

Wei Ren didn't want to store this qi inside his body. He decided to stop extracting from the surroundings.

He grabbed the pill bottle and pulled another pill from it. The pill felt cold in his hand.

He wondered how much pill he could eat now considering he had a qi meridian now.

" I should play it safe. After all, I have already accomplished the hardest part." He decided to use only half the pill. Even though this pill was tier one, it was still very strong. Not all Qi Streams experts can use this freely. Only people like Wei Yu can use it. He was at level five of the Qi Streams stage.

"I wonder how powerful I am." He thought.

The Starmist Law defied the usual rules of cultivation so there was obviously some confusion when it came to judging the cultivators' cultivation base.

"I am probably at the first stage of Qi streams. There are nine levels in Qi streams. It says in Starmist Law that if I reach the tenth stage of Earth law I will have a cultivation base equivalent to that of a Level nine Qi Streams expert.

I have yet to finish the first stage of Earth law. So I can't be overconfident." Wei Ren pondered.

"Next step is to start collecting more qi to make more meridians. But these meridians are much easier to make. As long as I have qi I can make these."

He swallowed one half of the white grass pill. A dense smoke immediately formed in his body but this time it did not leak out at all. He guided this dense qi towards the qi cloud with the Earth law.

The qi cloud was now huge. The navel qi meridian was shining bright as if it was happy that there was more qi.

"Let's try making another meridian." He thought.

A human body has innumerable meridians. Starmist Law was able to replicate this entire structure of meridians. A body has few major meridians like the ones that are connected to the eyes, navel, spine, ears etc. But the rest are minor meridians.

This is why establishing the navel qi meridian is so difficult. It is made up of too much qi. And as the person advances in cultivation it becomes even stronger. Minor meridians don't require that much qi to make.

Wei Ren guided a small part of his qi towards his chest. His control was still the same. Very poor. The thin meridian almost collapsed several times but it still made its way to his chest. The moment it landed on his chest it became solid and started to shine bright. It was several times thinner than his navel qi meridian but it was still very solid. After making sure that the meridian was firmly attached to his chest Wei Ren stopped cultivating.

His entire back was covered in sweat. Controlling qi requires too much control. Even though Starmist law was a supreme heaven defying cultivation technique, it still required a lot of concentration when used.

"That Emperor Starmist must have been a genius. Devising such an intricate technique to make meridians is definitely mind blowing. Even a complete beginner like me is able to use it. This was the true beauty of a powerful cultivation technique." He felt awe for Emperor Starmist.

Some people who are talented in cultivation, end up getting stuck at the same level because they chose a terrible cultivation technique. Yet some with average talent get better result because they had a better cultivation technique.

When Wei Ren looked outside the window. It was already evening. "This much progress is enough for today. I should head back."

He immediately got up and walked out.

"I am again late for dinner. I hope mother doesn't get mad."

He had finally entered the world of cultivation. Albeit late but he still made it. "Wei Yu, you should just wait and watch. The mission assignment competition is going to be very surprising for you."

He walked out of the courtyard. Two guards standing outside bowed deeply when Wei Ren came out.

When Wei Ren walked beside them they both felt a sudden sense of fear. Cold sweat beads popped on their foreheads. A sense of crisis entered their minds. Wei Ren was completely unaware of what he had just done. When he walked away one of the guards fell to his knees. He felt as if he had brushed past death.

"What happened to the young master? His presence felt like an unsheathed sword. The danger I felt from him was terrifying." One of the guards asked the other one.

The walk to their dining hall was not too long. When he walked up to the big doors of the dining hall. Two guards that were standing outside also felt the same thing. Wei Ren's aura was like that of a tiger. Waiting to pounce at its enemies. They hurriedly opened the door.

"Uhh?" Wei Ren noticed that something was not right. He walked in and saw that Emperor Yan and Feng Yu were already sitting at the dining table. He walked in and the door was immediately closed behind him.

Emperor Yan laid his eyes on Wei Ren. The wine cup that was in his hand suddenly shattered. A long blue sword appeared in his hand. In the blink of an eye he was upon Wei Ren.

Wei Ren was totally caught off-guard. He was extremely puzzled.

"WHO ARE YOU AND WHERE IS MY SON??" Emperor Yan asked in a thundering voice while holding his sword at Wei Ren's neck

Feng Yu also appeared beside him in a second with a long black whip. An extreme coldness lurked in her eyes as if she was ready to chop off Wei Ren's head.