Increasing Abilities

The early morning light pierced through thick foliage while the sounds of snorting and oinking could be heard from a small boar breathing roughly, running in a fervor of terror. Knocking down small plants and ripping through leaves and branches, panting from exhaustion, it stopped in a naturally open area with almost no trees towering above to block out the morning sun. Turning it's long snout left and right frantically in expectation of an assailant, already having lost feeling in one of it's legs as it dangled limply, the Boar had pushed well past it's limits in order to escape.

*Buzzing*

Unfortunately whatever it was fleeing from found it. Before it could properly react it felt a familiar light stinging pain on its waist, abdomen and finally it's neck and cheek. Falling to the ground like a puppet with it's strings cut it's breathing became more labored and desperate, as simply inhaling required most of its available energy to execute.

*Huff*

*Sticks Snapping*

Hearing the approach of another creature the Boar kicked its leg against the ground instinctively to escape but ended up craning it's neck at a slightly upwards angle.

*Huff*

In an area in view of the Boar's waning vision, branches and leaves bobbed and shook erratically as the small figure of a girl stumbled out of them while covering her face with an arm clad in a purple sleeve.

"I get it, I get it! Let you do all the work next time even though you used almost sixty percent of my energy for that" The girl said sarcastically to the air.

Somewhat confused the Boar watched the human child arguing with what appeared to be empty space at first but then noticed a palm sized insect orbiting just around the girls head, smacking into it randomly on occasion.

Recognizing it's pursuer the Boar frothed at the mouth, no longer able to control it's salivary glands before passing out from exhaustion due to the earlier chase.

***********

Moving over to her downed target Xing removed the wooden sled that was arranged on her back like a bag with rope straps for ease of movement. Sitting on the Boar's head was her insect martial spirit, much larger than before it had molted a few times giving off a sleek new moss green sheen. It's mandibles twitched towards its downed prey with pride before flying towards the knots on it's master's shoulders and undoing them before she got the chance.

A side effect of mixing her mental energy between their connection near constantly she realized was gaining a better sense of her martial spirits emotions, something they both likely didn't realize worked both ways and so, Zhi Xing got a front row seat to the nieve little bug's overprotectiveness and devotion of her. It seemed to believe that they were of the same brood and she was its sibling or mother at times.

Shaking her head at it's antics she turned and began pulling the Boar onto the sled not at all caring for the beasts comfort, knowing it likely couldn't feel anything. Not to mention it ran really far away from where she originally ambushed it, forcing her to run after the damn thing so being gentle was the last thing on her mind.

Using all the effort her body could muster she managed to get its muscular frame on top of the wooden planks and began strapping it to the sled. Retrieving the harness before spending more time than she'd like tying everything properly so it'd fit around her shoulders snuggly with just enough loose rope to ensure it didn't tilt the carrier. Her spirit could undo most knots by pulling with it's mandibles in the right places but it appeared that actually tying anything was out of it's reach for now until it grew a little more... or developed opposable thumbs.

Taking stock of her game she began backtracking towards the village while pulling her catch, she had to stop a few times to recover her stamina and spirit power. Having recently improved upon her technique and incorporated her nervous system into the overall circulation network, with it now also slightly dipping into her heart occasionally every full cycle. This had massively changed the sensation while cultivating, now finding it more comfortable and effective she had begun to experiment more often with her martial spirit, attempting to learn everything she could about its attributes and abilities.

Lacking a stinger she first found out if it was venomous by having it bite her, she didn't think it would release a dose large enough to kill her if it was but when it released nothing at all she was severely disappointed. Not one to give up completely, she asked it mentally through their connection if it could do such a thing while supplying it with her spirit power. When it did bite her afterwards she noticed immediately that there was an effect, the area of the bite stung only slightly more than it originally had while a minute later the area became numb and her fingers limp. She'd lost a bit of spirit energy that could probably be recovered in a minute or so while the feeling in her hand came back moments later.

With her interest piqued she increased the amount of spirit power used in an attempt to amplify the effects but ended up with disappointing results that simply had to do with the duration of the poisoning. More spirit power = longer paralysis and vice versa. She guessed that it was due to her Martial Spirit being involved in the process governing the overall output. Her abyssmal control of her spirit power made manipulating the characteristics of her energy to achieve anything specific a pipe dream while her martial spirit's sentience ensured it wouldn't harm her beyond reason. She tried using the few hand seals she could remember from Naruto but none of them so much as made a wave along her Spirit power; Another thing she would have to figure out.

She then went on to learn the limits of its flight and crawling speeds which ended up firmly planting her Martial Spirit in the same class as a Roach with its abilities to peace the fuck out when she blinks. Point is, it's far faster than she is, forcing her to reevaluate her own physical abilities. She won't be taking a full page out of Saitama's book just yet, she's just a six year old after all. But perhaps by using spirit power to enhance her physical abilities she definitely could've made that earlier sprint a lot easier, if she could just figure out how to do it properly without hurting herself that is.

Finding the path that went along her usual route, she put more strength in her legs and controlled her breathing for that extra bit of exercise while racing towards the only butcher in town. Her neighbor.

As she ran her martial spirit would buzz about, eating a few exotic looking flowers and tree leaves that fancied it's palette. She assumed it had something to do with it's independent growth aside from her cultivation increasing and allowed it to do whatever it wished since the food seemed to lessen the strain of having it move outside her body for prolonged periods of time.

*Bang*

*Sizzle*

*Bang*

Arriving at the worn down smithy a short while later she entered through the flap entrance without much care. Pulling her catch up to the unconscious middle aged man surrounded by empty cups reeking of alcohol at the table she bowed her her head slightly in faux respect since it technically was his home. Turning her head away not even a second later her gaze settled on a shirtless sweating Tang San as he repeatedly hammered away at a piece of pig iron. With an intentive focus in his eyes that swapped between the fiery red piece of metal he was unleashing fury upon and the blazing furnace. Shaking her head she grabbed a piece of paper and wrote down 'The usual 50/50' before drawing a small cat doodle and holding it out for her martial spirit to carry over and leave on the Boar while she left the smithy in a hurry to continue her own training at home.

For the entirety of the time she'd spent practicing and trying out every idea she could think of to increase her strength, he had been relegated to learning the art of the forge from his father. Unlike Grandpa Jack who believed in her ability to live independently with proper instruction, Tang Hao had taken it upon himself to ensure that the boy would be able to earn a living with a craft he didn't believe would be obsolete even thousands of years off into the future.

After their talk that night, Zhi Xing shut herself off from the rest of the village for days and weeks at a time, only helping Grandpa Jack with chores and some of the other villagers who had gotten used to having another pair of hands around.

The reason? Becoming stronger of course. She hadn't completely given up on the prospect of  Chakra training being useful and had continued to mold her spirit power. With her mangled memories; similar concepts blended together in order for her brain to function, she doesn't really understand how electrical and chemical storage of memories passed over to another world but figured it had to do with the oh so glorified concept of a soul. Unfortunately in order for those memories to be of any use they had to to be processed biologically and that meant a lot of simplifying.

She could remember some of the concepts mentioned in the manga and anime but it all blurred together with what she learnt for her personal exercises at home and unjumbling what worked in anime and what she was told worked by the internet became a bit difficult especially when applying it to her new version of real life. Nevertheless she felt that the exercises were helping somewhat, molding her spirit power the way she wanted was still a bitch and a half to accomplish and required a lot of focus but she had no problem directing her energy to places in her body anymore. The time it took to reach point A to point B could definitely be improved but she didn't have to bully her energy into moving in the direction she wanted anymore.

From there she had improved on her half assed cultivation technique utilizing the seven Chakra point diagrama plastered in the ad's everywhere she looked when finding a breathing exercise online from memory, and surprisingly with the aid of her martial spirit. Aside from learning her likes and dislikes about as quickly as her old puppy Randle had: It had become a life saver when sorting through what was making her so uncomfortable every time she cultivated.

Gliding from her forehead to whichever muscles where spasming during a specific circulation, it would use the time it possesed some of her spirit power to act as a type of guiding rod and avert the flow of energy from that specific area while applying it's paralystic venom to remove the pain. As her Spirit Power Rank increased by 3 full Ranks over the course of the last month and a half, her Martial Spirit had grown in overall size by roughly 6 inches or about the length of her hand.

No longer correlating to her cultivation, it's newfound diet of fauna and flora had greatly influenced it's growth. Requiring tall tree's and a body of water in order to practice some of the other Chakra training methods, and not wishing to look like an idiot everytime she failed. Xing had begun to venture beyond the confines of the village. Her martial spirit found the wild enviroment enjoyable while she trained, and with the added bonus of stumbling upon quarry for it's mother to consume it would venture away from her in order to scrounge up food.

She still couldn't completely wrap her head around why Su Yuntao would decide their Martial Spirit's worth with a glance but wondered to herself in amusement if in the future her 'little' insect would be able to do a better job at conducting the ceremony if it's intelligence continued increasing. Regardless of his goodwill, Zhi Xing's view of the Spirit Hall fell by a few notches. To pick and nurture talents based solely on the attributes of a martial spirit on first appearance and innate spirit power showed just how short sighted the organization was in elevating the diversity of the occupation. She was actually a bit thankful in that regard, if she had awakened a higher innate spirit power the likelihood of her being drafted into the organization for her uniqueness would have far reaching consequences on her development if they started promising a bunch of bullshit she wouldn't understand.

Just from the ceremony Zhi Xing understood that what they were most interested in were soldiers, those with attack oriented Martial Spirits. Getting them while their young and promising glory would get any kid with a shred of ambition onboard, especially if the circumstances were right; such as the average poverty stricken parents not having to feed one more mouth.

Shaking her head she focused solely on making progress and improving her abilities. For every rank of Spirit Power gained she understood that the range of her connection to her martial spirit would increase by 2 meters, putting their current maximum range at 8 meters in diameter around her. Her martial spirit could indeed move even further, almost double the distance before disappearing and reforming within her but she couldn't sense it's emotions at all over that limit and sending spirit power between the two became increasingly muddled and difficult.

With a bundle of leaves in a basket next to her she removed her robe to better expose skin for practice. Although some of her clothes were recovered when the villagers went to the scene in search of any surviving family members. She had already grown out of them, already taller than she was in her previous life at this age, Zhi Xing imagined she might intimidate quite a few of her future admirers later down the line if she continues growing. Her clothes were readjusted by Li Mei an old aunty that her grandfather had been pining after for years. When he resolutely adopted her a year ago she had pitched in to help along with a few other villagers, her husband had died a long time ago while her only child had moved away and never returned making Xing and Grandpa Jack the creative outlet she expended most of her energy on.

Placing a leaf on her forehead, Xing began guiding her spirit power towards the leaf, maintaining her spirit energy in that space while she slowly removed her finger she smiled eagerly.

'It's easier than before' She thought to herself momentarily before regaining focus to ensure it wouldn't fall.

She continued adding differently shaped leaves along her face and neck before reaching her limit of seventeen. With her eyes closed she stuck her hand out in the vain attempt to add another leaf before she lost her concentration, unfortunately when her hand reached inside the basket she felt nothing besides the texture of the thatch constituting it's structure. Confused she felt along her connection to her martial spirit before noticing it was also in the basket, gobbling up the last of the leaves. Already annoyed, her concentration broke completely allowing the various leaves to flutter downwards and scatter along her sheets and bedroom floor, she observed the culprit with an accusatory gaze. Sensing her annoyance, the insatiable insect glided to each leaf individually before mercilessly consuming them with enormous chomps. Bewildered at its aggressiveness towards the innocent leaves Zhi Xing simply closed her eyes again and began circulating her energy along her revamped technique, ignoring the 'little' bug.

She hadn't completely removed the overall 3 dimensional geometric shape she started out with but had added and removed certain bits and pieces between each session. Cycling her spirit power exactly as her martial spirit did just wasn't going to work with her human body, and so she had begun creating focal points using the diagrams in her mind where she would spin her energy in place as quickly as she could before moving to the next point. Now, starting from her stomach or dantian as she learned from Tang San her spirit power would move towards her spine and begin spinning rapidly just above her tail bone, or Root Chakra. From there it would flow around her nervous system, skeletal structure and cardiovascular system before returning and repeating the same process only changing the focal spinning point to another Chakra.

This was currently the best method she could come up with to cultivate, it was still rudimentary and uncomfortable to execute but it was league's above what she had originally started with. She still needed to incorporate all of her other vital organs, sphincters and arteries into the technique and also figure out why her spirit energy rotated faster in her Root Chakra than any of the others, but for now, she was more than satisfied. Pleased both with it's creation and it's effectiveness she took pride in her ingenuity and effort, she couldn't remember the number of times she had passed out, caught a fever or vomited bile and blood while executing it's previous iterations but now she barely felt nauseous. And the results spoke for themselves, an increase of 3 Spirit Power in the span of six weeks give or take another two days. She didn't think it was enough to close the gap between her and Tang San before they leave for the academy but she was sure as hell gonna keep trying!