Dantian Foundation

"Well, that isn't how you do it," Sora commented after coughing up blood into his hands.

Persistent, Sora again focused his consciousness on the droplet and made it fly over to the left wall, gently this time. When the droplet was about to touch the wall, Sora readied himself, ready to throw up more blood.

Thankfully, this time nothing happened. Sora could feel the droplet touching the wall of his dantian; it was warm, though weirdly, it wasn't wet.

Sora then tried using the droplet to infiltrate the wall; simultaneously, he used the same absorption technique he used while absorbing qi and tried to absorb the droplet.

Incredibly, Sora felt something happening, not like he had thought; however, it almost felt like he was armoring up his dantian.

If one used an x-ray machine at this moment, one would be able to see a thin translucent wall forming around the area the droplet was infiltrating.

Noticing that something was actually forming and that something was working, he kept on absorbing the droplet using his dantian. Weirdly though, it was taking a long time; after around 3 hours of this constant absorbing, still only around a fifth of the dantian was covered in the translucent wall.

After another hour and officially having completely absorbed the droplet, only about a fourth of the dantian was covered by the translucent wall.

"Why is it taking so long? I thought that whenever you reached your max qi, you would be able to transcend the dantian to the next level?" Sora said after opening his eyes.

"Did I do it wrong?" Sora questioned himself while standing up.

"One-fourth of the way to upgrading the foundation of the dantian. Updating status." The robotic voice sounded again.

"Upgrading the foundation? I thought I was transcending... Perhaps I did it wrong." He commented, hearing the annoying voice again.

"Status."

"Detected keyword 'status' would you like to open 'status'?" The robotic voice sounded.

"Yes."

<[Sora Jin]

(Race: Human, Locked, Locked)

(Age: 15)

(Physique: Zen Physique)

(Bloodline: Locked)

(Dantian Foundation: White, 1/4 Gray)

(Rank: Qi gathering 1)

(Qi required for breakthrough: 0/100)

(Skills: Air purification, Qi Meditation)>

'White, 1/4 Gray? Are there levels to the dantian?' Sora thought, confused.

'Well, if there are levels to the dantian foundation, then I should probably focus on leveling the foundation up before breaking through.'

Shifting his attention back to the real world, he looked up, not knowing how many hours he had spent upgrading his foundation. The sun was already way past halfway across the sky, indicating he only had a few more hours left until sundown.

Taking a deep breath enjoying the cool and fresh air, he stood up and went around looking for the necessities to build a fire.

"Thank god I used to be a boy scout; it's really coming in handy right about now."

First, he looked for a small even area of ground and kicked the leaves away. Then he found a few big rocks and put them down in a circle around the area to keep the fire from spreading.

After he found some dry firewood and dry fire starter, he used two sticks to spin against each other using his shoelaces. Eventually creating ash, he used the hot ash to start a small flame in the dry fire starter. After a while of taking care of it, he put the fire starter in the firewood and officially made his flame.

Looking up, he noticed the sun on its way down, and after a moment of staring at it, he heard a rumbling sound coming from his stomach.

"Oh, I should probably finish cutting the rabbit."

Finding a small running water stream, he drank some water and returned to skewering the rabbit.

Stabbing a few pieces of rabbit flesh with a stick, he put it next to the fire to let it cook, sat back, and looked up at the clear night sky.

"Space is so beautiful; I wonder if I'll be able to touch those stars one day."

Making up his mind, he looked back at the rabbit skewers he'd made and realized one was gone.

'What? How is one gone?'

Jumping up, he started looking around, on high alert. However, after turning away, he looked back at the fire and realized yet another rabbit skewer was gone.

'What the fuck? How did I not see it?'

Pretending to look away, he heard a very slight rustle in the tree above him and hastily grabbed his spear, flinging it towards the fire.

Looking at the spear's path, it was as if it targeted nothing. In the next second, a screeching sound was heard as the spear hit a small hand, reaching for the last rabbit skewer.

Going through its hand, it flew through the fire and got stuck in the ground.

As the creature started retreating back, Sora was able to get a look at his thief; it was all black in color. This made it really hard to see in the pitch dark. But due to the fire's light, Sora could clearly see his hairy thief; the creature looked similar to a chimpanzee from earth.

"Oh, you're not getting away."

Identifying his enemy, Sora dashed forward past the fire and gripped his spear, turned around, kept running, and jumped, grabbing a branch of a nearby tree and flung himself up. Following in the direction the chimp had swung, Sora followed, looking like the incarnate of Tarzan himself.

Stopping every now and then, Sora looked at the blood trail the chimp had left after his hand injury. Not very long after, Sora had caught up with the ape.

Unable to swing through the trees because of its injury, the chimp resorted to hiding. Having luckily found a hole in a tree, it forced its flexible body through the hole and waited.

Just as the chimp was about to take a bite of its stolen property, it suddenly dropped to the ground without seeing a thing. A second later, Sora arrived, pulling his spear out of the head of the chimp.

"You picked the wrong person to scavenge from."

"Congratulations on killing the creature Dark Chimp. Harvest its life soul to consume its qi."

Retrieving his spear and skewers, he dragged the lifeless corpse of the chimp back to the fire.

Placing the skewers back by the fire to let them finish cooking, he started eating the one skewer he had left behind earlier, all while performing an autopsy of the lifeless ape. Eventually, he cut into something hard, just like the rabbit, and after cutting around it, he retrieved another crystal.

This time, however, the crystal was more gray-colored, unlike the rabbit that had a white crystal.

"There are different colors to these?" Sora said while fidgeting with the crystal.

"Detected key component Life soul, Do you want to use it to speed up the skill Qi meditation?"

"This again? I don't have time right now; I'll do it in the morning."

After eating the remaining rabbit skewers, Sora grabbed the remains of the chimp's corpse and walked for a while.

"Alright, I've gone far enough away from the fire now," Sora said as he flung the remains of the chimp's body upwards.

Jumping with his left leg and kicking away from the tree next to him with his right, he caught a branch hanging high above his head. Hanging with one arm, he pulled himself up, stretched out his other arm, and caught the chimp's body.

Climbing upwards, he eventually stopped when he reached the top of the tree. Lying on a thick branch, he had his arms behind his head as he admired the clear night sky for a few moments before closing his eyes.