Tunnel

Three days later

Sitting in his room, Samuel was exasperated. Turns out, laying still, putting all your focus on one thing and chanting the same thing over and over again, was not only taxing but also unfathomably boring. 

*I can't do this anymore! It's so boring, holy God have mercy upon my soul. NO, no more. I've got to figure out some better way of cultivating, because this is outrageous"

Samuel was not resigned to his fate of infinite torture brought upon him by his cultivation method. Rather opting to find some better way of doing it. Some way easier, some way faster. And as such, he himself entered the time sphere.

"In some cultivation novels, the MC is overpowered because he can cultivate automatically. They have near infinite energy and dominate their peers with this advantage. I should be trying something like that. Should I split my mind into two, where one cultivates, and the other is awake?"

However before this thought could even properly take root, it was discarded by him. The reason being something that could never be said out loud, lest some degenerate, perverted old man next door heard him. 'I'm already to stupid, how can I halve my brain capacity? No way, I've got to find something else', he thought.

"Think Samuel, think! Talents are given by the Heavens awakening your innate potential, giving you a connection to spiritual qi. Cultivation is just using this connection to enhance yourself. If so, I should surely be able to establish a sort of 'tunnel' between the time sphere and Heaven, allowing spiritual qi to travel through. But if so, how do I stop my spiritual qi from leaking out instead of nourishing my body?"

As Samuel continued to ponder on this problem, new ideas came and went. Not even two weeks later, he came up with a method of creating a 'tunnel', albeit a flawed one.

"This is a good start. If I focus greatly on not allowing my reformed spiritual qi to leak, I can, as well as the induction of qi from the outside is continuous. This should already have increased my cultivation speed by four-five times. This is enough for now, but it's not viable long term. Hell, it's only viable in a safe environment like this ship. If I were to encounter enemies, I would only be able to rely on my physical body to fight. I'm obviously going to be some spamming spell merchant who relies on distance and poise to win battles, how can I allow this?

With renewed drive from seeing the success of his idea, Samuel once again started crafting his autonomous cultivation method. Soon, another five weeks went by.

"If I engrave the rune over my Yin Tang acupoint in real life, would that allow me to keep energy flowing in, but not out? The rune on my soul allows me to enter and exit at will, but the tunnel is given unrestricted access, meaning the my qi will follow the same tunnel. However, if I have my own rune, controlled by my body, that adheres to my commands, will I not be able to control that nothing will leave the acupoint without my permission?"

"That sounds plausible, but then there is the question of how I would engrave the rune onto my body. I have no talisman or formation or even rune skills, nor any comprehension regarding them. Plus, I can't even really view the rune on my soul, all I see is a rough outline and I know what it stands for. Nothing more. Guess I can ask Merling about how to draw runes. And if he doesn't know, I'll have to erase the tunnel before leaving the ship, and start my studying of runes"

His thoughts ending there, he uttered 'gowla' and reappeared in his room. Samuel got up and went to knock at Merling's door, praying to lady luck that he has the knowledge he requires.