Chapter 13: Is this Torture or Cultivation? (1)

With his method now set, Xun wasted no time in beginning his cultivation.

For all the downsides, there was one concrete benefit to being a mortal. He didn't need to worry about stuff like heart demons or wrong scriptures. Those dangers would come in their time, after he had opened his aperture, but for now, he was too weak for small mistakes to compound into serious problems as they would for someone more advanced on the path. He might not be sure of some parts of the scripture but if he was wrong, he could correct himself as he went with little risk.Following the first step of the method, Xun exhaled as deeply as he could, then waited. Soon, his lungs were burning from the lack of air and he felt blood rushing to his head.With his iron willpower holding his reflexes in check, his body began to panic. At the same time, the oxygen deprivation began taking its toll and his eyelids became heavy.Still, he waited. The rings around his vision became darker and darker until, on the brink of unconsciousness, his body found another way to get its air.Every pore of Xun's body opened as he greedily sucked air in not through his lungs, but through his skin. And sneaking in to be greedily gulped down with it was zhen.That was the crux of the Inner Breathing Method. The name itself was a pretty big hint. He breathed through his body, instead of the organs tailor-made for that purpose. Technically, anyone could do this, it just was painful.With air coming in through his pores, the pressure on Xun began to relax. He waited until there was a full cycle's worth of zhen before sending it to each of his limbs, completing the cycle in a single minute. Then, he held the remaining ball of zhen, a five percent portion of the original amount, and threw it at his aperture.The mist-like energy splashed against the rock-like surface of the aperture and disappeared. It looked like nothing had changed. But that was to be expected, especially given how little zhen remained after each cycle.The first cycle was over. Every part of Xun's body was screaming him to use his nose or mouth to breathe.Instead, he began the second cycle of the Inner Breathing Method.—Everyone, even those born with Gold or Jade spirit channels, were born mortal, their apertures unopened.The first step of cultivation was to collect zhen and attack the aperture at a single spot. Once enough zhen had been thrown at the aperture, it would crack open, revealing an empty core. Cultivators could then use that space to store zhen in mist form. Usually, it took about a hundred units of zhen to open their aperture.For Xun, who was pushing less than one-tenth of a single unit of zhen at his aperture in each cycle, it'd take thousands of cycles just to open his aperture.After the second cycle, Xun realized that there was a reason that the Inner Breathing Method wasn't called a scripture. Whoever had written the thing probably realized that it was closer to a torture method than a true cultivation scripture.As Xun finished his fifth cycle, he had to use every part of his strength to stop his body from taking a breath. It wasn't that the scripture forbade him from taking a break between cycles. He resisted because taking a break would set a dangerous precedent.If he allowed himself a breath, His mind would know that pausing, relaxing, breathing, or generally quitting was an option. And when things got hard, like they did every second of practicing the method, it would give itself permission to stop.On the tenth cycle, the mild stings he felt each time the zhen came through his pores turned into needle-like agony all over his body, including some more obscure areas where he was sure he never felt pain before. His spirit channels were also getting battered by the reckless zhen-gathering, but the remaining walls of his channels were so far proving sturdy enough to withstand the zhen's rampage.After fifteen cycles, Xun found himself fantasizing that his worst enemies had to use this method to cycle a hundred times each day. His face paled with the realization that the fantasy was to be the reality of his life, not theirs.He reached twenty cycles. Staying on the edge of almost blacking out and pushing down his body's instinct to take a deep breath was becoming incredibly hard, almost beyond his capabilities. It felt like there was a giant millstone grinding against his chest.Perhaps he had underestimated the difficulty of this scripture. In his past life, the silver scripture had also involved some level of pain, but nothing he couldn't handle. Mostly it just required patience to complete the fifty cycles. Each cycle took anywhere from six to ten minutes, and a full cultivating session lasted around six hours.The Inner Breathing Method was different.Each cycle only took a single minute. Somehow, that now felt like a negative instead of a positive. At the start of each cycle was an intense burst of pain. The hurt would lessen while the zhen cycled through his body, but less than a minute later, he'd have to brace for the pain again.Twenty-five cycles. Xun knew that his Inner Breathing Method was wrong. It wasn't a major problem, just that he was losing a bit more zhen than necessary each time he allowed the zhen to linger in his limbs. He tried to think of something he could do to correct the inefficiency, but nothing came to mind.Thirty cycles. Xun had to concentrate entirely on cultivation. It was hard not to. Any time his mind wandered away from the task at hand, the start of a new cycle brought a painful reminder to keep his focus.Forty cycles. Time seemed to slow down as Xun's determination began to waver. Each cycle was harder than the last and he began questioning if this was all worth it.Did it really make sense to pursue the path to eternity again after all that he went through in his past life? Wouldn't it be easier to live out the rest of his life as a mortal, especially given how broken his spirit channels were? He'd never have to worry about pills or spirit stones or losing face. And he'd never have to practice this cursed scripture again.As the fiftieth cycle turned into the fifty-first, Xun found he already knew the answer to his question.