THE TESTING OF STRENGTH

5 more years passed just like that in the blink of an eye and Darsh became 10 years old.

In the last 5 years he had cultivated in his room secretly. He knew that his understanding of the real world was still lacking and so he wanted to raise his strength as much as possible to at least be able to survive in the face of unknown dangers. 

While cultivating he had found that Pranayam had another hidden effect, by using it one can hide their cultivation base. This discovery fixed one of Darsh's worries. His father did not want him to cultivate by himself and he knew why. In these years he had found that if something goes wrong during cultivation one's energy would go berserk and if it is not controlled it could explode and that person will die.

But Darsh's breathing technique had no such flaw. Darsh knew of this fact because he had used it quite a few times in his previous life.

By painstakingly cultivating every night Darsh had reached Manomaya level third stage but he was not able to gauge his real strength.

Darsh had gotten 10 years old and as his father had said previously his training was going to start soon.

One day Ashok called Darsh behind the house. When Darsh arrived there Ashok started saying before he could even greet him.

"Darsh do you still remember what you asked me 5 years ago?"

"Yes dad. I asked you that I also want to become a cultivator."

"Has your decision wavered till then?"

"No dad! I still want to become a cultivator."

"Hahaha..., good, very good! That's my son."

After that Ashok gave Darsh a book and told him how to regulate his breathing and also about various stages of cultivation.

That book however had nothing new written in it. For Darsh that book was utterly useless.

For the next year Darsh practiced breathing and exercise with his father and he also revealed his strength bit by bit. Seeing as how fast Darsh's cultivation was improving Ashok was amazed. For him his son had already become a one in a million genius.

One day his father called him and told him that it was time that he start to venture into the forest himself to gather experience. Hearing that Darsh was overjoyed but he restrained himself in front of his father. The reason of his joy was that he could finally test his strength on something to gauge it.

Darsh's real cultivation has reached Manomaya fifth level which meant that all of his five senses have been enhanced and he has refined his body. For refining one's body one first needs to understand the properties of all five elements (Earth, Water, Air, Fire and Aether/Space) through accumulating them in their bodies and then enhance their bodies. For Darsh who was a transmigrator it was quite easy as he already knew their properties and he only needed to accumulate the energies. Darsh had found that no one in this world was allowed to share their understanding of the elements to others because it could negatively affect their cultivation progress however Darsh was an exception.

Darsh had hid his real cultivation and only showed 1st stage of Manomaya level's strength.

In the afternoon Darsh set off for the Dandaka forest and entered its outer layer. The animals there were too weak for Darsh. Just for showing his parents Darsh hunted some small animals.

To understand more about his strength he had no choice but to enter the inner region of the forest. After walking around for some time he saw a porcupine like animal which he had saw before in a book. It was a Saahi. That book didn't contain much information about that animal.

Darsh thought that it would be a good chance to gauge his own strength but as he went a bit closer to that Saahi, because of its keen senses it spotted Darsh and attacked him.

It threw the poisonous needles on its back towards Darsh and Darsh Only dodged then by a hair's length. He knew how close death he was just now and ran away as fast as he could. This incident showed him just how dangerous the inner region of the forest was and why his father had warned him to not wander there before letting him go into the forest.

"Huff... that was a close call!" Darsh was out of breath because of running for so long. 

After escaping from that football sized Saahi Darsh tried to find an animal in the outer region to gauge his strength.

He found Rhino about the size of a car and after fighting him he found that with his current strength he can easily lift a car or two and if he tried hard enough he could lift a truck full of rocks.

In reality because of his special breathing technique he had the strength of a peak stage cultivator at Vijnamaya stage.

After fighting he rested for a while and went straight home as the sun had gone down already. He was a little regretful though, because of how big and strong the Rhino was Darsh had decided not to take it with him.

The first thing he saw after reaching home was his mother's worried look. When Samira saw Darsh she ran towards him and hugged him tightly and after releasing him she started looking for injuries on him.

"Are you alright, son?"

"Yes mom, I'm totally fine. I am not hurt in the slightest."

"Yes Samira he's fine. Why are you worried for nothing" Ashok said from the back.

"Just you wait! I will see how you sleep with me tonight?!" Samira glared at Ashok.

"Mommy, what is wrong? Why are are you angry?"

Just in the middle of their conversation Sofia came and asked Samira.

"Nothing my little pie, momma is not not angry at all, see!" Samira smiled at Sofia and glared at Ashok.

Seeing that even Darsh was astonished and wondered to himself.

"Are all women like this? If yes then it is better that I am still single." For a moment Darsh remembered his previous life but just as he thought about this his face became gloomy.

In the midst of his train of thoughts, Samira spotted Darsh deep in thought and asked him.

"What is that in your hands Darsh?"

"Oh this is my prey that I hunted today. There are some more outside."

Hearing that his family including his little sister Sofia started to congratulate him on his first successful hunt and praise him.

"Brother you are so awesome, you caught all of them by yourself." Sofia said while admiring her big brother.

After all that Darsh went to his room and began to cultivate quietly. Today Darsh was especially in a good mood because he had gotten the chance to gauge his real strength against a real opponent.

He had been very happy ever since he came to this world. This world gave him everything he wanted parents, sibling and most importantly love and care.