Breakthrough

Solvara gestured toward the base of the tree. "Sit there, young one. We'll begin with the basics of cultivation."

Zhenya quickly settled himself on the ground, his earlier nervousness replaced by barely contained excitement. Finally, after years of watching others cultivate from afar, he would learn the art himself.

"First, sit down comfortably. Finding your own pose is the best idea in the long term," the spirit said as he sat down to demonstrate his own cultivation pose. "Cultivation also requires a calm mind and relaxed body."

Sitting down cross-legged, Zhenya straightened his back, laid his hands on his legs, and closed his eyes to calm his mind. When he closed his eyes, it felt like the world had stopped. He calmed down immediately and continued listening attentively to the spirit's explanation.

"Now," Solvara continued, its voice taking on a patient, instructional tone, "close your eyes and try to feel the qi around you." He briefly paused to let Zhenya try and feel the qi in the air. "Then you will need to bring the qi you just sensed toward your dantian through the meridians."

Looking at the little boy trying his hardest, Solvara just had a peaceful smile on his face. Reminiscing about how he had taught the young spirits, it made him feel good; he loved teaching the younger generation about cultivation.

"Oh? This little guy is quite talented. I can see why that madman would want to make him undergo this trial," he muttered to himself.

Zhenya was slowly absorbing the qi in the air and bringing it to his dantian. He wondered what was next. Opening his eyes, he looked straight at Solvara, but unsure if he should ask or just continue absorbing qi, he closed his eyes again and started absorbing the qi again, letting it flow into his dantian.

Solvara seeing this giggled a little. "If you have any questions, you can ask them. I don't mind," he gently said, so as not to disturb Zhenya.

Immediately after, Zhenya opened his eyes wide. "Can I call you by your name?" Zhenya asked politely.

Solvara just looked dumbfounded at the little boy. When he was teaching the young spirits, they never showed such courtesy, so he was quite amused by how polite Zhenya was compared to the madman that had locked him up here. He couldn't find any resemblance at all; it was a mystery how they came from the same bloodline.

"You can call me Solvara, little one," he said as he lay down in the grass awaiting Zhenya's question.

"So the ancestor gave me four techniques before he disappeared, but he just pointed at my head. How do I read them now? Or, well, find them," he asked as he scratched his head awkwardly.

Solvara couldn't help but let a small laugh slip. "Oh, yeah, he did say he would impart anywhere from two to four techniques to the first one to awaken that bloodline. But he actually gave all four, huh." His expression changed to a serious one.

'That must mean this boy holds that much potential.' slightly alarmed Solvara scrutinized Zhenya closely to try and find what made him so special and worth imparting all four techniques to. Then he saw it; he had not only awakened that bloodline, but he also had a special physique.

'This cannot be good for the world; if he is even half as crazy as his ancestor, the whole world will fall into chaos again. But I cannot do anything about it right now as I'm bound by the contract.' Solvara decided to just let it go; not like he could do anything about it at the moment anyway.

"For the techniques, you just need to imagine a manual in your head, and they should appear in your mind. Now I will leave you here to practice, and when I return, the test will begin, okay?" He asked Zhenya, looking forward to how much progress he could make before the test would start.

"Okay." Zhenya said enthusiastically, immediately after he closed his eyes and imagined four manuals, and there they were, all four floating in his mind.

"But which one do I start with?" he wondered aloud, with a pondering expression on his face. Then, what felt like an instinct, he focused on one of them reading its name aloud.

"Boundless Void Secret Art."

Reading the name a couple of times Zhenya was impressed by its grandeur. "I will start with this one." He mumbled as he started reading its contents. He became so immersed in it that he didn't even notice Solvara leaving the island.

A while later he had finished reading the whole manual; opening his eyes again, he was eager to try it out. This was it! A real cultivation technique, and it looked like a really advanced one as well.

Getting comfortable again Zhenya closed his eyes, slowed down his breathing, and emptied his mind. Letting the qi flow through his meridians, he followed the instructions in the manual.

Let the qi flow throughout your body, but don't absorb it into your dantian; let your flesh, organs, blood vessels, and all other body parts absorb the qi slowly. In the beginning, you first focus on the flesh, then the internal organs, and finally, after all that, your meridians; after that, you are ready to enter the next realm.

As he kept repeating this process, again and again letting his flesh absorb as much qi as possible according to the manual. He felt something change inside his body almost as if he had broken through a wall. He knew instinctively he had reached the first stage of the Body Tempering realm.

Jumping up ecstatically, finally he had taken his first step on the road of cultivation. "Yes!" he screamed while doing a small celebratory dance.

While dancing he remembered he wasn't alone here. Looking around for Solvara, he did not find him anywhere. "Where did he go?" he wondered aloud.

"Did he not say that he would leave and come back when the test was going to start? Ahh yeah, he did say that." Composing himself, he sat down again, feeling the urgency of the situation.