the first task set upon me after my break through and subsequent recovery is to start some basic exercise to get in tune with myself, did some squats, some pushups, hand stands, four li jogging and so much more by the time it is the evening of the day I was tired to the bone.

  rinse and repeat it went on like that for around eight days before the martial forms were introduced from basic punching to kicking to positioning to all the others, then the basic sword forms, spear forms, staff forms and knife/saber forms.

  the above mentioned will be continued for the next 6 months till at least an initial mastery at cultivator level since the ones prior to that didn't count, this makes it that you get 'familiar' with the weapons and techniques making it easy to fall into by default and not grant you any 'godly' abilities

  and the progress was fast despite the fact that I trained with various weapons then I switched into ranged weapons like the shurikens, throw bolts, throw needles, bow and arrows. this also lasted some two months before initial mastery was scored.

  all of these trainings were supervised by the village head for the ranged, Xiao Xiao for the weapons, Luo fu for hand to hand and extreme close quartered, Luo Chang for the strategies, mental and theoretical aspects of combats

  they all have ways you could efficiently apply your Qi in combat and none of them had a profession except Xiao Xiao who is a trained spy a profession of which I don't need and Luo Chang who is a half baked runologist but gathers books like a nerd, maybe he's a nerd.

  so in my free time I'll apprentice myself to a black smith who by the covert orders of the village head started to teach me the basics of blacksmithing, with the materials to be bought by me though, my Qi enhanced brain is probably the suspicious organ that made me learn the skills needed at record time in the mean time also learned from a cook.

  there I learned how to cook the native dishes my favorite was the dumplings this is followed by the noodles, it's a pity that vital Qi can't travel outside the body, otherwise I would have experimented on its effects on other things like a chopping knife... scratch that, I would have even tried it on my noodles you know using Qi to knead.

  what I simply know now is that my breakthrough into being a cultivator, wielding the vital Qi that I have now grants me a slightly more resilient more muscle yield per weight, the increase in coordination is a bit more.

  A moment of inspiration spurred me to open my dusty 'grimore' and record my progress on it not just to record runes on it since I've already used the runes to breakthrough and also tally my development in a book and not lose my developmental track in a cultivation fugue.

  name: hua lei (dark fox)

  cultivation stage: stages> realms> phase > levels of cultivation

  mortal > ordinary ^ Qi root > Qi initiation > awakened 'Secret space' phase > 1 wisp.

  techniques:

  basic unarmed combat; basic dojo fist art lvl 1.

  basic ranged weapon; shuriken lvl 1, throw bolts lvl 1, throwing needle lvl 1, bows (short and long) and arrows lvl 1.

  basic armed combat; sword lvl 1, shield lvl 1, spear lvl 1, staff lvl 1

  profession:

  blacksmithing lvl 1 , cooking lvl 1, butchering lvl 1, leather working lvl 1, hunting???.

  all my perceived 'stats' were recorded since initial mastery is the bare minimum then I'll tally that as level 1 and it took me almost a year to get there, not that kicks can't be integrated with the basic fist art and was right about the fact that if I want to get so strong so fast I'll need to engage in focused training on my martial techniques and cultivation coz I seem to be getting nowhere even with the 'memories of a 400 years old monster stuffed in my little head not that I could access all of it anyways.

  I decided that my cultivation will be the best to quickly level up coz it's the basic of basics, even if I didn't train in the martial forms well I'll still be able to nearly one-shot someone who trained all his life but vastly inferior to me in cultivation which makes things simple crushing you by the virtue of out massing you in cultivation.

  higher cultivation also makes things somewhat easy for instance, the face slapping and noodle shop shenanigans will 'waka jeje'(this means to wisely walk away and not kick up a fuss), though sometimes some people always have a 'degree of freedom' in their actions, well more like a 'degree of insanity' because if their personal power is not enough they will start pitting their background against yours.

  this actions to me... are not wise at all, I view it as 'courting disaster with a passion' for you might not know when this background of yours is too far away to save your ass in a pinch, so the cure for all this shit, is to be strong!, enough to give your would be victim a good pause, making them think 50 times before committing to their stupid actions.

  while they are still thinking hard about how to solve the conundrum you became, you are long gone. however there will still be people fated for doom no matter how narrow the road to hell is they'll jostle their way in and in record time at that, thus is the rules of 'the degree of insanity' a sort of Murphy's law that just applies to human interactions only.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  then with higher powers comes opportunities basically laid at your feet, this also could get all murphied up since based on what I could glean in this world of cultivation even the people who are weaker than you wants to use you for their own ends, solution just be a tad more alert to their possible schemes and smarter than them simple yet effective.

  in cultivation deep within my room where I was meditating, I took a glance into my secret realm not much wisp still, it had moved from 1 wisp which slowly expend itself to empower me or doing some other thing so I determined that I use up my vital Qi just as I generate them which caused this equilibrium so I put it into my note.

  cultivation:

  first block identified; stagnation = equilibrium in generation and consumption

  possible solution(s); create ways to generate more than you consume, focus on meditation all day long, contact Xiao Xiao, scholar, dojo master or village leader for more advice

  I thought.

  decision made I left to see Xiao Xiao.

  ***********************

  hua lei what do you think vitality is?" she threw a question in lieu of an answer to my plight

  I don't know stuff generated by the body?" perhaps I answered her riddle like question.

  "umm, while on track you still didn't get my question hua lei," she continued, pressing further she asked "where do you think vitality which is transformed to vital Qi comes from?"

  "well the body I mean the Internal stuff is been harvested from the body using the internal space formed at the secret space phase of cultivation as a tool to do so" I answered hoping I got as close as the answer she's looking for to make her point."

  "look at it like this, try eating the meat of a ferocious beast or even a normal wild beast and then cultivate. one is that you'll find out that the body of a human while a capable generator of vital Qi pales in comparison to the ferocious beasts this stems from the fact that beasts mostly do not use 'secret spaces' to harvest vital qi, oh no."

  "what they do is to keep it within themselves till a spirit beasts recruits them or in exceedingly rare cases when it reaches a point it drives them into madness turning them vicious beasts, the other is that the body serves as filter and converter of nourishment to vital Qi thus, the issue with you fainting the first time of your break through when you were over taxed of Qi.".

  Hua Lei finally knew where she was coming from, he'll take hunting and cooking as priority, good this would even provide him some martial training time to...

  "wait a minute isn't there a part where I buy the village It's about time." Hua lei said whilst in thought

  "no!" Xiao Xiao said with an unyielding look on her face

  "what!" Hua Lei exclaimed surprised

  "I said no!", she repeated.

  "you are not doing that, who do you think I wanna raise as a young master?, a silk pants?" she asked

  "but I thought..." Hua Lei wanted to argue but was quickly cut short

  "you thought right but not now I mean look at you," she intoned

  "your cultivation is so ridiculously low for your age that they will laugh themselves to death if we try to convince them now and note this, if you intend to buy the village and turn it into your own domain in the future you at least have to reach the stage of spirit refining at least whether it is a young or old person, any spirit refining stage person is not to be taken lightly"

  "so by then will they take me 'not lightly"' I said with a steely-'ness' seeping into my voice

  "at least they will be cordial and wont kick up a fuss on a small piece of landmass compared to what they have in total, and don't forget they always monitor lands too profitable for them, so have no ideas about turning these folks into cultivators thus forming what is termed as a hidden sect, at least not now no organization will allow stuff like that sprouting within their territory." she answered

  ok its cultivation, hunting, cooking and butchering and then maybe tanning will find a space in my professions list then. I made my resolve. This discussion had firmed up my resolve to choose this path why coz I know that they could form a core methodology that could be used to reach at least.

  so to improve my cultivation I either have to stop using my vital Qi willy-nilly or find a way to get more vital Qi laden food wait isn't there anymore of those strange food that kept me going with a small bite all day long when I was stranded in the jungle?

  he proceed to go and search his bag only to meet a 'steel wall' of Xiao Xiao's disapproval

  "If you lose the bag or you don't have it in the beginning what will you do?" she questioned

  this made me have a flashback over a book that I once read titled YOU HAVE A BRAIN

  "little Hua you should have intuited the reason why I scored you to barely passable when you could even bring out more power with the fist art than your peers now right?" Luo Fu spoke in answer to the request that I brought forth

  I looked at him wide eyed not knowing what to say at first but looking in hindsight it was weird,

  "don't know" I said injection as much innocence as possible hoping to draw some hint from him

  he sighed and shook his head he then closed his eyes faced me and then opened it I could have swore I saw something fierce flashing across the man's eyes, he fixed me with that glare until I finally started getting uncomfortable.

  "okay, fine", he said with pauses in between

  I thought.

  "your task till the next month is to punch 10000 times daily, not just punching but to meditate while doing the task that I give to you and you should 'feel' your Qi coursing through you, try to gain control of it and then stop your body from drinking it back." he declared to like a final judgment.

  I then thought back on how I've tried to gain control of my Qi but no progress thus it dawned on me how much of an uphill task this is going to be I nearly cursed.

  Luo Fu, seeing that I'm still seating on his floor, still staring to space like a gazelle caught in a hunter's headlights

  "come on!, get on with it!" he boomed

  I quickly got up and left with mixed feelings wondering how I could balance this grueling training with my other professional pursuits.

  "humph!" Luo Fu snorted "likely looking for a secret ingredient for success though if he was in a sect he could have just traded contribution points for the food he needed to grow scratch that he could have even been fed the necessary type of food without that in some tier 2 sects just that he is now stuck as an independent cultivator walking the path of a lone master."

  "such is the price of 'freedom' and being unburdened by sectly affairs, hopefully you do not make your late beginnings later, for even freedom as I know it isn't free at all, well go on hopefully you succeed when that time comes you could achieve your heart desires... to some extent he then left for the room while chuckling to himself."