Chapter 49: Qi Condensation
"Alright, I'm leaving for a few hours. I will come back tonight, Okay?" Ning said to Hyesi.
"As you wish, Inikaka." Hyesi complied without question.
There were no bugs or animals on the island so Ning was pretty safe for now. He walked into the shrine that was his home and sat down inside on the soft floor.
"Before I start anything, answer a few questions, System. First of all, do I use up energy from whatever I am doing right now with my body?" he asked.
<No. Your body is a separate entity from you. So no matter what it does or happens to it, you will never be affected>
"I see. What about absorbing energy? Do I absorb my body's energy?" he asked. He remembered all the horrible fates those wolves and birds had to face when he first unlocked Parasite Ability. He wondered if he was doing the same thing right now as well.
<No. This is a body you created. You cannot absorb energy from the body you created itself>
"Oh," the answer had surprised Ning. "What about the extra energy I can get from foods and other stuff?" he asked.
<If the energy is not required by your body and you are not capped, you can absorb it freely without worry>
'When I have no cap, huh. I guess I should start absorbing a little less than the cap so I can absorb extra energies,' he thought.
He then asked another question, "You said that my body will die if I don't host it previously, right?"
<Yes, If you do not inhabit your Human body, it will go into sleep mode where it will indefinitely sleep, continuously losing energy until it dies>
"That's kind of morbid. Is there any way to not have it die when I leave it?" he asked.
<There are two ways>
<First, You can store your body inside the Interdimensional Storage with stopped time to stop it from losing any energy>
<Second, You can cultivate to a high enough realm where your body can survive without energy>
"Ah, yes. I can do that. I don't think I would have remembered that though. Thanks, system. Let's see, do I have any other questions?" he wondered. "I can't think of any right now. Whatever, I will ask it later if I think of it. For now, let's start cultivating."
"So, I start by trying to feel my first Qi, don't I?" he thought, remembering the information given to him through the basic cultivation knowledge. "I need to follow my cultivation method and try to sense the Qi around me, huh?"
He closed his eyes and pushed his human body's perception to the limited as he started to follow what the cultivation method told him to do. Having a spiritual root, one could immediately start using the cultivation methods without worries and that was exactly what he planned to do the moment he sensed any Qi. Without sensing Qi, however, it wouldn't work at all.
Ning ignored as much sense as he could to try and sense Qi. However, being an Energy, he could see and hear everything around him even when his eyes and ears were closed. So, he sat there for an hour, trying to feel the Qi and failing every time.
He really didn't have any talent in cultivation. Thankfully, he had a spiritual root now that wouldn't stop him from climbing up the cultivation ladder even if it took him millions of years.
Finally, after a few more hours, he sensed Qi. It felt like a small speck of invisible light, only seen to his body, floating in the air. He slowly pulled at the Qi with his will and drew it to his body.
Once the Qi entered his body, he shuddered a little and then calmed down immediately afterward. He had now entered the Qi condensation realm and had started on the path of a cultivator.
Now that he had drawn in his first Qi, he could start using his cultivation method. He took the Qi and started moving it around his body using the body to get it used to the Qi, while at the same time slowly pulling in more and more Qi from the environment.
He was capped out for the day, so he pulled in as much Qi as he could by nightfall without worrying about stealing part of the Qi. Which wasn't really a lot, to begin with. He opened his eyes and finally stopped cultivating.
He started moving his fingers and felt something different. It was almost like he had more strength in him now than when he had started cultivating.
'Am I cultivating at a proper speed?' he wondered. He closed his eyes and tried to feel inside him once more and he did find Qi. He just didn't know how far he was into cultivation with this amount of Qi. He didn't even know if this little amount was good or bad.
'I should upgrade my cultivation knowledge as soon as possible,' he thought.
Now that it was night, he walked back to the village, but something weird happened. For one, he could feel a sort of nimbleness on his feet that wasn't there when he had arrived here. Also, through his body, he could swear that he could almost see the forest and tell apart the trees at night.
He looked into the sky and it was a cloudy night. And yet, he could see some silhouette of the trees. 'Are these the result of my cultivation?' he wondered. 'I wonder how well the body cultivation would work for me,' he thought.
Slowly, he made his way back to the village where the villagers had already set up a fire with some meat cooking on top of it. When they saw him arrive, they immediately called him to the center nearby the fire and gave him a giant piece of the meat.
He looked at the food and saliva started filling his mouth. 'How long has it been since I've eaten anything?' he wondered. He hadn't even kept track of the time, yet he could tell that it had been forever.
Without anymore thinking, he bit into the food, eating away the soft and juicy meat right off of the bone. He tried to stop tears from forming in his eyes as he thought, 'I am so glad that I decided to become a human again.'