Chapter 20: The Joys of Forging... No, Really!
Ma Sa resisted the strong urge to propel himself along the street using his new Nine Dragons Void Siphon transportation method. Sadly, he couldn't pay for the buildings he'd destroy if he acted on his desire. In all seriousness, the main reason was that he felt more and more like he was about to explode with every step.
He wanted to hurry back to Old Guan but every bit of force that he absorbed added more pressure. To outsiders he probably looked like a child suffering from horrific constipation as he hobbled homewards in a fragile fashion.
When he finally reached home and found no sign of Old Guan, Ma Sa was ready to burst! The only thing he could think of was to hop into his inventory and look through every book he could until he found something about the process of breaking through a cultivation bottleneck.
After flipping through over a thousand of his cultivation based books, Ma Sa finally found something of use. 'Heavenly Explosion Mantra' described the use of highly pressurised Qi to form an expanding spiral pathway that could slowly invoke a permanent expansion in a chosen energy well. The idea of permanent expansion fit very well with Ma Sa's vision of what a breakthrough would be. When picking which energy well to expand, he first considered the Dantian as that seemed to be the standard center of a person's cultivation. Being a bit of a hipster, Ma Sa also considered a few other places like the Violet Palace or Central Void.
In the end, he decided to try out the technique in the Dantian first before eventually trying to expand every point in his body. Why not?? It wasn't like gathering energy was difficult for him. If anything, it was currently too easy!
After he exited the inventory and started trying to form something like a ball of yarn in his Dantian, Ma Sa reached the point where he really did feel like he was on the verge of an explosion. He had expanded the ball as much as he could without rupturing himself and now his task was to wait until the feeling of pressure subsides.
He should then repeat the process over and over again until the Dantian was absolutely unable to further expand. At this point he would have succeeded and, as far as the 'Heavenly Explosion Mantra' was concerned, would be the most powerful being in the universe. Ma Sa slightly doubted the claim but definitely had respect for the developer of the mantra for coming up with a novel idea.
It was likely due to the --Strengthened Channels-- perk that Ma Sa was able to adapt extremely quickly to the expansion of his Dantian. Within an hour he had expanded his Dantian five times. He was a little unsettled as he wondered if he was just creating a space occupying lesion in his abdomen. Would it reduce his bladder capacity?
As a normal human with his body from earth, albeit a bit modified by the race menu, Ma Sa really didn't feel like he was anatomically different. He considered that the energy channels and wells may be energetic constructs themselves rather than something physical. Maybe they were something similar to the body's electromagnetic fields? These were questions for another time. Hypothesising without any means to reliably test the hypothesis would be of zero benefit.
A question that was of key importance was whether expanding another energy well at the same time would make him explode. As this was definitely a matter of life and death he decided to take precautions.
*~* [save "ExplosionTest"] *return * *~*
Ma Sa hoped that this wasn't the start of a slippery slope. He just gave himself a bit of special permission to experiment. Dying by self explosion would be embarrassing! Not that he would actually die... He'd just have to reload from 'character creation' again before he died. He definitely did not want to find out if he could reload after death!
With his save in place, Ma Sa prepared to expand his Crystal Palace. It was referred to as the 'upper Dantian' in a lot of the books that he read so since he figured if he could expand that it would balance the lower Dantian. If he succeeded, he would then try to expand his Violet Palace and thus complete the expansion of all his Dantians.
As he started to expand his Crystal Palace he felt a huge pressure building behind his glabella. He was almost tempted to immediately reload his save but he decided to stick with it for a little longer. If he was able to feel the pressure decrease in the slightest then his theory was viable.
After around nine minutes of what felt like eternity, Ma Sa felt the pressure ease. It then rapidly subsided as his Crystal Palace grew in size. Success! Now he only had to suffer the alpha and omega of headaches four more times to match his Sea of Qi...
Over an hour and a half later, Ma Sa could be seen laying in a puddle of his own sweat on the floor of Old Guan's residence. It took him longer this time as the pain he had to experience actually grew more intense each time. The majority of his time was spent mentally psyching himself up for the next expansion.
Now that he was finally done with that he could go on to expanding his Violet Palace. He imagined it would probably feel a lot like a chest burster from Alien and was not looking forward to it. Thankfully, just then, Old Guan arrived to save him from his self inflicted torment.
"Ah, You're here! Good! I'll need you to accompany me this afterno- What happened to you?! Are you unwell? Should I fetch a doctor?" Old Guan was worried by Ma Sa's pathetic appearance.
"Welcome home, teacher." replied Ma Sa. "I'm fine. I just had a breakthrough!" He couldn't help but have a hint of pride in his words as he said so.
"Hoho! Well done! As expected of my student!" Old Guan exclaimed inwardly while outwardly he said:
"Hmmph! Attempting a breakthrough without assistance when you only have so little experience! What were you thinking? You think you're invincible? Keep doing stupid things like that and you'll end up returning to the stars early!"
Even while saying that, Old Guan was fetching the wash basin and a towel to clean Ma Sa up.
"So, you think this old teacher of yours might get a look at your cultivation now that you've broken through?" asked Old Guan after he'd gotten Ma Sa into a semi presentable state.
Ma Sa felt somewhat regretful that he really couldn't wait to make his breakthrough with his teacher. Therefore, he decided to drop his concealment art and rotate his cultivation to the maximum.
Guan Yuang Fei felt his soul crawling out of his mouth as he detected the Qi fluctuations eminating from Ma Sa. It was not that they were particularly strong but the frequency of them made him feel dizzy. What was with that speed? How are the boy's energy channels not in shreds??
Ma Sa expected to have broken through to rank one Martial Fighter when he expanded his lower Dantian for the first time. After that he wasn't really sure how much he had advanced.
"So? How is it?" Asked Ma Sa.
"How is what? I thought you made a breakthrough? You're still at the pinnacle of rank nine Martial Novice. The only thing that has changed is your creepily high circulation rate. Don't tell me you thought you could break through just by circulating your Qi faster?" Old Guan frowned as he said so.
"Eh?? But I definitely feel stronger! Then... What do I need to do to become A Martial Fighter?" Ma Sa was confused. He could feel his body brimming with power that he definitely didn't possess before. Was this one of those quality over quantity things?
"Martial Fighter level is a preparatory phase for transitioning to Martial Warrior. The practitioner must create a total of nine gushing springs of Qi within their Dantian. At each increase in rank a new spring must be formed. They should all flow into a central lake. Doing so converts the mist like Qi stream of Martial Initiates and Novices into the liquid Qi of a Fighter. From Warrior to Sage the goal is to crystallise one's Qi and prepare to form it into a bead called a Dan."
Old Guan explained the theory to Ma Sa. He hadn't actually done any of this as he was a rare type of soul cultivator but he knew the requirements of Qi Refiners.
Ma Sa was somewhat disappointed that he hadn't actually broken through but he was also quite excited as, once he expanded all his energy wells, he could go ahead and try forming the springs. He hoped that the expanded energy wells would provide him with a strong foundation for his future cultivation.
"I see... Teacher, thank you for explaining! I'll do my best to form a spring and breakthrough to Martial Warrior as soon as possible."
"You'd better not try it until I'm there to help guide you. Cultivation is not a game! Every breakthrough is the culmination of hours of hard ardent cultivation. Cultivators tread on a razor's edge! Failure comes with massive cost! So, don't gamble with your future unless you are truly without other options."
Old Guan ended his tirade with a caring frown. He truly did not want to see Ma Sa squander his gifts. A moment later, he finally remembered why he needed to find his student in the first place.
"Anyway, come with me! I'm taking you to meet Forgemaster Su Won. He'll be teaching you the joys of forging!"
Ma Sa couldn't help but give his teacher a weird look. This was the second time he'd heard about the 'joys of forging'. Since the first time gave him such impressive gains, maybe it was an auspicious phrase for him? Anyway, he had always intended to learn smithing and alchemy since they would help him get perk points as he increased their proficiency. This was turning out to be a great day!
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