Chapitre 4: Qi Gathering

Lucius realised it was to much to intake immediately so he slowed down and concentrated on the beginning, as if he had started reading a book, slowly processing what it was telling him.

"The universe is filled with energy, this energy can come from various sources and thus in various different types. You have of course the 5 elements and yin and yang but there are also other offshoots of those energy types like how there is ice, mist and hail for water. These are the basic elements, above these are what we call higher energies, such as sun energy, death energy, heavenly and demonic energies. The cosmological art is able to absorb and utilise all energy types in this world, it is this all encompassing path that has led our clan to great prosperity and power."

Lucius listened to his fathers words attentively, excited of the prospects of utilising the energy of the sun itself. His father had stopped talking, nodding at him as a signal to begin. Lucius began concentrating again. To begin energy cultivation he would have to first sense and gather the ambient qi in his surroundings, absorbing it into his body and storing it in his lower stomach region, in his dantian. He closed his eyes and relaxed his muscles breathing slowly and deeply, he focused his mind on the faint vibrations of the air that surrounded him, feeling with his senses instead of his mind. He felt a slight, barely noticeable breeze brush past parts of his body, first his hands then his ears, his nose, his shoulders, back and so on. He focused on that feeling, unknowingly breathing faster and faster, and as he did the breeze sped up, slowly synchronizing with his breathes. After 5 mins that felt like 5 seconds the breeze had finally moved into his nose and down his body slowly reaching his dantian and settling down.

"Congratulations, you just refined a strand of qi. Although that strand is imperceptible and insignificant alone, if you stack up enough that energy will be enough to break the world one day."

Lucius smiled brightly and felt invigorated inside. Although Orion described it as insignificant, that little strand of qi had enough energy to prolong someone's life for an entire day. It was enough to kill someone if used properly. Lucius didn't say anything, he simply closed his eyes and repeated what he had just done. By 20 minutes in he had refined 5 strands now and he began to become more smooth with his breaths and the strands of qi he was refining were getting slightly bigger. After 3 hours of cultivating silently and arduously, the strands of qi he refined now were twice as big as they were when he began and he could refine it twice as quickly. Orion smiled to himself silently thinking.

['This is a true genius. With only 3 hours he cultivates to the same stage someone else would take 30 hours to reach. Although the high density and purity of ambient qi in the Garden does help, but not even I could refine with this speed after only 3 hours. This kids going to become a legend beyond me, maybe he might reach the level of his grandfather.']

Orion stopped Lucius after the 3 hour mark, telling him to take it slow and steady. He would only cultivate energy 3 hours a day for now. Lucius was slightly reluctant as the feeling of ecstasy from being filled with such invigorating qi was almost addictive but he got up in the end. Since it was 8PM he went straight to bed, wishing tomorrow would come sooner but then he remembered that he still had to do his body training and general studies before he could gather qi again. He sighed lightly and fell asleep soon after.

When he began his body training the next day he noticed that it wasn't as hard or tiring as before, realising that the qi he had gathered yesterday could be used to alleviate the strain on his muscles and invigorate him when he got tired and so he trained even harder to tire himself out and properly train himself. Although he was a kid he had always been following his parents teachings and with the love and care they showed him he would make sure to work hard to meet their expectations instead of being mischievous. After all even if he did mess around, those were only soul aspects of his parents and they could disappear whenever they wanted so he didn't want to anger them. As they were his only contact and since it was only at specific times of the day he didn't really have any actual social skills. He was basically alone in the Garden and although he didn't care, it subconsciously made him anti social but that wouldn't matter until later.

After an intense workout he went back to the nursery and ate some food that the automated feeding bot had procured from somewhere and then headed to the school of generality. When he entered he saw that there was a few cloths layered on the ground and his mother was holding a set of needles and a roll of dark blue string.

"Today we will start learning sewing."

"Mother, are you training me to become a housewife?"

"No silly, sewing is vital to learn certain things and it is also a good technique to learn that will help with the Cosmological art."

Acacia cut some cloth into small squares and placed 5 in front of him. She brought the set of needles to the desk and brought another desk out sitting in front of him, bordering their desks up and placing 5 more cloth squares on her desk.

"First I'm going to teach you some simple stitches on two of the cloths and then I want you to stich your name, an animal and yourself onto the last three cloths."

Lucius nodded and began focusing. He copied as she did and felt admiration with how smoothly she wielded the needle. She was able to direct the thread as she wished producing beautiful and perfectly orderly stitches. As he watched and followed along Lucius gradually got better and better but he was still no where near Acacia's level of skill. At the end he had produced his name quite well but his picture of a cat was lacklustre and his self portrait was a disaster, looking like a hodgepodge of messy lines.

"Stitching teaches control, precision and most importantly patience. You rushed the last one so it turned out badly, you should have slowed down and thought about what you were doing before you did it."

Lucius rubbed the back of his head as he walked out and headed for the cultivation room. Not too long after he was already in meditation but he couldn't help think back to his mothers smooth stitching and slowly fell into a trance. Slowly the qi around him that he was refining began to sway smoothly and swiftly, just like a thread following a needle. It was only until after the 3 hours ended and he was in bed that he realised the control his mother spoke of also meant the control of qi.

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