Chương 8: Progress
Though his father told him that internal cultivation techniques focus on cultivating the insides of the cultivator, specifically the cultivator's soul, he didn't know how to go about doing it.
'Do I have to like visualize the process happening in my mind?'
Shi Li somewhat shuddered since the [Steel Body Manual] focuses on the word 'tempering'. In this case, what the manual wanted the cultivator to do was to imagine their soul being tempered through multiple hammers and molded once more into a better form.
If the soul attains the toughness of stone, the cultivator then perceives their skin is as tough as steel, signifying that they have reached the peak of the first stage of Martial Novice. If the soul attains the toughness of iron, the cultivator then perceives their muscles becoming as tough as steel, signifying that they have reached the peak of the second stage of Martial Novice. And of course, if the soul attains the toughness of steel, the cultivator then perceives their tendons becoming as tough as steel as it connects to the skin and muscles, becoming one whole. This signifies that the cultivator has reached the peak of the third stage of Martial Novice and can proceed to the Martial Adept stage.
"Well, there's no point wasting time overthinking stuff, the only way to do things is to try it out," Shi Li closed his eyes and imagined his soul being placed firmly on an anvil.
Not long after, he then imagined that his soul was being hammered numerous times as it was flattened, folded, and then placed inside a furnace only for the cycle to repeat.
At first, he felt that his soul wasn't making any progress in cultivation. But as time passed, he gradually felt a pain inside his soul that was in sync to the hammering that happened in the view he imagined.
Flattening, folding, placing inside the furnace, all of this was felt by Shi Li and all he could feel was...
EXTREME PAIN!
A pain on the level of gouging someone's eyes out and then pouring scalding water into the eye sockets, that was currently being experienced by him. Even though that was the case, he still perservered as the manual said that once the person felt pain on his head area, then that means the cultivation was successful.
Slowly but surely, his soul was taking on the characteristic of stone. After an hour of cultivation, the lower 1/20th of his soul took on the form of stone. After two hours, it became 1/10th of his soul. His cultivation continued up until the moon was hanging directly up in the sky, illuminating everything within a faint white glow.
As he opened his eyes, he could feel that the world around him was clearer compared to before. He could see things over 50 meters clearly, and even hear things that happened within a 100 meter radius.
He then proceeded to stand up, only to feel that his body was fully sapped of its energy as it kneeled down on the ground.
'What the...' Shi Li was bewildered at the current situation. His soul felt weak yet extremely lively while his body was sapped of its energy as it was covered in full sweat. How did this happen?
Since Shi Li wanted to know the answer, he of course had to look at the manual for answers. He grabbed it and flipped through the pages to see what the problem could be.
In just a few seconds, his question was answered.
'When cultivating the soul, the cultivator has to imagine a situation wherein their soul is being tempered like metal, which would then be applied onto their true soul. This would take a lot of mental energy, and in some cases, the energy in their bodies as well.'
'In these kinds of cases, the imagined situation by the cultivator is extremely effective for cultivating the soul so they would expect double the effect in the same amount of time.'
'So that's how it is,' Shi Li then understood. After resting for a bit, he grabbed a few things to eat from his courtyard's dining area, and proceeded to come back to the living room area and sit cross-legged again.
As he sat down, he closed his eyes and tried to examine his soul. He didn't know if he would be able to do so without qi in his body, but it didn't hurt to try.
For a few seconds, he couldn't feel anything special happening and proceeded to concentrate a bit more. After a while, he could feel a special connection with his soul, but he couldn't visualize the look of his soul.
But that was enough for Shi Li to find out the progress he made.
'According to what I can feel, I feel that my soul is around 15% stone now. If my guess is correct, if I continue to cultivate throughout the night, then I would be at the middle of the first stage.' Shi Li concluded.
He opened his eyes once more and searched around his house for a stone pillar. It was only after a few minutes of searching did he find a stone pillar near the courtyard's training space. The reason why he searched for a stone pillar was because it was a strength measuring pillar.
Strength measuring pillar would allow the cultivator to see how much ren they can exert at their current level of cultivation. Ren is the measurement of strength cultivators use, which is equal to the strength of one person.
With his current progress in his cultivation, he was sure that he would have a strength of at least 2 ren.
'I hope my strength increased.'
Shi Li clenched his left fist as he bent his knees 90 degrees perpendicular to the pillar. In just a single thought, he unleashed the full power of his soul as his strength was channeled from his whole body to the tip of his fist.
Bang!
A soft bang could be heard after Shi Li punched out at the strength measuring pillar. After a while, a faint white glow covered the pillar as a number slowly materialized in front of it.
2.
Shi Li couldn't help but give a bitter smile. He thought that he would have a strength of around 5 ren, he didn't expect that he would have a strength exactly at the bare minimum of his expectations.
He didn't get disappointed though as he knew that he was just starting in his path of cultivation. Plus he also felt that cultivating in real life is more exciting compared to imagining cultivation that happened in novels, which also became a sort of drive for him to strive further.
So after knowing his current strength, he went back to the living room area to continue cultivating throughout the night.
...
In an unknown space within the Eternal Plane, a man sat cross-legged as he floated mid-air. His eyes were closed yet they gave the feeling that they would exude great amounts of wisdom and terror once opened. The aura that the man gave would also terrify anyone that dared to come near him.
All of a sudden, the man opened his eyes as a rift in the void opened just a few decimeters in front of him. Within this rift was a young man assiduously cultivating his soul throughout the night.
The man looked at this young man and couldn't help but say...
"You shall be the inheritor."
SUY NGHĨ CỦA NGƯỜI SÁNG TẠO 
TrueDawn
TrueDawn So, this chapter is a backlog so if ever I can't post on that day, you guys would still have a chapter to read. I hope I would have a backlog long enough to just take a vacation and come back to where I left off.
Anyways, we're getting back on track with a little bit of changes.
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