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22.2 Arc 2: A Wild Training Arc Appeared

  The process was hard, harder than expected. Myrkas had thought himself not that bad at internal Qi manipulation. He had been wrong. Handling Qi away from his dantian ended up being infinitely more complex. The feeling of trying to grasp smoke was back with a vengeance. His Qi felt wispy and elusive, only too happy to keep with the flow of his blood. It did not want to be diverted elsewhere.

  The boy changed strategy. He tried to grab the whole strand of his Qi. To his pleased surprise, he managed to keep a hand on a whole third of it. It wiggled and required constant attention, but it was in his hands, metaphysically speaking. A direct subject to his will. With patience and care, Myrkas slowly guided the small strand outside of his arteriole. He needed to dig and drill through something—an unknown substance to the boy—to create the tiny passageway needed to bypass his capillary bed and tunnel through to the venule on the other side.

  The task done, Myrkas laid back and opened his eyes. He was panting, breathless. He had even dropped his mantra while concentrating on his thumb. Creating a brand new space in his body to store his Qi was much, much more gruelling than he had thought. Almost as if this was not what he should be doing. But no, his theory made sense. He needed to keep more Qi in his body and increase his storage capacity directly. This would help to convert external Qi and reinforce his body. It had to be something good. He was certain. He had convinced himself. The difficulty only acted as a barrage to the unworthy. As with most things in cultivation, risks and difficulty brought the best rewards, guaranteed.

  So the boy carried on. He plunged back deep inside himself. The diverted flow was well flowing, not doing much otherwise inside his thumb tip. Maybe it helped to convert a little more of the bath water Qi but it was difficult to quantify. The amounts were too small to give an accurate idea of the changed efficacy of his natural Qi conversion. It helped some, maybe, possibly.

  It clearly needed more Qi. The goal was to make a reservoir, after all, not just an extra pathway. Myrkas pushed on the walls of the offshoot, expanding them in the middle. He carved the space, dragging his Qi along. He persevered while sweating buckets, with his fingertip turning warm and pink—oddly—under his efforts. Time passed, and the boy completed his project. He now had a new Qi path with a bubble of Qi at the tip of his thumb.

  However, the silvery-white energy filling the newly-made "pool" did not flow nicely. The energy on the side of the bubble was stagnant, lacking vigour. It seemed wrong, as if Qi was improved by motion. As if it craved movement. Furthermore, a minimal amount of scintillating energy seeped through the tiny pool's mysterious membrane. Myrkas' offshoot had created turbulence, impeding the normal circulation and conversion, it seemed.

  Something to fix and to fix right this instant. If Qi wanted to move, Myrkas would make it more. The boy did not need to look far to find a solution. If a whirlpool was good enough for his middle dantian, it was good enough for this new puddle he was making.

  A bout of dizziness passed through the youth before he could act on his idea. He had stopped his inner mantra again. His breathing had turned ragged. He took a needed moment to calm his racing heart and to steady his respiration. No point in improving his periphery if his core got derailed in the process. Myrkas took a few slow, deep breaths and then looked at his dantian.

  The small ball of solidified Qi forming in its middle had deviated a little, getting off center. It conflicted with the whirlpool's swirl, resulting in disordered waves that should not be. Myrkas worried the marble of concentrated Qi would flow down his heart and block something, likely killing him. Blood blockages were not a desirable thing usually.

  With a nudge from his willpower, Myrkas replaced it where it belonged, in the perfect center of his core. The act was so much easier in his core compared to the faraway location of the tip of his first right digit. Myrkas would have laughed at it if he had even one iota left of attention to spare. A last spin and squeeze on his dantian to ensure everything was in place and Myrkas could relax again, A crisis had been averted.

  A few more deep breaths and he was back to his thumb. This cultivation thing was so exhausting, that Myrkas had to slow himself down, worried he would mess up again in his haste to finish. His moment of inattention confirmed the need to resolve his Qi stagnation issue. Dull, caked on energies had accumulated on the bubble's sides while Myrkas was fixing his dantian. It looked bad and felt plain wrong, in all honesty.

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  The boy went to work again, carefully spinning his Qi from the afferent opening to the efferent one. He fashioned a sort of infinite screw with his will to carry his Qi along. In the process, he reinforced the walls and shaped the new reservoir to be more tube-like. He remembered that distended and round balloons were easier to burst than cylindrical ones. As he did prefer to keep his fingertip intact, he concluded that it was a better shape to aim for.

  His teeth gritted unconsciously while he worked. A frown marred his young face. If Myrkas had been aware of his surroundings even a little, he may have noticed how he had become the center of attention of the four people closest to him. Snow, obviously, was worryingly pawing at him. She lapped the drops of blood coming out of his nose as it slowly dripped. The two teenage guard trainees, who shared the large pool with them, wore worried frowns. They alternated staring at Myrkas, Master Ranil, and each other in saccades. They, however, did not dare disturb the boy or his Master with pesky questions or verbal expressions of doubt and worries.

  Master Ranil, for his part, seemed pensive more than anything else. While some might have detected a hint of concern passing through his face, the man remained calm and relaxed. He did not appear like he was going to stop his human disciple anytime soon. Whatever hare-brained idea Myrkas had come up with, Suna Ranil was going to let him see it through. As long as the boy did not die, Koriss would forgive him. Hopefully.

  And so the young cultivator completed his task under watchful eyes. He had had to tweak the afferent and efferent pathways to integrate them with his desired flow but it had been worth it. His Qi spiralled flawlessly through his newly shaped cylinder, removing all stagnant energies in the process. The silvery-white energy seeped a touch more from this contraption now that the Qi was in motion. It definitely increased the exchange rate between the yellow Qi that had entered Myrkas' skin and the boy's own energies. Success! Myrkas' thumb had transformed into a super thumb! The best thumb ever. The ultimate Thumb's Up! The boy smiled brightly. He had forgotten where he was through it all.

  Myrkas did not know what the long-term results would be but he was optimistic. He could feel an absolute increase in the amount of Qi circulating in his body without a constant need for him to "manually" speed it up. And he was convinced he was able to absorb and retain a fraction more of the magical energy with each of his breaths. His next step was clear: repeat the technique on all his fingertips, knuckles, and major joints. Myrkas extrapolated that the increased flow in those areas would help reinforce them further. He had an inkling usual body cultivation was more focused on skin, bones, and muscles than anything else. Much easier to target most likely. This way, he would minimize pretty common weak points. The boy was a genius, he was sure of it!

  Satisfied, Myrkas submerged himself in the water to wipe away his sweat and trace amounts of blood. Only to resurface quickly after being the victim of a bestial bite. Once back above the healing liquid, strong hindlegs battered the boy to express a bunny's great displeasure at being dunked underwater without notice. An angry rabbit was a fearsome beast indeed!

  "Sorry Snow! I was lost in thoughts. Don't be mad," Myrkas said as he scratched her behind the ears. "I'll give you extra pansies. And cabbage, a whole head just for you! I'll even convince Serni we absolutely need a large patch of spiritual clover below my Sorrowed Silver Willow. I promise. Forgive me please, oh merciful Senior Sister?"

  The living pile of wet fur in Myrkas' arms glared at him a little before mellowing out. Finally taking notice of the other humans around him, Myrkas blushed profusely. It was not the most noticeable with the boy's tanned skin but it denoted his embarrassment nonetheless. It was as if none of them had ever needed to apologize to a non-human being before. Myrkas was lucky it was Snow he had had to apologize to. Lilac would not have been appeased so easily, especially when her precious fur was concerned.

  His Master was frowning again, likely jealous Snow had chosen to bathe with Myrkas instead of him. The boy had to maintain a careful watch. Master Ranil might truly steal Snow one day. Even if she did not seem to mind, she was still Myrkas' rabbit. He was the one who first chose her amongst all the other available rabbits. A few sleepovers here and there might be acceptable but no more! Myrkas then proceeded to hug her tighter and diligently pet and scratch all her favourite spots, so she remembered who loved her best!

  "You done now kid? Had fun wasting all your willpower during break? You know there is no need to assimilate all the Qi at once right? It's made to settle and get slowly converted over time. Oh well, I guess you'll train willpower endurance too this afternoon then. Come along, we wasted enough time," said Suna Ranil as he exited the pool. "Time for more training!"

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