The Tower of Emnu

Aaron sat down in one of his hideouts and tried to calm himself. He could feel the Spirit now, could feel it clearly and it made his skin crawl. After the group had left with their fallen member and Aaron had been sure they would not be following him, he had returned to his small bases on the other side of the first floor. By the time he had gotten there it had been late at night and Aaron had decided to do his evening training and then go to bed. He had to wait for the spirit to settle down if he remembered correctly anyway. But it had been a sleepless night. Aaron had sat there in the dark, leaned against a tree, feeling every few seconds after the Spirit, unable to really fall asleep with it being there. It was not so much that the Spirit was unbearable. It was the novelty of it, the knowledge that it was there, trying to find a way in, like a parasite trying to worm itself into his very being, that had kept him up. He had been told nothing would happen, that the spirit could not harm him or start a soul contest or whatever, but he could not relax until he had made sure.

In the morning, nothing had happened, nothing changed. The slight pressure around his Solar plexus was still there, but that was it. Aaron yawned and yet he should have felt wonderful right now that he had settled down. After his workout and training routine he usually felt pretty good. But not today. Today he was anxious and apprehensive. He did not like it. This was not like him. The spirit could not do anything to him. It was the other way around he tried to remind himself.

Aaron took a deep breath and just wanted to get it over with. He should be training right now, but he would be too distracted for any real gains. He focused on this spirit instead and slowly his senses vanished one by one, diminishing to a barely perceptible background sensation while his main focus shifted towards his Qi inside of his dantian. Slowly, meticulously he started to construct the Soul Catcher internal Formation. It was difficult. Even though his concentration was there, his mind kept wandering. His senses flaring to feel for the Spirit. It was like an itch he could not reach and he hated it. With all of his force of will he continued, he build the construct with as much care as he could and when it was done he took the extra step of comparing it to the actual Qi veins in his body to ensure it was perfect. Only once he was satisfied he began.

His Qi reached out, a tendril that snaked upwards along an almost linear path to his solar plexus. His mind was as calm as he could get it and when he reached the spot he felt feedback. His Qi was touching something, something immaterial, something...not really there and yet very real. Without hesitation he activated the technique and Soul catcher latched onto the thing like a snake biting unsuspecting prey. He felt it caught, felt resistance, a pull away before he started to drag the whole construct back down into his dantian. He could feel the Spirit passing, felt its foreign, strange energy as it clashed with his body, brimming with Qi. The thrashing Spirit was like a fish out of water, still hooked, still trying to get away, but already doomed. It took less than 10 seconds for the spirit to reach Aaron’s dantian, but it felt like a colossal struggle to him. Only when the Qi tendril with the caught Spirit entered the dantian the thrashing stopped.

For the first time Aaron could sense the spirit as it was surrounded by his Qi. He kept pulling it towards the center of his dantian, towards the highest Qi concentration but already he could feel his Qi burning into the thing. It was shaped like a giant amoeba with tendrils and a vaguely blob shape. But whatever it was made out of was being destroyed by Qi. But Aaron soon realized that it was not destruction, but transformation. In many ways it felt like ice melting into water. The Spirit was melting into Qi. This newly produced Qi felt different for a lack of a word. Like it had a different flavor of the Qi he usually absorbed. But it was still Qi and it was inside of his dantian, so it was under his control, was inside of his domain. So while he kept dragging the spirit deeper into his dantian Aaron started to pull the newly produced Qi into the Fiend-gods cycling technique and soon there was a steady stream of Qi filling his Qi veins. Only after the first bit of Qi returned as entirely his, he realized how much Qi was flooding his dantian.

Usually it was not much and even with spirit stones it was barely enough to really fill his system to capacity. It had felt like it had been a lot of Qi before. But this, the amount of Qi he was getting from absorbing the spirit. It was like a Tsunami in comparison to a wave on a placid lake. The Qi churned and Aaron had trouble funneling it into the right direction. His focus narrowed as power filled him, as he split his entire being into pulling the spirit into the center and funneling Qi into the fiend-god art. Then the spirit reached the center and Aaron only focused on the newly created Qi. He pulled, he coaxed, he forced this new Qi to obey his commands as he slipped into the deep meditative trance that came with absolute focus. His thoughts and worries vanished and left him only with a singular task to complete.

It felt like channeling an ocean into a narrow canal, but the more of the newly created Qi exited the Fiend-god cycle the more he had to work with to control the foreign Qi. He built walls around it, created by will and visualization, created a flood basin and dams around it to force it to flow up and into the right channel for the fiend-god art. He lost track of time, track of self, until the deluge of Qi slowed and then ceased. It still took a really long time to funnel all the Qi through the Fiend-god art and only after he had finished with that did he wake from his deep meditative state.

Aaron opened his eyes as his senses returned. It was night again and he blinked into the darkness surprised. How long had he sat here? For a whole day? It seemed impossible, but his hunger told him otherwise. He was ravenously hungry. Aaron stood up, stretched and shook his head slightly. His mind still felt half asleep. Like he had woken in the middle of the night and was not really awake yet. With one easy jump he leapt out of his hideout into the night and floated down with Wind Steps. Then he made himself dinner, an entire half of the deer he had kept frozen hanging in the trees. He devoured steak after steak, each cooked to perfection and he did not really think or focus on anything else while he did it. It was meditative, his mind still in a state of Zen. Only when he had filled his growling stomach he settled down to think. To wake up.

Aaron felt for his body, felt for his dantian and was shocked. His dantian was almost 90% full, a single spirit had filled it by almost 70%. That was insane. Incredible. Unheard of. He could not help himself and pumped his fist. This changed everything! With this speed he could climb the tower sooner rather than later. He could basically start working on his next breakthrough to the third realm of Qi Refining right now. Compared to cultivating even with a mana stone this was a hundred, no ten thousand times faster. It would have taken him months to fill up his dantian this much. And he had done it in a single day.

Now he understood why the great master had accepted the Demon’s technique. Its advantages were simply too big, too substantial to ignore. There was no resource better in the tower than this, at least he had not found one yet that could eclipse this power.

Killing the spirit, feeling the vestiges of its sentience, of its resistance was not enough to slow Aaron down. It was not even really alive. Less than an animal actually and he killed those on the regular without any problems. Spirits were much the same, although it had not felt good dissolving the spirit. The result had felt amazing, but not the process. Besides he would not stop here even if he had a problem with it. This was so far the biggest breakthrough he had had in the tower, the fastest way to power and to be honest, the easiest.

He itched to do it again, the whole first level, no the whole tower was crawling with Vessels, they were the most common enemy he had faced. But first he had to prepare for his breakthrough. He did not know what would happen if he filled his dantian to the brink and beyond. Nothing good probably and so he thought it better not to find out. No, breaking into the third minor realm was necessary. He still had the mid rank mana stones and with those he would be able to close the gap and fill his dantian entirely. If ranking up to the third minor realm was as much of a boost in power as going from first to second realm, then he could not wait.

Aaron thought about it and then decided to prepare for a breakthrough right now. He would do his martial arts training and then go for a full cultivation session into a breakthrough. That decided he started with the stretches and the training. It was a welcome challenge to train in the absolute dark and he made sure to be quiet as well while he stretched and went through his katas. Only when he switched to active training he allowed himself some leeway. Being quiet while doing his routine was a really novel thing to him and it added another layer he could build on. With his improved senses it was difficult to gauge how silent he actually was in the end, because to himself he sounded like a whole orchestra of sounds. But he knew only animals would have equivalent senses and not all of their senses either. Still the next time he would be sneaking around he knew it would be much easier. Controlling his body, making sure there was no wasted movements or incorrect steps was something he had become good at. But being quiet honed this by another level and Aaron grinned satisfied. He would start to train in the night more often. It would be beneficial, he was sure.

When he was finally done fighting and training the Unceasing Palm kata he started his preparations for a breakthrough. This started with finding an appropriate location. His first thought was of a small river, but his impurities would be very noticeable and so he moved away from his camps until he found another small stream. There were many all over the first floor and this one had a nice spot with a small waterfall and a few meters wide pool that was barely deep enough to go to his thighs, but would cover him nicely when he was sitting. Which he would be.

Aaron had never tried cultivating while sitting inside of water before, but he could not imagine that being a hindrance. He made sure to sweep the surroundings, but besides a few critters there was nothing around. He stripped out of his clothes and opened the pouch with his manastones. He placed the three higher quality ones next to the pool and then sat down inside of the ice cold water entirely naked.

It was cold, too cold for a normal human being, but for Aaron it was almost comfortable. Especially once his sense of touch had toned down a bit. Only his head poked out of the water and he cursed as he realized he had to slice his hand with something. He groaned, got up and got one of his daggers, before slicing his hand and pressing the glittering manastone into his palm. Then he settled down and concentrated on the flood of mana entering his system.

Compared to the Qi from the Spirit this was not much, barely a tiny fraction of the majestic flood that he had wrangled with earlier. But compared to his regular cultivation sessions this was incredibly different. The higher grade mana stone had so much mana contained in it it was literally flooding his whole body with mana. His blood absorbed is easily like always and this time it even reached its capacity. Some of the mana stay in his body, flowing in his blood until the fiend-god art could transform it. His body drank greedily from the manastone that was so much more potent than Aaron had thought it would be. Slowly the newly made Qi accumulated. Channeling it through the fiend-gods arts Qi veins was easy now, nothing compared to earlier. It was almost leisurely now and Aaron watched with satisfaction his dantian fill more and more. The Qi inside of his dantian was thick, more like a dense fog as it rose to fill out the cavernous space.

Aaron did not know how long it took for the new Qi to fill his dantian up entirely but in the end one of the higher grade manastones was not enough. He took a second and was surprised by the capacity of his body to absorb and transform Qi. It had risen alongside with his level he was sure. It was a close thing though. Halfway through his second high grade manastone his dantian was entirely filled.

Aaron stopped the mana and placed the stone back next to the pool. He scanned the surroundings with all of his senses and when he found nobody he decided to breakthrough right now.

He still remembered how to very vividly. Starburst was this way of breakthrough called and Aaron sank back into his meditative state as he imagined the center of his dantian to be a proto star. He imagined gravity as the center and the most dense part of his dantian started to pull and condense the surrounding Qi like gas. Slowly but surely he compressed the Qi. His mind calm, his whole being focused on this. The center of his dantian began to glow in his mind, began to form into a new star as it condensed more and more mass. So much Qi, it was nothing like his first breakthrough. He had to stack and condense it, find new ways to do so, new tricks as his will clamped down on his Qi and bent it to his will. This was his Qi, his power, his dantian and he used this authority. Used it to force the Qi into an ever tighter ball of concentrated Qi. Soon the Qi started to buck against his will, started to try to escape, but Aaron was relentless and he would not let even a tendril escape.

The center of his dantian grew in potency, grew in size, before Aaron clamped down on that as well and compressed it even further into a tiny ball. With a mental roar he pushed more and more Qi into the tiny ball until it was brimming with so much of it iut started to break through his will and control.

‘More!’ He roared inside of his head and brought all his will to bear, pushed all of the Qi into the center with all his might and then he let the ball explode like a star dying or being born.

Aaron rode the wave of Qi that suddenly released, a Tsunami more potent and horrifying than the one he had absorbed earlier. Now he rode its power, its potency and imagined the walls of his dantian to just fade away, to give in against the power, to vaporize. When the wave of power his his dantian they seared through easily, burning through the walls that had held it together with ease, barely slowing. Further and further the wave went, creating new space out of nothing, as constructive and as destructive at the same time, like all Qi. Then he hit the real wall, the breakthrough wall towards the third realm. He could feel it and feel hjow the wave stopped and ate its way through it, instead of washing it away. Aaron pushed the Qi, forces his will upon it and felt the wall give.

The wave of Qi was spent, but Aaron felt his breakthrough. Felt the changes in him, but he was not done yet. He focused and imagined all the Qi flooding back, pulled it with his mental eye like the tide returning. Then he did the same process anew. Compressing the much diminished Qi into a tiny ball again. He managed to do two more bursts until he finally gave up and woke up totally spent.

Aaron sat in the water, his whole body sticky, his hair a blotched mass of impurities. The water washed away some of the gunk, but Aaron immediately clamped down on his sense of smell, by focusing on the feeling of his body. It barely helped. The smell was diabolically bad to his new senses and Aaron gagged as he tried to scrub himself off in the flowing water.

It was disgusting and awful, but he could already feel his bodies strength. Could feel his improved balance, his every cell’s improved capacity for Qi. It was awesome, as much as he hated the downsides. He could feel the power of his new body and it felt so, so good.

After scrubbing himself off for at least half an hour and after his skin was irritated and red from all of his less than gentle attempts at cleaning himself, Aaron finally felt he was clean again. He brushed his teeth with some fragrant herbs and only then when he felt clean and whole again he walked back to his clothes.

Every step felt good, felt right. His body had changed slightly once more, had improved itself and his dantian was so much bigger than he had expected. It for sure was an exponential increase in size. Which meant he would have to hunt a bunch of spirits to reach the fourth realm. But that was tomorrows problems. Today he just wanted to enjoy his progress. After he got his clothes back on he walked back to his camp, instead of skipping along with wind steps. It felt good to just walk for once. To get a new feeling for his improved body and to take a mental break. He pushed his worries aside and just focused on his next step. In the end that was all he could do for now.