I woke up with the same cold and refreshing feeling and braced myself for the pain to set in. But nothing happened. The air stayed cool, my skin didn’t burn off and my eyes stayed clear. I realized that I must have won. I looked around the room and saw Master crouching next to me. She handed me the manual and said, “I will show you your room. I prepared it a bit, but it is not completely optimized yet. I will have one fitting for your cultivation manuals by the time you officially become a cultivator. If you have any questions, feel free to ask me.” While she had talked, did she lead me to another room.

  She opened the door and I found a rather simple looking room. It had a table, a bed and a wardrobe but was otherwise completely empty. She then handed me a small box and explained, “Eat one every hour if you have trouble feeling any Qi at all. Good luck, I hope you succeed.” With this I was alone in the room. I sat down on the bed and looked at the three manuals in front of me. I felt an unwillingness rise up in me as I stared at the body cultivation manual. It would bring me a lot of pain, I was certain of that. But I didn’t let this unwillingness stop my actions and picked up the manual for the dual cultivation.

  The title simply said, “Against nature”. I was a bit surprised since it didn’t have the usual mark of being a manual or anything like that. I opened it up and saw that it only contained a few pages. I began to read them,

  “For those who wish to go against the natural order of everything, I will explain how to combine the two paths which should never cross.

  To sacrifice what is natural to protect what you desire, you will need to activate both cultivation techniques at once. And then you must strike.

  Force your will upon your body and the forming core. Your body will try everything to rip you apart to get to your core and your core will carve pathways through your body hoping to offer itself up.

  From there, simply offer up the alternative. Offer up the natural Qi alongside the other variants. Force it to obey your will. Nature will rebel but force your will through. “

  After that it actually explained everything in a bit more detail, but I hardly understood them since I could not even feel Qi yet. I then turned to the other manuals and began to read them. They were more structured than “Against nature”, and I roughly understood what they wanted me to do, even if I didn’t feel Qi yet.

  Earth’s bounty wanted me to collect earth Qi and use it to create a big crystal in my stomach and a few smaller ones along certain points in my body. I looked around the room until I found a brush and ink on the table. I used the ink and marked the spots where I would need the crystals. I thought that it would be better if I had some sort of reminder where they would need to go, since the procedure sounded like a lot of pain.

  After I marked them, did I look at Path of the inhuman. It sounded simple. I needed to feel all the elemental aptitudes I had and then separate them, from where they were being held onto. I was a bit confused at that part since the manual was not more specific about it but quickly decided to ignore the confusion. After they were separated, did I need to cram them through my body. This would temper my bones and flesh with each of them once, according to the book. After a bit more reading did, I realize that tempering simply referred to the process of destroying my body and healing it in a stronger form.

  With the new information, did I read through every manual again and planned the order of how to do things. The first would need to be the Path of the inhuman, since I could decide the order of the aptitudes that would be used and it sounded like it would take longer. After that I could start Earth’s bounty and then I would have to worry how to actually use “Against nature”. The more I understood how it worked, the more did it sound like the ramblings of a madman. It sounded insane to focus on forming the earth Qi crystals while my body was being tempered. Especially considering, that I needed to force my will against the natural order of things.

  I sighed and opened the box Master had left me. Inside was a small round ball. It felt harder than the nourishment pills and was completely white. It was luckily small enough to be swallowed whole, so I did just that. I felt nothing at first but decided to wait and tried to feel any changes. I tried to feel anything similar to the second entrance test.

  I waited. After a few hours of nothing happening, did I consume the next. It took almost half the box of pills until I felt something coursing through my body. It took me a good hour until I was able to clearly feel what exactly was coursing through my body. It felt as if my eyes had been opened to the world. It was a completely new sensation. I felt the different elements twirl around in my body without any direction until they left it again. I only felt what was happening inside of me even though I was sure that the entire room was filled with Qi.

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  I focused my attention towards my stomach were the pills I had ate were. It was a big ball of neutral Qi which slowly unravelled with threads going through my body. Since it would sooner or later be completely unravelled, did I turn my focus back on the intertwined threads of Qi in the air which passed through me. I noticed that they were more like small pieces of elements carried by neutral Qi. If this was like that everywhere, it would be another problem. I sighed and read through the manuals one last time.

  I understood more of the instructions this time, since I could actually feel Qi. The first thing I would need to do for both of them was feel my own aptitudes. I began to search through my body with my new sense, but it turned up nothing I found of note. In general, that step confused me, so I decided to not waste too much more time and went out of my room to look for Master. I found her relaxing on the training grounds setting something up. She glanced at me when I came out and asked, “So, where did you get stuck? Is anything unclear in the manuals?”

  I decided to be direct and asked, “Both manuals need me to feel my own aptitude which is located somewhere according to them. I am unsure how I am supposed to find it. I tried to find it by looking in my body already but found nothing that stood out to me.” Master took the manuals from my hands and looked at the pages where it was mentioned and then said, “Sit down on the ground.” I immediately obeyed and landed felt the sand underneath me.

  I tried to feel the Qi around me to see how it would differ from my room and quickly noticed that there was a lot more earth Qi coming from underneath me and that it had less neutral Qi. Master also sat down and explained, “The somewhere mentioned in these books is the soul. The aptitudes are tied to your soul, but it won’t make sense to you any time soon, so forget about it for now. The reason why you didn’t feel the aptitudes is simply because you are always feeling them. Just think of them as a baseline of elements in parts of your body. “

  I tried to feel the baseline and compared what I currently feeling to the feelings in my room. It was easy to figure out the baseline that I had in my legs and lower body. Sadly, the rest of the environment was too similar to draw many conclusions. I gently tried to manipulate a bit of the baseline Qi and as soon as my mind touched it, did I begin to feel the rest. It was as if I was pulling out a buried chain. It felt mostly like the Qi in the air. Pieces of elemental Qi stitched together by neutral Qi. It filled my entire body, and I started to wonder how exactly I was going to separate everything cleanly.

  Master interrupted my thoughts by saying, “Since you figured it out, you can start your first step to cultivation here.” She then placed a bunch of pills in my hand, “Eat one whenever something feels impossible to overcome or you lack momentum. While eating pills makes the start “dirty” and worse, you can always remove any defects caused later. The overall quality in your cultivation will be the same, so don’t worry about taking them.”

  I didn’t open my eyes but nodded. I believed her but still wanted to waste as little time as possible. I began to carefully pull out pieces of the dark Qi from my aptitude and tried to directly pass it into my body. As soon as the first piece began to circulate through my body, did I feel the others slowly pulling themselves out as well. Vaguely moving in the same circulation direction of the dark Qi. I forced the earth Qi pieces to move somewhere else and began to compress them to form the crystals.

  The more I gathered the more I felt the pull from my body. I couldn’t stop them from completely moving but I still continued to compress the Qi. That was until the pain began to set in. The tempering process had begun. I felt my bones being shattered and reformed, I felt my muscles being sliced apart and I felt my organs giving up. And for a moment, only pain was there. In that brief moment, did I lose control of my forming crystals. Luckily, this send me in a panic as I began to reform everything I had lost.

  My entire mind focused on moving the crystals back to their spots while compressing them. The more I did that though, the more could I actually feel the effects in my body. The tiny crystals clouds began to carve small holes through my body. I wanted nothing more but to let them stay stationary. But they were still not where they were supposed to be. I could feel the small holes slowly growing larger. I also felt the next tempering process beginning. And again, my mind went blank from the pain for a moment, and I lost more progress.

  It was not as bad as the last time, although I was unsure if that was due to me getting more used to the pain or if my flesh had simply slowed the movement down. The Qi that was tempering my body was slowly disappearing and the void left behind pulled stronger and stronger on my earth Qi. I remembered what “Against nature” had explained and began to force the neutral Qi to move along the circulation path of the Path of the inhuman. It resisted my will and tried its best to slip away, but it was consumed a tiny bit.

  My attention was now split between forming the crystals, holding them still and forcing the neutral Qi to be consumed. The Qi path for my body cultivation began to try to bend towards the crystals, but since it was mostly the neutral Qi, did I manage to keep it in order. Still, it created small cuts in my body, and the conversion of the neutral Qi was slow. But the process seemed to become stable. The pull on the crystals and the neutral Qi line was constant.

  It took a while of constant pain, until finally the Path of the inhuman had converted enough neutral Qi to pull the rest in automatically. I had long since reached the finished crystals out of earth Qi and only held them in place. For one last time, did my body experience a tempering. It felt similar to the others, with the only difference being the speed at which it happened. It felt like a snail crawling through my body slowly crushing my body and rebuilding it.

  I felt a primal fear rise up inside of me, when it reached my head and began to crack my skull. I knew that there was a small untampered piece of my skull bones, which would make sure that no splinters actually reached my brain, but it still worried me. It took a long time until my skull finished its tempering, since the Qi did multiple tempering’s one after the other to compensate for the previously lacking ones. Then all the pain ended and the pull on the crystals stopped. I felt a thin line of earth Qi shooting out from them, connecting them. These small lines of Qi reached my skin and stopped there, pulling in all the earth Qi which was in the surroundings.

  I opened my eyes and began to breathe, only to wince in pain from the countless small wounds in my body. Master sat in front of me handing me another pill and said, “This will heal all remaining wounds. After you are healed get used to your body and new abilities. After that will I give you one technique and a mission.” I felt exhausted beyond believe but still forced myself to eat the pill and stand up. I would not rest until I won the duel.