Outside the strange space, Long Tianyu still slept soundly not disturbed by anything at all. What might have seemed like a long time inside the strange space only a few moments have passed in the real world.
As he slept through to the next day Long Tianyu only woke up when the bright light of the sun shone down on him. Feeling the warm light, he soon raised his upper body and stretched a bit before bending his knees and flipping forward onto his feet.
Standing up straight Long Tianyu opened his eyes and stretched his body fully causing it to make popping noises. After feeling satisfied he rubbed his eyes and circled his qi throughout his body and as he did, he felt that he had more qi than usual. If his qi before could only fill a teacup now his qi is more than enough to overfill a giant water pot.
He felt a 30% increase in his qi reserve, his meridians once small and narrow now larger carried more qi and it flowed smoothly along his every meridian.
Feeling the overwhelming amount of qi, he remembered the strange dream he had, and remembering the words of the Invincible Immortal only made it seem stranger and more mysterious. Thinking it might just be a weird dream of his since he always thought about getting stronger but that thought was quickly shot down by the increase in qi inside his body and the pain before his mind entered the strange realm.
To confirm if it was a dream or if he met his great-great-great-great grandfather. Long Tianyu tried sending his mind inside the ring. To his surprise what appeared before his eyes was a dark space. Taking a quick look around it seemed like nothing was inside it but emptiness. Before Long Tianyu withdrew his mind from the space inside the ring a white glow caught his attention.
quickly looking in the direction of the dim glow he thought about moving closer to the light and was again surprised by the strange sensation of his mind moving across the dark space but his body not moving an inch.
As his mind traveled across the dark space it took what seemed like forever before the dim white glow turned into a white light illuminating 0.5 li of the dark space and dissipating around the edge.
Squinting his eyes Long Tianyu stared into the center of the light trying to find what the source of the light was. After staring for a few seconds, he decided to move closer to the center. Strangely as he got closer to the center, the bright light didn’t cause any discomfort to his eyes and soon he saw what was causing the white light in the dark space.
At the center of the light, a pure white jade pendant stood there floating in its light and illuminating the darkness around it. Reaching the pendant Long Tianyu looked at it from a distance cautious of it, not knowing if touching it was going to cause harm to him.
The pendant as if sensing its kin instantly teleported right in front of Long Tianyu causing him to back up a good distance from the pendant. The pendant ignoring Long Tianyu’s caution teleported back right in front of his face. This time seeing the pendant up close Long Tianyu didn’t move away but quickly grabbed it with his mind only to see it disappear.
Confusion filled his mind about where the pendant went he looked around everywhere in the space to see nothing no white light indicating where it was. As he was searching for it, outside the dark space a white jade pendant appeared in the palm of his left hand.
Feeling something in his palm, Long Tianyu pulled back his mind out of the space inside the ring. Opening his palms the exact pendant seen inside the ring was neatly in his hands with a white string attached on the top of it.
‘How did the pendant appear here when it was inside that strange space, it disappeared when I grabbed it with my mind what if I sent it back inside, would that work?’ having that thought he soon put it to action as he willed his mind to move it inside. After trying a few times and it still didn’t work Long Tianyu was about to stop but then he thought about using some of his qi along with his mind to move it inside.
After trying a few times to use his qi outside of his body to no avail he took a deep breath before straining his mind and condensing his qi near the center of his chest to come out of his body and envelop the pendant. Feeling his qi circulating and forcing it to bend to his will to go outside of his body, forced the meridians around his chest area to swell larger.
While Long Tianyu’s focus is on forcing the qi out, blood slowly trickled down his nose and his head pulsed with pain. But his effort didn’t go to waste as a small strand of his qi escaped his body and moved according to his mind and soon the strand touched a part of the pendant attaching itself to it.
With a strand of his qi attached to the pendant, a connection to the qi strand and the pendant was formed at the same time. As soon as he felt this connection he willed his mind to move the pendant back inside the dark space.
In an instant, the pendant disappeared from his palms and appeared inside the dark space. Seeing the pendant disappear, Long Tianyu laughed out loud scaring a group of birds nearby away. Before he could confirm if the pendant was even in the ring a stinging pain pulled back his enthusiasm.
Coughing out blood from his mouth Long Tianyu felt his chest swelling as if his meridians were about to pop due to the amount of rampaging qi centered around his chest. Thinking quickly, he dispersed the qi back to the rest of his body. But Long Tianyu did it too quickly causing an immense amount of pain to assault him as the qi didn''t flow smoothly and equally to the rest of his meridians.
Inside the ring and in the strange realm the white dragon slept soundly before being woken up by a rumbling sensation. Sending out its consciousness the dragon saw the grandson of his brother attempting to use the ring and recklessly store a pendant while not even having the strength to do so. Looking inside the boy’s body, the dragon laughed and shook the mountain where he was sleeping.
“Good, good you need to have guts to grow strong, let this uncle help his nephew overcome this predicament”
Long Tianyu, feeling his meridians swell larger and larger inside his body soon fell to the ground and coughed out more blood. As blood dripped out of his nose his head kept on pulsing, causing a wave of pain every time it happened. While clutching his head the sensation of his meridians slowly tearing apart caused him to cough out blood once more.
As soon as his meridians were on the cups of bursting, a fiery yet gentle qi came from the ring causing his tense face to slowly disappear as the pain subsided.
As the qi enveloped his body a cool feeling covered every inch of his body. Wherever the qi went Long Tianyu’s meridians healed and the still rampaging qi in his body calming down and stabilized. The qi lastly went to his head and healed his mind if his mind before was a raging fire and burning everything in its way now it’s a calm and deep ocean.
After a while the fiery qi disappeared and what was left was an itchy feeling across his body. Laying there on the ground Long Tianyu took deep breaths and closed his eyes before opening them after.
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‘That was way too dangerous and reckless of me to lose my focus while my qi was rampaging in my body’ Remembering how he almost died made Long Tianyu let out a small laugh.
After staring at the blue sky for a few moments he raised his right hand in front of him and looked at the ring. Sending his mind inside the ring, a white jade pendant floated in the darkness this time without its brilliant white light.
Trying to take off the ring, this time it didn’t resist him and came off his finger easily. Holding the ring in front of him Long Tianyu called out to his supposed grandfather, “Grandfather, are you there, grandfather thank you for helping me?”
Hearing no reply Long Tianyu shrugged putting the ring back on his index finger and thought to himself ‘Even though I don’t know if he is my grandfather, I''ll accept it for now until I can get back to that mysterious place.
‘I don’t even know if he is my grandfather, all I can do now is accept it and treat him like one. Either way, he gave me an opportunity and by his tone it sounded like he was on his deathbed, and he might be my only family left. My parents might not even be real, and my family might not even exist. Uncle Lei might have just told me those words to make me not give up on life’ Long Tianyu thought before clenching both of his fists and letting out a sigh.
Wiping away the blood on his face, he looked at his wet and bloodied clothes before taking off the outer robe leaving his inner robe somewhat clean from the protection of the outer robe although with a few red dots of different sizes still visible on his white inner robe. Cleaning his hands with the outer robe Long Tianyu sighed before slinging it over his shoulder.
Walking back to the cave he threw his outer robe on a nearby rock and then sat down to examine the changes to his body. Now that he had more qi, Long Tianyu could do a thorough inspection of his body. As the qi circulated through his body he felt another 10% increase in his meridian size. Feeling the overflowing qi inside his meridians a smile crept on Long Tianyu’s face.
What might have seemed like a dangerous situation was also an opportunity to increase his strength. After thoroughly inspecting his body and finding nothing wrong with it by the looks of it, his body is stronger than before by 25%. His muscles were brimming with life and looked a bit more sturdy and thicker, although his cultivation didn’t increase a hint of a golden glow shone across his bones.
‘With the increase in my qi reserve, I can cultivate faster by healing more of my bones or only healing one bone faster at a time’ Thought Long Tianyu as he kept on circulating the qi through his meridians.
Not dwelling on those thoughts for too long his mind entered the spatial ring. Taking out the white jade pendant and holding it in his palm and its smooth surface felt cold in his hand.
“Why were you inside the ring and why do I feel like there is a connection between you and me” Long Tianyu muttered to himself before wearing the pendant around his neck. He looked at it a bit before tucking it inside his robes.
Standing up Long Tianyu walked to a wall with cracks covering almost every inch of it. Seeing two shallow fist-sized holes he made while training made him think of Uncle Lei’s killers. Shaking away those thoughts he lowered his body into a horse stance and began punching the wall with all his strength. He struck with his right fist first then his left, keeping the rhythm going.
Only after counting to 200 punches did, he stop and look at his fist. the skin on his knuckles and fingers looked bruised and scraped but no blood. Every time he tempered his bones against the wall in the past 3 weeks his fingers would look mangled and bloodied with even white bones sticking out of the flesh and it took a day and night to heal the injuries due to his meager qi.
Now with a thought a rush of qi went to his fist and soon they began itching. After the itchy sensation disappeared it was replaced by a cool feeling. Looking at his fist in its healing state, the bruises disappeared, and the scraped skin fell off, being replaced by new skin. What took a day and night to heal no matter the state of his fist now only took an incense of time to heal.
Satisfied with his new amount of qi and body, Long Tianyu sat down again and grabbed a stone the size of the same pendant hanging on his neck from the ground. Holding the stone he began circulating his qi and formed them around his fingers, holding the stone this time instead of his chest and unlike last time, Long Tianyu controlled the amount of qi that would not harm his meridians.
Expecting no result due to how close it was the last time, Long Tianyu was pleasantly surprised by how easy he could do it now. If it was him forcing his qi to move to his will outside his body last time, then now it was like a gentle nudge.
Looking at the qi the size of a hair strand floating in the air and then gently entering the rock. Feeling the connection between his mind and the qi inside the stone he ordered it to fully envelop the stone and used his mind to store the stone.
Seeing the stone disappear in an instant, Long Tianyu smiled thinking that what his grandfather gave him was pretty good. After the stone appeared inside the spatial ring a slight headache attacked Long Tianyu making him scrunch his face.
While waiting for the headache to disappear he looked around the ground searching for a bigger stone to continue his test on what the limits are for storing stuff.
After the headache subsided Long Tianyu went through the same process as before and successfully stored the stone inside the ring again. Looking at two stones floating inside the dark space he could see them as clear as day even though what surrounded them was darkness. Same as before, a headache attacked him again but this time it felt slightly stronger and lasted a bit longer.
Thinking to himself, Storing items causes a side effect and depending on the size what is being stored the side effect gets stronger’ As soon as the headache subsided Long Tianyu went on with his testing until the next ray of lights shining across the world.
Still sitting on the ground in the same position Long Tianyu dozed off before abruptly waking up. On his face, heavy eye bags could be seen making him appear like a panda.
Recounting the tests yesterday only made him remember the headaches he got from storing larger and larger stones and in the end he managed to store a stone the size of his body before he instantly got knocked out.
Running his hand across his hair and feeling the grease on his hands, he decided his plans for today. He would go to the nearby river, clean up himself, and then hunt for food.
Satisfied with his plans and tests from yesterday he looked inside the ring and saw a neat row of stones from small to large floating in the darkness. Pulling back his mind he grabbed his outer robe before going outside of the cave and taking a deep breath of the morning air.
As the fresh air filled his lungs Long Tianyu’s qi flowed to form a greyish-black ball of qi in his right palm before the ball transformed into a short dagger. Feeling his qi rapidly depleting he held what looked like a knife more than a dagger and swung it around for a bit before throwing it in the air letting it disintegrate.
Calculating how much qi he had and how much his qi depleted he could only use it for 30 seconds before his qi is used up. That is much better than last time, he could only use it for 5 seconds and his qi would have dried up and the blade now has a handle instead of just placing it across his fist.
Slinging his outer robe on his shoulder he began walking the same path that he always took. Passing by the familiar tree and soon reaching the trap, this time lady luck was on his side. Quickly running up to the trap a rabbit appeared inside it while the fruits disappeared.
Grabbing the rabbit by its neck Long Tianyu exerted a bit of force and snapped the rabbit''s neck. Holding the dead rabbit in his hands, Long Tianyu thought about if food could be stored inside the ring.
Not giving too much thought to it he simply followed the same process and not long after the rabbit disappeared from his hands and appeared inside the ring.
Grabbing a few pieces of fruit he gathered on the Long Tianyu remade the trap and as he was walking to the river the same headache from yesterday appeared but it was less intense and more bearable.
Shortly after storing the rabbit the side effect went away, allowing him to have a clear thought again. While on the way he also stored fruits and eatable vegetables that he came across luckily smaller items like that didn’t cause him any side effects.
Before long, a river could be heard in the distance, increasing his pace Long Tianyu quickly came to the river he found a while ago. Stripping himself of his upper clothes and shoes he brought his shirt, inner robe, and outer robe near the edge of the river. Getting near the water he could see fish swimming in small groups near the center of the river. At the edges the river is crystal clear, only the center is a bit murkier making it hard to determine its depth.
Squatting down Long Tianyu began cleaning the blood out of his clothing, causing the clear water to turn a reddish hue. After a while, he hung them on a nearby branch, satisfied with the cleanliness of the robes he took off his pants and underwear.
Standing completely naked in the shallow part of the river, the cold water rushing along his feet made him shiver. His broad shoulders and well-toned muscles made him look older than his age.