13 Strengthening The Body

After a few seconds of sitting there with incredulous faces, Lien Hua was the first to leave this state. Laughing a bit, she thought to herself concerning what Ling Tianni had said, 'How strange is the human mind, but come on; he's a child, you can forgive it.'

Lin Yue and Chen Huang, turning to Lien Hua hearing and her laughing, also came out of their astonished states and turned towards the path that Ling Tianni had travelled, with not very friendly faces.

Noticing this, Lien Hua stopped them immediately by calming them down. "Do not worry. In the end, we cannot be friends to everyone, and especially while young, a little rivalry serves to grow both parties."

But there was just one thing that Lien Hua could never expect: It was this underestimate of hers towards everything and carelessness which would backfire later in the worst way.

After Lien Hua stopped them, the most furious of all was Chen Huang who had become very protective of the girls he had become friends with and began to scream "But even if we cannot be friends with everybody, how can Ling Tianni dare to say those things?! You didn't do anything to him but he still had the mind to yell at you! If I don't get him and want to give him a les-"

Just when that word was about to end, Lien Hua, who before had a smile, turned to him with a neutral face and told him in a low voice "Quiet Chen Huang, I said not to worry, so stop, please".

Watching and feeling the calm and neutral tone of Lien Hua, Chen Huang, at first infuriated, began to calm down more and more until he puffed a little and turned to the other side of Lien Hua, a little offended.

Seeing him like this, the girl couldn't help but smile a little. She knew it wasn't right to talk to him like that, but if she had said she didn't need it, then he would just have to accept her answer.

Meanwhile, Lin Yue witnessed this whole situation and looked towards the direction where Ling Tianni had run away with eyes as cold as an iceberg, without being noticed.

Seeing that everyone had calmed down, Lien Hua turned to her two friends and coughed a bit to get their attention.

"Ok guys, since it's all over, now we have to think about how to start cultivating. The first step is to become a Spiritual Master. Then everything will be smooth."

Feeling that her statement had returned to its original topic and had caught them both in a sore spot their fighting spirits began to burn more vigorously than ever. With resolute faces, they watched Lien Hua. "Don't worry, we will recover immediately, and we will stand up together!"

After this response, all three of them laughed and began to walk towards Lien Hua's house. They got there much faster than the other days because they had been stopped before and had used more time.

When they entered the house, they cooked something to eat. While they were eating, Lien Hua was also inundated with questions, which, unfortunately, even with all the knowledge she had, she didn't know everything. So they only got answers that didn't change almost anything about their situation.

Lien Hua, a bit embarrassed, remained alone in the house after Lin Yue and Chen Huang went to their respective homes to 'cultivate'.

Not overthinking about it, she thought back to what had happened with that special connection. She still felt that her muscles' residual spiritual energy had not yet been absorbed and thought of doing some experiments to rectify that.

She no longer wanted to wait for other people to understand if they felt it too because she could begin the experiment, then ask, without wasting precious time.

So, she got up without wasting more time and went by the French door and opened it.

Before her, a small garden enclosed by fences had appeared. Its space was about 5 meters on each side, and in the centre, an oak tree rose to about 4 meters high and its crown created shade for the whole garden.

Descending from the small stairs below her, she came near the tree and touched it with one hand, and strangely, after a few seconds, she felt a connection within it. Mesmerized, Lien Hua held her hand for a few more seconds, but that connection stayed stable.

She finally understood what it was, or at least thought she understood it, 'Maybe... it is spiritual energy? It's weak, but I can feel a pulse inside of it. But it's not inside my body; how do I feel a connection to it?'

Not giving it much attention, she kept this situation for later. Now she had to do something more substantial, which was training.

She wanted to understand if with training, that spiritual energy that had been deposited throughout her body, could be absorbed. In the end, it was better to try and know the result than not even try and stay with a doubt.

And if it was a success, it could improve the speed of her cultivation a lot, and finally, a little bit of training never hurt in case it didn't work.

Like that, standing in front of the oak tree, she started to stretch a little bit to prepare her muscles since it had been a while since her last training session. She didn't want to hurt herself.

After a few minutes of stretching, in addition to being ready, she could notice that her body was much more flexible than it had been before.

Happy that only a single night of cultivation had given her all these benefits, with much enthusiasm, she began training.

It began mainly with a small run; although it was a small garden, it was sufficient; she didn't want anyone to see her because they might end up becoming suspicious.

Running continuously in a circle around her garden, Lien Hua thought that even after a few minutes of continuous running she was not tired and was quite happy with this, so she increased the pace, arriving at her endpoint at a remarkable speed.

After running for about 20 minutes at an incredible speed, she noticed that her legs were starting to fail, so she stopped, took a break, drank a bit of water, and then started again, this time with some pushups.

This exercise was more difficult because she had not given much importance to it even though she had trained before. For this, she scolded herself for her carelessness.

Noticing that even after 15 pushups she was still tired, Lien Hua was very disappointed. She thought she was stronger than this, and she promised to start training more seriously, without leaving anything behind.

However, she always tried to move forward, and after not even six more pushups, she collapsed on the ground with her arms hurting.

Taking a break, Lien Hua, now very tired, looked at the sky and noticed that 1 hour had passed since she had started. Rising up from the ground, she wiped the sweat from her forehead thanks to a small towel she created from her old clothes.

Drinking more water to avoid being dehydrated, she started to make full squats. Since her legs were pretty good, Lien Hua managed to make a quantity that eventually satisfied her.

After she again collapsed to the ground with drops of sweat falling from her forehead, she dried them up once more and noticed how her whole body was also full of sweat. Even if she had sweated so much, she noticed a strange thing, she didn't smell bad. She could say she smelled a bit good.

Not giving it much credence, as she was exhausted, she sat down cross-legged in front of the oak tree and began to take a break, noting how her whole body hurt.

'Another exercise and it will be over.' Lien Hua promised herself that as she was dead tired.

After a few minutes of break, she started her last exercise, some sit-ups. They were the most difficult of all of her activities, not because she could not do them, but because she was drained of her energy.

After a few sets of sit-ups, Lien Hua, soaked in sweat, melted to the ground and put her arms behind her head to raise it and began to look at the sky.

As she breathed, Lien Hua noticed that the sky was starting to have dark colours, indicating that evening was coming. Noticing this, she waited no longer and tried to get up from the ground, and even with all her body hurting, she set out for her house, stumbling from time to time but making it after a few seconds.

Entering and preparing the small tub separated from the whole house by an ancient Chinese style divider, Lien Hua washed and relaxed inside it with the hot water that purified her entire body.

After a few minutes in the water, she got up from the tub and dried herself before putting on a robe for the night given to her by Old Li a few months ago.

Just thinking about Old Li, Lien Hua felt lonely. She didn't have much time to think about it, but now that she had become this way, it was difficult not to feel like that.

But taking these thoughts out of her head, she prepared to eat and prepared, after some thinking, her favourite dish: noodles with chicken broth. They were not as tasty as those of Old Li, but she was steadily improving.

Thinking of him as she ate, Lien Hua smiled, happy that she felt close to him through this dish even though he was not with her at the moment.

After this somewhat sad moment, Lien Hua, with her body still a bit sore, sat cross-legged in the middle of her house and began to concentrate.

After a few seconds of concentration, she could finally feel that connection to the spiritual force that was always strange for her. Why did she have this connection? She didn't know, but only time would give her an answer, thought Lien Hua.

But she immediately exiled that thought out of her head with a huge smile.

She noticed how all the spiritual energy that had remained sedentary outside of her muscles and organs was starting to enter, slowly repairing the muscles that had torn off on a cellular level, healing them and making them more robust at the same time.

Seeing that her experiment and judgment was still right, Lien Hua felt more proud than ever but stopped feeling that way in order to watch this incredible process.

'It's fantastic. Seeing it firsthand is astonishing; something that wasn't possible before, now is before my eyes.' Lien Hua was very fascinated by the entirety of it.

Only after a few minutes of continuously watching this process, it became boring with its slowness, but she was still fascinated by it. Stopping herself from watching the process, Lien Hua decided to sit in an even more comfortable position and entered into a trance state again.

Like that, Lien Hua cultivated all night.