Chapter 3

Book1 - Chapter 3: Knights and Cultivation technique

Under the curtains of the night, Leylin sat by himself at the edge of his bed. With closed eyes, he sat cross-legged with both hands touching each other and hanging around the area of his belly button.

Sucking a mouthful of air he adjusted his mental condition to achieve a perfect state for cultivation.

Because of the events earlier today, Leylin had no choice but to accompany his father and his most loyal men in a feast done to commemorate how talented the heir of John Farlier was.

'A prodigy!'

'A future grand knight!'

'The hope of the noble house of Farlier!'

Their cries of happiness still lingered in his ears at this very moment, to think that subordinates would be so unrestrained in the presence of their lord... Was that a common occurrence in medieval eras or is it just my father that is overly friendly?

Thinking of his father he couldn't help but recall the words he said during the banquet.

'Son, I know that you're extremely talented, but don't let it go over your head, you must remember to never practice the breathing exercise too many times a day, or you will only cause damage to your body, also... Don't ever try to challenge a magus! No matter how strong a knight grows, his power will always be a joke compared to that of those people capable of using magic!' John's gaze was a dreadful one, for the only reason that the fear in his words came from the bottom of his heart, almost like he had seen something that he wished to forget but was unable to.

If Knight's training truly only amounted to what his father had taught him, then he could slightly grasp the reason behind them being so weak.

To put it bluntly, a knight is the equivalent of someone just starting the path of cultivation. But unlike a martial artist that actively trains his body and refines qi to make his inner force stronger and denser, a knight refers only to someone who achieved the level of outward discharge of inner force.

And since their breathing exercises are just about awakening the inner force, they can't make it stronger and have to rely on constant training and battles to slightly improve over the years.

He wondered if the emergence of magic in this world was what crippled the path of Martial Arts, for knights to exist means that someone had started in this path but was unable to go further, maybe there is a big advantage in using magic early on, but that isn't something that he can tell right now, his knowledge of magi is really lacking currently.

Fortunately for him, the so-called elementary cultivation technique he was imparted by the entity was something that could assist him for three major realms.

The first step in the path of Martial Arts is called the body refinement realm. It's divided into 9 stages, with the first two being solely based on body strengthening and the later stages focus is around nourishing many aspects of the body, like tendons, bones, and so on.

There is no shortcut in Martial Arts, and even though he had this knowledge directly attached to his head, meaning a perfect recollection of every single step and method, the first thing that was written inside the Elementary Cultivation Technique manual was...

[A journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step, there is no shortcut in the path of immortality. This is a journey without rest and resources through a dry land filled with dangers, talent can shorten the distance, but only a heart of Martial Arts can allow a person to reach the absolute peak.]

[You who wish to reach the highest mountains, and witness with your own eyes the heavens above the heavens will greatly benefit from the following advice. For your own sake, you shouldn't even bother to look at your level of talent. To achieve the greatest result, you should take every step in the most orderly and careful manner, the foundation is the basis for the future, and even someone without talent can become a master if the foundation is sufficiently prepared.]

The emphasis on having a sturdy foundation could be seen on every page of the manual. It greatly advises against quick advancements and is always speaking about perfecting each stage before even attempting the next steps.

[A genius may need only a month to complete this realm, but a real Martial Artist won't just reach the last step, he will make it so that every stage along the way has reached a level of completeness that it puts him ahead of any average martial artist of the same stage.]

Due to the nature of the first two stages, the role of qi in it was almost nonexistent, the first step is to naturally strengthen the body and slowly cycle the qi of heavens and earth to nourish the dry energy vessels within your body, creating the foundation for the next steps.

Soon, Leylin started breathing in an orderly fashion, he would suck in the air and hold it for a few seconds before letting it out and repeating. According to the manual, the perfect condition for the meditation part of cultivation was known as 'One with heavens and earth'.

If a Martial Artist was capable of emptying his mind of all distracting thoughts and reach the state of heart as calm as the surface of a still lake, he would naturally blend in with nature and become a vessel of Yuan Qi of heavens and earth.

Yuan Qi was also called ancestral qi, it's the purest form of qi and could be called vitality in a certain sense, it's the energy of life that permeates every being in existence, every blade of grass, and every pebble on the ground. For all things are alive under the heavenly Dao and therefore possess Yuan Qi.

By becoming one with heavens and earth, it facilitates the arduous and strenuous exercise of gathering qi, because, at that point, the qi will be naturally attracted to you and not just actively gathered.

[Elementary Cultivation Technique proficiency raised by 1%]

As Leylin practiced and studied the manual, his understanding of it slowly rose together with his proficiency. Unfortunately, even after an hour had passed he was still unable to reach the state of one with heavens and earth.

His heart was in constant turmoil while cultivating, reading makes it sound easy, but when you try the real deal is that the difficulty makes itself visible.

Cultivation was something that stimulates your body as a whole, it not only makes you stronger, it also makes your brain more active. Causing random thoughts to appear every once in a while, and also making you restless. It would be no exaggeration that cultivation would make a person hyperactive...

Thinking of the times he belittled those weak cultivators in novels because they had heart demons and other things, he felt shame building up in his heart. It turned out that the difficulty of the Martial Arts path was much greater than what someone could notice by reading a story from the perspective of the protagonist.

It was easy to say that he jumped levels, that he was a favored son of heavens... But that only meant that he was a freak in all senses, just this first practice was enough to leave a lingering shadow of restlessness in his heart... If Leylin hadn't optimized his state of mind before trying to cultivate...

"I could have fallen to qi deviation!" This thought made his back cold with sweat! The manual had warned a few times about this, in this realm, falling for qi deviation was the same as crippling his future, there would be no opportunity to breakthrough in the future if it happened unless he managed to overcome the tribulations by miracle.

Now that his body had residual Yuan Qi of heavens and earth, he had to practice his exercises and make use of this energy to nourish his muscles and increase his efficiency in getting stronger!

The novels were never too specific about this, but now he understood why they would first meditate before practicing all sorts of techniques and exercises. With so much useless qi inside them that couldn't be gathered, the best use it had was in assisting the healing process of the body, because it was in essence vitality, this would increase the rate at which a person grew stronger by at least twice!

Of course, twice is just the bare minimum... in the so-called natural havens, state of the art places created by nature itself with natural rudimentary feng shui formations, the spiritual energy would be much higher, therefore, increasing the quality of the Yuan Qi in the area and increasing the benefits by twice, thrice or even more.

While practicing the exercises, his proficiency in Common Physical Exercises finally started to improve. Now that he understood how to improve his skills, simple things like this were easy to raise to 100% proficiency, the things that could possibly hinder his progress at this moment was probably theoretical knowledge, he couldn't say for sure but he doubted that it would be easy to make something like biology knowledge raise to 100% as he did with the things his father taught him and the exercises.

A few months later, Leylin stood in front of his father waiting for him to finish reading a letter. His body exuding a faint aura of confidence and pride, despite being so small and young, he was much stronger than kids of his age, and this is starting to affect his growth, making him a bit taller than a few months ago, if this continue, he will probably reach his height limit by the age of 16 or 17.

Once he finished, John looked at his son and spoke in a serious manner. "Starting today you'll be lectured in the arts of salon dancing and proper manners of nobles... we will attend the birthday party of the son of the count of Vlastimir, the boy's name is George Borunin."

Eh? And so began a month of torturous lectures from old ladies that would eventually hit his hand with a ruler whenever he failed to do things as intended... How could he have forgotten? Nobles have a code of conduct!

With teary eyes, he left his father's study to prepare for hell.