Chapter 53: The Inevitable Consequences of Constantly Studying Qi

Several kilometers from the teleportation site, An moved through the treetops, jumping from branch to branch.

'According to the map transmitted to my plaque and my approximate current location, I'm sure I'm moving in the opposite direction from all the areas where beasts and bandit dens are marked...' Leisurely jumping from tree to tree, he seriously considered his plans.

From the information on the plaque, it was clear that all disciples were given seven days to earn so-called points, which essentially meant killing spirit beasts and bandits, destroying their forts, and earning as many points as possible.

After these seven days, all disciples would be automatically teleported back to the Sect's northern gates.

‘Maybe I'll spend this week searching for spirit plants? And at the same time, take a break from everything... so to speak, relax while I'm here.’ Stopping on a tree, he turned his head, reading the Qi to understand if there was any danger nearby, and at the same time, try to find energy flows belonging to plants.

Continuing to move slowly, stopping every two or three minutes, he checked everything around him. As soon as he spotted a spirit plant, he would use his Qi to pull it out of the ground and put it into his pouch.

"Hmm? What's that over there?" Suddenly, he felt chaotic Qi a few hundred meters away, behind thick undergrowth. Standing still, after a moment’s deliberation, he decided to check it out.

"RA! GRA!"

"Shhh!"

Jumping down to the ground and carefully making his way through the thick brushes, An saw a huge open clearing before him, where a monstrous hedgehog was locked in combat with a titanic serpent.

The hedgehog was about four meters tall, with spines that writhed like vines, attacking and wrapping around the snake, trying not only to pierce but also to strangle. On the hedgehog's face were four pairs of red eyes and huge, sharp, slightly crooked teeth protruding from its mouth.

The snake was no smaller than its opponent: more than a meter in diameter and about eight to ten meters long. With a double tail, one covered in armor like dried stone, the surface of the second covered in sharp spikes.

Writhing around each other and constantly staying close, both beasts did everything to strangle their opponent: the snake with its flexible and strong body, the hedgehog with its agile spines.

"GRAAA!"

Throwing each other against the ground and the surrounding boulders, trying to disorient their opponent, the two giants continued their struggle, and neither beast was about to back down.

Sitting and carefully peeking out from the bushes, An wiped imaginary sweat from his forehead. Just the pressure from their Qi made him understand that he had no chance against either of them. Both were at the peak stage of the first rank, in other words, their cultivation was at the level of the peak of Qi Condensation.

He understood that it would be better to just leave, but deciding to check everything with Qi one last time, even though he understood the risk that if the beasts noticed his probing, he probably would be in trouble. The chance that they would attack him was very low when they had an opponent in front of them who was trying with all their might to kill them, so he was one hundred percent sure that no one would notice anything.

A quick check with Qi, not only of the beasts but also of the area around them, made him realize that not far from the fight of the two giants, which was destroying all the fauna around, inside the trunk of a thick but dead tree, lay the fruit of a second-rank spirit plant.

Sitting on the ground, An looked alternately at the dead tree and at the two beasts, pondering for a long moment before ultimately deciding to take the risk.

Checking just in case, and making sure his Qi Silence was working correctly and at its maximum, he slowly began circling the battlefield, trying not to leave the thickets that grew densely along the edges of the clearing.

Reaching the closest safe point to the dead tree, An exhaled; directing his Qi to his legs and not sparing energy, he shot off like an arrow, destroying the brush in front of him, simply grinding it down with his body and his speed.

"Gru?"

"Shhh?"

Both beasts immediately stopped, hearing the loud clap behind them and feeling the bursts of energy. They turned sharply, and saw something flash toward the tree.

But the next moment, when that dark spot reached the dead tree, it immediately exploded into splinters, and the shadow, without even slowing down, continued moving toward the opposite wall of undergrowth.

"GRAAA!"

The first to realize what was happening was the huge hedgehog. Pushing the snake aside, it rushed after the shadow.

"Shhhh!!"

The huge snake, turning its head, finally comprehending that the fruit had been stolen, was about to attack the retreating shadow, but then it felt the hedgehog push it aside, and immediately forgot about the shadow and the fruit, and with bloodshot eyes, lunged at the hedgehog.

Realizing what had happened, the hedgehog began to defend itself, completely switching its attention to the huge snake, not wanting to give this slimy creature any chance to gain the upper hand.

Jumping from tree to tree, not sparing energy for speed, An sharply changed direction when he realized no one was following him. He continued moving in the direction he had been going initially.

After traveling several kilometers at this pace, he stopped and sat down on a tree branch.

Opening his hand, he finally saw what this fruit, which he had successfully stolen, looked like: multi-colored, shimmering, like a chameleon trying to camouflage itself, the size of only a walnut, with a small dried leaf on top.

Examining this fruit from all sides, he couldn't remember anything similar recorded in the books. After thinking, he decided it would be simpler to just read the information from the Qi.

"Hmm, I don't see anything that could harm me… Besides, I sense something similar to soul characteristics, as if the energy inside the fruit is very similar." Realizing that the fruit was fine, he checked it several more times, looking for poisons or hidden negative energy.

Making sure everything was definitely fine, he tossed the fruit into his mouth, quickly chewing it.

Surprisingly, the fruit was very hard, like old, weather-beaten chewing gum. After chewing it into a paste-like mass, the fruit began to dissolve, leaving only a small pit in his mouth, the size of a pea.

He spat it into his hand and checked it.

"I knew there would be a seed inside." With a smile, An put the fruit's seed into his pouch, closed his eyes, and concentrated on his inner world.

He saw the area of his world beginning to expand, and the walls that were the boundaries, cracking, creating something like stretch marks behind them, which immediately healed those cracks.

But what surprised him even more was not only the expansion of the boundaries but also the densification of these walls after the process.

Hovering in his inner world, he watched as his world grew by an additional five percent of its original area.

"If I calculated correctly, my soul, more precisely, the strength of my soul, has improved by eight percent since I started training the soul cultivation technique."

Hovering in the air, he felt his thoughts becoming even clearer and lighter, as many previous problems that he couldn't find answers to began to solve themselves effortlessly.

He felt himself becoming ‘closer’ to his Qi, his control over energy improving.

"What about the Sharpness aspect? When the integration and modification of my energy succeeded thanks to the aspect, the wisp itself remained hovering in my world..." Closing his physical eyes again, An began to remember what he had felt when the Sharpness aspect had given back the modified energy, how this new Qi had circulated and changed his body.

Recalling everything in the smallest detail, he tried to look deeper, to where he hadn't been allowed before, to understand and comprehend the structure of the aspect itself, not what it looked like, but what it was made of, its composition.

Crack! Crack!

Delving deep into himself, his body began to crack, his Qi began to move his bones and rub them against each other, stretch and contract his muscles, his tendons, his blood began to boil. For a moment, he would become taller, then shorter, wider, then narrower.

Standing on the branch in a deep trance, he suddenly began to hover above the boughs, without realizing it himself, without using any techniques.

Before, when preparing pills and the time in the dungeon, his levitation had depended on Qi manipulation and his Qi Clouds technique. But not this time.

"Haaa~ haaa~"

Finally coming out of the trance, An, breathing deeply, focused on a tree a hundred meters away.

BOOM!

Launching from his spot, he covered that distance in an instant, ramming the tree at enormous speed with his body, enveloped in Qi.

The moment he made contact, he passed through the tree trunk like butter; when his Qi touched the wood, it simply shattered it into dust. Even though An gave no command or increased the amount of energy, his ordinary membrane of standard Qi quantity was splitting the wood like nothing at the mere touch.

Hovering in a thick cloud of wood dust, which looked more like ash, he descended to the ground and pressed his hand to the earth.

Activating Qi and instantly selecting several different vibration frequencies.

A chunk of earth, ten meters deep and about two meters wide, simply evaporated, turning into ash as well, which was immediately picked up by the wind and began to disperse around, leaving behind a deep crater.

"Hahaha!" Pushing off from the ground, he began to hover in the air without using any technique, a wide smile on his face.

He was about to soar into the sky and finally experience that feeling, the feeling of true flight, when he remembered that there was a one hundred percent chance that everything happening in the outer region was currently being monitored by elders. And soaring into the sky would be a huge mistake, not to mention that those monitoring everything had probably already seen what An had done.

Realizing that there was nothing to be done, he flew to the nearest intact tree and sat down on its branches.

'I finally managed to access the information I couldn't get from the Sharpness aspect before!' Studying the memories of the aspect, he had managed to unlock the information on how to properly use his modified Qi, more precisely, how to properly use the Sharpness aspect within it.

Having understood the rules and worked with them, he was able to increase the power of his Qi by reducing resistance with the surrounding energy. Before, the wisps of his Qi would collide with the ambient energy in the environment and be in constant conflict with each other. Now, his Qi, instead of constantly fighting, would simply ‘cut’ through the surrounding Qi and lose much less strength inside itself, that is, reducing the strength of conflicts and the expenditure on these conflicts.

As a result, his output power was much higher. In other words, without increasing the true strength and density of his Qi and his physical body, he had managed to reduce resistance with the environment.

Free flight worked on the same principle: the moment An began releasing his Qi, it would begin to ‘cut’, thereby reducing the pressure exerted on him, and from the force released by his natural energy, he would begin to hover.

Sitting on the branch, he immersed himself in his inner world. Only ‘opening’ his eyes, he felt something strange. Throwing a glance at the place from which the changes were emanating, he saw a green puddle, smaller than his palm.

Carefully flying up to it, he tried to comprehend what it was, but realizing his current understanding fell short, he ultimately steeled himself and touched it; immediately, he felt a highly concentrated energy inside.

"What is this?" Frowning, he studied the emanating flows from this strange energy, which at the same time didn't seem like energy.

"This isn't Qi, but it's not an aspect either, like Sharpness..." Looking at the puddle, and not feeling any threat or negativity, he dipped his finger into it and concentrated on the flow of information.

"Emergence... growth... life... bloom... energy... element... wood... Great Dao! The Dao of Wood!" Trying to understand what was before him, An didn't notice how his inner world began to shake.

CRACK!

"Haa! Haaa!" Opening his eyes, he fell from the tree to the ground. His entire back was drenched in a cold sweat. With a pale face, he tried to stand up.

"I-I'm too weak... too weak..." With trembling legs, he finally managed to lean his back against the tree. Remembering the terrible pressure and the primal, from the depths of his soul, fear he had experienced when he finally ‘reached’ the essence of that puddle, his entire body was covered in goosebumps, throwing him alternately into cold and hot sweats.

"The Great Dao of Wood! This is the real, complete Dao! Haaa..." Unable to hold back from exhaustion, he fell to the ground and tried to calm his raging mind.

After sitting for a few minutes and finally calming down, he finally remembered where he was. Standing up, and turning toward the tree, he unsteadily flew up, and falling onto the branches at the top, he decided that until the next morning, he would not move from this spot.

'Until I reach Foundation Establishment, I have nothing to do with that puddle... That power, that knowledge, that I felt for a moment inside... Eh...' Sitting in a lotus position, propping his head on his hand, he exhaled and sat up straight, trying to recover both his mind and body.

'Elder Shoa was right, the comprehension of the Dao can come unexpectedly, I just didn't think it applied to the Great Dao as well…' An was fully aware of the reason he had been able to attract, to comprehend, the Dao of Wood, at the moment he touched that green puddle in his inner world.

It was all because of his constant training with his Qi, delving into it and studying the very structure, the very essence of the energy, as far as his mind could reach. And it so happened that his single element was Wood, and all the Qi he had studied throughout all his training was Wood Qi, which allowed him, with each new training session, to take a step toward the Great Dao.

And today, having taken the last step, even though it wasn't connected to the Great Dao itself, but to an aspect that was a fragment of a Mortal Dao, he had made that final, necessary push in the right direction, into understanding the Qi itself, allowing him to finally attract and comprehend this Great Dao of Wood.