Chapter 5: A Year And A Half

"Each gate you break through marks your body fitness level. The swelling of the lowest gate indicates that your body is currently tackling the first level of bodily fitness, level F".

"Level F?" Zax understood by the description of the level of each gate that he is heading toward the first level of a Mist User, but... "Master, how come it's like this if I never trained my body to surpass level G and H like with my soul and Qi?"

"It's another difference that is due to the body's lack of unique energy and requires an extensive explanation before you could comprehend the meaning of the answer to your question".

Kartius did not plan to drop all this information on his Martial son in one day. Cultivating in the Seven Stages Of Bodily Refinement can push a practitioner to insanity. It is impossible to keep a clear head. And yet, Kartius did not expect the Black Core's miraculously effect. Because of it, as long as his Martial son showed eagerness to learn, there was no reason to hold back and with Zax's unique soul, sustaining an attentiveness state of mind was extremely simple.

"The body, unlike the other aspects, at least after reaching level S, doesn't require the practitioner to attain an insight for a breakthrough. And if you'll know what body fitness level signifies for Mist Users you will also understand why". Kartius scattered his drawing of the interpretation of Pain and sketched the seven gates with their corresponding levels.

"Earth's Cores have an outstanding innate ability that you already should know of, that is, when forming the first crack on an Earth's Core, the mist energy advances all three aspects to level F".

Zax nodded in a sign that he did know it.

"Afterwards, while cultivating mist and advancing as a Mist User, the mist energy continues to temper with the soul and the body, but less substantially than when forming the first crack. At this point, Mist Users must reach a compromise. Cultivating the body is too difficult and cultivating the soul is imperative if one wants to cultivate the other two aspects. A weak soul cannot assert itself in a stronger body or maintain control over a greater amount of Qi or mist. To cultivate without drawbacks, there are many techniques that temper with the soul when cultivating mist. But the requirements of such techniques are awfully high. A technique that tempers all three aspects is unheard off! Therefore, the preferable solution of Mist Users is to cultivate the soul and the mist respectively, whilst letting the mist to temper the body at each breakthrough. As a result, the body fitness level of a Mist User remains at level F until a Mist User breakthrough level B. From level B, the body fitness level remains three levels below the mist level".

"Oh ... Master's mist is in level S, Core Master, right? Then that means that your body is also in level C?" Zax asked. "What it means for my cultivation of the body, Master?"

"What, Zax? You think that I'll train you in a cultivation technique that I, you Martial father, don't practice? You were right in guessing my mist level, but as for my body fitness level ... I'll tell you when you reach it". Kartius taunted. "The point of bodily refinement techniques is to transcend from the norm. When I embedded the formation in your body you instantly broke through level G. When the first gate will dissipate, your body fitness level will reach level F. And as for how a bodily refiner practitioner contends against a Mist User..."

'Master is grinning'. Zax finally caught to one of his Master's stag expressions.

"A practitioner of any bodily refining technique, other than the Seven Stages Of Bodily Refinement, can contend again any Mist User that is exactly a level higher than him. Those who practice and cultivate in the Seven Stages Of Bodily Refinement can contend against Mist Users more than a level higher ... Your goal in the next three years is to reach level C with your body fitness level. A practitioner of the Seven Stages Of Bodily Refinement in the Beginner phase of level C can contend against an Advanced phase Mist Master to a settlement. You, if the Black Core is truly on your side, in the Beginner phase of level C you will be able to contend against a Beginner phase Mist Lord!"

Kartius paused and stared Zax in the eyes. "Should I say more?"

'Fighting a Mist Lord as a C level Mist User ... No! As a bodily refiner practitioner!' Zax clenched his shirt in his fist, right where his dantian was, where the Black Core resided. "Thank you, Master, for educating me!" How to describe the feeling in his heart, his sudden affection for his Master and Martial father compared to the misery that he knew for the past year? Fortunately, he learned the phrase from his Master, as Heavens Looking Down On Earth!

April eleventh, year 5788.

A year and a half passed since Zax became Kartius's apprentice and Martial son. During this year and a half, the now thirteen years old Zax and his unparalleled Master have come to understand a little better the will of the Black Core and the entity that left it for Zax to find.

After the first session of cultivating the Seven Stages Of Bodily Refinement, Kartius was stunned that the amount of the refined extract of the medicinal plants that he rinsed Zax with and should have been enough for him till breaking through the second gate, was completely consumed. Granted, by not having to worry about Pain and utter Destruction, Zax could practice for as long as the accumulated herbal liquid that the membrane absorbed was not spent, but to finish it in one day without a sign of a breakthrough...

The dispirited Kartius thought back to his big brother and poured the quadruple amount of the precious refined extract of the medicinal plants on Zax, an amount that typically should suffice from reaching from the Beginner phase of level E to the top phase of level D.

When a week of solely meditating elapsed – since to cultivate his body Zax only had to sit outside of the cabin's protective formation, his Master instructed him to meditate until his soul will break through level D – Zax finally broke through the first gate and his body fitness level reached level F. At the same time, Zax felt another pulse passing throughout his body and black spikes pierced every millimeter of his body. When the black spikes faded, the second gate that represented level E was glowing in black radiance.

Seven months of training in just the very same manner, Zax's body was already at the Advanced phase of level E, the third gate was glowing in black radiance, Kartius had one less jar of herbal liquid in his cabin – waiting for another to be prepared by the Krikitory caretakers of the hot springs – and the piece of spiritual knowledge, fragment of the entity, that Zax studied had also became fully appreciated.

With respect to the petite remnant of the colossal entity, even when fully appreciated and clear, the piece did not transmit a lot. Upon perfecting his study of it, Zax grasped the complex framework of the patterns that the moving black hues had made. It enabled him a one piece peek at the external appearance of the entity, which was nothing that made sense.

Following Zax's achievement in Adraak Meditation, a bundle of new pieces emerged from his subliminal mind, all obscure and unfathomable like the first piece was in the beginning, but by making this one step forward, the white barrier, the bottleneck to level C, was effortlessly dispersed.

Seven months into his training Zax bellowed triumphantly to the cave's ceiling he knew as skies!

The day his Martial son completed his task of reaching level C with his soul, Kartius just watched Zax in astonishment, remembering the boy he carried with his own hands and brought back to his Martial niece. A boy without future on the Martial path, whose sole achievement was breaking through level F with his soul on his own.

The reimbursements of the diligent training were beyond common sense. In terms of quality, Zax's soul at the Beginner phase of level C was equal to the Advanced phase of the same level of any other Mist User. With his Soul Sense, Zax accomplished unprecedented feats than anyone of the same level. One thousand and two hundred meters was the new limit of his Soul Sense, two hundred meters farther than any Beginner phase Core Master!

That day Kartius praised his Martial son and was truly joyful with his decision to make him his apprentice. The day after, Zax's new training regime started.

As his body cultivated according to the changes of the Black Core, Zax was taught by his Master six sequences of bodily maneuvers, each comprising a hundred and eight or nine moves, in total six hundred and fifty bodily maneuvers. Slow gestures, fast strikes, turning from a certain position, jumping and standing awkwardly. The sequences were odd, no Martial technique or attack or defense forms. They were more like a dance with consecutive rhythm, regardless of how impracticable it seemed to get from one position to the next.