The weather is good today with minimal wind resistance. I will finally get that damn monkey today. These are the thoughts that ran through his head. Clearing his head, he let fly the arrow that he crafted the week before. Slicing the air as it shot directly towards the golden monkey, he was certain that this time he could not fail. For the past 2 years, this particular monkey annoyed the hell out of him. Every morning, the monkey will come to the cave where his mother and him sleeps in and throw stone fruit seeds at him, causing him to wake up in pain. His mother will always laugh at his pained crys and tell him to he more vigilant even when he sleeps.
Just as the arrow was about to hit the monkey, the monkey turned around and gave him a playful look and then immediately moved away as the arrow flew past the monkey and lodged itself in the huge dragon blood fruit tree.
"Damn, i missed again!"
Yun Xiao ran to the tree to try dislodge the arrow so that he can re use it again tomorrow. He carefully tried to chip away the outer part of the tree bark and just as he was about to retrieve the arrow, a stone seed hit his head.
"Oww". He turned around to see the golden monkey standing on the tree branch laughing and jumping about in happiness. This provocation drove him mad but there was nothing he could do about it. He disloged the arrow and and wss just about to go back to the cave when 2 Golden Dragon Blood fruits were thrown right in front of him.
He picked up the 2 Golden Dragon Blood and saw the Golden Monkey gesturing towards him in apology.
"Hahaha, i think you are scared now, because tomorrow my arrow will definitely kill you so now you are trying to bribe me into letting bygones be bygones. Do not think i dont know what you are thinking. Do you think just 2 dragon blood fruits is enough to pay off 2 years worth of pain? Yun Xiao was just about to berate the monkey even more when he realized that the fruits were golden in colour. Typically, a ripe dragon blood fruit would be blood red in colour but the 2 fruits in front of him were golden. Now he was confused. Monkey, why are these fruits golden and not red? He looked at the monkey only to see that the monkey was gesturing something but he could not understand. Its ok, i will go ask mother about this.
Wiping away his trails, he carefully made his way back to the cave. Ever since he started to go out to play outside the cave, his mother had taught him how to remove one's scent and trail and always reminded him to be careful about not leaving a trail to their hidden cave.
"Mother, i am home". He shouted when he was reached the cave. The smell of freshly roasted meat filled the air. Looking into the cave he saw his mother smiling at him.
"Welcome back Xiao er. Go have your bath first and then come eat your dinner."
"Ok mother".
The bath was already prepared by his mother. As always, it smelt wonderful. His mother had taught him how to prepare this bath. It was called the 1000 Herb Bath and it was a family receipe from his mother's side of the family.
Entering the bath, he could feel all his tiredness disappearing and the energy from the 1000 herbs gathering inside him. He closed his eyes and directed this energy into his centre. There he concentrated on refining this energy again and again until it became thin clear threads of energy.
To make one thread, he needed to refine 1000 normal energy threads. A typical bath could only produce 10,000 normal energy threads. After refining his 10th and final thread, he moved it all to the zone in between his eyes as taught by his mother.
After the bath, he went to his mother for dinner.
"Smells delicous mother. What are we having today?"
"500 year old Purple Rhino meat. Eat it all Xiao er,
this purple rhino is extremely hard to come by and its meat is extremely useful for strengthening the bones. Cultivators would pay a fortune to eat this. I got lucky today and found a large herd of Purple Rhinos today. Next year, you will begin cultivation after the awakening so its best to set you up with the best foundation possible.
" Thank you mother."
He then went on to tell his mother all that happened and finally got to the part about the Golden Dragon Blood fruits.
" Tomorrow you must thank the golden monkey. For a dragon blood fruit to turn golden, it needs to be soaked in a 100 year old Golden crystal liquid for a 1000 years. Their effects are simply amazing. From what i know golden crystals are so rare that they are almost impossible to find. Eat them after you finish your dinner and you will be able to produce 1,000,000 golden energy strands. The value of 1 golden energy strand is equivalent to 10 of your refined energy strands. With this you should be able to complete the energy strands needed for the zone between your eyes and for your heart. This is a gift from the heavens. Now go eat your dinner and then focus on refining all the energy. If all goes well, by next year when you turn 6, you will have completed level 0 of refining the energies required for the zone between your eyes, your heart, your liver, your kidneys and your bones. Intially, i thought you will only complete all of this when you turn 9 years old, but by heaven's grace now you can complete them by your 6th birthday. So make sure you be nice to the golden monkey from now onwards."
" Yes mother."
The next 5 days were spent refining the enegy threads. On the morning of the 5th day, he opened his eyes and joy could be seen in them. He has finally finished the refining of all the energies required for the zone in between his eyes. Opening his eyes, he could feel a new strength coming from his eyes. He could clearly see up to 1500 metres away. Even the details of the ants that were 1500 metres away from him could be seen clearly by him.
" Wow, this is amazing. My eyes are like the eyes of an eagle now."
He ran to his mother, eagerly sharing the results of the transformstion of his eyes.
"Xiao er, this skill is from my father, your grandfather. He created this skill and in this world he only taught me. Now i have taught you this skill. Your grandfather named it The Heavenly Body Reconstruction skill. When learnt to perfection, your eyes can even see the energy flow in all living things, your heart pumps blood 100 times faster than a living dragon, your liver will be able to block even the most potent of poisons and your kidneys will be able to house all the elements, making you be able to learn skills from any of the elements. Your bones will be like dragon bones, indestructible. You must not let anyone know about the Heavenly Body Reconstruction skill, otherwise people will do anything just to get their hands on it.
This skill has altogether 10 stages. Right now you have only completed the zone in between your eyes. Think of it like this, you are in Level 0 stage 1 out of 5. After you complete your heart liver, kidney and bones you will finally reach level 1. Then you have to refine the enegies again.
Level 1 requires 10 times the refined energies as compared to stage 0.
Level 2 requires 100 times the energies compared to stage 1.
Level 3 requires 1000 times the energies compared to stage 2.
Every single level the difficulty increases by thousands of folds.
Even mother has only achieved level 4 and that alone consumed almost all the resources your grandfather had.
Now we are living in the wild, where resources are hard to get. The resources needed for you, you will need to get them yourself. Mother can only teach you the skill. Whether you manage to master the skill or not, its entirely heaven's will.
But dont be so disheartened, even if you do not manage to master the skill, every single level will bring you immense benefits. To be able to master level 0 in 1 year will already be considered heaven defying. So try your best not to let mother down and complete level 0 in this 1 year time. Next year when you do your cultivation awakening, mother will teach you more skills. Now work hard to build a solid foundation.
"Yes mother."