*Stares*
"What are meridians?"
"…"
"The vessels through which I flows. The tubes connected to the dantian."
"…There's supposed to be something like that?"
"Yes, Yin, there's supposed to be something like that. You made the dantian. But there are to energy vessels connected to it. No meridians means no cultivation."
"What? But you never had any meridians in the first place."
"How did the lightning enter my dantian in the first place and also make a lightning core?"
"I don't know. Your dantian did have a ball of lightning. But I don't know how that happened. All the lightning elements from your body concentrated and gathered in your dantian. But you didn't have any meridians. Else I could have remade them."
"…okay so how am I supposed to cultivate now?"
"What does your cultivation need?"
"I have to absorb energy from the surrounding with acupoints and use it to refine my meridians. I don't actually need acupoints since for some reason, I can absorb energy through my pores. But, I do need meridians. Or something similar to it which can connect to the dantian. I used my veins as meridians and my heart as the dantian. But it doesn't work. The heart can store only a limited amount of energy. I think it might even harm my body."
"That is troubling. What can I do to help? I can't make you any meridians though."
"I have an idea! What about you connect the veins to my dantian. My arteries too. I also need an organ which can filter out the energy while blocking everything else."
"Okay, I'll try. Why do you need to connect your arteries as well?"
Yin pounced at Adam while turning into her fleshy form in an instant.
"Because, the arteries and veins are both necessary for a perfect cycle. At the same time, make the capillaries stronger as well."
Yin's gooey body merged with Adams own and he heard her voice in his head,
"Sure."
Adam felt a painful sensation at his navel which continued to his pubic region where the dantian is located. A burning sensation came and it felt like something was growing there. The feeling wasn't beyond his tolerance, so he bore with it. After a while the feeling stopped. The dantian and veins should be linked with the new organ by now.
He then felt a burning sense spreading throughout his entire body. This was beyond his pain threshold and he gritted his teeth. His entire body felt like it was burning. The energy stored in his heart was depleting fast. When it was completely empty, the pain stopped.
Adam heard Yin's voice,
"Try it now."
Adam sat down on the spirit gathering formation to recover and absorb energy. Yin exited his body and returned to her form as a wolf.
After a while, Adam was fully recovered and restarted his energy gathering technique.
*Breathe in*
*Breathe out*
Adam took in energy along with the air through his lungs and also absorbed energy through his entire body. All the pores of his skin were rapidly absorbing qi. As the energy quantity increased in his body, the qi automatically dissolved into his blood unlike the last time. This energy rich blood began to circulate his body increasing in qi with every revolution. He continued until he reached the limits his blood vessels could hold including his arteries, veins and capillaries. Then he left traces of energy in his heart to store them. He continued till he went back to his previous state of being full. His heart could no longer support any more energy. He then explored the new channels that Yin had created for him.
Yin had joined the closest blood vessels to his dantian and they entered a new organ. This was like a smaller version of the heart. It beat by itself the moment a trickle of energy rich blood entered it. This organ had only the basic process of filtering the energy from the blood and transferring the energy to the dantian while blocking the blood flow to it. The other function was to automatically continue to circulate his blood and absorb energy from the surroundings. The drained qi deficient blood is let out through the vein while the qi rich blood enters with the arteries. Mainly, it works in the same way as oxygenated blood.
Adam absorbed the outside qi into his body. This qi mixes with his blood to complete a full circulation if his body and leaves some energy in the heart if it reduces for any reason. Then the qi filled blood enters his dantian via his new organ which he calls the enpump which is short for energy pump. The excess qi is deposited into the dantian and the circulation continues. This way, his entire body is always being strengthened along with absorbing energy to increase his cultivation.
"Thanks Yin, I finally have a complete qi circulatory system."
"Don't mention it. If you want to thank me, hurry and get stronger."
"Of course!"
Adam continued to circulate his cultivation consciously. This has the benefit of being able to precisely control his cultivation speed and increase his speed exponentially.
Adam successfully introduced energy into his new dantian for the first time. It felt like he experienced a qualitative increase in strength. He had finally entered foundation establishment stage. The outer court of the Kong Sect only accepted core foundation. But, he felt as if his strength had now become enough for him to crush Brian, the first cultivator he fought. Brian was a core formation expert. Then he had only been able to kill him after a long tiring fight. No matter how much he acts as if it had been easy, he knows in the depth of his heart that he could have died just as easily. Now, he had the ability to easily kill him.
Judging from the information he got from the Qi manual, his relative combat strength should be similar to the peak of core formation. He might be able to even kill early Mind refinement if he had the right opportunity and used all his strength.
'No, I shouldn't underestimate Mind refinement stage. It's written that Mind refinement stage has a qualitative increase of combat power and survivability. They unlock the potential of their mind in that stage. I don't have that level of confidence yet. Maybe after reaching peak foundation.'
Adam continued to cultivate till he consolidated his realm at the early foundation establishment realm. He stood up and looked at Yin who was also cultivating.
"Yin" he called out, "How do you cultivate?"
Yin stopped gathering the energy and said,
"It's different from how humans cultivate. Beasts do not cultivate their bodies and genes. Genetics was called bloodlines in the past. I unlocked some ancestral memories when I reconstructed my body. We absorb energy based on our genes and use it to strengthen our body and soul. I originally didn't have a fixed type of energy and the first type of energy I absorbed would become my base. But, due to our contract, I absorbed both yin energy and lightning energy. Now I can only absorb these type of energy to increase my strength."
"So, you can absorb electricity and yin energy. Yin energy refers to negative energy, right? So you should be able to absorb a multitude of energies based on just that. Like you could absorb ice or dark energy. You use them to increase the strength of your body and soul."
"Correct."
"How do you evolve? It is written that, beasts evolve by mutating their genes by taking the best bases of their genes."
"That is indeed a problem for me. I think that I am a mutated common wolf with no hidden genes. The ancestral knowledge I unlocked doesn't have any source. I don't know what my ancestor was nor do I have any genetic characteristics belonging to them. I only have a strand of data imprinted on genes. Luckily I have a solution to that. Along with my new ability of being able to disassemble my body, I can devour organisms in that state and absorb their genetic codes."
"So you have unlimited potential. You can be anything. But will the new forms be permanent?"
"Should be. Also, I can stay inside your body and speak to you directly. No one should be able to tell. Unless of course, they dissect your soul and genes. Spiritual means shouldn't detect me."
Adam nodded, "I'm going to check out the sect and see the surrounding disciples."
Yin merged into his body as he left the cave locking it behind him with his command talisman.
***
Adam walked along the mountain road looking around at the various disciples talking in groups or walking about.
As they saw him, some of them stopped to stare at him. Of these gazes, some were hostile, some curious.
One of the disciples with a hostile gaze went up to Adam. He was a lanky person with a sword hanging on either of his hips. His red eyes held a deep hatred as he looked at Adam.
"Why were you in Brian's cave?"
"Because he's dead and the Disciplinary head gave it to me."
The lanky youth clenched his fists.
"Do you know how he died?"
"I killed him."
The boy reached for his swords to slash at Adam. But, he was stopped by two other disciples who caught his arm. One was Caucasian the other oriental. The similarity between them all was that they all had a black and white striped symbol with on the left side of their chest.
"Tori! You know, you can't attack to kill a fellow disciple!"
"Yeah, bro. We know that the bastard killed Aniki. We want revenge too. But you can't attack him like this. It's already your last strike."
Tori calmed down and said to the two
"Sorry, gear, Kaito. I lost my self."
Turning to Adam,
"I challenge you to a life or death duel."
"No thanks. Maybe later."
"You killed an executive of the white tiger gang. If you don't accept the challenge, we will make you regret it."
Adams brows furrowed.
"I thought Brian didn't have any backing in the sect."
"Oh not officially. But we are not easy to deal with."
The stocky Caucasian called Gear brought out a white talisman and scratched it. Immediately numerous disciples across the sect felt a vibration from similar talismans.
They pulled out the talisman and those of the outer court rushed to the spot where the trio was confronting Adam.
In less than 40 seconds, they were surrounded by about a hundred disciples affiliated with the white tiger gang. They all had the same striped symbol on their chest.
From among them, three disciples came forward. Their symbols had blue rims. They were a fat and short oriental, a tall and muscular baled ebony skinned disciple and a short skinny disciple with orange hair and pale skin who wore glasses.
The boy with the glasses said, "We are the executives of the White Tiger gang. You who have offended us, we sha…"
"Yeah, yeah, yeah! I don't care."
The bespectacled boy furrowed his forehead. He didn't seem to like being cut off mid-sentence.
Adam just continued without minding his expression, "I killed Brian. It's the law of the jungle. He invaded my territory and I killed him. Strongest wins. You should be thankful that I didn't eat him."
The surrounding members took a deep breath hearing Adam's words. The fat executive said,
"Brian was the weakest of us and only got the position because of his older brother. You can kill him but you also have to be wary of revenge."
The rest nodded.
"Ok I'll fight. But all three of you at once. Also we need a wager."
The executives looked at each other. But before they could decide anything, Tori shouted, "I have to kill him! If he doesn't die by my hands, Brian wont be at peace."
Gear and Kaito nodded.
"It would be a disgrace for you to fight a foundation establishment punk. Tori can take care of him."
The bespectacled boy was about to nod when he heard Adam laugh out loud.
"You do know that I killed a core formation level Brian when I had no cultivation at all. Now that I'm in foundation establishment, you guys are all no match for me if you come at me at the same time. Now, you want to a send a similar foundation establishment realm idiot to fight me? Hehehe naïve."
The face of Tori and the surrounding disciples became black. Most of them were also foundation establishment.
"You sure you're not going to regret you decision of facing the three of us at the same time? We are all at peak Core formation."
"Sure. Now what do you wager? I'll give you all the stuff I got from Brian."
"We want your life. It will be shameful for us to let the murderer of an executive off. Besides, all your things can be taken after your death."
"I agree then. But, I won't kill you. Instead, I want you to belong to me."
The boy got a bit flustered before recovering quickly, "What do you mean?"
Adam looked at him oddly. "You will quit the white tiger gang and come under my leadership. I mean all three of you."
"For my honor, I accept."
"You think you have a chance? I accept your terms." The fatty sneered.
The dark skinned man just nodded with his arms crossed.
The crowd went to the Battle Ring. It was a slightly elevated, large stone square shaped platform.
When the four stood on the platform, it was covered by a transparent barrier. All the disciples of the White Tiger gang were surrounding the platform to watch. There were many unaffiliated disciples as well. They all cheered for the executives.
On the ring, the three executives stood on one side while Adam stood on the other alone.
A voice sounded from the ring saying,
"Outer court Adam Potestas Fulgur Disciple code: 56213 verses Outer court Amari Escalon Disciple code 53632, Outer court Zhang Wei Disciple code 53645, Outer court Blake Johnson Disciple code 53659. Battle type- Death match. Forfeiture- allowed. Time- undefined. Battle will end when one side has perished or forfeited. Confirm if the conditions acceptable."
"Confirm."
"Confirm."
"Confirm."
Blake still only nodded.
"Battle start!"