After sleeping for an unknown amount of time, she woke up with an extreme thirst for water. Her bladder had released itself in the night and the entire cloth was soaked in pee. Rainwater had also soaked in, making her entire body feel uncomfortable. Not only that, but the improper sleeping posture tortured her entire body. As a baby, she's particularly sensitive to pain.
But the pain eliminated her wandering thoughts and groggy mind. Xinyue's mind quickly calmed down by her willpower.
The milk was still good, so Xinyue quickly went to work, sucking out all the milk. After some practice, she was managing to control two at a time, at the cost of more mental energy.
Xinyue was barely keeping up with her metabolic demands without mental energy, but the cost of expanding her mental capacity increases the demands exponentially.
Eventually, she gave up with drops and used her ability to drink from the bottle directly with still some energy remaining. As her body was small, she drank only a mouthful at a time every half hour to save consumption, but the amount in the bottle was quickly draining. She estimated she had enough for another few hours. But as she drank, the demands dropped and her mental capacity expansion slowed down.
After a period of thinking, she resorted to manipulating the box itself.
As this continued, it cultivates the soul as well. Her soul grew larger and purer which increased her visual perception of everything. The magic Qi became visible despite not cultivating it. It's like a bluish gas that floats in the air but ignores air currents. It even seeps through solid objects.
She gained the ability to mentally sense things around her in the shape of a sphere with her at the center. For example, if someone asked how many fingers they were holding up, she could guess correctly despite being hidden under a box. This ability seems to pass through anything.
But all of this comes at a price. Her metabolic demand is many times greater than normal. The cost of expanding the soul capacity is paid by her metabolism. And since she's not satisfying those demands, it directly goes to her mental energy. As a result, her body has begun to lose weight and thin out. If this continues, it won't be long until she starts to look like those babies who are dramatically underweight.
Plus, it has negative effects. The effects of high metabolism can be seen quite easily. The only reason she hasn't died yet of hypothermia is because of her radiating heat energy that comes from it. In a simpler term, she's drastically increasing her vitality to survive at the cost of starvation.
After some consideration towards her own body, she had no choice but to limit her practice to half an hour.
In her free time, besides doing mathematics in her head and marking lines on the box, Xinyue listened to the sounds outside. She gradually realized that this wasn't a medieval world but a steam world based on the sounds of vehicles and steam. Questions gradually rose in her mind like why the orphanage looked so medieval and where she's at.
But nobody came to pick her up or bother with her, which was depressing. But the kind nun came out and lifted the box to see most of the milk already gone. Surprised, she took the bottle and muttered, "I guess I can help you a little." She left and came back several minutes later with a full bottle. The nun looked away before putting the box back on time. Xinyue couldn't help but feel her heart warm seeing the nun still caring about her.
After taking a nap, Xinyue practiced with her ability until she was able to lift up the box itself for a brief period. But she only did it when people weren't nearby so as to attract attention. The time increased until she was able to lift it for a full minute. Li came every day and replaced the milk and bread she ate, which made Xinyue's heart full of satisfaction towards her. But she could not thank her as her voice-box hadn't developed enough.
Thanks to her powerful will and growing mental capacity, she was able to properly move her body under the box to relieve her aching back. She began to levitate her body after the ground for brief periods that grew every day. Xinyue couldn't take the boredom and finally used her ability to mobilize her body. After practice, she was able to lower the costs and efficiently move about for a few minutes. She finally got a good grasp of her surroundings.
The orphanage was surrounded by stone walls and a lawn so kids could play about. Civilization seemed to be in the stages of the steam age. Concrete was being used so there was buildings around the orphanage that are three to four stories high. Sometimes a steam based vehicle would pass by, and people dressed in trench coats including women. Steam and black smoke filled the skies every day, making it seem like one was in the 1800's.
You could see the homeless people and the iconic newspaper kid tossing newspapers on his bike. If a person from the 1800's suddenly appeared here, they wouldn't know this was a cultivation world. Xinyue guessed that the orphanage must be very ancient for it to be made of stone and wood.
She headed back into her box and rested her mind, while staying at the entrance as usual.
The weeks went by and the time she could walk increased at a steady rate. When the time limit reached an hour, she began to practice her military and combat forms using her ability. Not only did this drain mental energy faster, it increased her control over the telekinesis. Although her body's too young, the energy costs stabilized and she stopped losing weight. But it did burn off some baby fat and turn it into muscle, increasing her strength. There's no need to use her ability to walk anymore.
Although she's gotten a bit lonely, she tries to keep herself busy to ignore it. The outside world is also a form of entertainment if you just count the people that walked by every day.
A positive thing about her ability is that it only costs metabolic energy to expand her capacity. The mental energy is mysteriously restored by the Qi in the air which enters her body. It somehow enters her pores before entering her soul directly. Otherwise, the amount of food she would have to eat would rise to astronomical amounts and kill her in the process.
The recovery rate is only 1.666666666666% or 1⅔% per minute which coincidentally means it takes an hour to completely recover. It's fortunate that the recovery rate always stays an hour despite her growing soul. It's unfortunate that she has no way to increase the recovery rate.
Sometime during the day, Xinyue wrapped the blanket around her body like she had just gotten out of a bath. She left the area and went to the nearby buildings which had alleys.
She grabbed trash cans and they fell to the ground despite their enormous sizes and weight compared to her body. The few homeless people couldn't help but be terrified by her abnormal strength as a baby that hadn't even grew hair atop her head. Even the ones that had evil intentions hesitated before backing off.
When her mental energy was low, she finally found a sharp piece of scrap metal that could be held in her hand. It's length was 4 inches with a width of 3 millimeters. She took it and quickly left the alley, leaving the homeless people to question their world views.
Laying back under the box, she gazed at the sharp scrap piece of metal before exerting the remaining mental energy. The piece of metal groaned as it molded into a hilt while smoothing out. The metal straightened out and turned flat for the blade. The jagged pieces of metal that jutted out were left behind including the rust. Just it's look enough was enough to send chills down one spine. Anybody that was unfortunate enough to be stabbed would have flesh and organs pulled out by the jagged edges, while being infected by nasty diseases from the rust.
When her mental energy recuperated within half an hour, she took the jagged knife and sharpened it against the ground continuously while applying mental pressure to it. Only after an hour when she felt sleepy did she give it a rest. The edges on the jagged knife were now gleaming and sharper than before as it laid silently beside her.