"Hands and feet."
He kept the answer short to not break his concentration. This trial worked well. The tingling wandered from finger to finger until his entire palm tickled intensely, then he worked on the left hand until the feeling finally wandered up his arm. Nothing has happened beyond his shoulder, but with a little effort feet and legs finally got heavy and joined in. Ping's whole body was relaxed, he felt like being pressed down on a cloud.
>> The user shall picture that the tingling wanders with every breath. When breathing in, the energy flows up into to arms and legs and when breathing out, it returns a bit more intense into hands and feet. <<
It worked amazingly well and straight away. It actually felt a bit how he always imagined the flow of qi had to feel like. "Yes." He briefly confirmed that he had implemented what the system asked him to do.
>> The user shall concentrate on it's Dantian, located a little below the navel. When inhaling, the energy gathers there and then flows back to the hands. After that, the user may try to imagine how the energy begins to circle in it's Dantian. <<
That was more difficult and continuously being referred to as 'it' almost made him cough blood.
At first he felt nothing in his belly and when the tingling feeling almost disappeared from his arms he had to repeat all previous steps for a couple of minutes. Then it worked. The secret was to relax the stomach further. In the end he succeeded after he began to breathe more shallowly instead of taking the conscious, very deep breaths. When he could finally imagine that his Dantian was turning like a pottery plate, he said "Ok." to the system.
>> A rotation around the thighs is necessary as well. The energy shall move as if there is a circle around each leg. After that, please increase the RPM. <<
After the previous step, this exercise was much easier, he was already completely relaxed. After a short time he could already feel the energy circulate. After he started to accelerate the rotation, it soon felt as if two completely insane, maddened doughnuts were dancing around his legs. Then his hands suddenly reported back and after a shrug of his arm and reflexively opening his eyes, the session was over.
>> Please report. <<
"I don't know what happened. Felt like I was electrocuted or there were little lightning bolts in my hand." He rubbed his hand while saying that.
>> The user has reached it's objective. This system recommends stretching after this one hour meditation. <<
Ping got up, shook his arm and regained sensation in his limbs. Then he followed the instructions of the system, crossed his fingers, stretched his arms up and stood on tiptoe, just as he had once learned in his training. Shortly afterwards he took a lunge, dropped his arms and bent his knees slightly to exhale.
>> Quest: Prerequisites for Cultivation (1 of 5) completed. <<
Sometimes he wondered if it was really a game system or if this AI just pretended. A look out of the window revealed that it was already dark. If he didn't hurry then the garage would close and he would have to take the city railway to the gas station to get a can of oil. It was the only step left to complete the large time capsule. He would only pour it in on site, after all, the package was heavy enough as it was. He even bought a small, foldable hand truck to transport everything.
"How's the progress of calculating the locations?"
Before the cultivation quest, he had already discussed with the system where possible locations for the time capsules were and how to accommodate them. Just as he was, a little overwhelmed by the mass of tasks ahead of him, threatened to become lost in his thoughts, his mobile phone rang. On the desk there was also a landline phone that, due to the available connections in the apartment, was connected to his computer network. However, his mother was the only one - probably in the world - who still wanted to use landlines.
'Amiga Ping' was shown on the ringing display. Their parents probably hated them, why else could they have named them Amiga and Atari?
At least now he knew that it was still possible to make calls with the mobile phone after the system cosied up there. The last few days he had either forgotten or suppressed the fact that he exchanged his beloved apps such as timer, calendar and messenger for the system.
"Mh." he answers the phone.
"Haaa, how do you answer your phone? Did you find the saucepan?"
"Mh."
"Oh my gosh. Are you getting bullied by your fellow students again or what?"
"Like hell. I'm busy. What does my inconsiderate sister want?"
"Don't be mean. Maybe I just want to know how my cute little brother is doing?"
"Definitely not! Can't lend you money, I'm broke myself right now."
"Really now?" There was an air of feigned indignation in her voice. "I just wanted to let you know that I'll be over later, because I'm in town with friends tonight."
"You can't sleep..."
Beep beep beep.
She would so stand in front of a closed door today. He would definitely not change his plans on burying the packages for her.
Before he forgot this matter he asked the system about the functionality of his phone and found out that the systems could indeed minimize it's UI. Which of course it didn't. Instead, he got the snappy reply that he could just as easily use the system itself for trivial tasks such as setting a reminder or displaying messages.
At least he wouldn't have to use three different messengers any more.
There was already a message from Sam waiting since that morning. He did read it while he was leaving 'The Brick'. Sam lent Ping's book, about software engineering, to Wheezy and tried to persuade him in a side comment, as he did on every opportunity, to live in his living community, which had recently been missing a roommate. He and Sam were classmates in elementary school, and after years of not seeing each other, they ended up in the same university.
Wheezy then joined them in the bachelor's program, which was probably because he simply detested most of the others who did not know how to use functional programming languages.
The last member of their little group was Ai Wang. For some reason she was the only foreign girl whose name everyone in class could perfectly remember and spell. But she was not with them because her name stood out just like his. She had been his neighbour at 'The Brick' for one year now.
The fact that the rest of the class more or less despised the trio, was not only because they formed the elite in most subjects, but also because Wang was the school beauty and nobody wanted to understand why she was hanging around with two nerds and a semi-autistic in K-pop style.
>> As predicted with a probability of 78.5%, the closest possible point for a time capsule is 12 minutes away by car. It is recommended to use another point at the disadvantage of a slightly increased distance in order to store all five capsules within their radio range. This would allow to later build a fail-safe network. <<
Today, he had learned that the outskirts where he lived, would no longer be a peripheral area in 79 years. Ping had downloaded map data and then implemented a small script to download freely available satellite data and reassembled it according to the coordinates. Additional maps of the sewer system of F-Town and the surrounding areas were fortunately available on the Open Data servers of his university because they were collected for a research project.
While entering the supermarket, only separated from the dormitory by a small copy shop, he asked into his Bluetooth headphones: "Ok, what exactly is there?"
>> The closest landmark is a motorway service station two highway exits to the north of here. <<
He knew this rest stop. It was called 'Outlook' and had a small tower next to the diner from which one could see the skyline of the city. On a summer night, it was a perfect place to take pictures of the glittering facades of the skyscrapers or take your girlfriend out.
A little further down the road was a local mountain with a radio tower and a kiosk at the top. Because of a famous curve on the road, motorcyclists meet there every evening and the place was even mentioned in the tourist guides. When he went up there on his old scooter, some talkative folks explained the entire history of the location to him.
>> Between the two places, there is a small wooded area with a gravel pit and an entrance to the sewer system that is accessible to people. <<
>> According to the available information, the area around the gravel pit as well as the sewer system there shall be widely preserved when the area is converted into a junk yard. <<
While listening to the system, he straightened the tomato cans on the shelf. Supermarkets have already gone over to hiring students who tidy the shelves every morning and yet the cans are so lousy positions that it irritated him. And no, he didn't have obsessive-compulsive disorder. He was sure that he just loved it when chaos was tidy. Sure, it is allowed that socks lie on the floor. But please not over two floor panels - you could just align it on a single floor panel to be a completely harmless sock that is maybe even perpendicular to your desk, couldn't you?