When Will woke up, he realized that his body was hurting all over. As he looked down, he saw that all over his body were both holes burned into his skin and also patches of skin softer than silk and seemingly bursting with life.
He slowly opened up his wings, after which he sat up again and slowly started to think about the ruby heart manual. He had clearly misjudged it's grade. He estimated that this technique was at least at the peak of the spirit grade, because even the king of his previous kingdom didn't have such powerful qi when cultivating.
He had underestimated this technique, resulting in him being hurt. This was a valuable lesson that he would always keep in his heart. Don't underestimate anyone or anything, no matter how insignificant it seemed.
Having learned this lesson now, he once again continued to try to use the ruby heart manual to condense qi, then form drops.
Having his previous experience with it, this time it went much smoother.
Now was once again the time for 'forming the streams,' which was one of the hardest parts.
Slowly, the drops of pearl white in the air started to combine, forming a stream as thin as a string, flowing through the air. He then did the same for the deep red drops, making a stream like flowing water.
Having the two streams of qi, Will could now move onto the next part, 'forming the helix,' in which he took the streams and formed them into needle thin strands, which would then wrap loosely around each other.
As he started trying to thin out the streams, he noticed that when they got close to each other, they both got easier to control, and that it would take longer for him to get tired.
As the streams got closer to each other, it was easier for Will to thin them into threads, leading him to finally succeed. Now, he had to loosely wrap the threads around each other.
With very precise movements, the threads of qi started to get closer to each other, eventually wrapping around each other. They formed a loose helix.
Now, it was time for the final step, 'binding the helix,' in which he took the power of his heart itself to complete bind together the strands of qi. This took much focus and could not be interrupted.
Slowly, a warm feeling started to spread through Will's body, originating at his chest. Then, a low thumping sound was heard. Will quickly felt his energy draining away just to make his heart beat in the slightest.
'I need to be quick,' Will thought Ruth urgency.
He then directed the power given out by the weak beating of his heart towards the strands of qi suspended in the air. Quickly, there started to appear Ruby crystal chunks around the qi, binding them together securely.
As soon as this process was done, the low beating stopped as Will had almost run out of energy. Using his remaining energy, Will directed the ruby-wrapped helix of pearl white and blood red qi into his arm.
With this, he mentally screamed, 'SUCCESS!!'
As the helix entered his arm, he felt a warm sensation that felt like his entire body was being revitalized. He felt himself get stronger, though not by a lot. This was only one helix of qi, so he wondered what would happen when he eventually had hundreds at once all with constant streams going into his body.
The helix started out as two separate colors of mist, then they condensed into drops, then into streams, then transformed into threads, then wound together, then finally got bound together by the power of his own heart.
When the qi helix went through his body, he felt revitalized and better than he had ever felt before.
With this energy coursing through his body, he decided to continue to cultivate during his time on the way to Scorching Sun kingdom.
************
With this energy coursing through his body, he decided to try to improve the number of streams he would do at once. He was now able to do 1 stream every time without fail, so he decided that it was time to try a second one
With immense effort, Will was now starting to further condense the qi in the air around him, quickly forming new drops around the first stream. They quickly gathered and formed into the helix, then came the pounding of Will's heart. The pounding this time however, had been going since the first stream was formed since he needed to maintain it. This quickly drained his energy, leaving him exhausted.
When it finally came time to bind together the helix, Will was so tired that he could barely stay awake. Since he was at the critical point, if he stopped, he would be severely injured by the two Ruby coated helixes of qi. With the last of his energy, he pushed all the qi into his arm, where it slowly distributed through his body. However, he was once again blacked out.
If it was one second longer, he might have died. His heart consumed so much of his power that he could only barely manage to create the second helix before blacking out.
It he had failed and couldn't protect himself, the helix filled with extremely dangerous qi would fall on him and cause extreme damage to him. It not properly merged into the body through the arm, it would simply burn through him as it did the wood surrounding him when he failed earlier.
However, despite him being unconscious, the qi moved through his body, making it's way towards his heart.
As the qi eventually reached his heart, it quickly just disappeared, seeming to vanish. However, the qi did not vanish. It simply transferred to every part of his body instantaneously. The only thing that this did not apply to was his wings, in which the blood red qi first went into the wings, making them seem to come from a demon out of hell, then followed by the pearl white qi, seemingly sent from heaven. The red qi was the qi of hope, while the pearl white qi was unknown what it was, but it seemed to calm down the qi of hope and stabalize it into the Ruby color that was seen on his hair, eyes, and wings.
***********
When Will woke up, there was no one in the carriage, so he decided to see what was happening. He quickly stood up and looked through the open door, where he saw several campfires with people sitting around them. These people were, of course, the soldiers from the Scorching Sun kingdom. Above all the fires were pieces of meat, caught by the hunters that were tasked with hunting down food for them to eat. Behind the fires and the soldiers, were many tents, all of which could fit about three people inside.
Sitting in front of the carriage was Old Man Dai, the scraggly bearded man, and the other person who Will didn't know.
He slowly stepped out of the carriage. When he did, Old Man Dai noticed him and said, "Boy, you've got to sit down and eat!!! You look exhausted!!!"
He was right. Will was exhausted and tired, but it wasn't something that food would fix. He had already lived an entire year without food, even though he was asleep. It was clear that he didn't need to eat to survive, nor did he need it to heal himself or replenish his energy.
However, despite not needing it, Will decided to see what would happen if he ate. Since he no longer had any organs, he could no longer digest food, but he was fed a pill earlier to counter the poison arrow, so it must have been absorbed in some way.
With this decision, Will sat down and got a piece of meat. As he took a bite of it, he realized that, although it was just food that was randomly hunted by the soldiers, it was far better than anything he had before. Being raised as a slave, Will was raised on food with the minimum nutrients needed to survive.
With this, he quickly gobbled down the food. He finished quickly and within a few minutes.
Once he was done, however, he noticed that he felt absolutely nothing from eating the food, as if it simply ceased to exist the moment he swallowed it. Will figured that unless he ate a medicine or something similar, he would feel absolutely nothing from it. With this, he decided that since there was limited food, that he wouldn't eat anymore for the time being.
With this, he sat with his back to the carriage wheel and started to cultivate. Around him, two clouds of extremely dark red qi and two pearl white clouds of qi appeared. These clouds of qi eventually formed into four clouds of drops, constantly growing in number. From these drops, some formed into a stream of qi, leaving 4 streams of qi around him, two blood red and two pearl white. From these streams came needle thin strands of qi, which then intertwined with each other, leaving two helixes of half white and half red.
At this moment, a low pounding sound rose, becoming ever more clear. As this pounding became clearer, the helixes slowly tightened and a layer of ruby appeared around them.
From there, the ruby wrapped helixes entered into both of Will's arms, going up from his wrist into the rest of his body.
However, this time, the helixes were not limited in length, and they were continually forming through the process. This was because Will now had enough energy from the previous helixes to try this. When the qi entered his body, the amount of energy used was slightly less that what was used to form the qi.
'SUCCESS!!!' Will thought. This was the completed first form in the ruby heart manual.