In my last life, I had never stepped foot on the farm my father ran. This was because he didn't want me ruining his crops, but also because I never cared to perform such an arduous task. Now, however, I was stood at the gate commanding the workers on how to grow peppers and maintain their seeds for replanting. Even my father had began jotting down the instructions so that he didn't forget a step.
"That's about all I know on harvesting peppers, unfortunately," I ended, feeling the weight of commanding four of the Lord's former soldiers on how to do their new jobs. "If you have any more questions, please ask and I shall answer as best as I can."
"Thank you, Yuron," my father said, patting me on the head. "We'll get started on planting these, but you should get back to your mother as soon as possible. I think she needs help with the cooking tonight."
"Father, may I go into the woods for a short while? Not long enough to keep me from going home and helping mother, of course," I asked, feeling my leg get restless. I had thought that being in a ten year old's body would've been somewhat unfamiliar, but I guess reincarnating young had its pros.
I had decided that's what had happened. I had reincarnated into my own body at the time when I was a child. I had no explanation for the avatar of my master that followed me around, considering his real self should be wandering the world alive. Perhaps a manifestation of my own creation?
"Okay, boy. Get home before eight, or it'll be you ploughing tomorrow," he warned, though he had a smile on his face. Sometimes he acted like a father, and other times he acted like he was still commanding a platoon of soldiers. It was hard to know which version you'd get on any given day, but the signs were there for those that knew him well enough.
"Understood," I responded before taking off for the tree-line. I acted exactly as the young warrior that tried to kill me had, only with our positions reversed. I continued running further into the woods as I got into my own thoughts.
'Would I have been able to kill them all?' I thought, weighing up the depth of my qi against their numbers. The White Sky God Style was one of my own creations, and I had created it to be a long-form style that used little qi, but still packed a punch with each strike. I had even eaten the core of a Nine Tail- something that nobody before me had dared to do- and enhanced my body to the peak of human possibility.
"No matter how Godly I may have been, there was nothing for me to fight for," I sighed, stopping after around twenty minutes of running. I had to get far into the woods so that the building of my core wouldn't blow up my father's farmland.
When a core is formed, the qi in the air is consumed into a person's body. The person then hardens the qi to create the core and allows the excess qi to flow through their body, hardening it at their meridian points. This concept is not hard with instruction, but the final stage is.
If you are building your qi within a sect, they would have given you a breathing technique to use that made it a breeze as well as have a physician overlook the process. Doing it on your own, however, was something that none dared to try. Trying to force qi to flow through your body with nothing but willpower was as good as eating rocks to strengthen your teeth.
'No time like the present,' I convinced myself as I sat cross-legged on the ground. I closed my eyes and tried to recall the breathing technique Manju had taught me. 'Ah, memories.'
"No, you bumbling idiot! Not like that! You need to breathe in through your mouth, allow it to circulate twice, then let it out as slow as possible!" He had guided me, slapping me on my bare back with a branch he had found lying around. "You fucking fool! Slower than that! So slow that if feels as if nothing's coming out at all! How can you hope to even become a farmhand never-mind a Sect Leader if you can't follow that simple instruction?!"
I had unconsciously began to follow the orders from the memory, able to taste the qi that was coming into my body. It had a distinct flavour, like watermelon. It was something everyone was able to taste, though few knew how watermelon tasted so had nothing to compare its flavour to. I could feel it falling directly into my stomach.
"You harden qi by letting it sit stagnant for a while. The longer it is stagnant, the sturdier it is. You can always build on your meridians later, but your core can only be built once due to how dense it needs to be," Manju had yelled right in my ear as I had tried to do something that required the utmost concentration. "And don't tell anybody, but i've got two cores. Don't you even think about trying it, you little shit! I can see you thinking about it! You want me to kill you, huh?!"
My image of Manju had definitely been warped by adoration and bias, but his words were gospel to me… when I was his pupil. Technically, I wasn't his pupil anymore. I didn't see any reason why I shouldn't have two cores too. I had built one core, a solid sphere that couldn't be penetrated even by a Sea-Steel Pickaxe. Quite good if I do say so myself.
"I made my second core as a fuck you to those Pure Path assholes. They claim that a single core is God's wish," Manju had ranted whilst drunk after I inquired further about his second core. "You're right in saying i'm not a martial artist, kid. I'm more of an anti-world drifter. I hate being confined to other peoples' rules… now pass me that booze."
'I guess that's where I get my nature from. It's not good for an impressionable teenager to hang around a drunken rogue,' I admitted to myself, now able to feel something that was considered sacrilegious resting within me. A second core, only slightly weaker than the main core. 'Now me and the old rogue have something in common, if we ever meet. I wonder how he'll take it.'
I continued with the process, flowing qi out from my main core throughout my body and linking it to my second core as well. This part required the most concentration for a first timer, but after doing it for almost thirteen years, the feeling was second nature to me.
I had finally imbued my body with qi, certainly enough of it to be considered a Novice. A ten year old Novice was nothing special within the top five Sects, but for a farm-family child to reach this level? A prodigy.
I was surprised to see the surrounding area in pristine condition. Not a single scorch mark to be found for around twenty feet. there was a small patch of dirt beneath me where there should have been grass, but that was it. The lack of damage from my core formation was wondrous, but what loomed above me was even better.
"The moon really is beautiful tonight," I mused, ignoring the stench of my body's impurities that lingered on my clothes. My mother and father would assume it was muck and foliage from playing around in the woods, anyway. "Tomorrow is… shit."
Anything but that.