The thing about cultivating is that it's so dreadfully boring.
Each rotation of your Qi inside your meridians is agonizingly slow, and you do all this work just for it to result in a small, almost insignificant droplet of condensed Qi inside you dantian.
Minutes of effort and focus all for minimal gains, but the problem is that the rewards for cultivation are exponential.
It starts so damn small, but the further along you go, the larger the yield from your hard work, your diligence in cultivating paying off large dividends the further you go.
Each droplet can be viewed as days, months, years of life drawn into your body.
Each droplet is your true lifeblood, both in the realm of it being your physical and mental powers and in the pure fact that it is your life being elongated by diligent work.
I still despised this boring, unending cycle of rotating Qi just to drop it off in my dantian, but I needed to progress further into my immortal journey.
This time spent cultivating wasn't for me.
No, it was for the little one growing in my belly, the baby that resulted from the forced union of Gao Chen and I.
Each time I revolved my Qi around my body, I felt a surge of warmth as my body continued to heal and grow, changing to account for the life inside of me.
I was also rewarded by watching my journey be quickened by the dark plant budding inside of my dantian, its roots filling my meridians and expediting the flow of my Qi.
That reward grew when I began to knock on the door that led to the Soul Transformation Realm.
Opening my eyes, I moved over to my dark haired fiancee and gently shook her shoulder, disrupting the sharp and dark aura that had descended around her.
Watching those orange eyes flutter open and focus on me made my breath catch in my throat, and I became pinned under those beautifully hard orbs.
"Are you close?"
Her low, raspy voice made me shiver, and I nodded, feeling a flush of heat spread throughout my body.
I loved that tone of hers, and the piercing stare she fixed me with made me want to-
Gulping, I sat back down beside her as she moved behind me, the Void Realm Cultivator placing her hands on my back as I began to breakthrough again.
Like before, I needed to fill and bolster my dantian, to allow it to grow further.
Same for my meridians, which is why I grit my teeth as pain flared inside my body.
It hurt, but I didn't utter a single gasp as I pushed through it.
Up to this point, the names of the Realms were just fancy jargon to make people feel better.
In reality, all you were doing was nurturing and improving your body and organs to be able to withstand the real Realms of Cultivation, which was the Ascendant Realm and above.
More and more impurities seeped from my skin, dirtying my robe and filling the courtyard with a thick, putrid stench.
The amount was more then my previous breakthrough, but the reason was visibly obvious.
My stomach was layered with a thick black sludge, and my heart almost dropped at that sight.
Not only had I undergone a physical improvement, but so had my child, which is why Gao Chen was gritting her teeth behind me.
I finally realized that her Dark Qi was shrouding my womb and keeping the energies inside my body from running rampant, keeping our baby safe during my breakthrough.
That realization was quickly washed away as I grew embarrassed, the black sludge around me making me self conscious that I was an unsightly, stinking mess.
Rolling her eyes, Gao Chen waved her hand and made me yelp, her Qi washing over me and cleaning me off instantly.
The smell drifted away, replaced by the floral scent of the courtyard.
"Congratulations, you're average. Come on, back to it. Start practicing that Crashing Wave technique Li Hui Ling gave you."
Frowning slightly, I nodded and returned to my spot, slightly disappointed by the lack of genuine praise, before huffing and closing my eyes.
Cultivation also wasn't as easy as I made it out to be; revolving your Qi was sometimes difficult, and those techniques that people had only made it easier to know what path you were meant to let your Qi flow in.
You still needed to direct and control that Qi, and that was the hard part.
A momentary distraction would result in Qi Disruption, which could be as painful as a sharp pang or result in your meridians exploding.
That was why it was always done behind closed doors, usually alone or with a single partner; you needed to reduce the distractions and focus inwards.
Gao Chen wasn't cultivating; she was meditating, reviewing her prior breakthroughs and techniques, honing her mind and bolstering her foundation.
Returning my focus inwards, I took note of the flower that bloomed on the plant, a deep blue flower with speckles of subdued purple spread throughout its large petals.
The roots were more extended, and the network of meridians in my body had been overrun by those roots.
My Qi flowed easier and quicker, and I noticed that my body felt stronger.
After a few rotations to observe the changes, I nodded to myself as I took in the improvements before returning to my cultivation, wanting to continue to grow my own strength as well as my baby's strength.
With that goal in mind, hours flew by with ease, before those hours turned into days.
The suns and moons rose and fell above us, constantly progressing as we cultivated.
Those days turned to a month, and I noticed some more changes.
My stomach had grown further, displaying my pregnancy to the world, while my body had slowly gotten stronger as well.
When Gao Chen had noted that a month or so had passed, she awakened me from my cultivation and led me outside, where we ate and drank before falling asleep.
We needed to rest ourselves for tomorrow, because tomorrow was the day that we were to be wed.