Upon hearing Kylia's acceptance, Del smiled and nodded. However, he did not feel flattered, as he had already expressed his true feelings to Kylia and she had no other choice but to accept him.
Del didn't even care if Kylia rejected him, as he had thousands of ways to make her fall for him. Kylia had belonged to him since the moment their eyes first met, and there was nothing in the world that could resist it. At least Del wouldn't let that happen.
Gently, he caressed Kylia's masked cheek and said, "It's time for us to practice, you need to absorb the K nutrition you got this morning."
"Okay!!" Kylia tightly held Del's hand on her cheek.
They both walked out holding hands from the flower garden.
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Flower Garden Orphanage boasts luxurious facilities, including a gym equipped with boxing rings, aikido, archery, and other sports equipment. However, the gym remains largely unused by the orphanage children, with most showing little interest outside of scheduled training sessions.
Mr. Andrew and his staff use the gym regularly, but today, it lies empty due to the early hour and the absence of security guards who are taking the children to school or patrolling. Del and Kylia are the only ones using the gym today.
However, they both don't look awkward in the gym room and prepare their exercise equipment smoothly. This is not the first time Kylia has trained with Del in this room.
Since knowing that the Sacred Kamboja Tree can absorb K nutrition in its body, Del has thought about training Kylia in martial arts. Besides being useful for accelerating the process of K nutrition absorption by the Sacred Kamboja Tree, it also speeds up the development process of Kylia's body itself.
Just like what Del did before, Kylia started her training by doing specific movements that will shape her muscle pattern in the future. The male and female bodies have different numbers and locations of muscles. Men have stronger upper body muscles than women, while women have stronger lower body muscles than men.
When learning martial arts, Del referred to this natural muscle pattern in the human body as primordial muscle. Primordial muscle is the evolution of the human body to survive in nature, or it can also be the early form of the first humans.
The different forms of primordial muscle between men and women indicate that there is a division of tasks between the two genders in nature. Men with stronger and more developed upper body primordial muscles indicate that they will be more skilled in jobs that require more strength, such as lifting heavy weights and fighting. While women have much more developed primordial muscles in their lower body, this is to prepare women when they carry their future children.
However, in cultivation, generally both men and women in the same cultivation realm will have similar strength (when factors like luck, skill, etc. are eliminated and only cultivation realm remains). However, Del noticed that the chosen Dao specifications between men and women would be very different.
Men generally prefer a hard Dao while women generally prefer a softer Dao. For example, for Earth Dao, men tend to use specifications such as Rock, Mountain, or Roots, while women tend to use specifications such as Sand, Valley, or Flowers.
The tendency among genders made Del wonder. He did not think that it was just a coincidence, so he conducted research by interviewing (with threats) 100 male cultivators and 100 female cultivators. To add to his data, Del also borrowed (stole, threatened, forced, etc.) some books of ancient cultivator thinking from the largest and most comprehensive library in the entire cultivation world.
Del discovered that women would have a harder time learning and using harsh Dao specifications, and vice versa for men. Notes in the ancient cultivator books also stated that if men tended to use soft Dao specifications, there would be a change in mentality and physicality as they delved deeper into learning and using those Dao specifications.
To test his discovery, Del gathered (kidnapped and forced) 100 boys and 100 girls with cultivation roots but had not yet started cultivation. 50 boys would learn cultivation arts with the appropriate Dao specifications, and 50 boys would learn cultivation arts with opposite Dao specifications (soft). The same pattern would be used for the girls.
At the Qi Gathering realm, there were no changes or symptoms that occurred to the children. They all cultivated at a speed that corresponded to Del's deductions. At the Foundation Establishment realm, there were slight problems with one boy and two girls, and their foundations were a bit shaky, but it was all corrected using pills.
This is also a common occurrence among cultivators in general, so Del only recorded this issue and did not investigate it further.
During the Golden Core realm, another issue occurred with a boy whose golden core was trying to escape from his body. However, after confirming that this was only due to a lack of concentration, Del continued his research without further investigation into the matter.
By the time of the Nascent Soul realm, these children had already begun to familiarize themselves with the Dao and could begin to sense it. Strangely, 50 boys and 50 girls who were learning cultivation arts with opposing Dao specifications were slower to sense the Dao than children from other groups.
Del was able to find the reason for this: there was a slight mistake during the formation of their Nascent Soul, which required more time to adapt to their bodies. After using several elixirs to speed up the adaptation process, these children were able to sense the presence of the Dao immediately.
Research continued and no casualties had occurred yet. In the Soul Transformation realm, these children will begin to tattoo or draw the Dao into their souls. This process will be painful, and cultivators often die in the process.
Then, after successfully attaching the Dao to the soul, a thunder tribulation will come to cleanse impurities from the body and soul. This second process takes more casualties than the previous one, but Del is not too worried because as the strongest cultivator in the world, he has many heavenly treasures to reduce the risk of death or failure for these children to pass both processes.
However, he never expected that the number of casualties among these children would far exceed what was imagined. Out of the 200 children he gathered (kidnapped and forced), only 130 children remained. Most of them came from children who were learning cultivation arts with the proper Dao specification.
Meanwhile, 40 children from the group with opposing Dao specifications were killed during the first process, and another 20 were killed during the second process. Therefore, within one week, Del had lost 30% of his research subjects.
Based on his memory, Del noticed some anomalies that occurred during the first stage of the process when the children from that group went through it. It seemed as if the Dao tattoo refused to imprint on their souls, and when they finally managed to form the Dao tattoo, Dao rebelled, causing their souls to melt like wax burning.
Another strange thing happened during the second stage, where the Tribulation thunder fell much harder than usual, as if Heaven was trying its best to crush the children into ashes. Del calculated that, without his help, the chances of these children successfully reaching the Soul Transformation realm were only about 30% compared to the general cultivators.
Despite the high number of casualties, Del continued his research. As time went by, some of the children rebelled, especially those from the second group (those who learned cultivation arts with opposite Dao specifications). However, Del was able to easily suppress their rebellion.
In the Mahayana Realm, at this stage, cultivators would be able to use the Dao and manifest it in a limited form. From the first group of children (those who learned cultivation arts with the correct Dao specifications), there were no anomalies, and they looked like ordinary Mahayana realm cultivators.
However, anomalies occurred again in the second group of children. The Dao they manifested looked very different from that of the typical Mahayana realm cultivators. Del tried to force them to manifest the Dao in the usual form, but there would still be differences, whether in terms of strength or the essence of the Dao itself.
Another anomaly was the change in attitude and behavior of the children in the second group. The boys tended to have a feminist attitude and the girls tended to have a tomboyish behavior. This change in attitude and behavior even affected the way they spoke, walked, behaved, and even thought.
The longer they manifested their Dao, the stronger this change in attitude and behavior became, to the point where it disturbed their mentality. Over time, there was a new tendency among the second group of children to become rougher, angrier, and more anarchic than usual.
They tended to attack those who were weaker and torture them. This bloodthirsty nature was not only directed towards others but also towards themselves. Some of the children in the second group behaved more like demons than actual demon art practitioners.
Del managed to find one of the causes, namely, the Dao tattoos that he believed had successfully merged with their souls but rebelled every time the children tried to manifest them. As a result, there was a disturbance in their souls that affected their mental and physical conditions.
Another anomaly that Del found was their disorientation of their own identities. Many of them did not feel like they were born as they should have been. Strangely enough, their reincarnation memories began to surface, and many of these children regarded themselves as animals or, worse, one child believed they were a door handle.
In the end, Del felt that he had enough data and stopped (killing all the children in the second group) his research.
From his research, Del learned that humans are not only born with Primordial muscles but also with Primordial souls. They are born with souls that have their own identities and genders.