A few hours later...
Shen opened his eyes, his body felt extremely heavy which was natural as right now he was back to being a mortal, his body was devoid of the Qi of Heaven and Earth, all the strength he had as a cultivator was gone, he felt extremely powerless compared to how he was earlier.
The foundation of his cultivation was completely reset and now he would have to restart, furthermore due to earlier events the connection between his mind and 'Shen Wang's ' body had become more blurry it felt extremely uncomfortable when he ordered 'his' body to make any movement as if the body had started to resist him.
It was a serious problem, if this body dies he would die as well or so was his speculation as he had never died before but nonetheless he was relieved that he was alive.
This loss of cultivation wasn't necessarily a bad thing, in a way he could now cultivate his own path and establish his own foundation. This was obviously a better choice than to build upon a foreign cultivator's path who was already halfway through the way of building his foundation.
Overcoming Qi deviation had given him a vague idea about how to manipulate the Spiritual Qi around him.
This was naturally a good thing, even though the trial of Qi deviation made him a mortal and blurred the connection of his body and mind, it gave him important lessons as well.
Forcibly suppressing the feeling of intense discomfort he received from his body he slowly stood up.
Although it felt extremely nauseous he was still able to do simple movements, as if to distract his mind he looked around and observed the room he was in.
It was a simple squared room with dim light, the walls had a few cracks on them, aligned with his cultivation seat there was a metal door which firmly isolated the room from the outer world, there was a table on which necessities were kept for example the fasting pills and a few jars full of water.
It was a simple room with an area of about 5 meter sq. the roof had a formation design on it which periodically released fresh air and took out the stagnant air, it also functioned as a spiritual qi refilling machine.
Shen Wang walked around the room, interacting with the materials of the room and picked up a jar of water and drank some water.
With the refreshing liquid going down his throat his mind cleared up a little and the uncomfortable feeling between his body and mind dissipated slightly.
" Oh? I was quite thirsty and it just so happened that my predecessor's desires aligned with mine " Shen muttered to himself in a low voice.
" Well that gives me a clue, so hypothetically whenever my and old Shen's desires align, the blurry bond between my mind and this body becomes stronger. "
" Is it something like his will or desire left-over in this body's brain which dissipates whenever it's fulfilled. "
" Or is it like a restriction of his soul which unveils itself under fixed circumstances?"
After pondering for a while Shen decided threw these doubts in the back of his mind, regaining his cultivation was the priority right now.
Shen tried doing some stretches to warm up his body, however the co-ordination between his mind and his body was so messed up that when he wanted to move his hand around he would end up doing something different altogether.
When he tried cracking his fingers they would slip out of his other hand.
When he tried to rotate his shoulder, his entire left arm would go numb.
After a few frustrating tried he warmed up his body and sat down crossed legged, thankfully his legs still worked somewhat properly.
Shen took a few deep breaths before circulating the Thunderleaf Inner Resonance Scripture again,
Although he was circulating his cultivation technique, he was merely doing it on the surface.
Meaning that he wasn't fully cultivating but merely playing around with Spiritual Qi, the reason behind this was simple, he wanted to get a hang of it.
As soon as Shen closed his eyes he tried to rely on a vague sixth sense, it was weird, it felt abnormal.
Yet, obviously something like this was normal for cultivators, however for Shen who had only viewed the world with his eyes it felt completely out of place to sense stuff from every direction.
It felt unreliable to not depend on his eyes to sense Spiritual Qi, he knew that he needed to adapt and it could only be achieved with time and patience.
However with his abnormally fast mind he was able to observe a lot of details, spiritual qi was a fundamental change in his life and he wanted to accept it happily.
4 days passed...
By now Shen had become more and more familiar with Spiritual Qi around him, he could will it to move according to his will.
Since he had a strong consciousness it wasn't all hard to will it to move around after observing it.
The experience of controlling spiritual qi inside his body during the qi deviation and the playing around with spiritual qi outside his body gave him a lot of insights.
There were differences in controlling spiritual qi inside and outside his body.
On the inside it was very easy to control it, he simply needed to imagine and will it to move and it would move without any disturbances just like a part of your body.
However on the outside he needed to force the spiritual qi to move, it did not feel like a part of him, he needed to familiarize with it and conquer it with his will to make it do his bidding.
He also noted that when he willed his spiritual qi to move out of his body he could control it way more comfortably than the other spiritual qi, It was as if he owned it.
By now he was rather familiar with Spiritual Qi, although it still felt out of place he could work with it as long as he put his mind to it, and he definitely had a lot of 'mind' to spare.
By now he seriously started to circulate the Thunderleaf Inner Resonance Scripture,
Stirring....
Directing.....
Concentrating.....
Virtualizing.....
Exhaling.....
Harmonizing.....
He kept repeating these steps and gradually Spiritual Qi began to accumulate inside him.
After accumulating enough Qi he started to direct his Spiritual Qi inside his body, through the meridians and guiding it through them.
At the same time his Spiritual roots were stimulated and started to absorb lightening and wood attributed spiritual Qi.
Once he was done filtering the lightening and wood attribute he could use the remaining spiritual qi to nourish his body, the qi used for nourishing naturally did not have any attribute, it was simply neutral energy used to strengthened his cells evenly.
The lightening and wood attribute qi started to concentrate around his lower abdomen and started to condense around an ethereal spot, it seemed virtual yet still felt very real as if it was trying to become a core.
Shen Wang now started to pull his lightening and wood spiritual qi and started to circulate it according to the Thunderleaf Inner Resonance Scripture's first chapter [Sprout of Resonance]
Instantly Shen's mind imagined a small seed in an seemingly infinite white domain, a sphere of about 10 centimeters was visible, surrounding a small purple seed.
At the center of the sphere lightening slowly converged, gradually entering the seed.
The seed slowly started to sprout, a small radicle grew out as it started consuming the surrounding lightening.
The seed swelled and the seed's coat softened, as the seed's coat started to soften it slowly ruptured due to growth of a primary root.
Naturally as the root grew it started to consume the lightening around it.
This caused the volume of the lightening sphere to shrink.
It was followed by a purplish shoot which started to grow upwards.
By this time the volume of the sphere was reduced to three-fourths of it's original size.
More and more root hair started to grow as the root deepened.
This caused the consumption of the lightening sphere to take an exponential rise.
The sphere of lightening kept shrinking as the seed started to crazily devour the external lightening.
And then it finally happened.
Sprouting!
A small violet leaflet grew at a visible pace.
Ten breaths later the small leaflet grew into a leaf.
The leaf was about the size of an adult's thumb, it was violet in color and a purple vein which looked like a lightening strike ran through it.
By now the lightening sphere had shrunken to the size of a baby's fist.
The small sphere was soon consumed and Shen Wang could only visualize the sprout itself.
In a couple of breath's time he opened his eyes and examined the situation of his body.
Upon inspecting the numbness he felt in his body he roughly estimated that he had been cultivating for over 3 days.
However he had more or less recovered his cultivation, he easily managed to breakthrough to the 5th level of Qi Condensation realm.
It was a shocking sight to see someone cultivate from mortal to the 5th stage of Qi Condensation in just a matter a 3 days, it even surpassed the level of geniuses!
However it was only natural, in fact there were two major reasons for this.
Firstly, he had already comprehended the first chapter of the Thunderleaf Inner Resonance Scripture, he would not feel any bottlenecks until the Later-stages of Qi Condensation realm.
More than half of the credit belonged to the old Shen Wang, this cultivation technique was not too complicated in it's initial stages and the old 'him' had already comprehended most of it.
Combined with Shen Wang's strong mind it wasn't too complicated to understand everything and further deepen his insight into the first chapter of his cultivation technique, [Sprout of Resonance].
Secondly, all the spiritual qi that had been released when he broke down his cultivation base so he skipped the part where he had to refine external energies into his cultivation as the spiritual qi in the room was already 'his'
These were the two reasons why he could cultivate so smoothly to the 5th stage of Qi condensation realm.
Shen Wang was extremely satisfied with the result, he directly stood up and stretched his body to get rid of the numbness in his muscles.
" Sure enough, the difference between a body void of any spiritual qi to one filled with one is like heaven and earth "
Shen couldn't help but smile, he could think much faster now that his cultivation had risen.
The body which was resisting him earlier also eased up a little bit, although it did not make any unnatural movements it was still far from compatible.
" Sigh, I still can't control this body properly. Although the control has increased compared to earlier it still feels out of place "
Shen lamented in his mind.
A normal mortal took some time to register information from is eyes into his brain or move a body part, these things had a lag of a few dozen milliseconds.
Compared to a normal mortal, it took Shen half a second.
Although it may not seem much but it was 500 milliseconds it was still 42 times slower than a normal mortal!
And Shen Wang was a cultivator!
Such slow transmission would affect his reaction time severely, it would have adverse affects on his future battle-strength or even the most basic tasks.
Shen's previous happy mood turned ugly as he thought of the possibilities of this handicap.
Transmigration was indeed not simple.....