It was no secret that Baek Hong couldn't wait to start training. So when her father had learned that she wanted to do some seclusion training he couldn't help but laugh.
He had thought she was just trying to copy others who would go into seclusion to try and breakthrough. Thinking that it was just on the whims of his daughter, he allowed it.
"She'll probably just hole up in her room and come out when she learns a thing or two." He said to the maid not trying to hide the smile on his face. His daughters antics always put a smile on his face.
When the maid had reported back to Baek Hong, she was pleasantly surprised. She wasn't expecting such an answer. Of course she knew that her father wasn't expecting any results, she naturally didn't care and would surprise her father nonetheless.
After receiving a bottle of grain pills, she shooed her maid away and sat down in a lotus position. She circulated her void qi through her meridians to temper them. Each time the meridians are strengthened it takes longer to temper them, she was prepared to be here for days.
Previously it had taken her many hours to finish tempering her meridians once, it would only take longer to finish the next eight cycles.
Like most other realms the Qi Integration realm was divided into nine stages. Each time you completely temper your meridians you would naturally go up a stage. For example someone who tempered their meridians once would be a first stage Qi Integration cultivator. There wasn't much difference in strength at this stage as the point was to perfect your meridians and not to increase combat strength.
Cultivators without talent or cultivators with low grade spirit roots couldn't temper their meridians nine times and fully complete this realm. Only geniuses or people with high grade spirit roots were able to do this.
Needless to say, the higher the spirit root grade, the more times it could be tempered. Spirit roots start in their infantile form and need to be strengthened before they show their true potential.
Many people call this stage the most important as your future was determined by the number of times you could temper your meridians. The higher the number the easier the next realms were. A genius that only tempers their meridians once before moving on to the Qi Accumulation would fall behind anyone who made it to the fifth stage of Qi Integration before breaking through.
While this stage was the most important, it was also the easiest. So long as a cultivator tempered their meridians once they could ascend to become a Qi Accumulation realm powerhouse.
Well.... not really, but you get the point.
Integration and Accumulation realm cultivators were as common as grass on a field or water in the ocean. These people were only fit to be outer disciples of a medium sized sect or family.
Taking a deep breath and breaking off that tangent, Baek started to circulate the atmospheric qi through her meridians. With a deep breath, qi would be taken it and spread through out her body. She didn't stop at any point and once again entered a trance.
Anybody that saw this was likely to take their life on the spot for being so useless. People that could go into a trance were geniuses of a century that everyone has heard of, but now?
A child that only started practicing martial arts today, that shouldn't even be able to cultivate yet, has entered a trance?
And not just once either, she did it twice!
Was there ever such a genius?
No! It had to be said that one person has never been recorded to enter a trance state twice. Maybe some old monsters that were a few melinia old had, but now a mere five year old child had done it twice in one day?
If the world learned of this amazing feat they would probably shout at the heavens for being so unfair. But who told them to be mediocre?
Being in a trance would grant you faster comprehension and practicing would naturally come easier.
She finished her next tempering faster than the previous one, it only took her around four hours this time. She didn't stop either, she was engrossed in the feeling of growing stronger, the trance like state also further enhanced the feeling.
Hours passed by as night became day.
Days rolled by as an entire month had soon come to pass.
Baek was still in her trance as she kept tempering her meridians, if an expert saw this they wouldn't believe their eyes.
Common sense is only applied to normal people, and Baek Hong was anything but. Most stages were divided into nine because thats what was widely known to be the nuber of stages per realm. This was not the case however. Many experts knew that it was possible to temper their meridians a tenth or eleventh time, but they did not know the extent it could go to.
Baek was still not done with the Integration stage as she had gone beyond what people knew to be possible. It would only have taken her a few days at most of she had stopped at the ninth stage, but she had long surpassed that.
She had already finished eighty stages as of yesterday. She was on the eighty first stage trying to finish completely integrating the void qi into her meridians.
With the Transcendent God's Spirit Root, she naturally had to put in more work to bring out its full potential.
Another day passed relatively uneventfully when Baek Hong suddenly opened her eyes, she had just finished the eighty first stage and directly broke through to the Accumulation stage.
Her spirit root had also undergone a massive change. Normally anyone with this spirit root would not have a constitution that complimented it so perfectly, Baek however, did.
The spirit root she had was capable of transcending human limits to become a God. And that was only only if normal qi was used.
As Baek Hong had fused her void qi into her spirit root, she could theoretically outpace anyone else with the same spirit root or constitution.
She had unknowingly gained a massive power up.
Normally something like this would be impossible as having a named spirit root as well as constitution of the highest grade at the same time was nearly impossible. Even if one did have both, such a thing would still be impossible unless they complimented eachother perfectly like hers did. Lastly even if the previous conditions had been met they would still need a Perfected grade martial art to fully combine the two.
The odds of such a thing happening are literally one in infinity. The only reason it's not impossible is because Baek Hong had unintentionally done the impossible.
***
The entire world felt so different, I felt like I was seeing the world through a different pair of eyes. The connection I felt with the void was immensely stronger than before. I feel like I could freely step in and out of the Void for as long as I felt like it. With every move I make the void moves with me.
She was so absorbed in her newfound power that she didn't notice her father sitting in the chair behind her.
She was in seclusion for a month without so much as moving. She hadn't even eaten the grain pills yet. Her parents were naturally worried and went to check on her after a day or two. They were surprised to see their daughter sitting in a lotus position in a trance.
They didn't wake her up because a trance migh only happen once in a lifetime and the gains would be immeasurable.
So they waited.
For almost an entire month her father had been watching over her without even blinking. At first he couldn't believe his eyes, it was impossible for a five year old to reach the Integration stage, not to mention she had only been practicing for a day.
The shock didn't stop there as he saw his daughters cultivation go from the first stage to the ninth in under a week. Just when he thought the surprises were over, he saw his daughter go from the ninth to the tenth stage. And as if that wasn't enough, she went from the tenth stage to the eighty first in only a month. This speed couldn't be achieved through even forbidden methods.
He had a lot to think about before his daughter was pulled out of her trance. He first thought of scolding her because it was dangerous to try and cultivate before ten. He slowly dismissed the idea of scolding her, however, and only thought of rewarding her.
His daughter had to be the greatest genius in history. He couldn't be more proud.
As soon as his daughter woke up, she looked around and moved her body a little as if to feel the changes.
He sat there for a second before standing up to approach his daughter. With one large motion he scooped her up and squeezed her tightly.
"I'm so proud of you my little cub." He was smiling and laughing as he hugged his daughter tighter than he ever had before.
His daughter wasn't stupid or reckless so he didn't feel the need to reprimand her, he was sure there was a good reason for her to try and cultivate.
"Look who's finally up." Baek Sohee chimed in.
"Mother!" Baek Hong said happily as she slipped out of her father's embrace to jump into her mothers.
"It looks like we'll have a lot to talk about in the morning." She said "But first, let's get you something to eat."
Baek Hong started chuckling at the sounds her stomach was making.
"Let's go eat."